(funky blues music)
Well, I do love me some bandsaws.
As you can see, I've got two of them:
one for resawing and one for cutting curves.
Now, you don't need two saws in your shop,
one'll do just fine, but if you have the room in the budget,
two of them prevents you from having
to change blades all the time,
which is really nice.
And you might recall,
Alex Snodgrass was in the shop recently,
and he brought with him some guide replacement kits
for both my PM-1500 and the 14-inch saw.
So, I let him install them for me,
cause who wouldn't? He does a great job on them.
But Alex gives us an idea why Carter guides are better,
I mean, most bandsaws come with adequate guides,
right out of the factory.
But, what could we add to the bandsaw
that actually makes it cut better and more reliably?
Alex'll tell us.
- Carter guides go with a 30,000 RPM, double-sealed bearing.
So, they're one of the only guides
that you can actually pop the seals out
and clean them and repack them.
So, they're a great bearing to start with,
a higher RPM then a 5,000 RPM bearing
which most bearings, or saws are going to come with.
We also use a barrel adjustment, not a cam adjustment.
Now, a barrel adjustment, basically, is you tighten it,
number one, it won't move side-to-side when you tighten it,
like a cam will, and once you lock it,
it's almost impossible to move it.
Whereas, with a cam, pretty much anything that hits it,
knocks it, moves it, anything that gets on to the blade,
will cause it to actually collapse into the blade
or away from the blade, depending on how you set it,
over the top or over the bottom.
There're also much smaller guide systems
so they're not quite so intrusive as this,
so that when you're hitting, you know,
working with logs, anything large that would possibly
come up here, you won't hit the knobs,
which can cause the guides to loosen.
- We'll start by removing the blade and both of the guides.
Install the guide mount,
and leave the screws a little bit loose
for later adjustment.
Now, slide the post assembly into the guide mount
and once again, keep it loose.
The bottom guide is easier to work on
if you remove the table, but on the PM-1500
it's really not worth the effort.
So slide the new post into place
and then slide the new guides into place.
We're installing a half inch, three tooth per inch blade,
which will be ideal for resawing.
Tension the blade and make sure it's aligned
so that the gullet is in the center of the wheel.
Now we can position the guides.
Begin snugging up the screws
as you line the bearings up nice and square to the blade.
Also, make sure that the side bearings
are just behind the gullet of the blade.
Now it's simply a matter of adjusting the thrust bearings
and the side bearings.
We covered this process in detail
in a recent bandsaw set up video.
Lets do a test cut.
That looks pretty much perfect.
Now, lets quickly look at the installation on a 14-inch saw,
including the installation of this slick stabilizer add-on.
We'll repeat the installation process
only this time we can easily remove the table.
Of course, I have to do a little courtesy cleaning for Alex.
Slide the guard-holder on first,
followed by the cup assembly.
Slide the guide into place
and, once again, keep everything loose.
Install your blade of choice and line up the guides.
Once everything is positioned properly, lock it all down.
Now slide the guard piece down on top of the cup assembly
and attach the guard.
With the blade removed, reinstall the table,
and then reinstall the blade,
in time for a quick test cut.
That's not bad for a 14-inch saw.
Now, there's an additional add-on that we could play with,
called a blade stabilizer.
This's good for making tight, curved cuts
with blades that are a quarter inch or less in width.
Slide the top guide out, and push the bottom guide back
so that it's out of the way.
The first time you use the stabilizer,
you need to line it up with the groove in the bearing.
Push the guide into the blade,
and rotate the wheel a few times.
The bearing will automatically center itself,
and then you can tighten the post in place.
Now bring the whole stabilizer forward
to spring-load the blade by about an eighth of an inch.
Because we just pushed the blade forward,
it's going to walk forward slightly on the wheels,
so adjust the blade tracking so that the blade
is once again positioned with the gullet
in the center of the wheel.
The blade is now spring-loaded, which makes it more rigid
and prevents the blade from popping off the guide
if we need to pull back on the work piece while cutting.
Now lets watch Alex work some magic here,
as he cuts a reindeer in under a minute.
Do not try this at home, kids.
So special thanks to Alex Snodgrass and Carter Products
for helping us out with this video
and helping my saws cut even better.
You can check out Carter Products at CarterProducts.com
They've got a bunch of different things
that you could put on your bandsaws,
ways to upgrade them, and just get better results.
They also have a whole bunch of other products
like these sweet magnetic fences, and, a bunch of things.
Go check it out, CarterProducts.com
Thanks for watching everyone.