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Startrite 352 Bandsaw mods

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Jo:
I have been trying to pick up a nice metal working bandsaw for a while but they are all huge and expensive  :bugeye:

At the weekend I was dragged over to look at pricing up some WOOD  :palm: machine tools for a friend. Honestly I would not have touched them but the Startrite bandsaw under all that saw dust has potential. The deal went: I could not have one I had to have all of them and they will be delivered next Saturday. What have I done all I wanted was the bandsaw and I have been conned into taking a big wood lathe, a planer and yet another pillar drill, wood tools are not allowed in my workshop so they will have to go. In the meantime they can sit outside so that my boys don't think I have gone over to the dark side.

Leaving me with the 352 bandsaw.... 

I have no idea on the speeds all it says is low and high on the back  :( It does mention cutting brass but I will want to cut steel as well. I was thinking whip out the 240 volt electrics and fit it with a three phase motor and a VFD. The other option is to fit an additional pulley set to drop the speed. Has any one done this to one of these?

There is also an issue of blade guides: It seems to have a couple of pieces of plastic acting as blade guides... I thought most decent machines had ball bearing guides, or would bronze work....

Jo

   

awemawson:
Jo there is a standard 10:1 Startrite gearbox that they fit to some of their saws to give a wide range of speeds - I seem to remember that it's pulley in and pulley out so easy to implement. Gear change is by pulling a knob in or out engaging a dog clutch.

There are scrap Startrites for parts that occasionally turn up on ebay

Jo:
10:1 would work: I am lead to believe that one of the speeds is 1000mm/s and I want something around 65mm/s for thick steel.

I have a few pulleys kicking around  :thumbup:

Jo

PekkaNF:
I have metal cutting band saw and difference to wood band saw is very much lower band speed. If you don't do production work you can opt for low speed for iron metals and use that speed to cut all metals (just a little slower and a little less productive, not biggie for us hobbyists).

Therefore I recommend jack shaft and extra pulleys to reduce the speed to bearable level. You don't need VFD, unless you really insist, no point of adjusting the speed down with VFD in stead of jack shaft reducer.

One thing that you might consider is that for wood coolant is not used (except logging saws), but often for metal, least cutting oil and brush on cutting saw.

About the guides....the material should not be plastic. It might of fiber material, sintered metal, bronze or that sort of stuff. Could work on metal cutting bandsaws too, but needs adjustment, cleaning and it does wear out. Not a game changer if you use gently and not all the time. Personally I would do the speed conversion firs and then see how much of an issue this is. I would plan of putting bearings on back of the blade and use those orginal stationary guides on side, if it is easy to modify that way. You don't really want to force the piece against the blade anyway with too much force, the blade must cut freely and carry the chips away.

You need the metal blade...have you checked if there are ready made blades for that width/length? Wood blade probably will work for brass and aluminium when used at lower speed.

pekka

Jo:
Thanks Pekka,

Thankfully the machine takes a standard size blade, available for both metal and wood cutting.

I have a spare set of 5 speed reducer pulleys that could be used to reduce the speed down by 1/5th by using a counter shaft. Just have to work out how :scratch: And not getting the machine to Saturday does not help.

In the meantime I have made sure I have plenty of Fairy power spray ready for cleaning it up  :thumbup:

Jo

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