Carsten Avenhaus's bandsaw

My bandsaw is a hybrid between your 16" Band Saw and your 14" Band Saw. It has 16" wheels and trunions but uses the simpler upper wheel mount which gives it 30cm (11.8") resaw capacity. It is powered by a 1.5 HP, 1725 RPM motor from Grizzly (G2534).

Here are some images from the build. The frame was laminated on top of a thick wooden Ikea counter top to prevent any twist.

After laminating the wheels I cut them round on the table saw. A simple jig on top of my cross cut sled allowed me to do this while they were mounted on their 1" shaft. This ensures that they are true when they are mounted on the bandsaw later on. I should have just tilted the blade which would probably have produced a perfect crown. Instead I wanted to follow your guide, so I bought some turning tools. Since I had no turning experience I did not know that tools fresh from the factory need to be sharpened first. Needless to say my efforts to turn a crown were quite frustrating. In the end the crown looked ok to me, but without blade guides the saw blade kept moving back and forth about a centimeter on the wheels.

In the end I decided to use a trim router to create the crown. I had a X/Y vise and just made a holder for the router. This worked very well and resulted in a very accurate crown which eliminated all the tracking problems.

A small change from your plans is the lower blade guide. I wanted the blade to ride on the side of the bearing as it does for the top guide. I also added some accessories like a $10 Ikea LED work light, and a hook to hold the cable. My workshop is very small, so I tuck the saw away in a corner when not in use. The back of the saw has a lot of unused space under the table, so I added another hook for my saw blades there.

The passive dust collection wokrs ok for the big/heavy dust, but my Dylos particle monitor still showed significant amounts of fine dust. Adding a shop vac dust port helps in this regard. I mostly use it when I have to do a lot of sawing. Otherwise I can just close it off with a piece of wood that slides in.

Originally I wanted to build a fancy fence that can be adjusted for blade drift. But as it turns out the saw runs so true there is actually no drift I need to worry about. I can simply use a framing square as fence when ever I need one. What a testament to your excellent plans! I did make a simple resaw fence though.

The table has a miter slot which I usually close up with a wooden bar to prevent debris from getting caught in it. But I do use it quite often for my circle cutting jig and miter gauge.

More of Carsten's projects: