I got a little sidetracked from working on the Supermax mill. I've been looking for a horizontal bandsaw semi-seriously for a couple of years and on Friday, this machine showed up on FB.
It's an early Kalamazoo 8" x 16". The tag is missing so I don't know the year for certain, but this is the cover from an old 1942 catalog on Kalamazoo's website and it looks identical to the one I just bought.
It seems that later it was known as a model 816 (hooda thunkit!) which is very similar but not identical saw. They seem to share many parts, but one major difference is the split gearcase with ball bearings on the early machine and single piece case with covers and tapered roller bearings in the later machine but don't quote me on any of this as I'm new to Kalamazoo saws.
Another giveaway that this is an early machine is the cast aluminum belt guard. I think I would have bought this saw just for the belt cover.
It did come with an extra blade and the rest of the aluminum front cover with cast-in lettering (another early trait, I think) and another feature that I really liked. I partially disassemble it for two reasons, the first is it weighs nearly 700 pounds so I needed to reduce the weight to get it off the back of my trailer without tipping the trailer over and second, to find out what condition the "innerds" were in, especially the gearbox since if you can even find one, it would be VERY expensive. I did check the backlash in the gears before buying the saw and it seemed to be very small so I was hopeful they were still in good shape, but I really wanted to see it with my own eyes as it was kind of a make-or-break item whether to keep the saw or part it out. As it turned out, the gears were in excellent condition (for an 80 year old machine-whew!) as was most everything else.
The only thing it really needs is a half-nut for the vise, a very non-standard part that I'm hoping I can buy someplace. It sits above the vise lead screw and is spring loaded away from it and a cam above the nut engages or disengages it as needed.
If not, I will have to repair the old one using a purchased acme nut and probably will need the mill to boot.
Also, the moveable jaw of the vise has a piece missing out of the adjustment slot, for now it will work fine with a spacer, but I will either repair it at some point or replace it if I can locate the correct part down the road.
It also needs EVERY bearing replaced. I don't know how long this has been sitting but every bearing had grease that had turned into a messy, gravely half-powder and there wasn't a single drop of oil in the gearbox.
