Frivolous At Heart

[ratings]
I picked up an AMT 14″ bandsaw and the trunnion was broken. It was cast aluminum (very thin when cast) and so it broke. This is very common of Taiwanese bandsaws. Harbor Freight, Northern Tool, Grizzly- all sale Taiwanese and or Chinese made bandsaws and the parts are interchangeable 99% of the time. They are just marketed under different names and have very little change to differentiate btwn brands etc. Get cast iron trunnions if you can afford it! Lesson learned!

I got it for a sweet deal too! Forty-Five dollars for it and a 32″ wood lathe. I’m fixing to sell the wood lathe though plus the old bandsaw table as well. The bandsaw table is cast iron and it’s quite good castings might I add! If only the trunnions would hold up, I would of had a solid table. Knowing me, I’ll probably upgrade the table anyways just “because”. Well I needed a larger working area and that it must be plumb with the blade. So I made this:

The piece of aluminum you see there, is a bracket to hold the iron frame together. Without it, there wouldn’t be no possible way of putting or taking off the blade. Plus the thick aluminum bracket helps square everything out. I tell ya what, I’m not using bed frame irons anymore unless I’m cutting it with an abrasive disc. The high carbon cold rolled steel is extremely hard! It ruins drill bits and saw blade of any kind in minutes!

My welds look like crap because I forgot to turn on the gas while MIG welding. You can see it with the photo below:

I made the top out of ply nailed to particle board. Reason is because the particle board is smooth and uniform and the ply is for strength. Both combined, will withstand twisting and the surface will always be true. Provided the surface it lies on, is true. I chose melamine to be on top because it allows things to “glide” over it without much friction.

I’ll soon upgrade this with slide railes and I will convert this bandsaw to a metal cutting bandsaw!

Update 09/29/07:

Gear Reducer: Browning Gear
Ratio: 15.1
RPM: 1750
Input HP: 2.61 Output: 1252 Lb. Inch
Shaft: 7/8in/1 1/8in

Reduction Pulleys:
1 sku # 6245K51 : 6″ pulley
2 sku # 6204K515 : 2.70″ pulley
3 sku # 6204K246 : 4.45″ pulley

2.70″ + 6.000″ = 52rpm (metal cutting)
4.45″ + 5.875″ = 88rpm (aluminum cutting)

This is the photo of the gear reducer. It has both 2.70″ & 4.45″ pulleys on there. My bandsaw is out of commission because it is waiting to be hooked up to the reducer. Too bad the 6″ pulley can’t fit on there. I’ll have to take my losses and not get the projected rpm I’ve set. I’ll get 53rpm & 88rpm. I’ll be happy with that. I will cut steel and aluminum just fine. I’ll need to get bi-metal blades for it soon. I have supercut carbon steel on there right now (purchased at northertool.com).

More PHOTOS coming!

[ratings]
I’ve always been pretty head-strong about recycling -anything- and I just started recycling aluminum cans (again). I find that storing them in the 5-gallon buckets will not suffice since I have so many of them! I need a aluminum can crusher or something. So I got one- from ebay that is=) I can’t wait for it to arrive because I know I’ll get a kick out of it every time I crush a can.

I have lots of nieces and nephews and I’m sure they’ll love to use the “can crusher” (lol). Maybe I’ll still store them in the bucket and then wait for them to come over and let them have at it in the shop. They’ll probably fight over how many cans one should each crush- it’ll be so much fun! Maybe a good stress reducer and joy inducer too!

The other day I heard that glass bottles are more environmental friendly? I think they pose more of a danger when stepped on vs stepping on an aluminum can don’t you think? Likewise, we will run into issues of environmental issues such as pollution and to see if it’s worth recycling them at all. Takes more energy to recycle something than it does making them. The fact it, recycling something takes it out of the landfills and put back into better use. I like that idea more even though it’s using more energy i.e causing more pollution but hell, we can’t prevent everything. It’s a domino affect in every thing.

Talking about landfills…, how in the hell are all those things being crushed and buried? I don’t know I’m off tangent here but isn’t burying trash bad? I always thought that the trash will be a “filter” if you may, that will filter our water and so on and so forth. It’s bad practice. Why don’t we just separate (I know, more work but the end result yields efficiency), burn, and recycle? I know for sure that the landfill a city away is no longer burying their “shit” and is now burning them. It’s good for the waste company because they get free energy that the originally had charged the consumer to come and throw away their trash (fuel).

I want to finish school. Get a job and save up $500,000. Isn’t that everyone else’s dream? So typical are these dreams that they seldom come true. I hope mine does… I have larger dreams but this one will be my primer. Wish me well!