• It's time to cast your vote in the April 2025 Turning Challenge. (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Steve Bonny for "A Book Holds What Time Lets Go" being selected as Turning of the Week for 28 April, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Rikon 14 inch 10-326 blade guides

Randy Anderson

Randy Anderson

Beta Tester
Beta Tester
Joined
May 25, 2019
Messages
982
Likes
1,538
Location
Eads, TN
Website
canthony.gallery
I have a Rikon 14" 10-326 bandsaw. I really like it but am getting tired of cleaning the bottom side bearings on the blade guide. I keep spare sets, take the covers off, clean them out, oil them and replace on a regular basis. Since I cut a lot green wood they get full of gunk and bind up very quickly. A common issue and I know lots of folks replace the lower bearings with blade guides. I've read through some of the posts here and wonder if anyone has replaced the bearings on a saw like mine and if so, is there a kit or after market setup that I can get that fits my saw? I'll do some online searches but hoping someone has done this on my model before and can save me some time.
 
I cut a fair amount of green wood and get a lot of gunk on the blade and a little on the bearings, but I've never cleaned a bearing. When they get gunk caked on them I scrape it off with my fingernail. (I clean the blade by putting a piece of hard wood up against the side of the blade while the saw is running, though sometimes I have to spray either of them with "lube", mentioned below, to get it off.)

One thing I do that seems to help prevent gunk build-up is to spray the running blade with PAM, or a cheap Wally World equivalent. Generally, it's the inside or left side of the blade that gets most of the debris. I raise the guard up high enough to be able to hold the can of PAM level and give the running blade a quick squirt. (None on the bearings.) As you can imagine, I've got a lot of old PAM on the left side of the guard, which collects some debris, but it's never been a problem.

When the bearings no longer work well, about every 2 years for me, I replace them with skateboard bearings, as my saw bearings are the same size. The local skate shop will give them to me for free, but those are already worn, so I buy a pack of 8, or maybe it's 10, and they last 2-4 years. They were about $1.50 a bearing last time I bought some.
 
Dean, it's not gunk on the outside of the bearings. I can deal with that fairly easily. It's buildup inside the bearings to the point they won't spin. They have the black plastic/rubber snap in seals on each side that seem good but stuff still gets in. I pop off the seals from both sides, clean them up in the green milky mineral spirits stuff I use to clean with, pop the seals back on and put them in the spares pile. Puzzled how so much gets into the bearing itself with the seals on, maybe I need to get better bearings.
 
Randy, I have that same saw. I never noticed the lower guides not turning. I just went out and checked. Sure enough, the bottom ones are pretty sticky. I'll be interested in what you find out.
 
Randy Anderson said:
Dean, it's not gunk on the outside of the bearings. I can deal with that fairly easily. It's buildup inside the bearings to the point they won't spin. They have the black plastic/rubber snap in seals on each side that seem good but stuff still gets in. I pop off the seals from both sides, clean them up in the green milky mineral spirits stuff I use to clean with, pop the seals back on and put them in the spares pile. Puzzled how so much gets into the bearing itself with the seals on, maybe I need to get better bearings.
Click to expand...
Ah, I misunderstood. Maybe the helpful folks at one of the online bearing places could suggest a same sized but more completely sealed bearing. But wait, I think I hear the folks on here who know about bearings frantically typing the explanation why you need to keep the same style you have now.
 
I hope so. I'm good with keeping bearings but they get full of gunk so quickly. Nothing unique to Rikon about having lower guide bearings so hoping someone says hey dummy, you need to buy __________ bearings instead.

Just did a search here for bandsaw bearings and found some recent threads I missed before. I'll read a bit more.
 
In the old days before roller bearings, they used lignum vitae as side guides. I have an old PM bandsaw, and it has steel guides which are angled up at about 45 degrees, and they do a fair job, and of course will never wear out. I think there are some type of phenolic resin type guides as well. For me, I will put some of that Slick Stick stuff on the blades before cutting a bunch of wood that will really gunk up my blades and bearings. That doesn't cure the problem, but it does make it easier to clean up. Most of the time I clean the blade by holding a screw driver against the blade (avoid the teeth!), and that gets most of the gunk off. It does have roller bearings also, and I have not had to replace them in 30 years. Don't know if they are just better bearings or not. The small saw gets used for cutting blanks into circles.

robo hippy
 
I do not clean the bearings. When they lock up or get too worn I replace them. Search online or check with a bearing store for sealed bearings of the size needed for your saw. I order packages of ten.
 
robo hippy said:
In the old days before roller bearings, they used lignum vitae as side guides. I have an old PM bandsaw, and it has steel guides which are angled up at about 45 degrees, and they do a fair job, and of course will never wear out. I think there are some type of phenolic resin type guides as well. For me, I will put some of that Slick Stick stuff on the blades before cutting a bunch of wood that will really gunk up my blades and bearings. That doesn't cure the problem, but it does make it easier to clean up. Most of the time I clean the blade by holding a screw driver against the blade (avoid the teeth!), and that gets most of the gunk off. It does have roller bearings also, and I have not had to replace them in 30 years. Don't know if they are just better bearings or not. The small saw gets used for cutting blanks into circles.

robo hippy
Click to expand...
I just heard about the slick stick trick a week ago. I had no idea lignum was used as guide blocks. Thx for sharing
 
One other use for the Slick Stick, is on the soles of your hand planes. It works better than any thing else I have tried.

robo hippy
 
I have a Rikon 10-324. Didn't like the stock guides so I bought the Rikon "tool-less roller guides kit. They didn't last, so I bought a Carter roller guide kit. The side bearings kept getting gummed up, so I tried making my own fixed side guide blocks out of phenolic to fit in place of the bearings. Those worked great but wore quickly, so I machined some side blocks out of the graphite impregnated material they make Cool Block guides from and they've been better than anything else I've tried. The only bearing guides in use now are the one's at the back of the blade. I bought a small sheet (a few square inches) of the graphite stuff and after making 4 guide blocks still have enough for a few more sets, but they're lasting so well that I probably won't need any more for quite a while.
FWIW, I just put a 1500 watt (2 hp supposedly) variable speed servo motor in the saw and it's made a huge improvement in available torque. Way less bogging down now.
 
@Ric Williams mentioned Cool Blocks which I prefer when cutting wood, especially green wood. I set them for zero clearance. I clean up a new blade by using a sharpening stone to round over the back of the blade and to smooth the sides of the blade. On smaller blades, I set the Cool Blocks to completely enclose the blade.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top