Hi all,

I've recently purchased my first Big Machine(tm) - a Delta 28-275 bandsaw
for $399 at Lowe's (a good deal, I think, and a humorous story in itself).
With Mark Duginske's book in hand, I'm in the early stages of tuning it up.

Having read the pros and cons of coplanar tracking, I've opted for that
route. Out of the box it was not bad - only about 1/16" from coplanar. It
only took one washer to bring the top wheel into plane. FWIW, the book
suggests using 5/8" washers to shim the wheel. At the hardware store I
found 5/8" machine bushings that were not only thinner (by about half) than
the standard washer, but were also much closer in size to the existing
bushing. Had I used the simple washer, I think the top wheel would have
been 1/16" out of coplanar in the other direction.

Since I needed to take the wheel off, I decided to go ahead and check the
wheel balance. After removing the blade, but before removing the nut
holding on the wheel, I gave the wheel a spin to find a heavy side, as
suggested in Mark's book. The wheel only rotated about 3/4 of a turn and
halted abruptly. There seemed to be a lot of friction on this thing. I
backed the nut off the axle a little and gave the wheel another spin. This
time the wheel spun freely and came to a very gradual stop. With the wheel
free to spin, I proceeded balance it. It was quite a bit out of balance so
I had to drop about 2.5 1/4" holes through the wheel casting. After putting
everything back together, my bandsaw now passes the nickel test. But there
are still improvements to be made.

Now then, I told ya all that to ask ya this. When the blade is off, should
the top wheel on a bandsaw spin freely (as it did after backing the nut off
slightly) or should it spin down quickly (as it did from the factory) or
does it not matter as long as the axle nut doesn't fall off? If I make the
nut finger tight, the wheel spins easily.

Thanks,
Wayland

PS. Hey Bill