Hey, all.  I've finally crawled away from CAD with a set of plans for new blade guides for my 4x6 bandsaw.  I've never been terribly happy with the poor fit & finish of the stock guides, so I've finally embarked on a whole new set.  I'll post pics as I go, and I'll post the plans when I'm done (I want to make sure that they actually will work, first!).  Oh yeah, since I buggered up the original blade guides trying to fix them (they were too far gone to begin with, I'm afraid…), I'm having to hacksaw the 1-1/2" x 3/4" CRS bar the old fashioned way ;)

-Chris

I finished the first part tonight (only 7 more to go…).  I'll upload some pics of the actual piece, but for now, here's a jpg of the CAD drawing:

I'll need to make two of these, and they make up the rear part of the block that actually holds the blade guides. I'm making the blade guide blocks out of two pieces since I'm not casting them, and that will cut down seriously on the waste (and on my arm, since I am having to hacksaw everything by hand; this is a bandsaw rebuild, remember?)

-Chris

Hey all.  I've made some more progress on my bandsaw blade guides, finishing what I think is the most complex of the 8 pieces.  This piece is the front half (the half that actually holds the three bearings) of the lower blade guide.  This is the one that a table would bolt to when you want to use the saw as a vertical bandsaw, and at the end of the day, it was the crappy condition of this part of the stock blade guides that lead me to start this project!  Of course, it isn't actually that complex, but the order of operations is important.

Here is the piece viewed from the rear and top.  As far as order of operations, I marked out for the two holes for the side bearings, as well as for a hole to mark the end of the slot.  These were then drilled.  Next, to save on milling cutters, I used a hacksaw to rough out the two rabbets in the sides that form the T-shape.  Next, I used the mill to finish the rabbets to their final sizes.  The hole for the horizontal bearing shaft (that the back of the blade runs on) was then marked and drilled, as well as the two holes in the front for the table to bolt to.  Finally, I used a hacksaw to rough out the slot that this bearing runs in, and then cleaned it up in the mill.

And here it is from the front, with the upright piece positioned behind it.  The corresponding block for the top blade guide is pretty much the same, except that it is a little narrower (55mm instead of 65mm), and it doesn't have the tapped, countersunk holes in its front.  I expect to have it done this week, as well as start on the blocks that these will bear on, and then finally the horizontal support bars.

Finally, here are the two parts aligned with each other as they will appear when assembled, with the original (cast iron) blade guide next to them, oriented in the same way.

The only thing left to do is to drill the four small holes in the rear of the T-shaped piece and tap them so that the two parts can be assembled together.  My original plan was to use M2.5 screws (I don't want to mix and match metric and SAE parts, and other screws that are used in the parts from the original guides are metric), but it turns out that I don't have an M2.5 tap :(.  I might opt for the slightly larger M3, but the heads of the machine screws will be a little two wide in diameter.  I could file these down (they are going to be Loctited in anyways), but I haven't made up my mind yet.  I suspect that I'll end up going with the M3s in the end.

Hi, Jerry.  I had considered cap screws/bolts, too, but I had not considered turning them down.  That's a really good idea that I hadn't considered!  I might modify it slightly, though, and stick to flat head screws, but turn them down.  The angled surface of the countersunk side would give a greater bearing surface.  Then, I could use some 12L14 hex rod that I have laying around to make a simple spoon-drill-style countersink that was the same diameter as the turned down screw heads.  The countersink might not last long, but I think that it would last long enough to counter sink the 8 holes that I need to for this project!

-Chris