Wood to Metal Bandsaw Conversion?

[LAME]

Neighbor got pissed off at his bandsaw last night and asked if I wanted to "get the goddamn fucking thing outta here".

It's a Grizzly, 3/4hp, 14" with a 93" blade.

Besides finding a metal blade that fits, how much am I gonna have to slow it down? Is there anything else that I have to change?

[morpheus]

A friend of mine just did this to an upright bandsaw he was given. He put in a jackshaft and another set of pulleys to slow it down since all his had was a single belt. Does yours have just one belt ?

[LAME]

Yep, single belt. Motor pulley is about 2" dia, and the saw pulley is about 6" dai.

[redrangie]

check grainger.com for a different pulley?

[fj40guy]

Lame,

Grab that sucker!

You'll need a jackshaft to bring the speed down. Typically wood blades are running around 800 fps (feet per second), and you want to bring that down to around 100 fps (50 is good for 1" thick plates!).

If you need to cut something like 1/4" Aluminum... uh, you can do with with a 6 tooth wood blade and some patience. Damn noisy, but gets the job done.

Tom

EDIT: My numbers are WRONG! 3300 fps (55 FPM) for wood. 120 fps (2 FPM) for metal. Darn, hate doing that.

[TheRipper]

Was looking in my Grizzly catalog and they have the same blade size for metal also.One question what is a jack shaft?Maybe I know it by something else..lol

[LAME]

Originally Posted by fj40guy

Lame,

Grab that sucker!

You'll need a jackshaft to bring the speed down. Typically wood blades are running around 800 fps (feet per second), and you want to bring that down to around 100 fps (50 is good for 1" thick plates!).

If you need to cut something like 1/4" Aluminum... uh, you can do with with a 6 tooth wood blade and some patience. Damn noisy, but gets the job done.

Tom

Its in my garage, next to the box, already

ENCO lists a Bi-Metal blade with 10/14tpi, that is 3/4" wide.

The fps is exactly what I was looking for. I'll have to stop by grainger one of these days after work

[morpheus]

simply changing pulleys won't likely get it down slow enough. you'll have to add a jackshaft with another pulley on it.

if this is the model that you have:
http://www.grizzly.com/products/item...emnumber=G1019

then if you look at the pdf manual you see a pic of how to align the pulleys.
you'll need to add shaft and another set of pulleys under their somewhere to get it down slow enough.

[fj40guy]

Lame -- looked at the speed numbers again. DOH!

That wood band saw is rated at 3300 FPM... about 55 fps.

The metal saws are running around 120 FPM. About 2 fps.
Come to think of my saw hitting the splice it runs about that
(I hear the splice go past the guides every few seconds).

Sorry about that. Still aim for a ratio of roughly 20:1 speed
reduction. Should get you in the ball park..... A friend converted
an old big iron wood saw for metal cutting, and I'm thinking we used
around a 10:1 speed reduction.... but might have been a slow turning
wood saw to start with!

I lucked out one day with "scrap machinery" in a metal scrap yard.
They had a 40:1 gear reduction unit inside an old "ticket booth arm".
Used it for a "tire tumbler" (toss metal part in with tumbling media inside
the tire, it sits on a couple of rollers and just keeps rotating to deburr
& polish the metal parts.).

Tom

[LAME]

Originally Posted by fj40guy

Lame -- looked at the speed numbers again. DOH!

That wood band saw is rated at 3300 FPM... about 55 fps.

The metal saws are running around 120 FPM. About 2 fps.
Come to think of my saw hitting the splice it runs about that
(I hear the splice go past the guides every few seconds).

Sorry about that. Still aim for a ratio of roughly 20:1 speed
reduction. Should get you in the ball park..... A friend converted
an old big iron wood saw for metal cutting, and I'm thinking we used
around a 10:1 speed reduction.... but might have been a slow turning
wood saw to start with!

I lucked out one day with "scrap machinery" in a metal scrap yard.
They had a 40:1 gear reduction unit inside an old "ticket booth arm".
Used it for a "tire tumbler" (toss metal part in with tumbling media inside
the tire, it sits on a couple of rollers and just keeps rotating to deburr
& polish the metal parts.).

Tom

I was just thinking "WTF" what's the right number

I'm gonna measure up the up the pulleys tonight, and see where I can jam a jackshaft in the rig.

[zukikid]

see if you cant find a lower rpm motor...they can somtimes be found cheap.

zukikid

[masonmachines]

what jobs would a converted vertical bandsaw be able to handle.