Landslide
Red Skull Member
- Joined
- May 20, 2020
- Member Number
- 422
- Messages
- 1,678
I bought this 1950’s vantage Sears Craftsman 12” wood bandsaw at an auction around 8 years ago. Never used it and almost sold it once but decided to keep it.
Earlier this year I decided to convert it to cut steel for my fab shop. Currently I use my 110v Milwaukee portable bandsaw and lock the handle in my Jaw vice. There’s no swag type table on it but just the oem base which is a steel finger thing. Its limitations are that and the depth of cut.
So I have to slow the speed down from around 2,800 fpm to around 100 fpm for steel. This can be achieved a couple ways. One is by fabing up an intermediate or 3rd v belt pulley/shaft/pilar block bearings thing. Small pulley on motor to 11” or 12” OD pulley on shaft to small 1.5” v belt pulley to 10” or 11” pulley on bandsaw input shaft. I think this is around 200 ish fpm or close to it.
Another method is to run a gear reduction box of 30:1 ratio with a 1725 or 1750 rpm motor.
I’m going the route of electric motor flush mounted to 30:1 gear box. I had one in stock but the motor tested out one bad circuit (3 phase motor) and repairing the motor is est $400 plus and I found one on eBay for $200 but no response back if they’ll test it for me.
So I stumble on an ad on FB MP selling gear boxes for $25 each off of two pallets. So I meet up with him and it’s a mfg business that just held an auction and these among a bunch of other stuff didn’t sell. So I bought two gear boxes and a gear box with motor and a small electric motor with squirrel cage fan (no idea why but wtf right
) the gear box / motor I bought for $20 because not sure if good or not and no dog tag for gear ratio on gear box.
Tested out the motor out and it’s good - all three windings make continuity between each and not grounded out. I took the fan cover off and marked the blade and spun it around 30 rotations and the gear box output shaft made one complete full rotation 30:1. Sweet.
So now I gotta modify a stand I bought from sears when they were closing out their craftsman tools to mount the bandsaw and motor gear box assembly on and make it mobile.
Join me on my fabrication modification of changing a wood bandsaw into a steel cutting bandsaw. Someday imma get me a CNC plasma table for my shop but until then, I either use my buddies or use a bandsaw to cut stuff out with.
Earlier this year I decided to convert it to cut steel for my fab shop. Currently I use my 110v Milwaukee portable bandsaw and lock the handle in my Jaw vice. There’s no swag type table on it but just the oem base which is a steel finger thing. Its limitations are that and the depth of cut.
So I have to slow the speed down from around 2,800 fpm to around 100 fpm for steel. This can be achieved a couple ways. One is by fabing up an intermediate or 3rd v belt pulley/shaft/pilar block bearings thing. Small pulley on motor to 11” or 12” OD pulley on shaft to small 1.5” v belt pulley to 10” or 11” pulley on bandsaw input shaft. I think this is around 200 ish fpm or close to it.
Another method is to run a gear reduction box of 30:1 ratio with a 1725 or 1750 rpm motor.
I’m going the route of electric motor flush mounted to 30:1 gear box. I had one in stock but the motor tested out one bad circuit (3 phase motor) and repairing the motor is est $400 plus and I found one on eBay for $200 but no response back if they’ll test it for me.
So I stumble on an ad on FB MP selling gear boxes for $25 each off of two pallets. So I meet up with him and it’s a mfg business that just held an auction and these among a bunch of other stuff didn’t sell. So I bought two gear boxes and a gear box with motor and a small electric motor with squirrel cage fan (no idea why but wtf right
) the gear box / motor I bought for $20 because not sure if good or not and no dog tag for gear ratio on gear box.Tested out the motor out and it’s good - all three windings make continuity between each and not grounded out. I took the fan cover off and marked the blade and spun it around 30 rotations and the gear box output shaft made one complete full rotation 30:1. Sweet.
So now I gotta modify a stand I bought from sears when they were closing out their craftsman tools to mount the bandsaw and motor gear box assembly on and make it mobile.
Join me on my fabrication modification of changing a wood bandsaw into a steel cutting bandsaw. Someday imma get me a CNC plasma table for my shop but until then, I either use my buddies or use a bandsaw to cut stuff out with.
