Its Just a Phase

Fifth Law of Engineering in the Post-Reagan Era – The best counter to high tech is often a lot of low tech. *

I have for some time wanted a large (or larger) bandsaw.  I have a little 12-inch Craftsman with a 1/3 horsepower motor on it and it does really well with thin stock or stock made of softer woods.  Resawing or dealing with Oak or Walnut and the like is a slower affair.   It’s very good for cutting shapes though.   But I have been wanting something that can do resaw work.

Resawing is – generally speaking – where you turn a board on its edge and split it in two, or cut a long thin and wide piece off of it.   The cut can engage several inches of the blade and accordingly takes more power and torque.   In keeping with the fifth law above, I began to look for an old bandsaw from the Powermatic “Green era.”  

Powermatic was originally based in McMinnville, TN and was in its day the absolute gold standard for table saws, planers, bandsaws, etc.   Stuff made there in those days was painted green…hence the “Green era.”  Then they sold and production moved to Taiwan where it was painted Gold (yep, the “Gold era”).  These machines are very well regarded but not quite as well as the green ones.  Then production moved to and remains in China where the machines took on Yellow paint.   Each successive production move resulted in lighter materials, the introduction of plastic, etc.  Of course, what never got lighter was the price.  **

A new “yellow era” Powermatic 20-inch bandsaw goes for around $7,000.  But ain’t it pretty!

So, adhering to the fifth law I began looking for a Green-era machine and found one in an online auction in Ohio.  It was coming out of a High School that apparently, in an anti Mike Rowe fit, cancelled shop class forever.  ****  I got it for $600 and got to drive to Delphos, Ohio to pick it up.  While there I met some super nice folks who helped me load it in the back of the truck.

And there you have it.  A 1965 Powermatic Model 81 20-inch bandsaw filling up the entire bed of my ¾ ton truck and weighing right at 1000 pounds.  The table is removed at this point in an effort to ease loading.  The table weighs about 130 pounds.  I put in in the back seat so, you know, so it would not blow out of the bed on the way home.  We loaded the machine with a forklift and three young men who I am sure had at one point formed the center of the offensive line for the Delphos, Ohio High School football team. 

So, unloading it when I got home posed a quandary until my neighbor showed up to supervise and told me to just lift it out with the front-end loader.  Stanley’s professional view was that it is a green era machine and therefore would not buckle under its own weight hanging from a chain.

Turns out he was (of course) right and we got it into the shop.  And there’s the table to the right of it.  So, you are thinking “put on the table and a blade on and you are done” right?  Well, wrong for a couple of reasons:

            1. There was no blade with it,

            2. The blade guides were long ago shot and had to be replaced with an aftermarket solution, and…

            3.  The motor in the saw requires 3-phase power. 

Ok that’s three reasons.

Naturally I don’t have 3-phase power available – and most likely you don’t either, leading you to ask “what is 3-phase power?”   Simple answer is something like this…. ****

Single phase has one of those lines, while three phase has three as shown.  As a result, the motor gets power applied more constantly.   Industrial settings and (apparently) high school shop classes run (or ran as it were) on three phase power.  So, I had to somehow add it into the shop.  But remember I “only” paid $600 for the bandsaw! (And it’s a green-era Powermatic and all that.)

After a lot of study, I decided to install a “Rotary Phase Generator” in the shop.  Essentially, it’s a three-phase motor that takes in 220 single phase and as a result throws off 220 three phase power, ***** which runs through a panel full of stuff that smooths the power out and sends it to the afore mentioned $600 bandsaw (that needs new blade guides and a blade).  But before I could put it in, I had to run wiring from where it would go to where the ($600) bandsaw would sit, resulting in the little round plug there in the second picture.  

Then I got an electrician to wire in the generator.  I could have probably done this but felt better paying a pro who charged slightly less than ($600) for the install. So, there’s the panel and the motor feeding the wiring I put in to the right there.   It all worked!

The 1965 ($600) Model 81 Green Era Powermatic 20-inch bandsaw sprang to life when we connected it to the power source and then said loudly “I need guides and a blade.”  So, I ordered both.  Combined, they cost a little over a third of what the $600 bandsaw cost.   Here they are installed though not yet adjusted correctly.  This is the upper guide assembly which happens to look exactly like the lower guide assembly that sits (you guessed it) below the table, which is also installed here.

As soon as I got it up and running I grabbed a piece of scrap oak from the table project and tried it out. It ran through it like a knife through hot butter until it hit the nail I neglected to detect with the metal detector before cutting it.  But not to worry! In a few days another new 150 inch long hardback ¾ inch hardwood blade arrived (for the $600 band saw).

Oh.  I forgot to mention I also had to add a set of heavy-duty casters to be able to move the ($600) bandsaw.    All that said though here she is in all her glory. 

If you have been following  closely ****** then by now you are asking for some idea of the total cost of the three-phase power install itself thinking I forgot to mention it.  My answer is simply this: “It’s just a phase, don’t worry about it.  It will always be a $600 bandsaw to me.”  And it came with 58 years of safety sticker history! That’s got to be worth something.

And yes, we love our cats too!  Just ask Bob.

* I used to work with this guy who was always quoting his “Laws of Engineering.”  I think he had like six of them.  With one or two exceptions nobody who worked with him ever understood a word he said.  He used the Ho Chi Minh trail as his proof of the fifth law.

** And some say they still are the Gold Standard, but if you read my post on the 4^th of July you probably figured out, I am not a fan of their current manufacturing source.

*** https://mikeroweworks.org/  God bless this man.

**** Taken from https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/12851/why-is-three-phase-offset-by-120-degrees

***** Not exactly, but that’s close (sort of). Actually its not accurate at all but you get three-phases out.

****** Of course you have been.  You probably even have your calculator out.