Bandsaw-Bearings or Blocks

[steviegwood]

I am asking some of you seasoned pros. I just acquired the Grizzly G0513X2 17" bandsaw and have been watching the videos and reading what I can find on it's capabilities. I will most likely be re-sawing a lot of burls and crotch pieces and trying some bandsaw boxes. I was wondering the preferences between the bearings and blocks and why. I have not found a good explanation of the difference and why one is preferred over the other. Thanks, Steve

 

[DaveO]

I think that with a wide blade there isn't much difference between bearings and blocks. Although the blocks could generate more heat than the bearings. For narrow blades like you would use for a BS box, the bearing guides can be less than ideal as there isn't much blade width behind the teeth for the bearings to ride against. Your standard steel or ceramic blocks aren't the best either as you want to keep them away from the tooth set. But blocks like Cool-Blocks or even a self-lubricating hardwood block like Lignum vitae would allow you to bury the narrow blade in the blocks giving you great stability and not damaging the tooth set. Also for narrow blades there is a rear thrust bearing stabilizer type guide, it doesn't offer any side to side support but only guides the blade in a groove in the rear thrust bearing. This will allow the blade to twist as you cut tight curves, more like a scrollsaw does.


Dave

 

[JackLeg]

Stevie: Picked this up over on Lumberjocks. Hope it's helpful.


On Friday we sent the back of the resaw blade clean through the upper and lower thrust bearings resulting in crash burn fire etc . I did some research on blade guides and Monday morning ordered a pair of model #20 guides from WWW.paddocktool.com , mounted them on Tuesday , and finished the job run an hour ago . We are resawing 15 inch boards that are fairly demanding and I am VERY pleased with the guides . Hope this helps someone looking for good guides .

:wsmile: