I've just acquired a Craftsmen bandsaw. I'm not a fan of craftsmen power tools, but this one has a history to it. It belonged to a man I knew who died of cancer 5 years ago. So I brought it to the shop, cleaned it up, realigned it and it's good to go. It has a great deal of vibration to it though. I presume it's inherent in these type of bandsaws. The thing is a 12", it sits about 36" high off of its stand, so of course it will vibrate. But has anyone got any suggestions on how to reduce the vibration? In truth, it's the first bandsaw I've ever owned, so I'm not versed in their quirks.
Mark
http://markmeyerwoodworking.com
I have a Ridgid 14 incher and it also vibrated out of the box. (I hope to do a formal "review" of this thing one of these days in the review section of this web site.)
Anyway, I reduced the vibration considerably by:
1. Replacing the stiff, cheap drive belt with a quality segmented item from an auto parts shop. To do this, you have to take the saw's belt in to the store and then hope that a friendly clerk will go into the back storage area and find you a car belt the same length and width.
2. Installed small weights on the wheels. To do this, you not only need to find some items that will serve as weights (I had some metal trim pieces that only had to be bent a certain way to grip the insides of the wheel rims), but you also have to remove the belt and blade and then see if the wheels, under the force of gravity, rotate by themselves when released so that the heavy part ends up at the bottom. You then put the weight at the top and see if the wheel no longer rotates by itself when released with the heavy section at the top. Experimentation is the order of the day.
I did some other things, too, and I will relate them when I do the review of my unit. However, the basic stuff I noted here should get you 90% to a solution.
Howard Ferstler
