Riser blocks, anyone make their own?

[Geo]

Has anyone ever made their own 6" riser block to expand their 14" bandsaws? Couldn't a 6" block of wood, drilled in the middle to accept a lag bolt, suffice instead of store bought aftermarket systems? I ask this because I just got back from a lunch trip looking for a riser kit, but the guy at the "orange" place didn't even know what one was and didn't seem all that inclined to look it up. Accross the street, the guy at the "blue" place looked at me with a puzzled look (clearly not knowing what a riser block was) and in an attempt to make it look like he did know blew me off with a "we don't have that item here" and bolted as quickly as he could.

[Cyrille de Brébisson]

Hello,

I have that same 14" band saw, brought at the "orange" place, and, because I have access to a machine shop, I was planning to make a raiser block for mine too!!! so I am quite interested!!!

To be honnest, I do not think that a lag bolt with a hardwood raiser would work, the metal for the bolt is suposed to be hardened in order to resist tensile tention in a BIG way and the block has to be dimentionally stable.... in addition, you also need to be the blage gard and extention thingy...

If you are not in a hurrly to get that done, I might be able to machine 2 sets of peices instead of 1 to do both saw at once :-)

cyrille

[Geo]

I guess I'm not in a huge hurry but I just cut down two dead black cherry's in my yard that I was hoping to start re-sawing this weekend. Still, I am interested in your solution so if you could either email or post the details that would be great. Thanks!

[BobGramza]

put this one on mine. Works perfect.

[Hax Planx]

Try Ridgidparts.com, or get the Grizzly.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Following your logit to conclusionk why not buld your own saw from wood? Metal performs better and can take the stresses from the tension of the blade. I'm sure any machinist could whip one up quick. IIRC, the kits include other parts like the blade guard.

[no(SPAM)vasys]

Once you extend the frame what will do about the bar for the blade guides and the blade guard?

FYI - If you do a Google search I think you'll find the riser kit from Grizzly fits the Ridgid 14" bandsaw. It's about $60.00.

[Australopithecus scobis]

rats, I can't find the best link, the plywood bandsaw.

[mac davis]

A: If wood was cool, why would everyone selling them make them out of iron or steel?

b: Is it worth the trouble? I paid less than $60 including shipping and handling for my riser KIT from Amazon..

c: KIT?? yep.. it isn't just the block, it 's also longer guards on both sides, a longer rod for the upper guides to ride on and a 105" blade...

d: if you subtract the above, you'll probably see that the actual riser block is costing about $15...

e: YMMV

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

[mac davis]

Yes.. I put the griz kit on my ridgid BS... The modern marketing trend continues: it was less expensive at Amazon than at Grizzly, but the riser kit that I ordered from Amazon was drop shipped to me from Griz.. lol

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

[Andy Dingley]

Doubtful. You could do this, but if you made a riser block of wood to fit an iron saw, the cross-section is still going to be sized to fit the crush-strength of iron, not timber. There have been plenty of timber framed bandsaws, but they have frames made of wider sections.

If you do try it, pick your timber carefully. I'd use elm.

[Andy Dingley]

If you're just rigging this as a one-off for thick resawing, you don't need the ability to lower the guides.

[Gerald Ross]

In addition to the bolt, mine has roll pins top & bottom to help keep it straight. The top and bottom surfaces have to be exactly parallel, otherwise it would throw the saw out of alignment.

[Frank Campbell]

For what it is worth the first bandsaw I ever used had a frame made of wood, several layers of fir plywood laminated together. Saw worked just fine for the fellow that built it to finish the inside of a 36' sailboat. I later purchased a 14" Dewalt and had a rush job to do 8" thick, in those days the riser was a special order and not available for weeks. I made a 3" riser from a chunk of maple, drilled a hole through the center for a longer bolt and holes for the alignment pins. Though it was a temporary fix I never did take it out, designed guards for the blade and extended the shaft for the guides. Sold the saw several years later with it still installed.

[fredfighter]

Supposing you make one of these out of steel or iron, how large a saw CAN you reasonably make?

[fredfighter]

Just to be clear, by "one of these" I meant a riser block that could be used on an off-the-shelf 14" band saw.

How large do they make resaw blades that would fit the wheels?

[Andy Dingley]

Hard question. 14" wheels will only track a narrow blade, so it's a question of how long a stable section of blade you can support, given the limits on blade width and tension. As a typical 14" saw can physically fit a 1" blade maximum, but can't adequately tension anything over 5/8", that's not a good starting point.

If you're going to build yourself a machine for resawing, start with bigger wheels. It's going to be the blade that's the limit, not a fairly easy problem in getting some rise into the frame.

If you can find something like the Hitachi resaw with the 3" wide blade, then you could probably stretch the frame of that to something quite enormous with good results. However you're then putting a lot of tension into a tightly curved blade over those small wheels, and so blade life might start to suffer. Ideally you fatigue fracture the blade just about the same time you wear the teeth out - do one much before the other and you're losing potential lifetime.

However long you want them - a decent blade shop welds them up to order, although they'll keep a few common sizes on hand. If you buy your blades from a real industrial supplier you'll find better quality, better prices, and a far better range of teeth than buying at retail.

[no(SPAM)vasys]

I don't think I'd go much over 6". Tensioning the blade would be a problem with the additional leverage added by the riser.

You can get a blade welded to any length you want but the limiting factor would be the motor's horsepower. My 3/4 HP has a really hard time pulling a new blade through 11" of oak.

[Randy]

The ideal tension would be the same regardless of the distance between the wheels, but due to the increased length between centers, your going to have to stretch the longer blade further to get it. At some point you will lengthen the saw until you run out of adjustment before you can get to the tension.

The other issue will be the amount of deflecti> >>

[Andy Dingley]

The force on the wheel spring to generate a given tension in the blade is independent of the length of blade. Usually we adjust blades to give an approximately constant pressure for the blade material, i.e. tension / blade width.

However the tension required to keep a blade tracking straight.will increase with the length of the unsupported blade. At some point this will exceed the allowable pressure for a blade of that width. So there's a limit on how long you can make a thin blade, or how narrow you can make a long blade.

I'm assuming that this saw is built out of 14" wheels bought as spare parts, but the frame is welded box section steel and the spring tensioning arrangement is also built new to suit. As you state, it's going to need more spring travel. IMHO, the standard springs on 14" bandsaws aren't up to the job for the original height anyway and are improved by replacement with a better spring of thinner, stiffer wire that can achieve the same force with less risk of coil binding.