Here's how I made my own bandsaw bearing guides from aluminum tubing and regular skate bearings - for like $20 :)

I wanted to upgrade my bandsaw with some bearing guides. Now my bandsaw is an old Craftsman model and I really wasn't looking to put a whole lot into it, heck I only paid $50 for it in the first place! So looking around I see that Carter makes some for like $170 - what!?! for some bearings? psshhhhh I'll make my own for like $20 :)

So I started with some aluminum square tubing that you can buy from the local hardware store. I had a bunch of skate bearings still from my first CNC build, they were a little beat up but I found 6 that were in good shape. I wanted to keep the slot narrow to give more support for the nut on the bolt, so I turned myself some bushings so I could use a smaller bolt with the skate bearings.

Basically I milled out a slot in the aluminum square tube for adjustment of the bearings and I bolted another square tube with a slot across - pretty simple design really and totally adjustable.

Is it a bit more of a pain in the butt to adjust without having the set screws to adjust? sure - is it $150 worth of a pain? absolutely not :)

I cut all day with them on Saturday and they worked great - way better than the previous bearing guides (which were some kind of metal) they are a bit noisy and I suppose that's because of the aluminum tube, but it's tolerable for the benefit.

Here's the pictures! If you have any questions please feel free to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.!