Bandsaw vibration troubleshooting

[ulloa_josh]

I'll call rikon on Mon. but thought I might get help here in the meantime. This is the 18" model and there just seems to be a lot of vibration. Here's what I've tried so far:

Flimsy mobile base removed = no change in vibration

Ran with blade removed = less vibration but won't pass nickel test

Checked both wheels for balance by spinning by hand and marking resting locations with white chalk (see pics).

When checking the balance, I also noticed that the bottom wheel spun with less resistance than the top. No idea if this is normal or not.

Any thoughts are appreciated. Not sure if I really have a problem or just over analyzing.

[ulloa_josh]

After some more fiddling I think I've narrowed the problem to the top wheel. Measuring vibration with a dial indicator, I get maybe 0.001 running the saw with the bottom wheel only. Adding the blade and the top wheel into the equation, the indicator measures 0.005. The blade is new and not stock. Neither of the wheels appear to be out of round or warped, again measuring with the dial indicator, so I think it's just a matter of balancing? In any event, I'm a lot more familiar with my bandsaw now! Thanks for reading.

[JerrySats]

Have you try calling customer service about this problem ? Maybe you can ask them to replace the top wheel . Could be the wheel is out of balance like your thinking .

[Kerry]

Have you checked the top wheel by itself with the dial indicator? Could be the bearing is bad or the wheel shaft is bent slightly.

Try loosening the top wheel nut slightly and see if the spinning resistance is lessened. Could be the nut is torqued to tight (mine was torqued down so much I needed a breaker bar to get it loose on my Delta) and is binding against the bearing. If you loosen it check the wheel for out of balance then. Just spin it and mark the bottom of the wheel when it stops spinning with a magic marker, then spin and mark again. Do that about 12 times, marking each time, and look where the marks are. If they are all spaced close together, then the wheel is heavy in that area. If they are seemingly spaced randomly all over, the wheel is fine. You can do this with the bottom wheel also, but remove the belt as well. If either is heavy you can try either drilling out some metal in the heavy area or adding some sort of weight(s) opposite the heavy side.

Check the blade too. I know you said it's not the stock one but check the weld. Is it ground flat on both sides? Is the blade back (part that would contact the thrust bearing) inline? If either one is off that could cause the wheels to seem unbalanced and / or cause excess vibration. It's no good for the blade guides either.

Just a few things to check off the top of my head. Let us know what you find / happens, and good luck. I think those Rikon saws are supposed to be pretty good.

[nateswoodworks]

You may want to check to make sure the drive belt doesn't have a flat spot from sitting, had that problem with a TS in the past. One other thing is check the tires themselves. Run your dial indicator on the tire itself spinning the wheel slowly by hand. You may just have a ridge or high spot on the tire. Even on neoprene you can sand it (not as easy as the rubber) by using talcum powder and a sanding jig. If you just bought it I would check it but wait to do anything else until you talk to C.S. so you don't void any warranty.

Nate