Help with Inca Euro 260 Bandsaw, please!

bacchanal · 6 Oct 2017

Hi all,

I have just purchased by first ever Bandsaw, an old Inca Euro 260. It was in good condition, but I am having a few teething problems with setting it up. It would be great if any owners or previous users of this machine could offer some advice.

So, I put in a new blade, and cleaned it up.
However, in the manual, it said to tighten the screw on the top of the unit until it read from 3-5, depending on the width of the blade.
However, there was no mention of which setting (3, or 5) was for which width of blade – which confused me, as I have ¼” and ½” blades!

Also, with this screw completely slackened, it was only reading 3. Should it be reading 1? If so, perhaps I need to go right beyond 5 with the tightening of the blade – read below to see why I say this.

So I tightened it to 5, with a ¼” blade. Set all blade guides in place, etc., with the teeth protruding just slightly of the rubbers.

I started cutting and all was working well, until on one piece of wood, which I only needed to cut into by 3cm. When I fed it back through the blade to remove it (I was only partially cutting into it), I heard a loud pop, and the sawblade had come loose from the wheels. Obviously I turned it straight off, and removed the blade.

Why would this have happened? Could I have knocked it out of place when I retracted the wood onto the blade? Could I have not had the sawblade on tight enough? Did I do something wrong in the setup of it?

Any advice would be great.

Thank you.
Theo

marcros · 6 Oct 2017

Hi Theo

Ignore the tension gauge. tighten the blade until it feel right. This is difficult on your first saw because you don't know what that should be, but you will learn. you should only be able to more it side to side by a few mm.

you will need to run some test cuts, but if it is slightly loose, then the cut will not be vertical top to bottom, it will be bowed.

When you pull the wood out, you risk snagging the blade, and you are pulling away from the rear guide. The cut may have closed a little and pinched the blade too. You probably shouldn't do it without stopping the saw, but everybody does. I suspect also that the blade wasn't quite tight enough.

You chose well with an Inca.

sunnybob · 7 Oct 2017

Ignore guide numbers.
get the blade running well on the wheels with it loose. tighten the blade slowly while watching the front of the blade at the vutting area. stop tightening when the blade looks as though its still (Theres a video called flutter test you should look out for).

If the blade is thin, stop the blade before backing out of a partial cut. Wider blades have more tension and you can get away with not stopping it.
Buy tuffsaws blades, that will help.

flh801978 · 7 Oct 2017

Theo
Was the bandsaw one that ended this week on ebay? A light blue one with lots of accesories with it?

Ian

MusicMan · 7 Oct 2017

Yes this can happen, don't worry about it, most probably caused by snagging the wood as you withdraw it. Happened to me a couple of times. Remedy as sunnybob says.

Blade tension: it should twang at the same pitch whatever blade you put on. A wider blade of course needs more tension to do this. I'll get round to measuring the pitch on my Inca sometime! But it is a good 'twang' not a feeble dead sound. I usually sit at 5 on the scale for a 1/2" blade.