I will have a friend in town in a little over a week from this point, who had offered to help me stand my bandsaw up. For now that will be the plan, but there are a bunch of things I to get done on the saw before then. With the saw on its back, some things will not get any easier than when the open bottom is exposed.
The first thing I did was remove the old pallet from the bottom of the saw. I left the bottom 4×4 there, because it’s screwed in place from below, which is inaccessible because of the casters. I cleaned out a good 5+ gallons worth of saw dust out of here. There was some rust to be dealt with here.
I wanted to have a mobile base for the saw, because every machine I have is mobile. This is a Grizzly Papa Bear mobile base, because it had long enough long arms to be the right size. I cut down the 1″ thick plywood that the saw was sitting on before, so it was just big enough to fit the saw, and set up the mobile base to that.
I got the end casters off, the 4×4 removed, and trimmed down the skid I made so it was in the same plane as the mobile base. This is how I plan to tip the saw up once I have help. Theory being the skid will be on the ground until the saw is on all 4 wheels.
With the mobile base solved, the rest was all convenience things. I turned my attention to the bar that holds the motor mount, and operates the brake.
I got all the parts cleaned up, but this was where things got tricky. I taped off threads, and painted the motor bracket hanging rod. This was purely just for rust mitigation reasons. I could have just oiled it, sure, but though “why not”.
While I was at it, I cleaned and painted the cast iron parts for the brake pedal (left) and brake lever (right).
I also ended up painting the motor bracket as well. See what I meant about things get tricky? I swear I’m not doing a full tear down and repaint type of restoration… At least I need to keep reminding myself of that.
At some point, I must have successfully convinced myself I wasn’t repainting everything. I cleaned up the inner base with a wire cup, and got the lower base coated with 2 coats of rust converter. I don’t plan to paint any more than that, just wanted to get it clean and stop rust. It’s the inside, and I’m not repainting everything (keep practicing those words).
Once the paint was all dry, I got the whole thing reassembled and installed back in the saw. It operates nice and smooth now, so I’ll call it a win.
Now the pressure was off. These were the main two things I wanted to tackle before standing it up. The rest of it I’ll be accessing through the doors anyway, either the cabinet or upper wheel.
Anyway, that will do it for this installment, stay tuned and subscribe to the notification emails to watch the rest of it unfold!
Thanks for checking it out.
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