Axminster bandsaw woes

[Phil Pascoe]

Where does she go for that, then? :?

https://www.bearingsrus.co.uk/ are good as well.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Phil's right - lots of good ones out there.

Which reminds me: anti-seize has silica in it (so it grips) - it is NOT a lubricant, so don't be misled - Sir is needing proper grease, Sir is.

E.

 

[RogerS]

Axminster tell me that the belt is dual-purpose. Grooved on the outside and toothed on the inside. You turn it inside out to fit my machine ...

And it does ! I missed that

 

[Lons]

Axminster tell me that the belt is dual-purpose. Grooved on the outside and toothed on the inside. You turn it inside out to fit my machine ...

And it does ! I missed that

:lol: :lol: They need to include that info in the packaging

 

[Lons]

You might have difficulty removing the bearings from the top wheel - I have a technique involving a rawlanchor that works really nicely.

Share please Eric - pretty please

 

[AES]

+1 for the above plea to share your rawlanchor idea please EtV.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Gladly, but it's probably better with pics or diagrams. As I've done mine recently, I don't want to disassemble it again, but I'll get drawing...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If you know how a rawlbolt works you probably don't need to stretch your imagination too far.

 

[AES]

Great thanks Eric. But no rush please, (well, not on my side anyway) whenever you're ready. It's "just" an idea that I know will come in useful to me one day.

@Phil. Yeah, you're probably right, but (sorry to be ignorant) I'm not exactly sure what a rawlbolt is (really)!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

https://www.toolstation.com/rawlplug-rb ... RzEALw_wcB

 

[Lons]

If you know how a rawlbolt works you probably don't need to stretch your imagination too far.

I know how they work Phil but can't see how you can pull a bearing off a shaft with one. :? It'll be staring me in the face of course. :roll:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's not on a shaft, it's in a recess. It's an internal puller.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Yup, that's the badger, although you need a longer piece of studding (probably) instead of the supplied bolt, and a second nut, arguably two, to lock it on the thread...

... I'm going to check what I think I used against the old bearings later this morning (never throw anything away, at least not immediately!). From memory they are 19mm I.D., so it's either a 10mm or 12mm Rawlanchor (RA) They size by their internal thread, not the drill size.

Broadly, the unexpanded OD of the RA needs to be a not-too-sloppy fit through the middle of the bearing. Honestly it's easy to work out after that!

The second nut (washer optional) lets you expand the end of the RA while it's in the middle, between the two bearings, so you can drift the further one out gently and easily.

Otherwise, the issue with mine is that the wheels, rather than having a shoulder at each side, have two circlips in the middle, to position the bearings (so there are four per wheel altogether). You can't remove the middle pair before you liberate at least one bearing, and they get in the way of drifting anything out easily. This gets around the problem. Yes it's still pushing on the inner race, but it's an even force around the circle, rather than asymmetric as you get with a thin punch/drift.

As I said, I'd previously tried heating the wheel with MAPP gas played around the hub, but because the drive pulley on mine is integral with the bottom wheel, there is a lot of mass (cast aluminium), and I'm not sure I could expand it enough to make a difference. Anyway I was nervous of warping or even cracking it, so I didn't want to be brutal with the heat.

Using an RA as a drift was too easy - didn't need a lot of force nor any heat - but I appreciate it varies On my machine the top wheel bearings are almost too loose - they virtually drop out by themselves when you remove the outer circlip.

The construction method has always baffled me - If you put a shoulder in the middle, you only have to machine a counterbore each side to position the bearings, You don't have to worry about positioning two more circlip grooves and you need supply half as many circlips! The only thing in its favour is that, if the turret lathe (or CNC or whatever) is set up for one groove, you might do all four in one operation, and the diameter might be too small to get a boring bar down the middle otherwise. The other approach is simply that used on many motorcycle rear wheels, of a tube that floats in the middle of the wheel between the bearings, keeping them correctly spaced - but bike wheels are clamped up fairly tight, so that might not work on a bandsaw.

Note that I used it as a drift rather than a puller. Wheel across the slightly open jaws of my Record 52 1/2, and something to catch the bearing as it drops out.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Yhe construction method has always baffled me... The other approach is simply that used on many motorcycle rear wheels, of a tube that floats in the middle of the wheel between the bearings, keeping them correctly spaced - but bike wheels are clamped up fairly tight, so that might not work on a bandsaw.

Er, and that would be a right pig to disassemble too. Just sayin'.

In case there are any bandsaw manufacturers who might be tempted:

Please do NOT do this!

 

[Lons]

Phil
Yep easy to work out, for some reason I thought it would be on a shaft. #-o

Eric
Thanks for taking the trouble to post the method I'll salt it away for general possible use, I have a load of left over 10 mm rawlbolts.

My bandsaw is an old Startrite 352 and I've never changed the bearings, I'll not sleep tonight now thinking I have to check them before using the saw. :lol:

 

[AES]

Thanks for the explanation Eric.

And thanks Phil for the link to the rawlbolts. I've got several of those (various dias) "in stock" and some other thingamejigs similar but not the same.

These things aren't called rawlbolts here (I wonder if that name is a general name or a brand name - like Hoover for a vacuum cleaner?) but now I understand, thanks.

Like someone else already said, a good "trick" to keep salted away, "just in case".

Thanks

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It was originally a brand - the guy who marketed Rawlplugs was called Rawlings.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Their original wall plugs were made of compressed jute (before the invention of thermoplastics). The hand tools forum was discussing the "hand drills" they also used to make - "thump, twist, repeat" - hitting it with a small lump hammer. Putting up a set of shelves could be the average DIYer's life's work...
... I still remember the smell of the jute.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Star drills. Wonderful things to use when your walls and lintels were granite. I remember the blisters ...

 

[AES]

Yeah, I remember the rawl "hand drills" (bang and twist, bang and twist - still got one somewhere), and the "brown fibre" rawlplugs too (didn't know it was jute though). But that was long before I left UK.

I also remember a tin of white fibrous powder for use when the rawl drill broke big flakes of brick facings off and to get a good fix you had to get a hand full of that powder, dampen it, then "mash it" into the hole.

The "recognised" method of doing that (my Dad taught me) was to get a little pile of powder in the palm of your hand, spit on top of it, roll it around, then put the whole lot in your mouth and chew it a bit (like chewing gum) until you got something that was sticky enough to neatly fill the hole.

It was only YEARS later that I found out that the "*fibrous stuff) in that white powder was asbestos!!!!!!!!!!!!