My friend, and reader of this blog, continues troubleshooting his band saw. He requested I send him a photo of the guide post bracket for my 17-inch Grizzly. The following is the photo, which I also published on the blog two days ago:
The guide post bracket in my 17-inch band saw.
In the next photo I include a photo of the guide post bracket in the no-name band saw he purchased in Europe – it is similar in appearance to the bracket in the Grizzly:
The guide post bracket for the no-name band saw in Europe.
My friend in Europe continues to have real issues with his band saw. For example, where I show almost nil movement of the guide post when I loosen it, he has a lot of movement, and the locked position cannot be reproduced reliably. This means he must re-adjust the roller bearing guides every single time he loosens the guide post to move it. What a pain! And this is in addition to alignment problems described in an earlier post. Now he is trying to determine if there is a fix for the positioning problem, in addition to the alignment issue.
I wonder how many of you are having similar problems? It would be interesting to get a better feel for overall quality in the U.S. Maybe it is a matter of the sellers and distributors in this country defining all these requirements in specifications given to the company that makes the machines? My opinion is that, if not covered in a well-written specification document, quality will be an issue with machines coming off an assembly line, regardless the place of manufacture.
— Al Navas
About Al Navas
Have him check that the guide post it self is not bent either front to back or side to side. If it were even only slightly bent, as it is moved up or down the position of the guides relative to the blade would change.
To do so he should remove the guide post and check with a straightedge – doing so on the machine may not reveal a bend, if the bend is hidden by the adjustment mechanism.
If not bent, sorry to bother, if it is bent, replace or have the guide post machined to correct.
Thanks, Robert. I know he will read this, and give it a try.