I'm working on building another band saw.
And, even though I've already used this band saw to make some cuts
it still doesn't have any blade guides on it.
And before I build those I want to talk a little bit about blade guide design.
So, this is the blade guide from my 14 inch band saw.
And most commercial band saws have blade guides that work a lot like this.
Where the blade goes between 2 blocks.
And then kind of rubs the side of the end of the bearing
like this.
And that seems a little bit counter-intuitive.
And there's a company named Carter
that makes band saw guides where
essentially there's a bearing that goes like this.
So, it runs on the outside
with the blade instead of on the edge of it.
And they say that's better. So, I figured that would be the better way
of doing it.
So, when I designed the blade guide for my homemade 16 inch band saw
the natural thing to do was to put the bearing so it rolls on the outside.
Now the only catch with that is it's a little bit loud.
Now, I found that my guide blocks here
really didn't have much issue with wear.
And, since most of the time I'm only using a
quarter inch blade in this band saw anyways.
I had the idea of replacing this ball bearing
with just a block of wood.
Taking out the bearing.
And, just put this in there.
And that runs a bit quieter.
Now, the one disadvantage with this block is it does rob a little bit of power.
And you can't use it with really big blades doing really heavy-duty work.
But, in terms of wear this exotic hardwood
it wears into it only very, very slightly.
So, that turned out to be actually a pretty good way of doing it.
But again, the problem is I can't really use this
with a heavy-duty cutting.
In fact, one time I was re-sawing with a
wide blade and it really cut into the block.
So, then I decided to explore
a few months ago. A more conventional blade guide design.
Taking this one off.
I made a blade guide that looks like this with a bearing on the side.
Just like all the commercial ones have.
Even though companies like Carter say that's not as good.
And, this doesn't run quite as quite as a block.
But it's much quieter than having the bearing against the blade, like this.
So, maybe all those band saw manufacturers know something that
the Carter folks don't know. Which is that
you're better off running on the end of the bearings
instead of on the outside edge of it.
So, I did a little bit of and experiment of rolling just a ball bearing
on the table, like this.
And, it makes a certain amount of noise.
But if I roll it so it's almost flat, like this.
It makes much less noise.
And I think the reason it makes less noise rolling like this
and like this. Is that this round surface
is, well round, and on here it's almost flat so
if I put it on here, like that if you kind of look at it like this
that represents much less curvature than like this.
So, again. Flat edge.
Round edge.
So, I'm gonna re-use this design of the blade guide
for my new band saw.
Now, for the bottom blade guide I'll still
have the bearing rolling against it like this.
Just because that's easier to mount.
And, the way I always adjust the band saw is that
the top bearing is just a smidgen ahead of the bottom one.
So, the bottom one only engages during the cut.
And, during the cut the band saw's plenty loud anyway.
So that noise doesn't really matter. The reason I do this
is because the top blade guide has got a lot more flex
because it's on the end of this long column.
Whereas the bottom mount is mounted straight to the frame.
So, if I'm pushing a large piece of wood
forward on that blade.
It's that top guide that's gonna move more than the bottom one.
And so basically they'll become more in line as pressure's applied to both of them.
And, so that way the bottom bearing just never spins
unless I'm doing a cut.
Now, one thing people sometimes ask is why do I use guide blocks
instead of using guide bearings like the Europeans like to use.
Well, on my first band saw I actually used two bearings on here.
And, when I turn that on and use it a few times
it was just so loud that I decided that was just not a good way to do it.
And, these blocks, they represent so little friction.
And, they really don't wear significantly. So I think this is a much better solution.
And some people say well the thing is to move your bearings out a little bit.
So that they don't actually spin when the blade's running normally.
But, I want my blocks to actually be touching the blade at all times
just to give it a really fine guide.
So, to move the bearings out far enough that the blade doesn't touch it.
Well, what's the point?
I want my guide bearings to actually
guide the blade.