About 15 years ago the sliding bracket my Rockwell clone 14" band saw cracked. This is the bracket that holds the axle assembly and is used to tension the upper wheel and adjust blade tracking. At the time the crack wasn't too bad, or in a critical area so I epoxied it. It worked so I promptly forgot about it. Fast forward to last week as I was changing a blade the bracket stuck in its track and wouldn't drop as tension was released. After a couple of taps (baby taps I swear) with a plastic mallet it cracked again. I disassembled it and as suspected the part was trashed. After checking a couple of places online for a replacement (at Grizzly the part was discontinued, Jet had a long backorder) I figured I'd take a whack at making it.
At this point I want to thank everyone on the forum who ever posted a How to. I used a lot of the things I learned here, tramming the mill and vise, squaring stock, edge and center finding, layout and marking. I didn't realize how much I've absorbed until I started doing this project. I also learned from a couple miscues during the job. One was I should have drilled the side holes that bisect the cuts on the edges first, I cut the top side of both edges first (Im not sure what to call the edges, in woodworking they would be long tenons) before seeing that if I flipped the part and made the corresponding cuts it would make drilling a bit of a challenge. A trip to the drill press remedied that. The next was the 1 dia hole in the middle of the part, which allows the axle bracket to lie flat in the pocket. The largest drill bit I have is ¾ so I drilled that on the drill press as well, then to the mill to bore it to 1. I should have done both on the mill/drill and used just one setup, but it gave me more center finding practice. Other than that it went pretty well and the band saw is back up and running well. Im sorry I only have one picture, but I wasnt thinking of posting this till after I was done.
Thanks again for this great resource.
Bill
At this point I want to thank everyone on the forum who ever posted a How to. I used a lot of the things I learned here, tramming the mill and vise, squaring stock, edge and center finding, layout and marking. I didn't realize how much I've absorbed until I started doing this project. I also learned from a couple miscues during the job. One was I should have drilled the side holes that bisect the cuts on the edges first, I cut the top side of both edges first (Im not sure what to call the edges, in woodworking they would be long tenons) before seeing that if I flipped the part and made the corresponding cuts it would make drilling a bit of a challenge. A trip to the drill press remedied that. The next was the 1 dia hole in the middle of the part, which allows the axle bracket to lie flat in the pocket. The largest drill bit I have is ¾ so I drilled that on the drill press as well, then to the mill to bore it to 1. I should have done both on the mill/drill and used just one setup, but it gave me more center finding practice. Other than that it went pretty well and the band saw is back up and running well. Im sorry I only have one picture, but I wasnt thinking of posting this till after I was done.
Thanks again for this great resource.
Bill
