Hood
I am obsessed.
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- 17,765
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- Carnoustie, Scotland
My Imet bandsaws swivel bow seized up, probably due to lack of use as I have spent so much time recently working away from the workshop.
It started to get hard to swivel a few weeks ago but once I got it moving it was fine but when I tried today I just couldn't budge it.
I had looked for some lube points but couldn't find any at all. I knew @Brad93 had a similar saw so I asked if he knew of any but he said he had looked and couldn't see any.
I gave it a quick clean and found some cap screws on the vice section, you could hardly see them due to being filled in with saw dust (I suppose that is what you call it
)
Cleaned them out ready for removal.
Once removed I was able to lift the vice casting away, it was fairly heavy but not too bad.
This is what I saw underneath.
It looked worse than it was as it mainly consisted of hard dried grease with some old coolant.
I removed the set screws and ring and after a wipe with a rag it looked ok. It still wouldn't budge so I tried to swivel it round with a jack, it moved but was hard going
I borrowed an engine crane as I was going to have to try and lift off vertically, Once the crane was hooked up I started prising up with a crow bar, all of a sudden the whole swivel arm casting and bow casting popped off and if the crane hadn't been there it would have been upside down on the floor. Probably a few hundred Kg in it.
I had been expecting the swivel casting to be a good fit all the way down the base casting but in reality it was only a machined section of probably 20-25mm that the swivel casting sat on and not the full 150mm or so.
I forgot to take pics of the swivel/bow castings removed so the next pic is showing them sitting back on and the machined sections greased up.
It still was very hard to turn but that was because of the unbalanced nature of it and it was coggled on the base casting because of that.
I refitted the centre ring which is basically there just to provide a rough centering ring for the vice casting to sit over.
Once I lifted and fitted the vice casting and tightened the cap screws it leveled itself out and rotated very freely so job done.
I could however have saved myself a lot of time and effort as now I know it is the vice casting and swivel casting that are the main bearing parts. So in future if it starts to seize all I need to do is slacken the three cap screws, lift the vice section enough to get in with something thin to clean any gunge then squirt some oil or grease in and tighten the vice back down.
I did bore and tap the swivel casting for a grease nipple (at approx 8 o'clock in the pic) but it probably won't help that much but certainly won't harm.
Hopefully this will be of help to @Brad93 for when he does his and likely a lot of other swivel bow bandsaws will have a similar construction so may help others.
It started to get hard to swivel a few weeks ago but once I got it moving it was fine but when I tried today I just couldn't budge it.
I had looked for some lube points but couldn't find any at all. I knew @Brad93 had a similar saw so I asked if he knew of any but he said he had looked and couldn't see any.
I gave it a quick clean and found some cap screws on the vice section, you could hardly see them due to being filled in with saw dust (I suppose that is what you call it
)Cleaned them out ready for removal.
Once removed I was able to lift the vice casting away, it was fairly heavy but not too bad.
This is what I saw underneath.
It looked worse than it was as it mainly consisted of hard dried grease with some old coolant.
I removed the set screws and ring and after a wipe with a rag it looked ok. It still wouldn't budge so I tried to swivel it round with a jack, it moved but was hard going
I borrowed an engine crane as I was going to have to try and lift off vertically, Once the crane was hooked up I started prising up with a crow bar, all of a sudden the whole swivel arm casting and bow casting popped off and if the crane hadn't been there it would have been upside down on the floor. Probably a few hundred Kg in it.
I had been expecting the swivel casting to be a good fit all the way down the base casting but in reality it was only a machined section of probably 20-25mm that the swivel casting sat on and not the full 150mm or so.
I forgot to take pics of the swivel/bow castings removed so the next pic is showing them sitting back on and the machined sections greased up.
It still was very hard to turn but that was because of the unbalanced nature of it and it was coggled on the base casting because of that.
I refitted the centre ring which is basically there just to provide a rough centering ring for the vice casting to sit over.
Once I lifted and fitted the vice casting and tightened the cap screws it leveled itself out and rotated very freely so job done.
I could however have saved myself a lot of time and effort as now I know it is the vice casting and swivel casting that are the main bearing parts. So in future if it starts to seize all I need to do is slacken the three cap screws, lift the vice section enough to get in with something thin to clean any gunge then squirt some oil or grease in and tighten the vice back down.
I did bore and tap the swivel casting for a grease nipple (at approx 8 o'clock in the pic) but it probably won't help that much but certainly won't harm.
Hopefully this will be of help to @Brad93 for when he does his and likely a lot of other swivel bow bandsaws will have a similar construction so may help others.
(can't find the pix)
