Bandsaw, lower bearing guides

[Peter Huebner]

My new Jet has ball bearing guides. Stacked bearings, which is nice so I can narrow them when I have to; very nifty mechanism: the bearings are riding on an excenter that you can rotate and lock in place to effect adjustment, nothing could be easier.

Except, well, the lower bearings pick up sawdust, don't they. Upon which they start howling uproriously. At that point I can usually not be bothered to go clean them so I just back them off a bit, but that's not really what I want to do, is it? I do not have them as tight as a ciggy paper sized gap in the first place.

Anything I could do easily? Would a couple of toothbrushes mounted to clean the bearings work in your opinion?

-P.

[Leon]

I had the same problem with the Rikon that I bought and returned. Noisy roller bearings. Way noisy if you cut wet wood that has not been dried. They then go bang as the wood chips stick and get bigger like a snow ball.

I prefer the ceramic guides. No moving parts.

[Peter Huebner]

Ironically, I would've preferred to get rotating disk or block guides - which is what virtually all the other saws on offer had. But the Jet's workmanship was a standout - head and shoulders above all the other Chinese/Taiwanese made saw, so I figured I'd put up with the ball bearing guides. Little did I know just how much of a din they can make! Still think I got the best bang for buck, by the way, the saw is a sweetie in all other respects :-)

-P.

[Bruce Barnett]

I had a similar problem with my Jet, (the bearings were getting clogged, and stopped moving) and at first I got the bearing upgrades from Iturra, but then I got the ceramic bearings. Once in a while I rotate them so the lines wear evenly.

[George]

There you are. Perfection is a dream, shortcomings reality. If it's "better than" where it counts, you just have to put up with what you have, or put in the ceramics, which I would do, especially if I were sawing damp wood. Actually, it's what I have, and what I do.

[John L. Poole]

FYI, I have the Powermatic which is suppose to be a sister to one of the Jet models and determined the bearing to have the following dimensions: Inner diameter: 8mm Outer diameter: 22mm width: 7mm

When I visited Powermatic's parent site and entered in the part number for the bearings, their search came back empty.

I found a supplier of roller skate bearings

and ordered 20 bearings as follows:

2ISB 20 ABEC-7 inline Skate, rollerblade hockey Ball Bearings 1 $14.95 $14.95 Shipping:UPS Ground: $7.22 Sales Tax: $1.72 Total: $23.80

The bearings have arrived, I haven't been able to test them out, but I fitted one on the the lower bearing spindle I removed and it seems to match up to the original equipment bearing nicely.