Thread: Vertical Bandsaw - Convert Wood to Metal ?

I just got a cheap Vertical Wood Bandsaw off my local Men's Shed as they regarded it as troublesome and not worth repairing/refurbishing/tuning.
The Shed Foreman said the unit would slow down due to suspected bad motor bearings allowing the motor to "pole", ie rotor rub on stator.
None of the other members wanted it, and I was last man standing !

The VBS is a 1991 build Made in Taiwan labelled Toolmac with a 14" drive wheel and a 1 HP single-phase motor.

At home it operated Ok with a very quick no-load test, but I am not a woodworker.
Motor on floor does not seem to show bad bearings, starting easily and running smoothly.

The blade speed is about 630 m/min, a bit fast for the metal I would use in the VBS.
For me to use it I need a gearbox of about 25:1.

Researching the conversion subject I quickly became aware of many opinions that conversion is not a practical option.
If I could get hold of a 25:1 gearbox I would give a conversion a go as I do have the occasional opportunity to cut 1.6 mm MS sheet into various sizes.

Any suggestions ?
John

Would a couple of double reduction pulleys do the same thing?

I am thinking of a scrapped ride on mower. Some of them have fairly big diameter pulleys which would allow a decent reduction. Getting the blade stepped down to the near correct FPS reading is the trick.



Grahame

A 25:1 reduction will give you a speed of 25 m/min
Unless you plan on cutting SS/tool/alloy/high carbon steels then this low a speed is not needed.

To cut 1.6mm MS with a bimetal blade the optimum speed is around 75-100 m/min which is similar to that for Al.
In that case you only need a 6-8 x reduction which you might be able to do with pulleys.

We have a 14" Steelfast upright metal cutting BS at the mens shed and it's frame is a lot more HD than its Woodfast brother which we also had in our shed.

The Steelfast uses twin sets of pulley to get up to 20:1 reduction. We leave it set on about 10:1 and it is used mainly for small MS stock and Al and for curved shapes. I have used it quite a few times and have to say I prefer my $100 used horizontal BS for bar and tube stock. On sheet metal the blade on the Steelfast wanders around bit and still leaves a burr so the edge still needs more edge tidying up than I thought would be required. The 14" throat can be restrictive at times so shed members end up using an angle grinder, or if there's a lot to do they take it over to a local high school where we have access to a large guillotine.

Guys, thanks for the suggestions.

Measured the drive pulley speed at 627 RPM which gives, for a 14" drive pulley, about 685 m/min.
To get 75 m/min requires about 9:1 reduction from the current setup.

The existing reduction is about 1420:627 = 2.26:1, so the overall ratio would be about 2.26 x 9 = 20:1.
One belt at 4:1 followed by a 5:1 would do it.
I will check out available pulley sizes and see if I can make them fit.

John.

Hi there,

Converting it to cut metal sounds like it may be a lot of work. However it sounds like a really good machine, too good to throw away. Another option is to keep it and get it running nicely on wood and then sell it, use the funds to purchase a nice metal BS, or (my prefered option) keep it AND by a metal BS. You never know, you may end up using it with wood.

Just a thought, I know it does nothing to help your current way of thinking in relation to converting it.

Simon

Simon,
Problem is, if I sold it at a profit I would feel duty-bound to give that profit to the Shed !

One option is to leave it as woodwork, and make the very nice cast table easy to remove and fit to my existing Bandsaw.
I have had a BS-5 for a number of years, but never used it in the vertical because of lack of rigidity and the crap sheet metal table.
A diagonal strut to lock the saw in the vertical and to mount a cast-iron table would do wonders for the BS-5.

A way-out option is to fit bicycle gears and chain, and to arrange a low-torque (ie. reduced voltage) start to at least try it out on metal.
If it appeals, that might change my thinking as to what options are economical.

John

After I bought a mill I stopped using my relatively old and flimsy drill press - early 90's Carbatec standard cheapy, so I took the complete head off the drill press and used the motor and reduction system to power the Toolmac (yes same as yours - tap handles and all).

The toolmac came with two multipulleys and it was easy enough to calculate the right reductions to apply.

That might be an option if you have an unused drill press.

Bill