Wadkin AGS 10 belt tension

[dephill]

Hi all,
I’ve just bought an ags10 and I’m very happy!
I got it for a pretty good price as I had to drag it out of a cellar and one wing of the table has the skirt completely broken off but that’s okay, as I was planning on removing a wing anyway for space considerations.
I’ve cleaned off all the crud and changed the bearings and bushes, including on the motor.

I have fitted three new belts but I’m not sure how much tension to give them. General ‘belt tension’ Googling tells me to tighten so there is only 1/4” deflection if you push a belt but to me this seems a lot of pressure to put on the bearings when multiplied by the three belts.
Giving them less but what seems like enough to me results in a lot of oscillation.
Any advice please?
A photo of your belts to give me an idea or a video with them visible and running might give me something to aim for.
Cheers muchly,
Nick

 

[Ttrees]

If I'm not mistaken, you're not meant to be reasonably able to easily rotate a v belt past 90 degrees.
Is your blade oscillating when you turn the pulley?
If so...
That could be a bit of crud in the arbor flanges that press against the blade, a lot of these are meant to only be in contact with the outside of the flange perimeter.
Could be your spindle bearings, or indeed the arbor itself.

Welcome to the forum by the way
Best of luck with your new to you saw Nick

Tom

 

[dephill]

Thanks Tom,
The bearings are all new skf, the blade rotates by hand with no visible wobble, in fact the same oscillation (or vibration) occurs with the blade off.
I meant maybe that the belts oscillate rather than the blade.
Maybe I just need to not be worried and tighten them a lot more.
Or perhaps once they bed in and I tighten them again they’ll run a bit smoother.

 

[Fitzroy]

Nick,

I find the belts on my AGS10 'bounce' also, with one belt worse, I think it may be a fractionally different length. My machine only has two belts as the pully was replaced when the motor changed from three to single phase. The looser (front) belt has c. 15mm of easy movement in it, the tighter belt perhaps 10mm. Makes the saw noisier than I would like but doesn't seem to effect the cut quality. I've never had any belt slippage issue either.

Couple of videos.
Belt Tension

Belt Running
iPhone 12 is an amazing beast, I shot it in slow mo and if you select 0.25 playback speed on youtube you can see the chaotic belt movement clearly.

Fitz.

 

[dephill]

thanks fitz,
that’s just the sort of info I was after, if not a finite answer to the problem, if there even is one (although I feel like there is)
Cheers, nick
Ps. Here’s mine with as high tension as I dare: