26″ Crescent Band Saw Base

My current workshop is half of a two car garage that I share with my girlfriend’s beloved Mazda. With my recent slew of machinery purchases, space management has become quite important. Furniture dollies and casters are a blessing when shuffling equipment around.

The base that the band saw came with is designed to be fastened to the floor and doesn’t lend itself to moving around a small shop easily. This is what I started with…

Whoever designed and built this base did a great job. As part of a Universal Woodworker, the saw was fastened to a large cast iron base that was about 6 inches tall. The base shown above mimics the original base.

The saw with a motor weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 pounds. I need the cart to be strong enough to hold the saw and tall enough to position the table at a comfortable work height. Metal was the material of choice and after some research and a half dozen phone calls I found a local distributor.

I used a chop saw to make the first set of cuts, leaving extra length just in case things needed to be adjusted with the grinder. My experience with the chop saw was less than favourable. Luckily, David introduced me to a new friend of his who was kind enough to let me cut everything again using his horizontal band saw. The band saw produced a clean accurate edge which made welding everything together easier. David joined in with the welding.

David having a go with welding

After a few hours of playing with the welder, this is what I had to show for it. The next thing that I did was to drill the holes for the 4 bolts that fasten the main casting to the cart. After that I ground away all of the unsightly slag, slapped on a coat of primer and then couple coats of black.

While the paint was drying, I started working on building a deck for the cart. David had a pile of reclaimed oak flooring that he was nice enough to let me pick through. I cut everything to a rough length and removed a few nails before gluing everything together.

Reclaimed oak flooring trimmed to rough length

Here’s the deck glued and clamped up. I set this aside to dry for a couple days while I focused on dressing up the casters.

Oak flooring glued and clamped

The casters I had on hang had been used previously to move the lathe. I disassembled them, painted the body, and cleaned the wheel up with a flap-wheel. Here’s a before and after.

Before and after clean up and paint on the casters

By the time that I’d finished the casters the oak deck was ready to be finished. I started by cutting it to size with the table saw and then working it with a couple hand planes until everything was smooth. Here it is fastened to the freshly painted frame.

Oak platform hand planned and trimmed to size

I applied a few coats of danish oil and attached the casters. Here’s the finished cart, ready to move the band saw around the shop.

The finished base.

And here’s the frame mounted to the new base. It’s a big improvement over what I started with and will make life a little easier in my current workspace.

The 26" Crescent Machine Co. band saw frame mounted to the new base

Next up I’m working on the upper wheel assembly and blade guide. Thanks for checking in on my progress and please let me know what you think.