Photo 6 shows the serrated drive
wheels. The machine was supplied
with a cast fence that was mounted
in front of the wheels. Mine broke off
within the first five minutes of using
the feeder. Having said that I believe
this cover is totally unnecessary
and thought the machine was
better without it. If you were that
concerned that you may somehow
put your fingers between the wheels
and the timber that you were cutting,
and had the same problem I did with
the factory original, it would not take
much to make one out of plate steel
and mount it in place of the original.Once the feeder was attached to my
bandsaw it was a case of working
out what speed to set. I started at
the slowest setting and worked up
until I found a comfortable cutting
feed rate. This turned out to be a lot
faster than I thought it would be. It
took a bit of time to figure out how
much to adjust the pressure spring
on the swing arm so there would be
no slippage from the serrated wheels
on the timber, but this got easier the
more I used it.The maximum recommended width
of timber the feeder can handle is
210mm between the feeder rollers
and the bandsaw blade and 200mm
between the roller fence and blade
for a total of 410mm, but the way
I have mounted the roller fence
this could be extended for widerboards. The recommended minimum
distance between the roller fence
and the blade is 3mm but I have
successfully cut 2mm laminations on
this with no problems so I think that
recommendation is a bit conservative.One issue I had with the machine
is having to adjust the compression
spring after several passes as the
board was getting thinner. Co-Matic
make a pneumatic version of this
machine which would alleviate this
issue, but of course at a cost. I use
this machine a couple of times a week
and while it would be nice to have the
upgrade it doesn’t bother me enough
to warrant the cost.Another issue with the compression
spring arises when resawing wider
boards into thin laminations. Once
the wider timber has passed, the
spring does come off the two spring
guides at either end of it. An easy fix
to this was to turn a cylinder of wood
with an inner diameter slightly larger
than the spring adjust rod and an
outer diameter slightly smaller than
the inside of the compression spring. Ithen undid the spring adjust rod
and slid this tube over it inside
the spring, and this now keeps
the spring in place.I had one occasion where I was
resawing for about two hours
constant with 50mm thick
eucalypt boards. The single
phase motor was getting rather hot
to the touch and I will be interested
to see how the three phase motor
compares when it arrives.The only disappointment I have with
this machine is that I didn’t buy it
five years ago, as it may have saved
me from the physical and financial
cost of three shoulder operations
and recovery downtime, but as per
usual you don’t learn the real value
of things until it is too late.For the ease at which it does its job I
highly recommend fitting one of these
machines to your bandsaw if your
needs also require it.Photos: Darren OatesBandsaw feeder supplied by Leda Machinery,
http://www.ledamachinery.com.au98 Australian Wood Review
TOOLS & EQUIPMENT- Five speed pulley housing.
- Maintenance points: gearbox oil inlet
and grease nipple on swivel point. - Serrated drive wheels.
Darren Oates is a studio
furniture maker in NSW who
sometimes teaches workshops
at Sturt School of Wood.
Email [email protected]564