Looking for someone in the Raleigh area that can help with making a bandsaw run effectively.
Have you watched the Snodgrass videos? Worked for me. I found as I got things tracking right, I could open my guides a little. Key is good blade. So much as tap a tooth n a guide, it won't cut strait.
I do hope someone can drop buy and help the OP. Seeing it done on your own saw for real once really helps.
Phil has made the open offer - and the OP is a new user without location info. So with Phil in N Raleigh, geography could be a difference maker as to whether that offer is of any use to the OP. I doubt Phil wants to go to Hendersonville for the afternoon - well maybe he does, but I wouldn't choose that.I can help I work most mornings - free in the afternoons and evenings
I continue to be amazed by people who have been using a bandsaw for years, watch a Snodgrass video and now all of a sudden there’s something wrong with their bandsaw.Snodgrass method worked on my benchtop Delta and my Harvey C-14. By definition, if you are getting drift, you have a problem. Either alignment or blade. 100% true. Brand of saw has nothing to do with it as they are all virtually the same. ( If you understand Chinese manufacturing, more the same than you might guess) His PM being a very old design is easier to swap blades than mine as I have several guards to deal with. Take all that away, you have two wheels. Nothing else.
If you think the blade position is the magic, you have not watched his video. He DOES say to align the fence with the top and then align the top to the blade. My experience says if his method does not work, you probably have a bad band. So much as getting too close once to the teeth with the guides and the band is trash. It happens most often on the lower guides as you are not looking. My experience suggests the lower guides can be a bit wider than the top.
Do as he says. First set up. Take the table off so you can get to everything. If nothing else, you can get a better understanding of the adjustments and all the pieces, get the trunnions clean and lubed and so on. My saw has alignment of the upper guide post to the blade. Not sure if older C- frame saws are adjustable or machined. That was causing me some frustration, but I got it dialed in. My Delta was not adjustable and it was not in line so I had to adjust the guides when I moved the post.
I take more exception to the guy who sells a sled and is doing nothing but change which side of the blade your cutoff is. Handy if your stock was not planed parallel, but nothing to do with drift.
Damn COVID or we could all descend on the OP , tune up his saw, and have a pint or two! Maybe next year.