Coplanar or Not Coplanar bandsaw wheels.......That is the question

[Phil Thien]

I wonder about this coplaner thing that everyone gets excited about. Getting the wheels aligned when the saw is not tensioned and then putting it in tension will just about guarantee that the wheels will misalign to some degree. The only way to do it properly is align the wheels unloaded, tension the saw, measure the misalignment, and align the wheels at no load to take into account the movement that took place under tension. is it worth it all the hassle? I don't know, I suppose if the loaded alignment is a long way out then it would be.

I once owned an Inca with 8"-ish FLAT wheels, and it vibrated quite a bit no matter what blade I used. When investigating the shaking I discovered the bottom wheel had been removed/reinstalled at some point (I could see the two divots on the key). I moved the wheel to the other location and voila, shaking grossly reduced. BTW, the difference was about 3/16".

It was only later that I checked whether the wheels were coplanar and sure enough, they were nearly spot-on, with a 1/4" blade installed and tracked.

My current saws are Skil, with 10" wheels. I know people scoff at my small saws but these are 15-20 years old, made in Taiwan, have 1/2-HP motors, and 7" resaw height. I'd put them up against any "standard" 14" saw in terms of smoothness and power. They vibrate less than any other saw I've ever used. You can literally put your hand on the saw while it is running and hardly tell the thing is under power.

And the wheels are nearly perfectly coplanar with a blade installed and tracked. They came like that from the factory.

[Erik Loza]

....The "problem" for some of us with the 14 twelve if there is one is that Laguna is painfully silent on the topic of coplanar wheels...

Does this particular saw have flat wheels? If so, then co-planarity doesn't matter.

...I have no idea how guys like Erik keep track of all the stuff they see and have to compete with in the business they are in at least as it relates to bandsaw variables...

Easy: I have no life. Just ask my wife...

Honestly, though, the real answer is because I don't compete with 14" machines. That's not to sound smug or derogatory, it's just a statement of fact. The customer who is shopping for that level of saw is not going to spend $3K+ for a bandsaw so I rarely have that type of discussion. It's usually and "italian vs. Italian" converation because the guy has already decided that's where he wants to be. Hope this makes sense.

Erik Loza
Minimax

[glenn bradley]

I've never heard anyone say coplaner wheels are a bad thing. It takes no more than 30 minutes to take a piece of plywood and cut it out into a C-shape to fit around wheel covers, etc. so you can check yours. If your saw runs great, no need, who cares. But if it doesn't, why wouldn't you spend those few minutes to find out if the wheels are out of alignment. What you do with that information is up to you. Me? I aligned the wheels on mine - and it instantly resolved my problems of not being able to cut straight.

John

This is a bit of a dead horse but, newcomers or folks who newly visit the topic may find the discussion useful. I can't imagine any manual that says the wheels being aligned "doesn't matter". As mentioned Grizzly is quite thorough on this. Laguna not so much as they simply state:

"We recommend that you balance all blades on the center of the wheels for optimum performance and a smoother cut."

I'm with John in that if you are not getting the results you want and suspect wheel alignment as a possibility, adjusting for coplaner is not a long tedious effort in order to eliminate that as a possibility. If you don't feel like doing that, rock on ;-)

P.s. I think we do Alex S a disservice by continually quoting his statement that coplaner doesn't matter. He is speaking during a demo of a product. I believe Michael Fortune also made this statement in a bandsaw "tune-up" article in FWW. This wouldn't be the first highly skilled woodworker who's craft I admire that I don't agree with on all things ;-)

[Phil Thien]

I've got an older (late '60s, i think) Powermatic 81, and the wheels are far from coplanar. Like Curtis, I called and spoke to a tech who said this should not be a problem. Phil, I would hope and assume that the tech did not presume I was incapable of working on my own machinery, and that he would have given me accurate information.

I'm never sure how to respond to posts like this, there is so little information. Like, how far-off were the wheels? How were they measured (no blade/blade/what size blade, etc.)? How does the saw run? What was the experience level of the tech?

So my question for those that think wheel alignment is unimportant: Do you think the manufacturers install the wheels arbitrarily? They just mount them wherever they may fall?

And why don't we see any bandsaws where the wheels are misaligned by inches? If alignment isn't important, they could be off by a foot, right? Wait, you couldn't get a blade mounted in that case. Well, you could probably get a blade mounted if they were misaligned by an inch, if the saw is large enough, right? But wait, off by an inch, that is extreme, that saw can't run smoothly if the wheels are off by an inch. How about a 1/4"?

See where I'm going with this? If you put your critical thinking cap on, you will see 12" is undoable, so is 6". 1" may be very rough. As we approach 0", things continue to improve. Certainly there is a point of diminishing returns (there always is). But certainly people are capable of reasoning through this, no?

[Phil Thien]

BTW...

We want our blades to be square to the table, front to back. This is important for operations like cutting the shoulders of tenons.

Coplanar wheels are about the best way to make sure your blade's teeth are square to the table. Falling short there, you are likely going to need to shim your table.

So for you guys that think your wheels aren't coplanar, is your blade square to the table? If it is, see any shims?

[John TenEyck]

This is exactly right. Manufacturers must design and hopefully build their saws so that the wheels align somehow, whether coplaner or not. It can't be that no thought is given to it. So if there's thought given to it there must be specs. whether or not they are willing to disclose those.

If I here another shout out for Mr. Snodgrass I'm going to get sick. I'm sure he knows his stuff, but he can't go around to everyone's shop and solve their problems. If his methods worked universally no one here would be posting about the problems they are having with their saw. Saws can and do go out of alignment, for a variety of reasons. My own was out when I got it. Why? I don't know, it was 30 or 40 years old. Things wear I suppose. It never really bothered me until I wanted to saw veneer with it. In trying to figure out why it wouldn't cut straight I found the wheels were out by more than 1/4" and cocked as well. Shimming the upper wheel and adjusting the frame to get the wheels in the same plane in both planes - it was like a new saw. Oh, maybe better, hard to say.

When all else fails, go back to first principles. Start with the machine itself and work out from there. If you are having problems it's 30 minutes to check the wheels. Why wouldn't you?

John

[Brad Adams]

My old 14" Delta bandsaw didn't cut worth a darn when I got it. I had to drill out the pin in the cast iron to align the upper and lower frames. The wheels were out about a 1/4" in front to back alignment. Guess what, after aligning the wheels to be "co planer" it cuts smooth as as can be. No more oscillating of the blades. To say it doesn't matter if the wheels are co planer is just silly. Anything running in perfect alignment is going to run smother with less wear on components. Why do you think we do four wheel alignments on our cars?

[Mel Fulks]

I've only scanned this,forgive me if this has already been said. Some of the bandsaws have adjustable lower wheels that
were properly set at factory and later "adjusted" out of bounds by a user. That can make normal simple adjustment of upper wheel impossible.

[Frank Pratt]

When I got my Rikon 14" 10-325 I had not experience with a bandsaw. I proceeded to check the wheel alignment & get the 2 wheels coplanar. So far, great! Started doing a test cut & a few minutes later it started making some horrible noises. Problem was, now the motor pulley was not coplanar with the bottom wheel & the ribbed belt partially came off & shredded itself to death. Then it took me a good 3 hours of futzing around to line up the motor, which has no provision for adjusting. What a FRUSTRATING experience!

Which brings me to a point that the OP brought up. Why, oh why do the manufacturers not address or explain these things in the manual. If it is not to be adjusted, then tell us. If it is to be adjusted, then tell us how. I think better documentation is the single biggest thing manufacturers could do to improve the initial user experience with their product.

The saw is now set up & cuts really well, but every time I look at it, I still get a little pissed of. And this is 2 years after the fact.

[Rod Sheridan]

Does this particular saw have flat wheels? If so, then co-planarity doesn't matter.

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Erik Loza
Minimax

Erik, if you have flat wheels you're running the teeth only off the edge of the wheel correct?

If so, coplanar wheels are extremely important............Rod.

[Erik Loza]

Erik, if you have flat wheels you're running the teeth only off the edge of the wheel correct?

If so, coplanar wheels are extremely important............Rod.

In theory, perhaps, but not in reality.Or at least not in my experience. Reason being that in this era of huge-resaw-capacity bandsaws, if there is any "non-coplanarity" between the upper and lower wheels, there is such much distance between the upper and lower flywheels that it just doesn't manifest itself in the blade performance. Or at least not in my experience.

I can tell you, for example, that in 10+ years of setting up Italian bandsaws, I have never once checked "co-planarity" if the upper and lower wheels. It's just never been an issue.

Erik Loza
Minimax

[Dan Clark]

I've only scanned this,forgive me if this has already been said. Some of the bandsaws have adjustable lower wheels that
were properly set at factory and later "adjusted" out of bounds by a user. That can make normal simple adjustment of upper wheel impossible.

The 14-12 does have these adjustable lower wheels. I've had to adjust mine based on direction from Laguna support. Note that issue occurred BEFORE the lower wheel was adjusted.

I found that adjusting the lower wheel so that the 1/2" blade is centered on both wheels means that the 3/4" blade is shifted one way on the lower wheel and smaller blades are shifted the other way. I don't particularly like it that misalignment occurs, but the saw works well so it's an acceptable compromise for me.

Based on testing, the I found that cause is blade tension. Wider blades need higher tension. Narrower blades need lower tension. If the 3/4" blade is lightly tensioned like a 1/4" blade, most of the misalignment goes away. As the tension is increased misalignment increases.

The first assumption might be that the frame is twisting. Based on my own testing, this is not the case. Increased tension makes the upper wheel move slightly towards the front of the saw - up to about 70/1000 (measured). "Front" means the side with the fence bar. Movement is relative to the frame. Increasing tension does not cause the frame to twist.

Note that "C" plywood method and method I described above are the same - cutting a chunk out of a piece of play and placing the straight edges against the wheels. I'm going to do that this weekend. To ensure that the ply has a clean, straight edge, it will be cut using a rail saw. Then the "cookie-bite" will be cut from the center with a jigsaw.

Regards,

Dan.

[John Schweikert]

If a bandsaw runs smooth, the blade is vertical to the table and the blade tracks correctly and stays consistent on the wheels, why obsess over the wheels being coplanar? Only if your saw exhibits issues should you even bother delving deeper. Kind of like buying a new car and checking to make sure that the your alignment numbers are correct even when the car drives perfect.

I too used the Snodgrass youtube video years ago in setting up my 14" bandsaw and never looked back, it runs great, resaws very well, tracking of the blade is excellent and no drift when resawing with the fence set up stock (no adjustment). I can understand not all tools run flawlessly out of the crate but if they do, just use them and move on to making things.

[Phil Barrett]

I'm far from an expert so I'm just applying logic. Obviously, you can construct a thought experiment that has the wheels grossly out of alignment and clearly the saw will fail to cut properly, if at all. Clearly, co-planar wheels are desirable. However, there is some range of misalignment that will permit the saw to function reasonably well. What I have never seen is a statement as to what is an acceptable range and what isn't. Grizzly has several pages in the G0555 series manual that describes how to make the wheels co-planar but is silent on how much difference is acceptable. They imply zero but there has to be some minimum below which it's simply not necessary. (Clearly, 1/2 the width of the thinnest shimming washer is acceptable.) The manual notes that you must check alignment under tension as well. I think the vast majority of saws out there probably fall into the acceptable range, especially if last aligned at the factory, even for an old saw. This is, I believe, the wellspring of Alex Snodgrass' advice to not worry about it. It seems unlikely to me that the wheels would be significantly misaligned with no other obvious wear or damage or ham handed maintenance. Certainly, when rebuilding a bandsaw one should make the wheels co-planar but I'm not so sure people should run out to their shops and tear into a functioning saw.

I had a 14" delta clone with about 1/4" difference between the tracking locations on the two wheels. It cut just fine. The manual was completely silent on co-planar alignment. I got all wound up over the issue and in doing my research to try and align the wheels, I found the snodgrass video. End of angst and plenty of wood subsequently went through that saw with zero problems. My brother in law has it now and it continues to work well.

[Rod Sheridan]

In theory, perhaps, but not in reality.Or at least not in my experience. Reason being that in this era of huge-resaw-capacity bandsaws, if there is any "non-coplanarity" between the upper and lower wheels, there is such much distance between the upper and lower flywheels that it just doesn't manifest itself in the blade performance. Or at least not in my experience.

I can tell you, for example, that in 10+ years of setting up Italian bandsaws, I have never once checked "co-planarity" if the upper and lower wheels. It's just never been an issue.

Erik Loza
Minimax

I have to admit Erik, that with 35 years of industrial experience I've never seen a bandsaw checked for coplanarity or had the blade tension released except when changing blades, nor have I ever adjusted a fence for drift.

Regards, Rod.