1943 Marvel 8 Restoration

[Dan from Oakland]

Nice job! That's all that needs to be said.

 

[nt1953]

I decided to do some additional repairs and upgrades to the Marvel. Maybe someone will find these additional posts useful.

One of the first repairs/upgrades I made was to the wear strips. My wear strips were work out, and because the saw's table was dished from front to back and from each side to the middle, I made new tapered wear strips. The strips were made from 1/8" x 1-1/4" 01 high tolerance tool steel I got from McMaster.com. The outer strips are original thickness (1/16"). The inner strips start out at the edge of the table at 1/16" and taper toward the middle of the table as required to make the wear strips the same height across the table.

The picture below shows the new wear strips and a couple of inside standard wear strips that I made.

 

[nt1953]

I was also having some trouble with the feed slipping, so I took off the clutch plate with the 6 or 7 corks in it, mounted it in my lathe and used a toolpost mounted die grinder to surface the corks so that they were all the same height.

I also made a small feed belt idler pulley cut out a part of the feed belt cover to make room for it.

I no longer have any feed slipping problems.

 

[nt1953]

I also decided to resurface the vise faces and the vise bases. The faces were worn so that they were convex, and the keys in the bottoms of the vises were very loose in the table slots.

I had to remove as much as .050" to get the vise faces flat, and I took off .125" from the bottom of the vises to make the key wider, and to give the key two parts of the table slot to engage in.

The vise halves are now tight in the table slots, and have flat faces so that the material being sawn can be held square with the blade travel.

 

[nt1953]

I found several sand inclusions in the vises. At least one of them was visible before machining. I also found two large voids in the base of one of the 4 vise halves I machined.

The larger of the two voids was at least 5/8" deep at two points, and was triangular shaped with the triangle legs being more than an inch in length. I did not feel that I could or should fill the larger void with brass, so I made some steel patches that I brazed in. The larger steel patch is 1/4" thick. After brazing and cooling (24 hours in a bucket of dry sand), I cleaned the vise half with a needle scaler (also does some stress relief), and machined the surface flat.

 

[nt1953]

The last thing I did was to make a new splined shaft cover. I used a piece of muffler pipe and some 1/4" plate.

 

[Ox]

I found several sand inclusions in the vises. At least one of them was visible before machining. I also found two large voids in the base of one of the 4 vise halves I machined.

The larger of the two voids was at least 5/8" deep at two points, and was triangular shaped with the triangle legs being more than an inch in length. I did not feel that I could or should fill the larger void with brass, so I made some steel patches that I brazed in. The larger steel patch is 1/4" thick. After brazing and cooling (24 hours in a bucket of dry sand), I cleaned the vise half with a needle scaler (also does some stress relief), and machined the surface flat.

Porosity like that was common for war era machines from what I have seen.
I'm guessing that the train of thought was that they could have 2 "good enough" castings done in the same time as 1 "Very Good" casting?

We have some bondo in some old frames.



Also - I like your roll away cart. That wouldn't work in my shop as I have a roll-out table ponied up to mine and cut 4000# bundles, so I don't want it moving around on it's own free will, but I do have my saw mounted to some rect tubing so that I can fork it up and move it. Otherwise these things are nigh impossible to get a'hold of....




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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[boslab]

It’s a wonderful job, congratulations on saving some classic iron
Mark

 

[thomasutley]

Great job Neil! Those patches look great.

 

[nt1953]

Ox,
I was thinking that it was possible that war production suffered at times from lack of skilled personnel and from the need to roll product off the line regardless of the fit, finish, or quality. It just needed to be functional.

I make a lot of dollies for my tools to make my shop more usable. The only tools that I have not put on wheels so far are lathes.

 

[_Duke_]

Head tilt question

I know this thread is a little old, but I was wondering if anyone could tell me how far these old 8s can tilt?
The dial on mine goes to 50 degrees, but if I push the head in either direction past about 35 degrees, the flat belt rubs on the chain underneath the table that advances the carriage.
Changing the belt onto a different ratio pulley only gains another couple of degrees, and putting the idler arm in the other direction doesn't help either.
Could my belt be too long? It's brand new from Darcy Saw and looks the same as the original that came on the saw.
I've only really been using the saw since last year and this is the first time I've had to do a 45 miter.

 

[PCFree50]

Still have your "parts" saw? Looking for the pinion block

WOW!

Is it really that old?


I have one just like it as a spare.
Never thrown juice to it yet.
Did pirate the nearly new drive wheel off of it to swap to the newer saw that we run regularly tho.


I was guessing maybe the 50's, I hadn't considered it possibly being a war machine!

This one takes a 1" blade tho.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Still have your "parts" saw? Looking for the pinion block

 

[Ox]

Not a "parts" saw really, more like robbing from Peter.

I have no plan to not have it able to run in short notice.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[roll-a-leblond]

I have a #8,one of the most used machines in the shop.

I would not sell it for 10x what I paid for it.

 

[edwin dirnbeck]

I wouldn't put that much work into a bandsaw. If you're going to rebuild a machine, at least pick one that does more than saw material up.

A BANDSAW IS A MACHINE TOOL.Everything that is made from metal DOES NOT NEED TO BE MACHINED ON A MILL. A good saw like this marvel can easily saw out a 6x6 inch block of solid steel with some shoulders and steps to plus or minus .020 inch.ThERE is a lot of outdoor equipment that is just sawed and drilled and welded together.This is becoming more common now that we have plasma and water jet BANDSAWS.Same thing as an old school bandsaw ,but with the ability to pierce and cnc driven.I have been MACHINEING BLOCKS OF STEEL ON MY 16 INCH DOALL BANDSAW FOR 60 YEARS.I have made many punch press dies with the doall ,by drilling a hole ,threading the blade thru and useing the onboard welder and grinder. Yes ,Yes I know now we have wire EDM. I ran the first one in St Louis at Ehrhardt tool in the 60s.I REPEAT,A BANDSAW IS A MACHINE TOOL. Edwin Dirnbeck

 

[garyhlucas]

In a lot of shops if the saw is down or behind then the lathes, mills, and fab shop are down or behind too!
Bought a 70s Marvel Series 8 at my last job. Every time I used it, it made me smile.

 

[dkmc]

Just picked up an older No 8 last week, searched the forum and found this old thread which has some good info and ideas on these machines. Amazing restoration nt1953! The seller handed me the broken feed belt, and I priced a new one....wow. I've ordered a 1" x 48" J section poly-vee belt and I'll run it inside out on the flat belt pulleys with a tensioner like you've installed.
Not sure why Marvel didn't do that from the git-go. This one is filthy but does not seem to be as worn as some. I was excited to see it has the 2 speed motor, and then once again disappointed to see the motor is 440v only. I've got a different motor and VFD lined up to use.

 

[Ox]

I bought flat belt from McMaster since I couldn't git it [at the time] from "Amada".

But it stretches pretty bad, and I just put a block of something up in there with a C-cramp and adjust as needed.
I have had to replace the replacement belt already I think too.
Whatever was on it when I bought it [back around 2000?] lasted me the better part of 20 yrs, not to mention however old it was at the time I bought it.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[dkmc]

I bought flat belt from McMaster since I couldn't git it [at the time] from "Amada".

But it stretches pretty bad, and I just put a block of something up in there with a C-cramp and adjust as needed.
I have had to replace the replacement belt already I think too.
Whatever was on it when I bought it [back around 2000?] lasted me the better part of 20 yrs, not to mention however old it was at the time I bought it.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

D'arcy saw has them in a couple levels of performance. I think they are between $50 and $90. The poly I intend to use was $15 on Ebay.

 

[john.k]

You will find that the poly vees run much better on the groove side ,and have plenty of grip to replace a flat belt...........I get mine even cheaper at the car salvage ($1).......cut the poly V ,and lace them back together with Stihl weed eater cord ,using the groove for the cord to lay in............In fact this works so well ,I started cutting and lacing ordinary vee belts instead of buying new ones.(I have tons of NOS belts ,never the size wanted)