Hotrod Bandsaw

I bought a Rikon 10-325 several years ago based on its excellent reviews and apparent good value. If this were the centerpiece of my shop for breaking down stock and cutting joinery, I may have popped for something more exotic. I’m a table saw guy mostly, so my need for this bandsaw is primarily to resaw stock and to cut curves. It is more than enough for my needs, but it had some serious shortcomings that I have finally gotten around to correcting. Having hotrodded this saw, I now hope to use it more often for a wider variety of cuts.

If you’re a table saw guy like me, I’m sure you’ve shared my frustration with the big bite a table saw blade takes and all the safety measures necessary to use it without calamity. I’ll never give up my whirly-saw, but I like the control and thin kerf I get at the bandsaw. Too bad the table is so limiting. Imagine breaking down sheet goods on a bandsaw! That would be awesome, but I digress.

Here are my complaints with my Rikon saw out-of-the-box:

1. Rikon provides a nice task light but locates it in just about the most useless place possible.
2. Rikon bearing-style blade guides work great until they seize up with sawdust and pitch, which they do alarmingly often. Replacement is easy but still…
3. My guide post did not track accurately from back to front when raised and lowered.
4. Double-entry dust collection is a real must for this (and probably every) saw and it should have come that way.
5. Bandsaws are top heavy. Rikon’s base cabinet, even when flat on the floor with no casters, flexes too much.

Here are two upgrades I needed that are no reflection on Rikon:

6. My bandsaw needs to be mobile. The choice of casters is critical for such a tippy machine.
7. As a one-man show, it is helpful to extend the table for larger boards. My outfeed support is not original. I can’t recall from where I nicked the idea, but it works well.

The die is set. To get all I think I can out of this saw, I have a 6-item task list.

Lighting

Seriously, this is a slow pitch that Rikon just whiffed. They stuck a really good task light on the back side of the riser, too short to reach around a fence or a jig to shine light on the cut where you need it.

It was simple to relocate the light to the upper wheel house, still out of the way of the saw controls but close enough to where blade meets wood to illuminate the business at hand. All that was needed was a few feet of wire, a drill, some wire nuts, and some common sense to keep the wire from contacting any moving parts inside the wheel house. Viola.

It took a couple tries to fish wire from the switch into the wheel house. I tied a ¼-20 nut to a string and dropped it into an already-existing hole then used the string to guide the wires from the wheel house down to the switch.

I considered several options for the new mounting location. I chose the spot just above the upper-wheel viewing window where I could get a wrench on the mounting nut and shine the light directly on the cut line.

If you are upgrading your saw, start here. It is a massive improvement relative to the time, effort and materials invested. The only question is why Rikon isn’t doing this for us.

Guides

I replaced the bearing-style guides on my saw twice. I don’t use this saw enough for that to be reasonable. I upgraded to ceramic guides from SpaceAge Ceramics. This is a new upgrade so I don’t have much to report regarding performance, but it was a fast and easy change and from the looks of things, I’m going to love these blocks. Not cheap at ~$70, but cheap is relative. If I can use these blocks trouble-free for years and years, the cost is irrelevant. https://spaceageceramics.com/

Guide Post

The guide post holds the blade guides relative to the blade and the user needs to able to raise and lower the guide post without changing the blade guides’ settings. Given the precise tolerances one expects from the blade guides and the generous travel of the guide post on the Rikon 10-325, this is a significant challenge.

Inside the upper wheel house, the guide post is anchored to the housing by 4 bolts easily accessible on the back. My guide post tracked perfectly side-to-side along its length of travel but was significantly out-of-true from front to back. To remedy the inaccuracy, I added shims between the saw housing and the guide post mounting block. I used copper flashing because it is stable and was on hand. You can see in the photos that it took significant shimming to get the guide bar to track accurately. Now my blade is the same distance from all 3 blade guides, right, left, and back, regardless whether the guide post is low or high.

Dust Collection

I am Todd, Hater of Dust. I will do almost anything, spend almost anything, build almost anything to minimize dust in my shop. Having this bandsaw spew sawdust on my feet is as attractive to me as syphilis. The enormous dust collector attached to the stock 4” port in the lower wheel house of my saw is comical overkill, and still… friggin’ dust on my friggin’ feet.

Rikon, can you hear me?

There doesn’t appear to be any way around catching dust in at least two places on a bandsaw, so I added a Wye with a 2 ½” fork in the road and installed a short run of crinkle hose that is pretty much able to hold its shape. I’m probably not done tuning this, but I’m already seeing encouraging improvements. I was sufficiently impressed with this cheap hose that I bought a second one for the drill press and now I have dust collection both under and over the drill press table, too.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074Y8KF2L/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For the record, Rikon should have provided this like they do on some of their bigger saws.

Base Cabinet

This was a big investment of time and creativity. This would be the last of all the upgrades I would recommend because Rikon’s base cabinet is sufficient, just not great. To replace it with something great is a real undertaking.

My shop-built base cabinet is made of ¾” plywood, laminated to achieve 1 ½” sheets, cut so that they fit together like tabs and slots. The result is a box I would happily test under a monster truck. To call it “rigid” would be like describing Ariana Grande as “okay looking”.

I did a couple things in the build that worked out well. I matched the color so unless you know what you’re looking at, you can’t tell the base isn’t de-Rikon. I recycled the front cover to preserve storage and to further the disguise. To recycle Rikon’s front cover, I had to harvest hinge pins off the old and now-discarded Rikon base using a hacksaw and files.

All finished, I’m guessing my base weighs upward of 50 pounds. I built it from a variety of leftover partial plywood sheets, but I’d wager there’s about a full sheet in it altogether. Much of it is very heavy, very expensive material left over from a kitchen wall project. To me this is what is called for in a base cabinet for a bandsaw and I’m glad I didn’t skimp.

Casters

My saw isn’t privileged to live in its own space. It isn’t ready to spring into service, except for tasks that can be managed within the footprint of the small table. Bigger work requires that the saw be rolled into open space. My first set of casters was this style, with cam levers that (supposedly) would lift the machine off the ground and rear wheels that support the machine full-time.

The cams are crap and the machine is forever sitting on wheels in the back, not flat and securely on the floor. In my quest to minimize flex and wiggle, I knew I needed a caster system that would allow me to easily lift and drop the machine completely on the floor.

I wrung my hands a long time before deciding on a set of casters. So far I am pleased with my choice. On my new casters, the saw rolls predictably when in the raised position and sits flat on the floor when lowered. The casters are amply sufficient to handle the weight despite the high center of gravity. These are easy to install and operate, and unlike some VERY similar competitors, the plates onto which the casters are bolted are beefy. Note they are tapped for more than 2 mounting screws, which seems smart to me. Cheap? Nope. Good? Yep. Problem solved? Priceless.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076FQ3LNZ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Outfeed Support

My final upgrade was an effort to remain sovereign in my shop. I don’t like to ask for help and help is rarely readily available, so it is always worth my time and effort to engineer things to be safe and functional for two hands. This adjustable stock support doesn’t get used often, but when it does it works well. I can’t recall from where I stole this design. I can’t give credit but I can’t take credit either. This outfeed support arm has gotten me through some tough spots, but in truth most tasks that would require long stock support get done on the table saw. If your bandsaw is your primary break-down and joinery saw, good infeed and outfeed support makes sense. I would recommend far better support than this provides. I rarely feed long stock through my bandsaw. This is the least necessary upgrade I made but when I need it, I have it.

Worth It?

A long time ago I made the decision to eliminate the tool from the success equation whenever possible. In other words, I made a commitment to buy tools good enough to leave any possible blame for failure on the user. The upgrades I made to my bandsaw move this machine into that category along with my thoroughbred planes and saws and chisels. Now I know that when something goes wrong at the bandsaw, it’s me. There is ironic comfort in that. I would rather face overcoming a knowledge or skill deficit than to face having to make a bad tool perform beyond its design. If my approach resonates with you, give these upgrades serious consideration.