Band Saw Drive Pulley

[Thomas Canfield]

I heard a strange noise and then the blade stopped. Got to checking and found a surprise. The belt was laying at bottom of housing intact, and the pulley flange had broken. It was likely the original pulley on the old Rockwell 14" (about 1950 vintage). It turned out that the pulley, 5/8" bore and 2 3/4"D is not a standard available locally, but McMaster Carr came through and will ship today. The 2 1/2 or 3"D available would have meant about 10% +/- blade speed change and I was not ready to make the change. Bandsaw Pulley.JPG

[Lee Schierer]

McMaster Carr has an adjustable pulley that you can adjust to your 2 3/4" that has a 5/8" bore.

[Chris Hachet]

I heard a strange noise and then the blade stopped. Got to checking and found a surprise. The belt was laying at bottom of housing intact, and the pulley flange had broken. It was likely the original pulley on the old Rockwell 14" (about 1950 vintage). It turned out that the pulley, 5/8" bore and 2 3/4"D is not a standard available locally, but McMaster Carr came through and will ship today. The 2 1/2 or 3"D available would have meant about 10% +/- blade speed change and I was not ready to make the change. Bandsaw Pulley.JPG

Most moter supply and repair shops carry pulleys of various sizes, including adjustable pulleys.

I have a 1991 14 inch jet and I am probably going to put a three phase motor and cheap VFD on it to control the speed at some point.

[Thomas Canfield]

McMaster Carr has a big selection of pulleys. I ordered yesterday about 3:30 PM and it is supposed to be delivered (along with some other items of course) by end of day tomorrow by UPS. That is pretty good service. I upgraded the 1/2 HP motor to 1 HP last year, and the extra load must have finally done in the old zinc pulley

[Thomas Canfield]

New pulley arrived at 5:45 PM Thursday and I started to change it yesterday. No problem installing on shaft. Problem came up trying to raise the motor (85#) up the mounting plate inside the base cabinet. Tried to rotate around one of the mounting bolts when it slid to bottom of plate. Decided today best plan was to turning saw on side to slide the motor horizontally and also have access to lower mounting bolts. Removing the table and setting the upper section on a block of wood about 12" high to level the motor mounting plate made it easy to slide the motor and more access through the open bottom. I was also able to loop a small rope around the motor base and put tension on the installed belt. Pulley alignment was checked with 2' straight edge while saw was on side. Biggest thing was raising the saw back vertical, but it is was doable even for a tired old man. Definitely a lot easier than when I changed out the motor last year and fought the installation through the side door. I did notice that the new pulley says for "Fractional Horsepower" and the new motor is 1HP so guess I will now be looking for a cast iron or steel pulley and a new belt since the old did suffer some damage in the failure, but saw is now back up and running.

[Mike O'Keefe]

Thomas Browning Pulley company makes cast iron pulleys for the Delta Bandsaw. Also Iturra Design sells them as sets. Mike O'Keefe