Here's a photo, taken in mid-stream, of my bandsaw drive conversion. The saw is a virtually NOS US-made Delta 14" wood cutting bandsaw picked up locally for relatively cheap. The owner made a stab (literally) at woodworking but was all thumbs and a danger to himself and the wife said "It must all go." His loss my gain. It's a cast iron machine with decent bones, except for the big wheels which are aluminum (or potmetal) die castings.
Working backwards from my target speed range I contemplated my drive options. I had a 3/4hp/1725rpm C-face motor on hand, and a chance find on eBay of a new David Brown C-face 90-degree reduction gearbox (for a pittance) sent me in that direction. I put together 2&3-step V-pulleys (driving and driven) which most nearly gave me the range of blade speeds I needed and luckily everything worked out reasonably well.
When I last worked on it I was finishing off the belt slacking mechanism. By rotating the motor 90° into the vertical (thus minimizing the machine footprint) I could bore the cast mounting feet of the gearbox case for bronze bushes which now slide on a pair of silver steel "ways" in an angle iron frame. Belt slacking and speed change is achieved by moving the motor/gearbox chunk (and thus the driving V-pulley) forward or back by a leadscrew between the ways. So far, so good.
A critical item, so I was told by a long-ago mentor who converted a butcher's meat saw to very successful metal cutting saw, is the blade guide arrangement and it appears in order to end up with a good performing machine some alterations to the guides, primarily stiffening, will be needed. What those alterations will be I haven't yet decided, I'm not yet to that part of the project. My inclination is to go ahead and begin using the saw and if blade guide modifications are needed then cross that bridge when I come to it.
