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machining my bandsaw sawmill wheels

mark ct

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jul 26, 2002
Location
northfield ct usa
heres some pics of machining the wheels that im gona use for building a bandsaw mill, i used alloy wheels from the junkyard and cut them down with a skilsaw as you can see in the first pic
marksawedrim.JPG
 
i them mounted them up in my poor mans gap bed lathe, also known as a cincinati horizontal mill, they are bolted to a round plate and that is held in the 4 jaw chuck and i indicated them to run true, then started turning the od to make it flat and eliminate the radius and bead lock groove
markmachiningwheel1.JPG
 
heres another pic, i was surprised that one wheel which was an original gm wheel machined beautifuly, nice hard aluminum that wasnt gummy at all, left a very nice finish and made great chips, but the second wheel which had no manufacturer mark was terribly gummy and requred cutting oil at all times
markwheel2.JPG
 
here is the second wheel, this will be the one on the end that is just an idler, i am using the hub from a rear axle of a front wheel drive car, but since the hub will need to be mounted to the backside of the bandsaw wheel (what would have been the outside of the wheel when it was on a car) i had to machine the pocket in the center a hair bigger and perfectly flat, i did this with a boring bar mounted in the toolholder
markcenterbore.JPG
 
Hi Mark, Its good to see ingenuity is still alive and well. I remember seeing a guy machining balls on a mill, he mounted the part on the arbor and the tool on a rotary table.What I really noticed in your picture was the Kanatec Mag Drill. 20 years ago I suggested to Millwakee,in one of their surveys, that they would do well to make a small mag drill. Must have fallen on deaf ears, I have 4 mag drills and 2 of them are Kanatecs with 1/2" milwakees.My other drills are a millwakee and bux and I never use them now. Those Kanatecs are worth their weight in gold, I drill and tap with them constantly.Every time I use them somone wants to know where to get one. TRy drilling and taping 20 1/4-20 holes by hand,do the same with a Kanatec and you'll be sold :D Martin
 
ok lotsa questions to answer, the rims i got from a junkyard, i have no idea what they are from, i just chose ones that had a wide enough lip where the bead sits and ones that were 16 inch and had enough meat to machine. as for mounting the chuck, its just bolted right to the 4 tapped holes in the end of the spindle, i drilled and counterbored the 4 jaw chuck to accept the bolts and it just bolts flat to the face of the spindle. and lastly the magbore drill, i got that of ebay for 250 bucks, without the drill, it was made to take the smaller pistol grip milwaukee drills but i like the larger more tourquey motor of the d handle milwaukee drills so i got a d handle drill from a pawn show for 125 bucks and then machined the mounting bracket to accept the slightly wider body of the drill and to give a place to bolt the sidehandle bolt thru. i love the thing, i havent had it very long but its great, i have been thinking of making a 1 inch spacer block to go between the magnet and the body of the drill press tho because its a hair too short to use with my silver deming drill bits
 
oh and yes the table has power feeds, i never thought of a tailstock on the overarm but i dont see why it wouldnt work, i basicly just used it because my regular lathe wouldnt turn such a large dia, normal turning i do in my 10 inch logan, and by the way the machine is 40 taper not 50, altho a 50 taper adapter may fit,it just had a 40 when i got it, but the part that is actualy made into the spindle is some big very slight taper, and then the 40 taper adapter fits into that, i think its all original but i dont know, its a number 2 cincinati mill, pre dial type
 
umm i wasnt going to, the wheels on our horizontal bandsaw at work are the same way, a flat metal wheel with a shoulder and i checked them again and there is no crown at all, same with my bandsaw at home, our big rockwell verticle saw doesnt appear to have any crown either, and that one has just flat wheels no shoulder like mine, but its hard to tell on the rockwell cause they are rubber covered wheels
 
Mart ct,

I was looking searching for sawmills and found your info some months back. You mentioned photos but I did not see any. I built a sawmill in 1999. It has 8 hydraulic circuits and will cut 28" x 26' logs. I'd like to compare notes.
 








 
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