Clarke 6x4 Bandsaw Restoration

[Dr.Al]

Black paint arrived today, so I've done the first coat on the all the bits that are going to be black. No photo; I'll post one when the painting's finished.

I also did a bit more work on the switch housing. Opened out the back for clearance to the casting and access for the earth screw. I also made the decision to drill out the tapped holes and make space for a nut: the housing shouldn't take too much punishment as that goes into the bracket, but the vibration would probably work the screw out of the acetal.

Top view

Side view

Here's how the new switch (from ebay) fits into the housing:

Trial fit (you'll notice I made the decision to remove the top cross member from the swarf slide as it seemed the easiest way to deal with the clash):

Another angle:

and a massively over-exposed side view - not sure what happened there:

The only thing left to do on the switch housing is add some holes (and grommets) for the power in and motor out wires. I've removed both of the interlocks and probably won't bother putting them back. The one on the blade cover was broken when I got the bandsaw (and had been bypassed). The one on the belt cover worked okay, but I'm going to trust myself not to run the bandsaw with the covers open. I haven't inadvertently run the bandsaw with the (non-interlocked) blade guard open in the last 8 years, so it should be fine.

The evenings this week will just be painting and then hopefully I'll get some paint stripping done next weekend if the weather is okay. The paint stripper has finally arrived at least (a week late).

 

[Shox Dr]

Brilliant little saws, so long as you treat them with a bit of respect. I dug mine out of a skip.

I find if you load the saw with weight it will cut faster, the blades last longer as well.

I use 3 off 20x200mm steel bars I side up and down the bow to increase blade pressure.

 

[Dr.Al]

Another coat (first coat but on the other side) on all the black bits when I got home from work today.

There's one job I like even less than painting: cleaning paintbrushes. Urgh.

 

[Wallace]

Another coat (first coat but on the other side) on all the black bits when I got home from work today.

There's one job I like even less than painting: cleaning paintbrushes. Urgh.

Pound shop and throw them away?

 

[Dr.Al]

Pound shop and throw them away?

That's what I've done in the past, but then I get annoyed by the number of detached bristles I have to pick out of the paint.

 

[Dr.Al]

That's what I've done in the past, but then I get annoyed by the number of detached bristles I have to pick out of the paint.

Also my better half works at the Environment Agency, so I'm not always popular if I don't reuse stuff (although it still happens of course).

 

[mm289]

Another coat (first coat but on the other side) on all the black bits when I got home from work today.

There's one job I like even less than painting: cleaning paintbrushes. Urgh.

Thats why I am rattle can'ing

Cheers,

MM

 

[Dr.Al]

Thats why I am rattle can'ing

Cheers,

MM

I'd wondered about that too, but my workshop is too small to spray indoors and I've never had good results spraying outdoors (maybe it's too windy in these here parts). Believe me, if I could have come up with a good alternative to brush work, I would have!

 

[Dr.Al]

Decided to have an evening off painting as I'm getting quite fed up of it! There's still loads to do (I haven't even started stripping the paint off the bandsaw itself, so that's a lot more in itself).

So tonight (after leaning the bandsaw bits up against the radiator to warm them up a bit before having a go at paint stripping tomorrow), I just decided to have a half-hour session in the workshop starting what will be a fairly long-term job of making screws. Here's the first one (made from 20 mm EN8) alongside its curved t-nut, minus the tommy-bar (and the hole for it), which I'll add when I'm in a milling mood! With hindsight I didn't really need to thread the whole length, but what the heck.

I've made this one first as it's the only one that needs to be made before the bandsaw goes back together as I won't be able to get my hand onto the nut after that without taking the bandsaw off its base (because of the swarf-stopping shelf that's going under the bandsaw to keep the swarf off the lower shelves).

My plan at the moment is to replace most of the fasteners on the bandsaw. The ones that will almost never be touched will be replaced with socket-head cap screws (rather than hex head or - yuck - Phillips head). The ones that get used regularly (or should get used regularly) will be replaced with custom screws with tommy bars, either fixed such that they stop at the correct angle or floating like a vice screw.

The reason I'm doing this is mainly because I'm lazy. The way my workshop is set-up, hex (Allen) keys are a lot quicker to grab than spanners - the hex keys sit in a rack on the front of the lathe. I also find it much, much easier to identify (at a quick glance) hex sizes from the limited range that's common compared to hex head, which have a different size depending on where they're from (e.g. M8 heads can be 12 mm, 13 mm or 14 mm AF depending on where they're from: as one of my colleagues used to say: "the wonderful thing about standards is there's so many to choose from!"). Phillips head are just rubbish when compared with pozidrive, hex-key or torx.

Therefore, the effort scale for me goes: tommy-bar, hex-key, pozi-drive, hex-head. As a result of that and the fact that I'm lazy, I very rarely (for example) move the blade guides in and out: I have to remember that this one is a 14 mm spanner, then go and get a 14 mm spanner, then move it. Hopefully if it has a screw with a built-in tommy-bar, I'll be more likely to adjust it properly.

Well that was a long post about having partially made a screw, wasn't it?!

 

[Turbo]

Decided to have an evening off painting as I'm getting quite fed up of it! There's still loads to do (I haven't even started stripping the paint off the bandsaw itself, so that's a lot more in itself).

So tonight (after leaning the bandsaw bits up against the radiator to warm them up a bit before having a go at paint stripping tomorrow), I just decided to have a half-hour session in the workshop starting what will be a fairly long-term job of making screws. Here's the first one (made from 20 mm EN8) alongside its curved t-nut, minus the tommy-bar (and the hole for it), which I'll add when I'm in a milling mood! With hindsight I didn't really need to thread the whole length, but what the heck.

View attachment 207071

I've made this one first as it's the only one that needs to be made before the bandsaw goes back together as I won't be able to get my hand onto the nut after that without taking the bandsaw off its base (because of the swarf-stopping shelf that's going under the bandsaw to keep the swarf off the lower shelves).

My plan at the moment is to replace most of the fasteners on the bandsaw. The ones that will almost never be touched will be replaced with socket-head cap screws (rather than hex head or - yuck - Phillips head). The ones that get used regularly (or should get used regularly) will be replaced with custom screws with tommy bars, either fixed such that they stop at the correct angle or floating like a vice screw.

The reason I'm doing this is mainly because I'm lazy. The way my workshop is set-up, hex (Allen) keys are a lot quicker to grab than spanners - the hex keys sit in a rack on the front of the lathe. I also find it much, much easier to identify (at a quick glance) hex sizes from the limited range that's common compared to hex head, which have a different size depending on where they're from (e.g. M8 heads can be 12 mm, 13 mm or 14 mm AF depending on where they're from: as one of my colleagues used to say: "the wonderful thing about standards is there's so many to choose from!"). Phillips head are just rubbish when compared with pozidrive, hex-key or torx.

Therefore, the effort scale for me goes: tommy-bar, hex-key, pozi-drive, hex-head. As a result of that and the fact that I'm lazy, I very rarely (for example) move the blade guides in and out: I have to remember that this one is a 14 mm spanner, then go and get a 14 mm spanner, then move it. Hopefully if it has a screw with a built-in tommy-bar, I'll be more likely to adjust it properly.

Well that was a long post about having partially made a screw, wasn't it?!

I cut up 12 & 14mm spanners & welded them together to make a spanner for all the adjuster nuts on my bandsaw.

 

[Dr.Al]

Took advantage of finishing work at midday today (I'm really liking the 4½ day week at my work). Sun was shining so I did some paint stripping and then did yet another coat of black on the shelves and swarf tray.

That synstrip stuff is amazing: thanks to all those who recommended it. I'd fully expected to be spending a significant chunk of the weekend stripping paint, but the paint just falls off.

Before:

After:

All the bits done:

and the other side:

Interestingly, you can see where the casting has been filled in when it was made:

I think the next job is probably to clean these parts very carefully (I was thinking white spirit, but does anyone have any good alternative suggestions? I've got acetone, but it'd probably use my entire supply to get these clean). Once they're clean, it's prime & paint time. There are a few specs of paint in some areas; I'll either deal with them with a Dremel fitted with a wire wheel or just paint over the top: I can't imagine they'll ruin the paint job (especially with my painting skills, or lack thereof).

I haven't decided what to do about the belt cover yet:

It's looking a little sorry for itself (rusty). I might stick it in the electrolysis bath or I might just paint over it and not lose any sleep about it. To be decided. Painting could be interesting: as it was, the hinge was painted quite thoroughly but also (unsurprisingly) worked well as a hinge. I don't think I can paint the whole hinge without gumming it up, so I'm thinking at the moment I'll paint as close to it as I can but leave the pin area free of paint. Anyone got any alternative ideas?

And here's a gratuitous extra photo as I was dead impressed by that paint stripper:

 

[mm289]

Very surprised on the paint stripper - didn't think any of the modern versions worked anymore!

On the belt cover quick dip in a citric acid bath or electrolysis tank would sort that out. Or the expensive equivalent is Bilt Hamber Deox. Alternatively wire brush it clean.

I used an acid etch primer prior to the rattle can paint to give it some bite into the metal if it wasn't perfect.

Cleaning off prior to paint can use brake cleaner or IPA

Cheers,

MM

 

[Turbo]

For cleaning it before painting buy yourself a gallon of cellulose thinners for around £10 & use that. Anywhere that sells car paint will have it. You can also use it to wash the brushes, white spirit will not dissolve tractol paint!

DO NOT use standard thinners to thin the paint, it will turn it lumpy! You need to use the recommended tractol thinners instead. In this cold weather it really helps the paint to flow if you either thin it or warm the paint tin up (loosen the lid & put it in the hotpress overnight) . You will see your brush marks disappear as the paint levels itself out.

 

[Dr.Al]

For cleaning it before painting buy yourself a gallon of cellulose thinners for around £10 & use that. Anywhere that sells car paint will have it. You can also use it to wash the brushes, white spirit will not dissolve tractol paint!

DO NOT use standard thinners to thin the paint, it will turn it lumpy! You need to use the recommended tractol thinners instead. In this cold weather it really helps the paint to flow if you either thin it or warm the paint tin up (loosen the lid & put it in the hotpress overnight) . You will see your brush marks disappear as the paint levels itself out.

I've been using white spirit as brush cleaner for all of the coats (about 12 so far including primer and both sides of all the base parts) and it seems to have worked okay.

I've been painting at a fairly warm temperature: not got a thermometer going, but everything's in the dining room with the door closed & the radiator on full blast. Probably 22°C ish at a wild guess?

I'll pop down to the local car stuff shop today: hopefully they'll have proper thinners. If not I guess it'll have to be Halfords on a Saturday.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[zx9]

...

On the belt cover quick dip in a citric acid bath or electrolysis tank would sort that out. Or the expensive equivalent is Bilt Hamber Deox. Alternatively wire brush it clean.

I used an acid etch primer prior to the rattle can paint to give it some bite into the metal if it wasn't perfect.

Cleaning off prior to paint can use brake cleaner or IPA

Cheers,

MM

At least ( @Dr.Al ) you have a metal belt cover, my old Sealey version of the same saw has a very flimsy black plastic belt cover.

 

[Dr.Al]

Made some last-minute (before painting) modifications to the base casting today. I think I've mentioned before that I'm putting an inaccessible shelf on the top of the bandsaw base. This will stop swarf from falling through the vice holes in the base casting onto the storage shelves lower down. To help with that, I made a custom t-nut way back in post 7. This sits underneath the base and slides in the curved slot and is used to clamp the fixed jaw at a given angle.

I could envisage wanting to take the fixed jaw off at some point in the future (to modify it in some way). If I do that, the t-nut would drop down onto the top shelf and I'll have to take the bandsaw off the base (and it's heavy and I'm not especially strong). To avoid this, I decided to make a "T-Nut saver" - a little bracket that sits under one end of the curved slot so that if I undo the screw while the jaw is in the normal (90°) position, the t-nut will stay in the right place and be easily retrievable.

I started by mounting the base casting upside down in my milling vice:

It's not gripped very well as the fixed jaw of the milling vice is against an angled surface of the casting. The moving jaw sits neatly inside the slot for the bandsaw vice's moving jaw.

I then spotted and drilled two holes using the depth indicator on the mill to make sure I didn't break through into the top of the casting.

Having drilled the holes, I carefully tapped them M5:

The result (one of the holes is only 6 mm deep):

While the bandsaw base was in place, I decided to also take a (very light: see comments above about the base not being very well held) skimming cut of the surface on which the t-nut runs:

I then dug out a suitable looking bit of material for the t-nut saver (50 × 50 mm aluminium square bar in this case) and cut off a fairly arbitrary length. I did the cutting by going all the way round with a slitting saw in the mill and then finishing off the middle bit with a hacksaw. Did I mention that I'm missing having a bandsaw?!

Lots of milling (with a 10 mm HSS end mill) later resulted in this:

Other side:

All ready for fitting:

and here it is in place:

After that, I wandered down to the car stuff shop at the bottom of the street and bought 5 litres of cellulose thinners. I gave all the cast parts a thorough scrub using a kitchen wire scrubber frequently drenched in the thinners. I then lent it up somewhere warm and fairly dry so that the thinners could dry off.

Came back half-an-hour later and everything looked like it had been sitting in the garden overnight: a thin coating of rust covered everything! Thankfully I think I caught it quickly and I've now given everything a wipe down with "elephant bog roll" soaked in white spirit. A lot of rusty coloured stuff came off on the blue paper. The white spirit is now drying off in the dining room but it's difficult to see what the castings look like now the sun has gone down and I'm working by electric light. It probably would be better if I took it back out to the garage (where I have VERY bright and VERY white light), but I think I'll just wait for the morning.

Next job is to fill in any tapped holes I want to leave unpainted with screws and figure out how best to mask all the milled surfaces and bearing bores so that the paint looks as neat as is possible with my inept painting skills. When I painted the base parts I didn't bother filling the holes with screws and just ran a tap through them after the paint had dried.

Then it'll be the first coat of primer.

 

[Dr.Al]

Big landmark today. I finally started the process of painting (well, priming) the actual bandsaw.

Fitted screws (hex head where I had them as they'll be easier to get out when covered with paint, socket head where I didn't) into all the threaded holes and covered all the machined surfaces with masking tape. Hopefully the masking tape will work okay.

I'd been pondering for a while how to stop primer/paint getting into the bores: as supplied the faces on the end of the bores are painted but obviously I don't want paint on the bearing surfaces. After initially trying (in vain) to cut some neat circles of masking tape to go around the ends of the bores, I figured a better method was to use a couple of washers and a screw. The ones for the hinge were fairly straightforward:

For the bearing bores, I made four 2 mm thick, 38 mm diameter aluminium washers on the lathe. I chose aluminium as the inside of the worm shaft hole isn't anywhere near flat: after tightening, the aluminium washer bends to conform to the shape of the casting:

Outside view - you can probably tell why I chose 38 mm:

Here's (almost) everything masked up:

and the other side:

After taking those photos, I realised that I hadn't masked the surfaces for the blade guides. The outside surfaces were rough cast, so I attacked those with a file to get a better surface and then masked it. The inside seemed quite smooth so I just masked them.

Everything laid out on the dining room table ready for the first side primer coat:

and here's a blurry photo of how I'm leaving it for the evening:

Tomorrow evening when I get back from work I'll turn all the bits over and do another lot of primer.

 

[Dr.Al]

Yet more painting (well priming) this evening. I turned all the parts I primed yesterday over and then primed the other side. Having done that, there was a tiny amount of primer left in the tin, so I pondered what to use it for.

Ran out to the garage in a flurry (I didn't want to the primer to dry on the brush) and gave the motor a thorough clean with the air compressor and lots of brake cleaner. Stripped it apart and brought it back into the house. I was very pleased that the there was enough primer in the tin to cover all the motor bits (although I didn't bother with the inside of the capacitor housing etc). You can see it all in glorious CFL lighting here:

and now there's absolutely nothing left in the primer tin, so it feels I got my money's worth there!

I didn't bother masking the motor (as I said I was in a bit of a rush). There was definitely some paint that made it onto the end faces of the motor body (which fit snuggly against the faces of the end caps). I gave it a wipe when I was finished; hopefully I'll be able to clean it off after the painting is complete. It looked like it would be a pain in the proverbial posterior to mask anyway.

The bit in the bottom-right hand corner that isn't painted is the mount for the motor. I'd "um-d and ah'd" about painting it as it was looking pretty shabby (rust spots everywhere), but after going over it with a wire brush on the angle grinder it was looking quite respectable. It wasn't originally painted: it looks like it was oil blacked or similar, so I'll probably just leave that as is and maybe give it a more thorough clean at the weekend when I can see what I'm doing a bit better.

Hopefully I haven't missed anything (although I've got spare, unopened tins of primer so it's not the end of the world if I have).

Now I've got 8 more coats of paint to do: 2 coats × 2 sides of British Racing Green (because it's such a fast bandsaw?!?!?) for the main castings, 2 coats × 2 sides of black for the motor bits and probably the belt cover (as I think it will look better in a contrasting colour to the main castings). I haven't decided what colour to do the vice jaws or the spring linkage arm, but they'll either be black or green. I've got until about 4pm tomorrow to decide anyway!

I'll be really pleased when all this painting is done (as will my better half...)

 

[Fraserb]

Yet more painting (well priming) this evening. I turned all the parts I primed yesterday over and then primed the other side. Having done that, there was a tiny amount of primer left in the tin, so I pondered what to use it for.

Ran out to the garage in a flurry (I didn't want to the primer to dry on the brush) and gave the motor a thorough clean with the air compressor and lots of brake cleaner. Stripped it apart and brought it back into the house. I was very pleased that the there was enough primer in the tin to cover all the motor bits (although I didn't bother with the inside of the capacitor housing etc). You can see it all in glorious CFL lighting here:

View attachment 207701

and now there's absolutely nothing left in the primer tin, so it feels I got my money's worth there!

I didn't bother masking the motor (as I said I was in a bit of a rush). There was definitely some paint that made it onto the end faces of the motor body (which fit snuggly against the faces of the end caps). I gave it a wipe when I was finished; hopefully I'll be able to clean it off after the painting is complete. It looked like it would be a pain in the proverbial posterior to mask anyway.

The bit in the bottom-right hand corner that isn't painted is the mount for the motor. I'd "um-d and ah'd" about painting it as it was looking pretty shabby (rust spots everywhere), but after going over it with a wire brush on the angle grinder it was looking quite respectable. It wasn't originally painted: it looks like it was oil blacked or similar, so I'll probably just leave that as is and maybe give it a more thorough clean at the weekend when I can see what I'm doing a bit better.

Hopefully I haven't missed anything (although I've got spare, unopened tins of primer so it's not the end of the world if I have).

Now I've got 8 more coats of paint to do: 2 coats × 2 sides of British Racing Green (because it's such a fast bandsaw?!?!?) for the main castings, 2 coats × 2 sides of black for the motor bits and probably the belt cover (as I think it will look better in a contrasting colour to the main castings). I haven't decided what colour to do the vice jaws or the spring linkage arm, but they'll either be black or green. I've got until about 4pm tomorrow to decide anyway!

I'll be really pleased when all this painting is done (as will my better half...)

If I tried painting in the dining room I'd be in a world of trouble.

 

[Dr.Al]

I've done another coat of paint every day this week and I think the end is finally in sight. Here's what it looked like when I got home from work today:

Turned everything over and did what is hopefully the last coat of paint (sorry for the blurry photo, I'll have another go tomorrow):

I also nicked an idea from @Wallace and added some markers on the eccentric bearing mounts to make it more obvious what orientation they're in. I cleaned up the surface with some sandpaper, gave it coat of black Tractol and a centre punch mark and then found an old tiny little tin of yellow Humbrol enamel from a decades old Airfix kit:

There are four of them, but I only bothered photographing two.

I think I need to leave everything in the warm dining room for a couple of days to make sure the paint dries well. Then I can start thinking about beginning reassembly.

While I've been boring myself stupid painting the bandsaw, I've been thinking of other things I want to do to improve the saw and a couple of these involve a bit more machining on the bottom casting. Hopefully I'll be able to do that without completely wrecking the paint job!

I'm also a little apprehensive about getting all that thin masking tape off. Hopefully it won't look appalling when the tape is removed (assuming I can get the tape off!).

I guess we'll see on Sunday.