Doall V-26 Bandsaw Ratchet

Hoping this may help some others if ever stuck with the same problem. I have an old Doall V26 that I’m getting back into serviceable condition. I noticed that the table trunnion was loose.

There’s a handle sticking out of the front of the machine that says “ratchet to tighten/loosen.” I was finally able to figure out that this handle was indeed some kind of ratchet. But it was frozen. Turning the handle either way turned whatever nut was on the shaft. After putting some solvent to it, it suddenly ratcheted! A little knob on the end of the handle could be turned to make the ratchet either tighten or loosen.

Unfortunately this discovery was short lived. An hour later, it was stuck where it turned the nut no matter which direction you moved the handle. No ratchet action.

Because of the design, if you can’t get the ratchet to loosen, there’s pretty much no way to get the whole mechanism off. I finally resorted to cutting the handle off so I could unthread it. And here’s what’s inside...



There’s a little cam pinned to end of the shaft. When you turn the shaft the cam kicks out one of the pawls. What I found after destroying it is that the pin holding the cam to the shaft sheared.


Oh, and it’s a 5/8-18 thread. Why the heck use a fine thread?


And ignore the shoulder bolt in the first picture. Unrelated.

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Amazing. Hopeless you might say. Later they would throw out this wretched idea and go with a hand wheel driving the screw thru bevel gears - barely any improvement - you still have to turn the hand wheel way too many turns to loosen or tighten table tilt binder on my 36-13-2 from 1973. Must have taken DAYS to do it with a ratchet

Yep. Kind of a poor design in my opinion.


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