Changing bandsaw tire
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[This disappeared the first time I posted it. Sorry if it shows up twice.]
I changed the urethane tires on my bandsaw recently, which is something I’d never done before. Just in case it helps someone else, this is a description of how. The basic idea is to soak the urethane tire in hot water for ten minutes first to make it easier to stretch. Some say there is a maximum temperature, above which you negatively affect the tire permanently, I just used hot tap water. Mine was about 150F. Warming the tire seemed pointless when the machine is in a cold garage, so I aimed a space heater at the wheels to gently warm them up. On the first attempts, I tried to drape the tire over the wheel after drying it off and then pull / stretch it on, just like you’d put on a bicycle tire. This did not work. What did work was to place the tire over the wheel and hold it with a gentle spring clamp. Next, I gripped the tire firmly with my left hand right next to the spring clamp, gripped the tire just an inch to the right with my right hand, stretched that first inch of tire, and then pressed it onto the wheel with my right hand so that it would not unstretch. I moved my left hand over, gripped the tire to keep it from unstretching and then moved my right hand another inch. In this way, I worked around the wheel. The last bit didn’t go all the way onto the wheel; just the edge went onto the wheel, but once it was all over the rim, it was easy to push it to center. I think the first method, draping a portion of the tire over the wheel, did not work because that section never stretched, forcing the rest of the tire to stretch even more, which was too hard for me to do. The method I just described forces the entire length of the tire to stretch. I don’t know if it was a good idea, but once the tire was on, I carefully worked a round-shafted screwdriver under the tire and out the other side, taking care not to damage the tire. I then held the screwdriver fixed and rotated the wheel around a few times. The idea was to even out the stretching / tension in the tire.
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