Bandsaws On The Run

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Had a pretty productive sort of day in the studio, today. I started coating up the visible surfaces of the end unit of The Kitchen Thing with beeswax: coat, dry, sand, buff and repeat: for cheap, crappy pine it's starting to come up OK, so I think we'll keep on with that modus operandi for the other end when I'm done with this one.

I also started to apply the thick pitch pine veneers to its top: just visible on the right in the bench vise. They're going on pretty well and will look pretty nice, I think. I also made a kitchen chopping board out of an off-cut of the beech block top, and used the same top oil on it as The Kitchen Thing's top was coated up in. It polishes up like a beauty, so I'm pretty sure the Thing's top will be OK too.

In the drying times between all these things, I decided to bite the bullet and drag the sorry carcass of my dad's old bench top bandsaw out of storage and get it working: I mentioned the other day it was a future project; it's just happened a bit sooner than I'd planned. It was in a bit of a state, having been sat in the back room of the studio for most of the eight years since dad died.

I got the thing dismantled and managed to work out, a) how it actually worked; and b) see what was wrong in the light of a). As it turned out, nothing much was actually wrong with it. The blade had ridden off of its idler wheels and the thing was full of sawdust concretions that were gumming up the works a bit. Also, the ball races that help to stop the blade from leaving its guides under the pressure of the cut had seized up a little. 

A good clean, some oil and repositioning and re-tensioning of the blade were all that was needed. I cleaned up the working surface, the fence and the mitre fence; added a wood extension to the mitre fence and fired it up. Worked first time. Cheers, dad: more money saved and a very useful addition to my workshop. I'll give some of the bodywork a coat of Hammerite when I can, but otherwise it's all done. You can see it on the right of the picture at the end of the bench.


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