Rikon 10-325 Bandsaw Upgrades and Mods, Pt. 1: Urethane Tires

I'm back doing more work on semi-big machinery.

The drill press restoration is on a bit of a hiatus right now while I reorganize the space it will live it. But in the meantime, I made a couple of upgrades and mods to my trusty Rikon 10-325 14 inch bandsaw.

Upgrades are new Carter urethane tires and the famous Carter blade guides, while the mods are an attempt to make the wheels coplanar as well as an improvement to the dust port.

I took on the tires first.

Removing the wheels is straightforward. The retaining screws take a hex wrench - I believe it's 8mm but don't quote me on that.

This is the lower wheel; the upper comes off the same way. You'll see an internal circlip (aka c-clip), but that doesn't need to be removed to get the wheel off - it holds the wheel bearing in place. (You can see I took the clip off before I figured this out).

I loosened the wheel screws with the blade still on and under tension, otherwise the wheels will just spin as you try to turn the nuts.

With the screw removed, remove the blade and the drive belt.

The wheel will slide off the axle. You may need to wiggle it back and forth as I did, but it will come off easily.

Here's the lower wheel after removal. You can see the naked (!) drive pulley and tensioner. The other pulley is part of the lower wheel.

Note how dark it is in this part of The Dungeon...I needed a work light for extra illumination!

Then it's over to the workbench to remove the old rubber tires. They came off fairly easily - I slipped my paint tool under the tire and wedged it off.

The real fun was cleaning all of the old glue off the rim of the wheel. Yes, friends, the whole thing is not a "rim," it's a wheel. And the rim is part of a wheel.  A wheel is not a rim. And a rim is not a wheel!

Anyway, I used lacquer thinner, Goo Gone and Simple Green along with a wire brush to get the glue off.

The new urethane tires seem quite 'stretchy' compared to the rubber tires. I figured they'd just easily slip over the rim. Ha! Was I wrong!

I learned a few things about mounting the tires: first, heat them up in hot water, it helps them stretch more.

And second, you need to clamp down each section you mount. You can see how I used a combination of clamps and dowels to mount the tires. I used dowels rather than a putty knife to avoid scratching the wheel.

Took a few tries on the first wheel, but I was a pro by the second.

One of the nice things about the urethane tires is that they install without glue. They'll also wear much better than the rubber tires, which is why I decided to install them while I had the saw apart.

And they're a really cool color.

Back over to the saw for Mod #1. This is the plate that's welded over the dust port. I saw how it blocked the port, and read online that removing it would help with dust removal.

To be honest, I mentally debated about removing it. Was it there to stiffen the frame? After pondering this for a few days, I came to the conclusion that no, it really wasn't doing much.

My only guess is that the idea was to create a sort of venturi effect to speed up the vacuum through the port. But the plate blocks the port!

So armed with my angle grinder, I cut the welds. Made a lot of sparks!

I should note that I did start out with my Dremel, but no way that thing would cut through the welds.

Here I am removing the plate after the welds were cut.

The plate is not real heavy - it has a fair amount of flex.

And now the port is unobstructed.

You can see how sawdust gathered in here before, but after I removed the port, the vacuum was substantially increased to the point where I don't see any sawdust in here after I cut.

A must mod for this or similar saws, I think.

I had an area of bare metal after I cut the plate off, so I masked it, and hit it with primer and some sort-of-matching paint to protect it.

Next time we'll adjust the bottom wheel to make it more coplanar, and put the new Carter guides on.