Updating or Rebuilding an Old Bandsaw

Over the past bunch of years I have replaced a lot of the parts of an old Rockwell bandsaw. Those parts included the tires, switch, all the wiring, the motor, the pivot for the motor, and now the guides. Naturally the saw was 3 phase, so all the electrical had to go. Rubber tires on these saws go bad so new ones had to be acquired from Delta, along with a new switch. The rusty old blade guides has always caused me to have concerns about safety, so I decided to acquire a set from Carter Products, the only company I could find that makes replacement guide kits for bandsaws.

When the replacement guide kit arrived, I could not figure out how to attach the saw's blade guard to the top of the new guide. On the old blade guard, loosening two screws on the sides of the top guard allowed quick and easy changing of blades. I called Carter Products and talked to one of their engineers. After our conversation, I followed the directions that the engineer at Carter Products provided on Thursday, June 26, 08, and yes the blade guide did attach to their blade-guard adapter. Unfortunately, their adapter requires a person to remove their blade guide and blade-guard adapter from the band-saw in order to change band-saw blades.

Why was changing blades with the blade-guard adapter provided with the kit involve major removal of parts? Well the directions called for bending the ears of the end of the blade-guard inwards so that the slots in the ears would sit over the holes in their adapter. Unfortunately, that closed up back opening in the blade-guard, and accessing the two screws when they are sitting snug against the top of the blade-guide is to say the least awkward, if not nearly impossible without removing the guide first.

After restoring the original position of the ears at the end of the blade-guard, I designed and fabricated a better blade-guard adapter that allows the changing of a blade without removing the DEL-20C guide, or blade-guard adapter from the band-saw, which you can see in the attached photograph.

The Carter blade-guard adapter is the nickel-plated one.

You will notice from the photograph that with my adapter, the blade may be changed by simply loosening two easily accessed screws, just like on the band-saw’s original Delta guide.

My version of an adapter has the same number of bends, the same number and size holes, and can be made with one punch-out just like their adapter. Thus my adapter eliminates Carter Product's engineer’s voiced concern about costs to make a blade-guide adapter that duplicates the function of the old mounting points for the blade-guide. This is not rocket-science folks!

And while we are on the subject, the slot on the adapter for mounting the bottom guide is too short and will not allow the adapter to be properly positioned for wide blades. I will either have to modify the slot or make a new adapter for attaching the bottom guide. My bet is that their team tested only using a narrow blade.

In contrast to the tone of the Thursday conversation with Carter Products engineer, I believe that my design solution demonstrates that I am not a complete idiot.

I am not thrilled with the quality of their engineering solutions, or the necessity of spending so much time modifying their products so that they work properly. Be forewarned!

The lesson that I learned, is that it may not always be a good idea to buy a tool that needs lots of work. Yes, most old tools can be fixed, but just make sure that it is not cheaper and easier to buy a tool that already works.