thetyreman
Established Member
I made myself a new handle tensioner which will probably outlast the life of the machine and me to be honest, the wood is Ash which was from an unused turning blank I bought a few years ago, it looks a bit like something from minecraft but I wanted it to be quite chunky and substantial, it was pretty much shaped by eye with not much of a plan, just a few saw cuts and chisel work the finished with danish oil.
the handle has a hole to fit an m8 brass insert, this is hammered into the wood and epoxied and put to one side to dry overnight, being very careful to drill the hole square and straight (a drill press would have helped here)
then I cut some m8 brass thread to the correct length, epoxied it in and drove a 2mm brass rod through it again epoxy and left to cure, the handle now being permanently attached to the brass rod.
The brass rod was made by Robin known as 'chaotic bob' on here, there's more about it here: metalworking-request-favour-t120174.html
it is a 3/4" round brass rod with an m8 thread tapped through the centre and I must say it would not be possible without his help so a special thanks from me.
next stage was to drill a 2mm hole through the threaded rod and brass rod glue and pin it making it permanent, left overnight and touched up with a buarstard file,
the final stage was just some autosol on the brass rod then wax to polish it up and make it look nice,
from the pics I hope you can see it works extremely well but I have not tested it yet under tension with a blade on,
it most definitely feels a lot more solid than the original part which broke when I tried to put in a 1/2" blade on the bandsaw,
just to be on the safe side I probably won't go thicker than a 3/8" blade but I suspect this new tensioner will improve the amount of pressure that can be applied,
attached are a few photos to show you the new device, hope you enjoy it,
cheers,
BT.
the handle has a hole to fit an m8 brass insert, this is hammered into the wood and epoxied and put to one side to dry overnight, being very careful to drill the hole square and straight (a drill press would have helped here)
then I cut some m8 brass thread to the correct length, epoxied it in and drove a 2mm brass rod through it again epoxy and left to cure, the handle now being permanently attached to the brass rod.
The brass rod was made by Robin known as 'chaotic bob' on here, there's more about it here: metalworking-request-favour-t120174.html
it is a 3/4" round brass rod with an m8 thread tapped through the centre and I must say it would not be possible without his help so a special thanks from me.
next stage was to drill a 2mm hole through the threaded rod and brass rod glue and pin it making it permanent, left overnight and touched up with a buarstard file,
the final stage was just some autosol on the brass rod then wax to polish it up and make it look nice,
from the pics I hope you can see it works extremely well but I have not tested it yet under tension with a blade on,
it most definitely feels a lot more solid than the original part which broke when I tried to put in a 1/2" blade on the bandsaw,
just to be on the safe side I probably won't go thicker than a 3/8" blade but I suspect this new tensioner will improve the amount of pressure that can be applied,
attached are a few photos to show you the new device, hope you enjoy it,
cheers,
BT.
