A Free Bandsaw Reborn

I spent the last week or so cleaning up and repairing the free bandsaw I got a while back.  It's a 12 inch Craftsman bandsaw made during the 80s.

The saw ended up being in pretty good shape, it just needed tons of cleaning.  I took the entire band saw apart down to the nuts and bolts, cleaned it, and re-assembled it.  The wheel bearings were in decent shape.  I re-packed one of the bearings with grease since the original grease had fossilized.

The original table insert had gone missing and a replacement insert costs more than I think it's worth so I made my own using a fly cutter on my drill press to cut a circular insert out of one-eighth inch hardboard.

The only thing that truly needed to be replaced was the band saw tires, since they were both in some state of disintegration.  The motor belt was a bit worn which I suspect was adding some additional vibration to the machine, so I replaced it as well.  Even the blade wasn't in terrible shape.

The final report is that it cuts pretty well even up to around 4" thick wood.  I haven't tried anything thicker yet, but the motor doesn't seem to strain.  All told I spent about $30 in parts.  Not bad for a decent band saw.

I did eventually invest in a 3tpi blade to try out the re-saw capability.  The new blade cuts through wood like butter; now I just need to make a resawing sled so I can start to saw small logs into boards.  But that is a post for another day...

A Free Roller Cabinet

I was walking in my neighborhood the other day and came across a decrepit roller cabinet that someone had put out for the trash.  It was one of those bright red sheet metal things that mechanics use (or at least I assume mechanics use them, but maybe that's a stereotype).

I had planned on building some kind of a stool or small table to hold up a toolchest that I'll also be building soon.  But maybe I can use this sheet metal thing instead and save myself some effort, and keep something out of a landfill too.

Before I could use it, the cabinet needed some attention.  The cabinet door was included but was off its runners and just lying inside the cabinet.  The drawer runners were a little mis-aligned.  The bottom of the cabinet was pretty rusty.  And the casters looked like they had been replaced at some point but rather than drill new holes for the casters, they had just put one bolt through one (of four) mounting holes in the caster.

I worked on the drawer and cabinet door runners and got them working properly again.  The casters it came with were in good shape, they just needed proper mounting holes drilled.  I sanded off the rusty parts of the bottom of the cabinet and sprayed on a coat of red gloss paint for protection.

It's still a little ugly but the cabinet works now and I've already found some uses for it around the shop.