Tool Tuneup #2: Rikon Bandsaw Tuneup

One thing I noticed while building my Roubo was that there appeared to be some uncorrected blade drift and inaccuracy in my bandsaw. I have to admit, taking the time to tune it up properly has been on my todo list for a long time, but I’d never gotten around to it. Since this is Tool Tuneup week, I decided it was finally time.

The top and bottom doors lift off their pins quite easily, which makes it easier to remove the blade.

Then I loosed the four bolts and removed the table.

The first thing I noticed was that the bottom wheel was missing the retaining bolt and washer! This could certainly explain the trouble I had dialing in the cut on this before!

I sent some mail over to Rikon Tools, and Al Goldstein responded promptly that he’d put the missing parts in the mail. I had them within a day. Props to Rikon for their excellent support!

I took some time to vacuum and blow out the spare dust with compressed air, and checked over the bandsaw tires to make sure they were still in good shape, then moved on to the actual tuneup phase.

First I joined up some spare stock and checked the wheels to ensure they were coplanar.

Once I had the wheels coplanar, I checked the table, and noticed it was significantly canted forward. I ended up shimming the table lightly just to get it somewhat closer to level. I’d fine tune that later with paper shims.

Then I began the blade mounting and tuneup. Step 1 was to retract the guide bearings and mount the blade, making sure the blade spins freely without any bearing contact.

Lower bearings too!

Then I checked the blade tension, and (just spinning the wheels by hand) made sure the blade was tracking correctly.

With that set appropriately, you can bring the bearings carefully back in almost-contact with the blade. I use about a business card’s distance from the blade.

The final test was to make sure the table is perpendicular to the blade.

Front-to-back required some shimming, and this was as close as I could get it. There’s just a hair gap up top of my 12” square. Close enough for me!

I also checked and fine tuned my 90 degree table stop.

I then did a final check, made sure I cleaned up the tools and re-installed the fence, and hooked up the DC for a test run.

Everything checked out, so I grabbed some four quarter 7 inch ash stock and did a quick resaw test.

I got myself a nice consistent slice a hair over 1/4”.

That’ll do it!