Drive belt for Warco 314 bandsaw

[gemwand]

Can anyone advise on the correct drive belt to use with the 3-speed Warco 314 bandsaw? The drive pulley grooves have half-round cross-section with diameter 1/4", and the length of an unstressed belt would be about 25 inches.

The bandsaw was made in Taiwan, and looks very like the BS-614 bandsaw currently listed by J&T Machinery (Taiwan). I have not been able to get any information from J&T Machinery, or from Warco.

 

[9fingers]

Are the grooves round the circumference of the pulley forming a series of circles or do the grooves run across the width of the pulley looking a bit like a gearwheel. like this http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl= ... ,s:0,i:120
Is there any visible writing/numbers on the belt?

You can't post pictures here yet as a newbie but If you can email me at [email protected] I will try and help further.

Bob

 

[gemwand]

Thanks for the reply - my description was poor.

There are three matched pairs of pulleys, which allows selection of one of three speeds for the saw by moving the drive belt on to the appropriate pair. Each of the pulleys has a single groove running the circumference of the pulley, into which the belt has to sit. There is nothing in the pulley which will place the belt - it will be kept in place relative to the drive pulley by friction alone. Modern pulleys all seem to have V-grooves of some sort, but these all have a semi-circular cross-section (like a truncated U ).

It seems that I need a belt of circular cross-section and it seems logical that its diameter matches the width of the groove (1/4") but I don't know how much tension is appropriate. The only circular cross-section drive belts I can see from internet search (apart from leather ones) are urethane belts, which can be made to any desired length.

 

[9fingers]

That is an unusual belt type to be found on a bandsaw especially a modern one sold by firms such as Warco.

Have you approached warco? They are pretty helpful when I have used them for consumables. You can buy urethane belt and join it by melting it with a hot knife and then trimming the joint once it has cooled - It takes a little practice.
I think somewhere on the lathes.co.uk website, they offer belt making service.

hth

Bob

 

[9fingers]

For the benefit of other readers, this is the photo that gemwand sent me

Bob

 

[woodaxed]

i just looked at a pic of the warco 314 looks the same as the nu tool bandsaw model no 0134A and it does have a round neoprene
belt fitted to it got one under the bench when it broke i took the belt into a belt supplier and they made a new one for me

 

[gemwand]

Thanks for all the responses. Warco have no current knowledge of the bandsaw, and Nutools didn't reply to my query.

The best source of spares seems to be Clarke, whose CBS 355 model is at heart the same bandsaw as the Warco and Nutools ones. I got a new drivebelt from them (part number FM355031), see their online manual at clarkeservice...manuals...woodworker...cbs355.pdf.

The supplied drive belt is 7mm diameter orange plastic (urethane I guess), about 620mm in circumference along the centre line. It is a stretch fit over the pulleys, about 10-20mm shorter than the measured length over the pulleys (hard to be precise since my three pulley sets don't all give the same length!).

For the record, here are some 14" bandsaws which are essentially equivalent:

Warco 314
NuTool 0134A
Clarke CBS 355

There is a current manufacturer in Taiwan, J&T Machinery, whose model is BS-614.