[John Chamorro]

I've got a Kalamazoo 7AW horizontal bandsaw that I cannot get to cut straight. I've tried everything except the one thing that will make it cut straight. New blade old blade. tight blade loose blade Slow feed or fast. Squared it all up and took out whatever slop I can find. It will drift about 1/2" in a 4-5" cut no matter what the material. Pipe, angle, square, no difference. HELP!! I will try most anything. It has done it since I got it.

[Otto Nobedder]

I got a cheapo "Grizzly" Chinese 6" horizontal bandsaw to cut so nearly square it took engineer's squares and feeler gauges to measure the runout on 4" pipe.

Tight is important. How do you define tight? The blade, when struck, should ring like a guitar string.

Bearing clearances are very important. Back bearings should be barely brushed by the unloaded blade. Side bearings should only have about .003-.005" clearance to the blade.

Tracking is as important as squareness. Squareness is not only the blade to the vise stop, but the blade to the table, and this is adjustable as well (a good place for those engineer's squares, again).

I'm sure most of this is familiar to you by now. I'm just going through it in hopes something clicks...

Steve S

[John Chamorro]

I have squared and tweeked and tuned tightened and loosened to the point I could do it blind folded. I think I'm going to tear it down and replace the bearings and bushings no matter how they feel. Now all I have to do is source the parts that are NOT MADE IN CHINA!

[rick9345]

source bearings by specifications not where made look for high ABEC #'s 7,8,9 for quality,expect price to go up as #'s get higher .

[John Chamorro]

Thanks for the reference. Cheap is usually more expensive than quality if you have to buy it 2-3 times.

[John Chamorro]

OKEY DOKEY. All new bearings, adjusted tweeked and tuned, cutting head weight adjusted and the blade singing like a piano. It cuts nice and straight.

[FrankClassen]

Seems you have tried almost everything, I mean every type of blade for cutting @John Chamorro. It is really a difficult task to cut it in the straight way. It requires a sharp edge blade, then only it is possible. My cousin was facing the same problem. Somebody has suggested him to take the help from these guys. You can also think of visiting their site.