Mobile base for 24" bandsaw

[Tom King]

I had a chance to cut a few pieces this afternoon.  This is 5" angle iron that was left in a pile of metal here when we bought this place.  This angle is larger than the capacity of the little Enco bandsaw, so I had to reposition it for each cut to length, but it makes pretty cuts.  Cutting one piece to length took a little over a half hour, but I just left it running and did something else while it was cutting.

The base will be 27" wide.

It will use 6" casters so I can roll it out in the yard on a piece of plywood.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N5PT4YY?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

When we make shingles, it runs for several hours at the time, and dust collection is not the best on it, so the mess gets left outside, and blown away with a leaf blower.

These prices are why I don't mind using the rusty, but free angle iron pieces.  There is still more than enough good metal in them. 

https://www.onlinemetals.com/en/buy/carbon-steel/5-x-5-x-0-3125-carbon-steel-angle-a36-hot-rolled/pid/12517?variant=12517_84_0&gclid=CjwKCAjw6dmSBhBkEiwA_W-EoITkqz9WRULkf8Rm7QYxJckXUg2VbRvsvc3IMvsfnUeiM140-F2VoRoC-s0QAvD_BwE

 

 

[Tom King]

The HTC work stand made all the difference in using the little bandsaw.  When the piece moved before, it screwed up the blade guide alignment.  I ended up fiddling with it for a good while today, and finally figured out one side of that blade had been damaged too.  With a new Bosch blade, and what I learned about alignment, it's playing out of its league now.

The guide alignment is much more aggravating than a woodworking bandsaw, because the guides twist the blade almost 45 degrees coming off one wheel, and going back on the other one.  That's the way it gets clearance over what it's cutting.

The stand has a crank handle that is only has threads on the end of it.  When I was putting it together, I was not impressed.  But using it changed my opinion.  It works great.  The shaft that the roller is mounted to is tapered.  You can set it some too high, and when you ease out on the crank, it lowers.  You can stop it exactly where you want it by tightening the crank.

I use concrete screeds for alignment when a level is not long enough.  For welding, angles don't have to be as perfect as assembling woodwork.

The little piece is what I can cut off to even up an old rusty end.

The old building had a pile of metal beside it when we first got it 42 years ago.  I finally killed all the Blackberries, and various other vines growing on it, and it's finally disappeared.  The metal accumulation  is bigger than it looks in this picture.  Fortunately, it's all thick enough that what has rusted away still leaves plenty of good metal for anything I need.  There is a lot of angle iron, and channel under what you see here.

I cut out the pieces for the mobile bases for the drill press, and big bandsaw this afternoon.  I hope I can stick them together tomorrow with my hot melt glue gun.

 

[Coop]

Tom, what is the max height of the roller stand. My bs table top is 46” from the floor and I need an out feed table/support, in the worst way.

[Tom King]

I'm pretty sure it's not that high.  Lowest is 22", so it can't be double that.  I think they do make taller ones.  I've used the fold up ones for years with woodworking tools, but this is a much better design.

[Tom King]

I used the folding stands today beside the drill press to drill some holes for the casters.   I'm ready to give them away after using the short HTC one with the little horizontal bandsaw.  If I had somewhere to keep them, I'd get a couple of these taller ones.

https://www.amazon.com/HTC-HSS-18-Adjustable-Pedestal-Material/dp/B00002263O/ref=pd_bxgy_sccl_2/134-0282716-9521105?pd_rd_w=dHeUp&pf_rd_p=6b3eefea-7b16-43e9-bc45-2e332cbf99da&pf_rd_r=RTM18HRBC5WRACA6SJSX&pd_rd_r=d1604db0-7bf7-4731-a089-b99e61de44f3&pd_rd_wg=TYr3y&pd_rd_i=B00002263O&th=1

 

[Tom King]

I finished cutting out all the pieces this morning, and welded up the one for the drill press.  I bought that SCT to clean them up so I could paint them, but I've decided I like a speckled axe best, and they will be Rat Rod mobile bases.

 

[Tom King]

The welding was the quick part.   A 5 year old child can move the drill press now.  It's very stable.  My priorities were easy to move, close to the floor-actually raised only 3/4", and stable.  All required points well fulfilled.  I put the swivel casters with locks on the back, so they wouldn't be sticking out in the way of feet.   All you have to do is activate one of the locks to stabilize it, so it doesn't matter if one locking lever is up under the back angle.

This one is made from 5x5x1/4 and 3x3x1/4 angle iron, and a leftover scrap of 1/2" plate.  It doesn't flex.  Fasteners were left over from a past boat business.  All I bought was the set of casters, and a few feet of MIG wire.

I thought I'd made it too small.  It rubbed going down into the base, but it did go all the way down.  It's more steady than it was just sitting on it's own base.

These are 4" casters.  The bandsaw with get 6" ones.

I was able to wrangle the big bandsaw out where I hope to glue that one together tomorrow.

This is a Powermatic 1150 that I use in the mechanic/metal shop.  It would look out of place if I had painted it anyway.  I only care that the holes it drills are pretty.

It would make a good start for a base with a cabinet on it, but the to-do list is beyond manageable anyway.  I need this and the big bandsaw to make handrails for the rental house, so I decided to go ahead and build these.  I'm having to squeeze time in to work on these as it is.

I park the tractor with loader and mower on the back in there.  When I work on something, I have to back the tractor out, and move stuff around like a slide puzzle.  This will make the pieces easier to move out, and put back.

[Tom King]

This has turned into another job on hold.  The swiveling 6" casters take a lot of space to swing.  I could cobble up something that would work, but the easy way was to order a piece of steel.  I needed a 5/8" x 4"x 18" piece of plate.  ebay had exactly that size, so I just ordered it.  That piece will weld to the long support angles, and sections of heavy 2" angle iron welded to the back of that to tie it to the 5" angle that the rear casters swivel under.  Those vertical supports will have to be far enough inboard to stay out of the way of the swivels.

For a lot of things, I don't do a lot of planning.  I'll just stage it as I build it, and measure off of that.  One side has a smaller angle iron so the lower bandsaw door can open.  It's not really needed for strength to be any larger.  There was already more big angle here than the smaller stuff, so I used it.

Floor clearance for this is 1-1/4".  I have to roll it over a slope change at the edge of this building floor to the ramp outside.  I want to be able to roll it outside.  I have a dedicated 2hp DC for it, but dust collection is not the best, so it will just be blown off with a leaf blower before bringing it back inside.

I used the drill press to drill the holes in these angles for the casters.  I set the trashcan under it to catch the shavings.  The roughneck trashcan sits perfectly on that big flat angle at the front, so I'll just make that the place to leave it, which will free up a few square feet in that building.  It's pretty junky in there still.  I'm working on it when I can-bought some more toolboxes today.

 

[Mark J]

I like the trash can idea.

[Tom King]

While I'm on mobile bases, I stuck another version on the little horizontal bandsaw I've been using for cutting the pieces.  It had a couple of plastic wheels in a bent sheetmetal contraption on the legs under the motor.  There is a fold down handle on the other end. The design asked you to pick it up with the handle, but the wheels were too far off the floor. 

There were several other problems with the stock arrangement.  The wheels put the motor behind them, and were high enough that it was more trouble keeping the whole thing from tipping over than it was to move it.

Anyway, the flimsy legs are not so flimsy now, and it's very easy to move and maneuver it with one hand.

Still waiting for the piece of metal for the bandsaw to get here.

 

[Tom King]

The SCT (surface conditioning tool) came a while back, but I'm still waiting for some of the drums that it uses.  Today, a wire brush came.

It makes relatively quick work of cleaning up the old, rusty steel.   I just played with it a little to see what it would do, but will drag out the supplied air when I do the whole thing.  The thing I don't like about the SCT is that it throws the stuff back at you.  It also does a fine job of weathering Cypress and Yellow Pine like I need for replacement parts on old houses.  I'll paint this base since I can clean it up before I set the bandsaw on it.

The bases for the front fixed casters are a little too large for the 5" angle iron.  I just cut off the extra with the horizontal bandsaw, and will tack weld the fronts in place.

 

[Tom King]

The metal plate came yesterday, so I finished putting it together this morning.

I used the winding stick sighting method to make sure the sides were in alignment with each other before welding the plate on.  Then it was all staged on a flat part of the floor, and clearance underneath evened up with a feeler wedge, and wedges to hold it up.

It rolls so easily that one lock needed to be locked just sitting on the floor.

The one mistake I made was not allowing for the two levers on the swiveling casters.  There is one to lock, and one to unlock.  I didn't figure in enough clearance for the unlock lever on one side, so had to grind a small part of the corner of the plate off.

I'm going to see if the bandsaw will sit on it after lunch.  I'm not going to take time to paint it now.  I need to use that bandsaw for the porch handrails on the rental house.  A rental agent came begging, and said they can rent it weekly as soon as I get it ready.

 

[Tom King]

It not only fits, but it's the easiest to move of any tool I have on a mobile base, which is more than a few.  It started raining, so I had to scramble around to get stuff in out of the weather, and didn't take any more pictures.

The way this house is built, I can lift the bandsaw inside, but don't have enough room to carry it outside under the door opening.

 

 

[Tom King]

I'm anxious to get to work with it, but for now I had to put everything up and wait for a couple of days of rain to pass.

I'll start two different shop additions as soon as we get the rental going.  There is no walking room in this one when the tractor and mower are in there.  I have to walk across the Bushog.  It was good to have somewhere to put the trashcan.  There are toolboxes between the front tires, and the loader bucket.  I have to set the bucket down behind those toolboxes to be able to close the door behind the mower.

[Tom King]

If I didn't have 3,000 hours seat time on that tractor, I'd probably be afraid to put it in there.  It doesn't help that those toolboxes keep multiplying.

I dug footings for an addition on the side of that building a few years ago, but then we bought the rental house, and I laid off my help to work by myself through the Pandemic, then my Mother moved in with us........  I knew I'd be busy doing other stuff, so filled them back in with the tractor so I could keep the grass cut.  It's 24x40.  The plan is to add 24 feet down one side, and 20 feet across the back.  Maybe next Spring.....