My Homemade 18" Band saw

[mr95gst]

The saw does have an upper blade guide. It is hard to see in the pictures since it is in the up position. The upper guide construction is very similar to the lower guide. It is attached to a tube that can be raised and lower. There is a wooden hand knob on the back that locks the height of the guide.

Saw Dust Maker, the most critical dimensions, in my opinion, is the distance between the wheels and how much cutting height you want. The cutting throat is dictated by the diameter of the wheel. Everything else is just built around that. I looked to see what blade lengths were most readily available and sized my saw that way. The top wheel has a lot of up and down travel so that I can use blades between 131" - 140". I mainly use the saw to cut metal, but a family member makes guitars so I wanted to be able to resaw lumber around 12" tall. I do have a AutoCad drawing with dimensions that I made before I started fabrication. It is not exactly what I ended up building because I tried to use material I already had and in the lengths I had. That required me to make changes and concessions.