The LumberWorksForums

O.K. on this mill when it was built, for the sake of economics, 1 1/2" pillow block bearings were used on the idle side and the drive side, and over the course of 3-4 years, I have had to replace all of them just because of failure,, the pillow blocks were set about 5" apart from each other, with the shaft extending into the shroud for the bandwheel,, this application is called overhung,, this works well on shop fans or other application where there isnt a lot of strain on them, but we all know that the band blade has to be tensioned up tight. this high strain cause's the bearings to go out prematuraly,, several months back I replaced the drive side with Cooks heavy duty drive bearings assembly,, it was only a matter of time before the idle side was gonna need it,, I just did squeek thru that Fence board job,, Wood Mizer wants 300 dallors for there idle side assembly and no warrenty, and timberking would not sell to me., I didnt want to use Cooks because I didnt wanna go with a all metal wheel,, so heres what I did,, Two flange bearings carfully place and drilled on both sides of the bandwheel, actually I used the 1 1/2" bushing with a new shaft to center the bearings, after drilling the wheel I removed the bushing and the bearings were ready for the install,,





I was able to use my original tracking plate, but when I tensioned up the band, it was done with a 1/2" allthread bolt, pushing against a plate,, no cushin for the balde shock that can occur from a piece of bark or sawdust, so I built a spring assembly to absorbe the shock, the spring coil is 3/8"





then I had to attach the shaft to a plate assembly that had to fit the tracking plate,



ahd here is a picture with the whole assembly together on the mill, with the band tensioned up,,



and a picture of the other side,,



and of course I had to tru up the blade guides and band alignment , which took an hour or so,, but I have cut 3 logs sofar and it seems to work out very well and smooth,, the 2 bolt flange bearings were about 15 dallors each from Cooks,,

I'm not sure how you would think that,, this type of assembly originaly need a QD-bushing which as you tighten down the bushing down onto the wheel it clamps down on the shaft, which was the original application, and the shaft spun in the pillow block bearings,, so by using the bushing and new shaft, and thightening it all down, the shaft is centered in the wheel,, so I just slid one of the new 2 bolt flange bearings on the shaft, opposite the bushing, that centered the bearing and held it while I drilled on the drill press, when done all was removed, then the bearings were bolted, one on each side and I checked it for out of round while clamped in the vise, really pretty simple,, I absolutely could not have anything out of round, egg-shaped, had to roll true,, a lil side to side is no issue, but it has to be round,, and it is,, in fact smoother then before, because even tho the shafts are 1 1/2" they can be a bit out of round/not streight,,

No vibration,

Oh and by the way, you'll notice in the botto, picture, there is just a lil weld tack on the shoulder of the flange bearing and the wheel, thats just an insurance policy to make sure nothing moves.
Also this application literaly has no heat build-up like the overhung set-up was, which always led to bearing failure,