Clarke 6x4 Bandsaw Restoration

[Screwdriver]

Yes mate your Bandsaw build was great too..am i right in thinking you have the big brother of this saw?

Yes it's the so called 7" version which is about twice the size of my previous 6".

Before an' after.

I can't imagine living without one now. Possibly the most useful item in the workshop for metalwork but especially woodworking.

 

[Turbo]

Next job on the assembly line was fitting the idler wheel (if that's the right name for it).

I hadn't taken the idler mount piece apart as it seemed to be well adjusted, so fitting it was simply a case of cleaning it up with a wire brush and replacing the mounting hex heads with cap heads:

View attachment 209093

Inside view:

View attachment 209094

Then the idler wheel went on, but for some reason I didn't take a photo of that.

Next up were the blade guide arms. If you look closely at the previous photo, you'll notice I hadn't taken the masking tape off the side surfaces that the blade guide arms run against. A quick run of a chisel down the edge sorted that out and then I put some white lithium grease on the running surface as I figured it couldn't hurt:

View attachment 209095

The blade guide arms went in next:

View attachment 209096

Just mounted with cap screws at the moment, although these are likely to be replaced with custom screws:

View attachment 209097

Next up was the blade guides themselves. I seem to have completely lost all the photos I took as I was dismantling the bandsaw (which is *really* annoying). It looks to me like I've lost some parts. This is one of the blade guides with a bearing placed roughly in its home:

View attachment 209098

That gap is too big for the bearing and it seems to me like there should a spacer either side. Can anyone else with this saw let me know what theirs looks like? It probably doesn't matter, but I decided to make some spacers. The gap was conveniently about twice the thickness of an M8 washer, so I got some M8 washers and drilled them out 9.1 mm.

View attachment 209099

Looks better to me.

The eccentrics went on next; here they are fitted with the bearings all ready to be added:

View attachment 209100

and bearings fitted:

View attachment 209101

and one of the blade guides on its arm:

View attachment 209102

There isn't normally washers either side of the blade guide back bearing, the pin is supposed to be a press fit in the bearing and locates it centrally in the guide. But when I swapped my bearings I had to add washers like you because the new bearings were loose on the old pin!

Too late now but you would have been better using rubber shielded bearings for the guides. They do originally have metal shielded ones like you fitted but they are not as good at keeping out the fine metal dust from cutting & eventually jam up.

As to the painting, you should have thinned the paint & applied several thin coats, allowing each one to dry fully before applying the next coat. If you 'trowel' it on like you did it will take weeks to dry, especially at this time of the year. The solvent in the paint has to evaporate for it to dry, it will take ages for the underlying paint to dry under the thick coat you applied!

 

[Dr.Al]

There isn't normally washers either side of the blade guide back bearing, the pin is supposed to be a press fit in the bearing and locates it centrally in the guide. But when I swapped my bearings I had to add washers like you because the new bearings were loose on the old pin!

I'd wondered if that was the case given that I couldn't find anything that could have been the original washers. The bearing was a tight fit on the shaft, but it seemed a lot easier to get it central with a couple of washers than trying to mess around pushing the shaft back and forth.

Too late now but you would have been better using rubber shielded bearings for the guides. They do originally have metal shielded ones like you fitted but they are not as good at keeping out the fine metal dust from cutting & eventually jam up.

I'd wondered about that too. It's not too big a deal to change them if they do jam up. I figured ZZ bearings are designed to keep bits of metal out so they're worth a try (the last ones seemed fine after a lot of years: I'm mostly changing them because it seemed a good idea). If the fine stuff gets and they look like they're suffering, at least I don't have to take the whole bandsaw apart to change them!

As to the painting, you should have thinned the paint & applied several thin coats, allowing each one to dry fully before applying the next coat. If you 'trowel' it on like you did it will take weeks to dry, especially at this time of the year. The solvent in the paint has to evaporate for it to dry, it will take ages for the underlying paint to dry under the thick coat you applied!

That makes sense. This is literally the first time I've done any proper metal painting. The information I found online about Tractol suggested it could be used without thinners (even spray painting, although that seems unlikely given the consistency). I applied it by brush and just allowed it to be the thickness that it was straight off the brush. The brush marks disappeared within 10–20 seconds, so I figured it was okay. It definitely looks a lot thicker than the original paint and I have no doubt it would have been better putting it on thinner. Ah well; live and learn...

 

[Dr.Al]

Note to self: it's a good idea to adjust the blade before fitting the blade guard.

Here it is fitted:

Here it is after a quick run of the bandsaw to see how the motor sounded:

Guess I'll be making a new one of those then...

 

[Dr.Al]

This is the blade cover:

If you look carefully, you'll see there are some holes in it. These appeared a few years ago when I hadn't tightened the blade tension screw enough and the blade walked its way off the drive pulley. I cleaned up the areas around the holes with a "non-woven preparation wheel" (I think that's what it was called) on the angle grinder:

Then had a go at very low current TIG welding. That was hard - I haven't done this much before.

Doesn't look fantastic, but I'll clean the welds up with a flap disk and see what it all looks like. Then I'll either just paint it and live with it or have another go.

 

[Dr.Al]

I finished the wiring off in the connection box. I'll have to replace the mains cable at some point: it's far too short (I'd stolen a bit of it for use elsewhere while the bandsaw was in pieces).

At least it's easy to replace the mains cable now: I don't have to route it all the way to the switch and muck about with the small crimp connectors that attach to the bottom of the switch.

Also fitted the blade and (after destroying the blade guard - see above) adjusted the eccentrics:

Seems to be running very nicely and it's very quiet with all the new bearings, so that's got to be a good thing.

Since putting the oil in the gearbox, I'd left it one night in horizontal configuration (where it normally lives) and one night with the arm vertical. When I got back to it after a night in vertical mode, there was a little bit of oil weeping out from under the cover, so it looks like the Flexoid Gasket Paper isn't doing the job.

I took the gasket out and used it as a template with some neoprene rubbery stuff that I bought as a fall-back:

That's now in place:

I'll leave it in each orientation for a day or two and see how it goes. If it refuses to seal, my first option will be to replace the acrylic sheet with something thicker (I've got a little bit of 10 mm clear acrylic so that should be a lot stiffer than the 5 mm that's there at the moment).

Not much more progress other than that; I've done a bit more on the tommy-bar screws but haven't taken any photos of them yet.

What with the blade guard, the gasket paper & trying to weld up a big hole in that thin blade cover, it's felt a bit like one step forward, two steps back this weekend. At least the power's connected and the blade goes round, so that's something.

 

[Carl Wilson]

Love seeing machines being restored and looked after like this. That er32 slide hammer idea is genius. One of those "why the f@#§k didn't I think of that?!" jobs.

Interesting to note the Flexoid gasket paper didn't seal. I've used that on my Harrison Mill feed gearbox.

 

[Screwdriver]

Good work though and well worth the effort. They are brilliant tools to have for making decent square cuts even in odd shaped materials.

 

[Dr.Al]

Good work though and well worth the effort. They are brilliant tools to have for making decent square cuts even in odd shaped materials.

It was cutting square before I took it apart, so I probably could have just put up with it for a lot longer. It was getting noisy (I think it was mostly the motor bearings) so did need some attention. I mainly started working on it for two reasons:

1. I wanted wheels on the bottom so I could move it around more easily (I'm seriously running out of space in the workshop)
2. I'd read a lot of restoration threads on this forum and wanted to have a go!

 

[Dr.Al]

One aspect of the restoration / upgrade I haven't quite worked out how to do is the vice handle. The original handle is a simple offset spinner that mounts on the end of the vice leadscrew. It's a right pain in the proverbial posterior to tighten and un-tighten when the bandsaw arm is down (as it's underneath the arm). My original plan had been to extend it and stick a full-circle handwheel on the end. That would be simple enough, but I bored a hole of the right size in the end of a bit of aluminium bar and put it on the end as a quick test. It wobbles all over the place as the lead screw either isn't very straight or (probably more likely) isn't very well constrained (it is constrained by a loose hole in the casting and by the thread in the nut).

Options I can think of at the moment:

1. Live with it and the standard handle (I don't think I want to do this really as it annoyed me pretty much every time I used the saw)
2. Live with the fact that an extension handle wouldn't go round and round in a very smooth way as the centre of the bar would be describing a circle rather than staying put.
3. Make & fit a coupling on the end of the vice screw and then build some sort of bracket that attaches to the base frame to support both ends of the extension bar (with the outer end being about 120 mm out from the end of the lower casting).
4. Fit some sort of gear/pulley mechanism to move the centre of rotation of the vice screw down a bit (making sure that the direction of rotation stays the same) so at least it doesn't trap my hand between the handle and the upper casting.

Option 1 will just make me annoyed; option 2 will be a bit naff, option 3 will be a LOT of work and option 4 just seems daft. Any better ideas?

 

[mm289]

Great work dr.al - well worth the effort

MM

 

[Screwdriver]

I find the "steering wheel" type handle the easiest to use but it is a pain to get to no matter what.

 

[Turbo]

I'd wondered if that was the case given that I couldn't find anything that could have been the original washers. The bearing was a tight fit on the shaft, but it seemed a lot easier to get it central with a couple of washers than trying to mess around pushing the shaft back and forth.



I'd wondered about that too. It's not too big a deal to change them if they do jam up. I figured ZZ bearings are designed to keep bits of metal out so they're worth a try (the last ones seemed fine after a lot of years: I'm mostly changing them because it seemed a good idea). If the fine stuff gets and they look like they're suffering, at least I don't have to take the whole bandsaw apart to change them!



That makes sense. This is literally the first time I've done any proper metal painting. The information I found online about Tractol suggested it could be used without thinners (even spray painting, although that seems unlikely given the consistency). I applied it by brush and just allowed it to be the thickness that it was straight off the brush. The brush marks disappeared within 10–20 seconds, so I figured it was okay. It definitely looks a lot thicker than the original paint and I have no doubt it would have been better putting it on thinner. Ah well; live and learn...

The other advantage of rubber sealed bearings is that its easy to get the seals off without damaging them so you can wash them out & repack with fresh grease!

 

[Turbo]

Note to self: it's a good idea to adjust the blade before fitting the blade guard.

Here it is fitted:

View attachment 209449

Here it is after a quick run of the bandsaw to see how the motor sounded:

View attachment 209450

Guess I'll be making a new one of those then...

That's one of the first things I got rid on on mine, it gets in the way & traps the cutting dust so that it sits around the side blade guide bearings!

 

[Turbo]

This is the blade cover:

View attachment 209451

If you look carefully, you'll see there are some holes in it. These appeared a few years ago when I hadn't tightened the blade tension screw enough and the blade walked its way off the drive pulley. I cleaned up the areas around the holes with a "non-woven preparation wheel" (I think that's what it was called) on the angle grinder:

View attachment 209452

View attachment 209453

Then had a go at very low current TIG welding. That was hard - I haven't done this much before.

View attachment 209454

View attachment 209455

View attachment 209456

Doesn't look fantastic, but I'll clean the welds up with a flap disk and see what it all looks like. Then I'll either just paint it and live with it or have another go.

Same thing happened to my saw only mine was cut completely in two! Removed it & used the saw with no guard & I've never got around to welding it together again!

 

[roofman]

they make nice vertical saws too..i made a stainless bed for mine and use it a lot

 

[Dr.Al]

they make nice vertical saws too..i made a stainless bed for mine and use it a lot

That looks nice. A vertical saw table is on my list of upgrades. I understand there's a flimsy rubbish one that was supposed to come with the saw, but that was long gone by the time I bought it. I've cut quite a lot of stuff in vertical mode by just resting it on the blade guard, but it's not very safe or conducive to straight cuts.

I'm quite tempted to plagiarise @drmico60's permanently attached fold-away version.

 

[zx9]

Here it is after a quick run of the bandsaw to see how the motor sounded:

Guess I'll be making a new one of those then...

I would not bother making new ones they seem quite happy running without them, I have seen brush bars fitted in an attempt to keep swarf out of the bearings but again not something I have felt the need for.

I understand there's a flimsy rubbish one that was supposed to come with the saw, but that was long gone by the time I bought it. I've cut quite a lot of stuff in vertical mode by just resting it on the blade guard, but it's not very safe or conducive to straight cuts.

The standard table though little more than a token gesture is safer and more accurate than just resting the work on the blade guide. Making a replacement table is on the long list of 'one day I'll get around to it' projects that may never happen.

I'm quite tempted to plagiarise @drmico60's permanently attached fold-away version.

Good idea if a little bulky, perhaps a permanently mounted attachment plate with captive fixings on the table to ease fitting would be a compromise.

 

[RichardM]

"Then had a go at very low current TIG welding. That was hard - I haven't done this much before."
Did you try clamping some aluminium to the back to act as a heat sink?

 

[Dr.Al]

"Then had a go at very low current TIG welding. That was hard - I haven't done this much before."
Did you try clamping some aluminium to the back to act as a heat sink?

Nope. But that probably would have been a good idea - thanks! I did have it resting on a block of aluminium, but only because it was a convenient conductive flat surface.