[TheForge] OT bandsaw question

[Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer]

Hi Bob;
I recently bought a similar saw ( stout machine!..Kalamazoo still has 
parts available) and ended up rebuilding the hydraulic system. It used 
to have copper tubing instead of the plastic by the way.
It sounds like you have bonus stuff inside the system where only 
hydraulic fluid ought to be and it is plugging up some small passage. 
The valve on mine is threaded right into the cylinder and i ended up 
buying a replacement from Kalamazoo...not a bad price either.
I'm wrestling with setting mine up so it can be used upright with a 
table held in the vise jaws...and quickly reconverted to the cut off 
function it was designed for. The advice i got from folks wiser than i 
was " don't bother"...It was probably good advice too....Pete f

Bob Smolen wrote:
> I bought an older Kalamazoo horizontal band saw. The prior owner replaced
> the copper tubing on the cylinder with a long length of plastic hose which
> has a needle valve between top and bottom ports to control the speed at
> which the saw lowers itself onto the stock. I nicked the hose when I was
> moving the saw so I had to splice the hose and add fluid. I just removed the
> cylinder end cap and refilled. Is there a proper way to bleed the system?
> A few turns of the needle valve stops the saw from coming down and will hold
> the saw in suspeension indefinitely.The problem is that if I want to lower
> the saw to the work, I have to open and then close the valve to control
> descent the last few inches. This is real touchy.Just when I think I have
> the right balance, I raise and lower the saw a couple times and the saw
> wants to just stop its descent the last several inches. To allow it to drop,
> I open the valve. Invariably, by reopening the valve, it goes down too fast,
> hence repeat the process. It does not want to maintain a constant rate of
> descent  I s there a proceure to do this. What is reasonable to expect. As I
> have it now, there is too much fiddling  and easier to go to cutoff for
> smaller work. That is not what I envisioned.
> Also, what is the brass lever near the clamp wheel for. Some sort of lock
> for the vise jaws?
> Thanks,
> Bob.
> 
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