Finally got the blade in and had time to do the tuning.
Overall we went from horrible to "reasonable". Certainly not perfect though, so I had a few follow up questions/observations.
1. My saw screams with this new blade when it starts to cut. Is that normal? I mean, it's pretty darn high pitched and loud. I thought one of my bearings had gone out at first.
2. I went ahead and followed the recs of most of the posters here and went with a 1/2" Timber Wolf Bandsaw Blade (137" x 1/2" x 3 TPI Positive Claw) for the new blade ($36 via amazon). It looks like a good blade, but now I'm questioning if it isn't too small. Most of what I use the bandsaw for is ripping large pieces down to manageable pieces. The reason I'm concerned is that the wood is sawing slowly and coming out looking pretty rough on the sawed face (albeit mostly straight now). And again, this is just some soft pine, not even trying anything difficult yet. Should I be sawing pieces 8-12" thick on a 1/2 inch blade?
3. I noticed that with this blade properly tension-ed, the closest I can get my top right bearing is about 1/4 (maybe 1/8" if I'm being really generous) away from the blade. Is that normal? It's almost like the blade is off center in between the top guide bearings. But I didn't see any way to adjust the entire upper guide left to right. Obviously I already have the right bearing "tightened" as far left as it will go.
4. Finally, my top wheel really looks strange when the saw is running. Admittedly, I can't see any noticeable wobble in the outer edge of the wheel when looking at the blade on the tire, but if you look towards the center you can definitely see something is crooked our not built perfectly balanced. Is this a major worry? Or should I just assume that they shaved down/balanced the outer edge of the wheel properly when they assembled the saw?
Thanks again for all the help so far guys. Definitely a learning experience.
Last edited by Keith Downing; 07-28-2016 at 2:56 AM.
60W, Boss Laser 1630
75W, Epilog Legend 24EX
Jet Left Tilting table saw and Jet 18" Band saw
Adobe Creative suite and Laserworks 8