Chris Laudolff's bandsaw

Chris Laudolff writes:

Hey Matthias,

I recently finished my bandsaw, it was pretty straightforward, and I enjoyed building it a lot. When I first started, my goal was to be the youngest builder - I barely finished before I was 16, and because of that meddling Jack Cleveland, I'm now in a tie. Haha I kid, but I really enjoyed seeing it all come together over a couple of months.

The frame went together pretty well, although some of the boards were a couple thousands of an inch thicker than others, and I didn't notice until I started gluing up, so there are a few gaps in the frame, but not bad enough to compromise the strength. It's all standard pine boards, or recycled lumber, resawed 2x6's or 2x4's.

For the bearing flanges, I have only 1 or 2 Forstner bits, and neither of them come close to the size I need, seeing as I am already building a homemade bandsaw, I don't have the money for a circle cutter, and I found an adjustable brace bit- so with a little bit of finicking I could produce perfect press fit holes, I also used the brace for the holes on my wheels.

Here was my setup for turning the wheels, unfortunately I don't have turning tools, so I used chisels, these were at first too thin, and I put some nicks in the blade, but after that it went well. The Shafting and bearings were by far the most expensive part on the saw, at 13 for 15 inches of shafting, and 75$ for 4 - 1 inch bearings.

Here's my blade tensioner, all the hardwood on my saw is either oak or maple, It runs smoothly and has almost no play.

I think this is one of the first times I assembled everything, finally starting to look like a saw! For the blade guides, I used small maple blocks held on with normal bolts, I made a couple of wooden star- knobs for the trunnions, and the blade guard is made of some brass sheet metal I found.

See also:

15 year old Jack
Cleveland's bandsaw

16 year old Alex Harris's
bandsaw

22 year old Dejan
Kovac's bandsaw