PHS Issue

[YYCHM]

I hate manual hacksawing marathons and can't saw a straight line if my life depended upon it so I want to deploy my PHS every chance I can. The problem I'm having is with small pieces.

The clamping arrangement on the PHS won't hold that piece and the blade is too far from the edge of saw bed to begin with.

I tried this arrangement which I thought should work..

Well, it didn't, the piece still managed to kick sideways.

I looked at vises thinking I could mount one on a piece of bar stock, but came up empty handed for that as a solution.

Suggestions, Ideas? I'm at a loss. I want something that will accommodate a variety of small sizes without having to create a custom mount for each situation.

Thanks.

 

[Janger]

Make jaw extenders. Two plates 2-4" high by maybe 6 or 8" long and 0.25 or possibly 0.375 thick. Then clamp your material in-between the plates in-between the jaws. keep the jaw extenders parallel by using a machinist jack (A coupling nut and a bolt work well) between the plates at the other end of the jaws. I'll try to post a picture.

 

[Dabbler]

I use a 1/2" bolts ovf varying lengths, with a nut and a nut coupler for more extension on the opposite end of the jaws. On thicknesses less than 1" I use 1/8" spacers until it is just over parallel... In the old days, I just used a stack of washers...

 

[Janger]

http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php?topic=604.0

Here we go some pictures of somebody else doing what I am talking about. Is the movable jaw on saws shorter than the fixed jaw just so you can do this?

 

[YYCHM]

Thanks for posting that! I knew there must be a simple solution to this dilemma.

The table extension will be the challenge from my perspective. Bolt on a piece of angle iron perhaps?

Interesting link... Windhoek, Namibia... The metric details got my attention.

Thanks.

 

[PeterT]

I've been thinking about this too. There are lots of cheap, offshore vises that could be mounted to a wood block, say like a 2x4 chunk, Then the main jaws of the saw clamp the 2x4. It has lots of support & the small vise can extend further outboard. That way you could hold short, or fiddly stock in the proper vise. More importantly the blade could go real close to the jaw ends & not be limited to the saw jaw spacing which is also the case on my saw.

Unfortunately most drill press vises have lugs on either side so you would have to stop the blade from dropping through & into the lug once through the material. I can hand assist mine to prevent that so still might not be an issue. There are also flush side vises but they tend to cost more & you have to figure out an alternative way to attach.

 

[Bofobo]

Place a piece of scrap of equal size “spacer” on the non cut side to apply the clamping force equally and square. if you need to support the piece due to stick out, place a narrow piece of stock under the material to be cut and the “spacer”, dont over hang to much as to cut the support stock.

 

[Downwindtracker2]

There must be at least a hundred modifications to the 4x6 bandsaw. One of the more clever used a small cheap drill press vise mounted to a block of wood cut at an angle and a piece of PVC pipe as a stop so the saw wouldn't cut off a vise hold down wing . I'm not sure if it would work with a power hack saw, though, with mine there is a full scale rodeo going on. It does cut square unlike my 4x6.

 

[YYCHM]

Well...… I extended the saw bed 2.5" by clamping on some 1/8" plate (freebee stuff from MSM with one of my purchases believe it or not) I had kicking around and rigged up some extended jaws.

Worked like a charm!!!!

Thank you all for pointing me in the right direction.

I'll have to rig up an adjustable extended jaw set to have on hand for future use.

Maybe weld (attempt to weld is a more accurate description LOL) the bed extension in place once shirt sleeve weather FINALLY arrives.

Cheers

 

[John Conroy]

This is what I do. Picked up this little vise at KMS and it works well for stuff like this. The key is the strut to keep the main vise jaws aligned.

 

[Johnwa]

Here’s another vice jaw mod that adds a quick adjust jackscrew so you don’t have to use bits and bobs to keep the jaws parallel.
https://www.instructables.com/id/4x6-Bandsaw-Vise-Jackscrew/

 

[Janger]

I

Here’s another vice jaw mod that adds a quick adjust jackscrew so you don’t have to use bits and bobs to keep the jaws parallel.
https://www.instructables.com/id/4x6-Bandsaw-Vise-Jackscrew/

I like that guys solution. The sliding bar is attractive.

 

[Dabbler]

Nicely spotted John! what a neat project! Now I have (yet) another thing to do!

 

[YYCHM]

The clamps on this PHS are nothing more than two pieces of angle iron. Is there any reason I can't (shouldn't) replace them with two equal length pieces set close to the blade and use a spreader clamp on the outboard side to keep them parallel when cutting short pieces? That would eliminate all the extended jaw monkeying around and reduce the accessories needed to the spreader clamp. Is there a reason why the fixed clamp is longer than the moving clamp?

Here is a curious observation. The motor end of the clamping screw on this saw is unsupported. It kind of flops around between the handle support and the clamping bolt on the movable jaw. I pulled it off to have a look see, and discovered the motor end is beveled with a small tit (for lack of a better word).

Do you think it's missing a support bracket and bushing?

Kevin D maybe you can chime in here. Is yours supported?

Thanks

 

[Janger]

Is there a reason why the fixed clamp is longer than the moving clamp?

So you can do this ?

 

[YYCHM]

I replaced the clamping jaws on my PSH with this arrangement

Should be able to handle anything I'll ever have to do other than cut at an angle. The original jaws didn't support angle cuts very well either.