Hi All,

A couple of years ago I rebuilt a 1959 Oliver 192, 18" bandsaw. It worked and ran smoothly, but the tires needed replacing. That's where my problems started.

Bear with the story, it gets a bit long.

I tried a pair of rubber tires. The old ones were a bear to get off. Once off, with use of clamps, I got the new ones on and glued to the wheels. I've read many times that on the bandsaws without a crown on the wheels, you should, at least, try setting it up with no crown. I did that and had a little trouble tracking, so, I decided to crown the tires. Crowning the bottom tire was easy because it's the drive wheel.

Because it's a 3 phase, I installed a VFD and can control the speed of the bandsaw. After I crowned the lower tire, I turned the VFD on to 60 to make sure everything was working correctly. It ran very smooth, but, and this is a big "but," the tire snapped and came of the wheel. It tended to be a very exciting couple of seconds.

So, (bored yet) I decided to get urethane tires this time and installed them. This time, after I got them on, I put the blade on without crowning and it tracked very nicely. However, the blade always found it's way to the front of the tire with the teeth hanging over the tire. I've read this works well, and in fact seemed to work well as I made some curved cuts with a 3/16th blade.

About then, it started getting exciting again as it started making a bit of noise. I stopped the saw, opened it up and saw that the top tire had started to move off the wheel.

And thus, the following questions.

1. Do I have to glue the urethane tires. I've read that I don't have to.
2. Should I, or can I, crown the urethane tires.
3. If I crown them, should I crown both, or, just one. I've read both ways.

By the way, after putting the blade to tension, I made sure the wheels were co-planer.

Any and all opinions and constructive criticisms are welcome.

Thanks, John