Bandsaw question

When I started at a new job, about a year ago, I noticed an old bandsaw with the blade running the wrong way.

The guys there said it had always run that way, and they hadn't realised that it was running backwards.

They did moan about how often the blade came off the wheels, which stands to reason because the drive wheel is pushing the blade through the job, instead of pulling

I lifted the cover of the drive wheel and saw a metal arrow rivetted to the wheel (denoting rotation) and was quite surprised to see that the machine (a Wespa) was indeed going in the direction of the arrow.

My question is: is there any advantage to having the blade go in this unorthodox direction, or has the machine been wired up wrong and the 'easy fix' was to turn the rotation arrow through 180 degrees?

There is a reason for it. John Stevenson has a saw setup the same way. If the blade bites the work, it will bounce out of the cut rather than pull deeper into the cut. If blade tension is correct, the drive/idler wheel configuration shouldn't matter much.

My Rusch horizontal pushes the blade. I was leafy at first, but that one cutting SOB. Best $50 I've ever spent in the shop...maybe ever.

Unorthodox approach is fine. Some even make good cuts with unorthodox direction.

James
Band Saw Blade Drift | BandSawBlogBandSawBlog

I was driving down the street a couple months ago and I saw a yard sale. Very noticeable was a radial arm saw. I decided to have al ook at it and it was an older Craftsman, nothing super but fairly well built and in very good shape. The young guy who owned said it had been his father's and wound up with it when he died. He said he put an new blade on it but it never worked very well so he was selling it. I figured for the $30 he was asking I'd take a chance so I loaded it up. Later that day I had some time to look it over and sure enough it didn't cut worth a crap - lots of smoking and burned wood from the start. I took a peek at the blades and noticed he had installed it backwards. I flipped it around and she cuts pretty well.