My Homemade 18" Band saw

[mr95gst]

Hello All,
My name is Matthew and last year I made an 18" band saw from a treadmill, wood, steel, aluminum, and whatever else I could find laying around. I had been using an angle grinder to do my metal cutting. I finally got fed up with the shavings it through all over me and the shop and decided I needed a band saw. I couldn't afford the saw I wanted so I decided to try and make one.The motor is 2.5hp 90v dc and came from a treadmill. The wheels are made from MDF. The axles are 5/8 bolts. I used tubing from the treadmill to make the frame for the saw along with other tube I had. The blade guides were milled from aluminum and use skate board bearings. I used the wood melamine deck from the treadmill as the table top. I started out making the table pivot but end up just doing a fixed design. I am currently using the treadmill dashboard to control the blade speed, but I plan on switching it out eventually for something a little more user friendly.

It runs pretty good. I have used it to cut metal and wood. My father in-law used it to resaw 12" maple guitar tops. I still need to finish the controls and enclose the back side. I figured I would run it for a while to see if there was anything I wanted to change before buttoning it up.

I would like to credit John Heisz and Mathias from Woodgears. I studied their designs extensively to come up with mine.


********* Photobucket screwed up all my pictures. I was able to get them back to attach to this thread but they are not organized. Since it will only allow me to add 20 pictures at a time, I will add more pictures at the end of the thread. ********