I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks,
Mill

Not at ALL, Total and complete waste of money.
"MP Toolman" wrote in message
...
I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing
the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta
14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have
heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks,
Mill

I use oak and maple wood scraps as guide blocks. $0, yes they do wear
out but that's why they are adjustable.

BRuce

MP Toolman wrote:

I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks,
Mill

DO you use it 8 hours a day? If so, they are worthwhile. If you use it
15 minutes a week, cool block or ceramic block would be a much wiser
choice given the price difference.

On 29 Oct 2003 02:38:12 GMT, (MP Toolman) wrote:

I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks,
Mill

On 29 Oct 2003 02:38:12 GMT, (MP Toolman) wrote:

I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides,

I've got an Axminster 350, a steel framed 14" bandsaw, common in the
UK and not dissimilar to the Shop Fox or Grizzly machines in the USA.
For years Axminster sold this with Cool Blocks and a thrust bearing,
but they recently released a set of upgrade bearing guides.

My experiences are below. Some of this is relevant to your case too,
some isn't.

The guides appeared to be of reasonable quality. They're almost
identical top and bottom; three sealed bearings share the same
fore-and-aft axis, mounted on a small die casting. The side guides are
on eccentric spindles for adjustment, locked by a clamp Allen bolt.
Fore-and-aft adjustment is done by a sliding die-casting within the
main housing, independently for the side bearings and the thrust
bearing. Adjustment can use a micro-adjust threaded nut at the rear,
locked by a small winged screw.


Installation:

Fitting the guides is a chore. They're not designed for this machine,
and this machine wasn't designed for bearing guides. The top guide
fits with only a little filing to stretch one of the mounting holes
for the blade guard. The bottom guide is more troublesome. It's not
unreasonable (and how my saw is currently set up) to only fit the
upper guide.

The bottom guide has number of problems. The machine wasn't designed
to take bearings here, and there just isn't space to do it.

The bearing casting is held down by only one bolt. This gives no
angular location and the bearing has to be manually aligned. No big
problem with solid blocks, but essential for bearings.

The micro-adjust feature is attractive, but unusable on the bottom
guide. It's best removed before installing the bottom guide (easy and
reversible - just use an Allen to unscrew the stud). The problem is
that there's inadequate space for it, and it forces the bearings to be
positioned too far forward relative to the wheels. Although this is
acceptable for a wide blade, it makes a narrow blade, such as 1/4",
extremely difficult to set up, as you need to have it tracking right
on the front of the tyre.

Adjusting the guides, especially the bottom, requires a long 4mm Allen
key with a ball end. The original block guides benefited from this,
but now it's an essential. The thumbscrew clamps are poorly made and
the screws work loose through vibration. As they're basically
inaccessible on the bottom guide anyway, throw them away and replace
with Allens.

The side bearings are quite easily adjusted, but there is a tendency
for them to tighten up when the clamp screw is tightened.

The fore and aft adjustment is badly made and inaccurate. There is so
much slop between the two mazak castings that any notion of "micro
adjust" is farcical. This adjutment must be made with the clamp screw
almost tight, otherwise there is too much sidways movement

Overall, I'm unimpressed by these guides and their poor build quality.
Adjustment of their many axes is so inter-dependent that the process
becomes slow and blade changing becomes something to be avoided.


The biggest problem with the guides (and why I no longer use the
bottom guide) is the effect they have on tracking narrow blades. With
the old block guides, the blade installation process was to open the
guides, throw the blade on, let it track normally on the centre of the
tyre and then adjust the guides to suit. I never needed to re-adjust
tracking, going from wide to narrow blades.

With these bearing guides, every blade must be re-tracked to place it
into the limited adjustment range of the bearings. As supplied (with
the lower micro-adjusts in place) it is not possible to track a 1/4"
blade. Even when supposedly adjusted, there is a tendency for creep
and for blades to shift around. This is because they're generally
rubbing on the lower thrust bearing, even when unloaded, because it
doesn't have enough adjustment range to take up the correct position.
Blades can also find themselves tracking with their teeth between the
side bearings, removing their set and destroying the blade in seconds!

Another irritating habit is the blade jumping off the lower thrust
bearing and running alongside it instead (which then usually causes it
to move backwards between the side rollers and destroy the teeth).
This is caused by obvious bad adjustment of the lower guide, but the
space is so limited that it's simply impossible to adjust the lower
guide correctly at all.


In use:

With the guides in service, resawing with a wide blade improved. The
blade tension adjustment on this saw is unimpressive (poor spring, no
tension indicator) so that although the frame can support considerable
force and the wheels can track a 3/4" blade, its real capacity is only
5/8" maximum. Resaw performance is marginally better than a cast-iron
14" Delta, but generally disappointing.

Performance with narrow blades, or for scroll sawing, was either
unchanged or became unusable. These bearing guides are simply
incompatible with narrow blades. I don't think that "bearings
shouldn't be used with 1/4" blades" as is sometimes said, but these
ones shouldn't be. They certainly prevent narrower blades being used
(I've used 1/8" before now, with the Cool Blocks)

Recommendations:

If you have this bearing guide set, I suggest throwing away the lower
guide assembly and just using the top guide with the old lower
block-style guide. For narrow blades, refit the block guide to the top
too. If you still insist on using the lower bearing guide, then
discard the micro-adjust screws and saw about 1/2" off the tail of the
adjustment bar. This gives more space for fore-and-aft adjustment and
allows something resembling proper adjustment.


Conclusion:

Overall, I cannot recommend this bearing guide upgrade for the
Axminster 350 bandsaw. It's useful, but extremely troublesome. The
cost isn't really worth it, as the quality is too poor and there's
also the additional cost of the extra blades it will undoubtedly
destroy. From a saw with Cool Blocks that's convenient to use and
adjust, it's transformed to a machine that's marginally more useful,
but considerable more troublesome.

There's also the question as to whether a 14" machine really needs
bearing guides. I don't think so. I'd suggest running set of Cool
Blocks (which are cheap, quick and easy to upgrade) and then seeing
how you like that. From what little I've seen of Carters, they're
considerably better made and less sloppy, which would remove many of
the problems I've had. However they still won't deliver a huge benefit
to what is still basically a small domestic bandsaw.


--
Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 05:10:18 GMT, "MSgeek"
wrote:

Not at ALL, Total and complete waste of money.

Why's that ? Do you not like bearing guides, do you not like
Carters, or do you not think it's worth doing on a small 14" machine?

--
Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

MP Toolman wrote:
I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

At the last TWA meeting (Triangle Woodworkers Association), the topic was
setting up a bandsaw. The speaker believed that for most uses, expensive
guides are overkill. He mostly uses wood (oak, maple, cherry or whatever
is handy)...and also liked using the synthetic countertop materials (e.g.
Corian). In both cases, they are soft enough to prevent blade damage but
wear reasonably well.

disclaimer: I have no bandsaw and little bandsaw experience.


--
************************************
Chris Merrill

(remove the ZZZ to contact me)
************************************

(MP Toolman) wrote in message ...
I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks,
Mill

Carter bearing guides came packaged with my 14 inch saw. They work
well, are nicely made, and I'm used to them...I can't see spending a
lot of money to buy them as an upgrade, however, absent some definite
problem in need of fixing with whatever you have now.

In article , (Woodstock) wrote:
(MP Toolman) wrote in message
...
I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing
the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

Carter bearing guides came packaged with my 14 inch saw. They work
well, are nicely made, and I'm used to them...I can't see spending a
lot of money to buy them as an upgrade, however, absent some definite
problem in need of fixing with whatever you have now.

The Carter guides are very good when resawing. For other operations, I don't
see a lot of benefit. And I've noticed a couple of problems:

1) They're a PITA to adjust, when you change blades, because there is no
micrometer-style adjusting screw.

2) They won't accomodate blades any smaller than 3/16", so just forget about
doing any tight scrolling.

My saw also came packaged with the Carter guides. If I had it to do over
again, knowing what I know now, I would NOT buy the Carter guides.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

I tried the Highland Hardware Woodslicer version that preceded the
present one in my Rockwell 14" and it called for HIGH tension. Delta
blade wasn't in the running. Long thread about high tension and
bearing replacements happened shortly after buying it. Saw a post
about blades from PS (I think) that featured low tension for resawing
that piqued my interest. Long story short Suffolk Machinery allows PS
to sell Timberwolf blades at shows so I found Suffolk. Donated Delta
blade unopened after getting the first Timberwolf. I'm a happy camper
not affiliated with yada yada. 1-800-234-SAWS and give them blade
length and what you're doing and have credit card handy.

On 29 Oct 2003 02:38:12 GMT, (MP Toolman) wrote:

I suspect this topic has been discussed before, but I do not recall seeing the
thread. What is your experience/opinion on blade guides for a small Delta 14
inch bandsaw? I am considering Carter aftermarket guides, but I have heard a
couple mixed opinions. Worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks,
Mill

Suffolk has a 4 blade deal at the SF Bay Area WWing show -
3/4" down to 1/8" - mix however you want for $85 for my
130 inch LT 16 SEC bandsaw. My bet is that for Delta 14s
and the like they'd be less.

BTW Suffolk bands now have rounded backs, no more running
and stoning the square edges off. Nice - lets you make
tighter turns.

charlie b