Bandsaw issues with HF horizontal

Atlas Knife Company

Atlas Knife Company

Joined
Feb 16, 2010
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I've always heard "as tight as you can get it by hand" and even recall reading someone using a pipe wrench for another 1/4 turn. Whose hands are they talking about? I've found that as tight as I can get it by hand is too tight and causes the frame to flex and the blade to pop off the bearings. Does anybody have a ft/lbs rating for how tight is proper so I can use a torque wrench and be precise?
 
I don't get mine nearly that tight. It is only as tight as I can get it by hand without really straining. I haven't had any problems with it coming off, though the blade does flex a bit, but I think that's due to the roller bearings being too far away from each other. Mine is an old one from monkey wards rather than HF
 
Is it the frame flexing, or one or both of the wheels coming out of alignment? I've had a couple of the green saws, the first one had sloppy tracking that at the time I couldn't fix- the blade did terrible things under much tension. I have another green 4x6 now, and it does do better when I get it as tight as possible by hand. I got a bigger saw recently and rebuilt it- I noticed that while the frame may flex just a little, mostly the bearing and axle assemblies tweak a bit or show their true colors under tension. Also, are your guides set forward enough? I.e., does the blade support bearing in the guides lightly contact the blade spine at all times?

I recently saw a chart about band trouble shooting- most of the tension related problems were a result of tension too low.

blade%2520chart.jpg


Damn, can't get it in this post right. Let me know if you want the PDF version.
 
The Green version was "As hard as you can tighten it"

On the Red version....not really. I just and tighten and it is good to go and I use mine a lot.
 
zaph1 said:
I've always heard "as tight as you can get it by hand" and even recall reading someone using a pipe wrench for another 1/4 turn. Whose hands are they talking about? I've found that as tight as I can get it by hand is too tight and causes the frame to flex and the blade to pop off the bearings. Does anybody have a ft/lbs rating for how tight is proper so I can use a torque wrench and be precise?
Click to expand...

can you go to the people who made it and get the spec from them??
 
Salem, please send me a PDF or a link to it. I have a newer red saw. I would agree that the guides are too far apart. I've thought about drilling and tapping one of the guides to move it about 2" closer. It's odd that the gear side guide has only 1/2" of movement out of a 3" slot. I'm pretty certain it's the frame flexing, I just measuered 3/32" difference when tightened "almost as tight as you can get by hand".

A machinist friend says that if the blade slips then you should tighten it more. If it doesn't slip, then it is tight enough. Anyone have an opinion on this?
 
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my first hf saw lasted about 3 years till i over tightened and cracked the cast iron gearbox 2 nd one lasted about a year and then ate the worm gear (i have a roll in saw now andcouldnt be happer)
 
I have had my HF about 5 years, no trouble. I tighten by hand and really dont try hard and it works fine. I just wasted 20 minutes of my life trying to ansewer this. I had hoped that the knob was held in place with a bolt or nut but it must be pressed on, I finally got my torque wrench connected, 14 ft.lbs. Seems low but that is what I got, just hand tight
 
Wow, that saw tuning link is really good stuff. Thanks for that, I'm hanging onto that link. Zaph, I'm sending you the PDF...
 
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