Bandsaw Help

[Tim Dorcas]

One of the most frustrating tools in my shop is my bandsaw. I use about half time for veneers and the other half for general cutting. When it comes to cutting veneers my success rate if about 50%. Sometimes the blade wanders so much it ruins the wood. I have spent a few dollars upgrading it. You can check out what I have done here (http://www.responsetolight.com/?p=116).

What are other people doing? Keep in mind I routinely adjust my bandsaw to make sure the bearing are aligned properly, the table is square to the blade. Somehow this should not be the tools that is giving me the most problems.

Thanks!

Tim

[Jason Beam]

What blade? What widths are you cutting? What kind of wood is it? How hard are you pushing the wood? How sharp is the blade?

All those questions should get us closer to diagnosing the problem.

[Tim Dorcas]

What blade? What widths are you cutting? What kind of wood is it? How hard are you pushing the wood? How sharp is the blade?

All those questions should get us closer to diagnosing the problem.


I can't think of the brand but it's a high quality blade. 1/2" 3TPI. I just put a new blade on so it's definitely sharp. Sometimes I go for 1/8" veneer. Sometimes a I try for 1/2".

[Paul Atkins]

I solved most of my band saw problems by throwing out my Tiwaneese 14" out in the yard and got a 20" PM87. Silk purse / sows ear syndrome.

[Burt Alcantara]

3 tpi is good for cutting green wood. For dry wood, I'd use something in the neighborhood of 10 tpi+. Depending on your saw's capability, you might consider a wider blade.

[glenn bradley]

It is disappointing to do as much bolt-on upgrades as you have and still not get a consistent cut. Although maybe obvious, I'll toss out some stuff:

- Face joint the surface that is against the fence and know that the surface that rests on the table is jointed at 90* to that fence riding surface.
- Upper guides are as close to the material as is reasonable. A well tuned saw is much more tolerant of guide height but with your symptoms I would give the blade all the help I could.
- Use a resaw (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=46864&d=1158281664) (the knife-edge or pointy kind) fence for thicker material and compensate for drift on-the-fly. I sometimes have to do this on heavily figured woods but used to have to do it exclusively before I got my larger machine.

[Jason Beam]

I can't think of the brand but it's a high quality blade. 1/2" 3TPI. I just put a new blade on so it's definitely sharp. Sometimes I go for 1/8" veneer. Sometimes a I try for 1/2".

What kind of cut depth are you talking? 6"? 10? In dry hardwood?

How much force are you putting on the wood when you feed it? You should only be pushing hard enough to keep giving the blade wood when it has finished devouring what it's already had - a nice smooth pressure, the blade should set the speed.

Also, what kind of fence are ya using? Pivot point? Just a flat fence like a table saw?

I don't think a bigger saw is the answer - sure is easier to spend other peoples' money, though :D

The tooth count is DIRECTLY related to the thickness and I don't think we have enough info to decide if 3tpi is right or wrong. And, for the record, green wood blades aren't so much about the tooth count as they are the angle those teeth are ground to. The teeth are shaped differently for green wood than dry stock.

A 1/2" 3TPI blade would be okay in 6" and taller cuts of hardwoods and should track just fine under normal circumstances.

The rule of thumb with tooth count is generally to try and keep between 12 and 24 teeth engaged in the wood at any given time. A 3tpi blade would be good between 4" and 8" board. Down in the lower tooth counts, though, you start running into some practical limitations and I try to keep it as low as possible when resawing really wide stock. I have a 2-3tpi 3/4" blade that I regularly use in 12" wide stock - ripping ~1/16" veneers from.

Resawing is very much an exercise in getting to know your saw. If your blade is wandering so much that you blow out of a 1/8" slice, then you've got to look into things like tracking and blade drift. If your fence is not perfectly aligned with the cut (not the blade!) it will probably blow out.

I don't believe anyone should settle for very much, if any, drift in their blade - I shouldn't have to tilt my fence much at all. If my blade drifts more than a fraction of a degree, then I'm not setup correctly. It's worthwhile to setup your saw for as near ZERO drift as possible. If you have crowned wheels (most of us do on smaller saws), you can very very subtly adjust the tracking on those wheels such that the blade gets twisted ever-so-slightly by the crown of those wheels to pretty much eliminate all drift. Some folks don't think it's worthwhile, i leave you to decide for yourself. I don't have drift, i know others who don't have drift, so it really can't be all that tough to get rid of. :)

Anywho - a few of those questions above will help us to further diagnose the problem.

[Paul Atkins]

Jason, Oh I agree, bigger isn't always better, but better is better, and I wasn't trying to spend his money for him. Of the 10 or so machines I have, all were bought second hand and modified, tuned, tweaked to get the best out of them. I had a lousy 14" band saw for a long time and spent lots of time 'tuning' it up, but the cast iron frame was flimsy and would flex if I pulled down on it, the guides were sloppy, the wheels were not in the same plane till I shimmed them, and more I tried to forget. There is a point where you have to cut your losses or realize that the saw will not do what you want it to. The extra time to massage this saw to get a good product might not be worth it in the long run - Seems like Tom has done quite a bit to make it as good as it is. Yes, no drift is good.
Tom, is there someone locally that has a different saw and would let you try a few pieces on to see what another saw feels like?

[Tim Dorcas]

What kind of cut depth are you talking? 6"? 10? In dry hardwood?

How much force are you putting on the wood when you feed it? You should only be pushing hard enough to keep giving the blade wood when it has finished devouring what it's already had - a nice smooth pressure, the blade should set the speed.

Also, what kind of fence are ya using? Pivot point? Just a flat fence like a table saw?

I don't think a bigger saw is the answer - sure is easier to spend other peoples' money, though :D

The tooth count is DIRECTLY related to the thickness and I don't think we have enough info to decide if 3tpi is right or wrong. And, for the record, green wood blades aren't so much about the tooth count as they are the angle those teeth are ground to. The teeth are shaped differently for green wood than dry stock.

A 1/2" 3TPI blade would be okay in 6" and taller cuts of hardwoods and should track just fine under normal circumstances.

The rule of thumb with tooth count is generally to try and keep between 12 and 24 teeth engaged in the wood at any given time. A 3tpi blade would be good between 4" and 8" board. Down in the lower tooth counts, though, you start running into some practical limitations and I try to keep it as low as possible when resawing really wide stock. I have a 2-3tpi 3/4" blade that I regularly use in 12" wide stock - ripping ~1/16" veneers from.

Resawing is very much an exercise in getting to know your saw. If your blade is wandering so much that you blow out of a 1/8" slice, then you've got to look into things like tracking and blade drift. If your fence is not perfectly aligned with the cut (not the blade!) it will probably blow out.

I don't believe anyone should settle for very much, if any, drift in their blade - I shouldn't have to tilt my fence much at all. If my blade drifts more than a fraction of a degree, then I'm not setup correctly. It's worthwhile to setup your saw for as near ZERO drift as possible. If you have crowned wheels (most of us do on smaller saws), you can very very subtly adjust the tracking on those wheels such that the blade gets twisted ever-so-slightly by the crown of those wheels to pretty much eliminate all drift. Some folks don't think it's worthwhile, i leave you to decide for yourself. I don't have drift, i know others who don't have drift, so it really can't be all that tough to get rid of. :)

Anywho - a few of those questions above will help us to further diagnose the problem.

If there is something else I can do to improve my blade drift, I'm all ears. Right now my blade drift is very bad so this could be a good learning exercise. Thanks!

Tim

[Wilbur Pan]

I don't believe anyone should settle for very much, if any, drift in their blade - I shouldn't have to tilt my fence much at all. If my blade drifts more than a fraction of a degree, then I'm not setup correctly. It's worthwhile to setup your saw for as near ZERO drift as possible. If you have crowned wheels (most of us do on smaller saws), you can very very subtly adjust the tracking on those wheels such that the blade gets twisted ever-so-slightly by the crown of those wheels to pretty much eliminate all drift. Some folks don't think it's worthwhile, i leave you to decide for yourself. I don't have drift, i know others who don't have drift, so it really can't be all that tough to get rid of. :)

Crowning the wheels is the single most useful thing I did on my old bandsaw. I was able to get drift free cuts after this. The only thing that crowning the tires won't fix is if the blade is not square to the table in the front to back direction, but it will kill any drift you have.

I'll even go out on a limb and say that properly crowned tires is more important than making sure that the wheels are coplanar.

[Myk Rian]

Here is what I do'
Center the blade on the tires, after making sure the wheels are co-planar.

Adjust the guides properly. I use wood guides so the blade can be buried in them.

Take a piece of stock on edge, draw a line down the center of the edge, and resaw it without using a fence. Guide it manually. Use just enough pressure to keep it moving.

Once you get 1/3 or so of it sawed, notice that the wood may be on an angle. Hold the wood steady and stop the saw. Draw a line on the table using the wood as a guide.

Remove the wood from the blade, loosen the fence adjustment bolts, and align the fence to the line you drew. That is the blade track/drift.

[Jason Beam]

If there is something else I can do to improve my blade drift, I'm all ears. Right now my blade drift is very bad so this could be a good learning exercise. Thanks!

Tim

So if yer tires are crowned, start by getting the blade to ride in the center of that tire and tension and get everything lined up right (guides, etc). Make a cut now. If you have drift at this point, you can fiddle with the tracking (move the blade forward or backward) on the tire just a slight bit to reduce and/or eliminate any drift you might have. The crown causes the blade to twist just a little bit and you can guide that twist some given the position on the tire.

I can say that I have never adjusted either of my saws' wheels to be coplanar and I've got ZERO drift. I refuse to believe that I'm just lucky, given two different saws, different ages, different blades, different sizes, different makers ... no, it's not a coincidence. Nobody should have to tilt their fence to account for drift. Some do, and that's entirely their choice. I chose not to :)

Once you have worked out drift, you should be smooth sailing after that. :)

EDIT: It doesn't take much at all - 1/32-1/16 fore or aft will have a pretty significant impact on the drift line.

[Lance Norris]

Tim... you say the bearings(guides) are adjusted correctly. For resawing, if they are bearings, adjust them tight to the blade, so they are spinning with the saw running. Adjust the upper guide so it almost touches the top of the wood, and use a featherboard. I was amazed how much better my resaw results were when I started using a featherboard. Listen to the comments about adjusting for drift, remember that drift is a quirk of each blade and not the saw, If you change the blade, then the drift will be different. I have had the best results using a 1/2" 3 tooth blade on my 14" cast iron saw.

[Frank Drew]

Tim

Correctly tensioning the band can help eliminate some problems with band saws, and it's often more tensioning than you think.

One argument in favor of bigger bandsaws: You can increase the tension on a big saw more than on a little one because the band is under less stress curving around a bigger wheel -- or so I've been told by someone who had lots of experience with large saws cutting parts for pianos, an operation where blade drift was intolerable.

[Ted Evans]

You have received a lot of good advice Tim so perhaps I can add some confusion. I have a 15” General bandsaw made in Canada that has a very good reputation but until just a few months ago, its use was primarily for cutting curves. I had done some limited re-sawing by using the pivot point method and following a line, which worked for me, sort of. The fence I had was worthless when trying to rip something to thickness.

Then I bought a Carter blade stabilizer and was given the video (http://www.woodcraft.com/product.aspx?ProductID=149555&FamilyID=21176)
by Alex and Howard Snodgrass on tuning a bandsaw, it changed my perception of the bandsaw completely. I turned it the way their video suggested and was amazed at the difference. I had always centered my blade on the tire, thinking that was where it should be. Their instructions were to place the gullet of the blade on the crown of the tire. I found that I had much less drift with any blade from ¼ to ¾ when doing this.

The next huge, and expensive, investment I made was the purchase of a Laguna Driftmaster fence. Drift can be adjusted for in a matter of seconds with this fence, if needed but the real advantage that I see was the incremental adjustment feature which allows the thin veneer piece to be cut on the outside of the blade as opposed to being between the blade and the fence. You may see a video of the fence at, http://www.lagunatools.com/bandsaw.driftmaster.aspx# (http://www.lagunatools.com/bandsaw.driftmaster.aspx).

I was in mourning for two weeks about spending that amount of money on a fence but now I would replace it without a second thought if it was lost. It is amazing to me how much I now use the bandsaw and not just curves and re-sawing veneer. It is wonderful what a well-tuned bandsaw, a good quality blade and fence are capable of doing.


Bear

[Marty Schlosser]

For resawing, if they are bearings, adjust them tight to the blade, so they are spinning with the saw running. .

Lance,
I am running an after-market Carter bearing kit on my venerable 15" General 490 bandsaw and the instructions were very clear about setting the bearings: don't have them touch the blade, but moved away from the blade approximately the thickness of a piece of paper. I've been doing this for some time now and they work really well at resawing.

What roller guide set are you using?

Marty Schlosser
Ottawa, ON

[Tim Put]

I agree with the above about drift. A fence shouldn't have to be adjusted for drift. Drift can be adjusted by tracking. If that doesn't give you enough adjustment range (and the table is square to the wheels [if any blade has ever had low drift on a saw then it is]) then the blade is bad, either asymmetrically set or different lengths along the front and back edges or similar.

I tend to agree there should be some space between the blade and the guides. One wants to expose the blade to as few fatiguing bends as possible, especially on a 14" saw. At the same time, if your guides aren't spinning at least some of the time when cutting, they aren't doing anything, so either your blade isn't wandering at all and your cut is perfect, in which case go back to your workshop and use it, or you need to set them closer.

[Adam Grills]

Buy a better quality bandsaw and and you will see the difference!
Adam

[Phil Thien]

I think you've received lots of good advice. Basically, starting w/ the blade centered on crowned wheels/tires, taking a test cut and checking for drift and trying to eliminate drift as much as possible. Finally, aligning the fence to whatever drift remains.

I will add, though, that your blog says you're using Viking blades. I'd try a blade that lots of people have had good luck resawing with. Either the Blade Runner, WoodSlicer, or Timberwolf blades would give you a good control for making sure your blades aren't causing problems.

And finally, some people suggest not using a blade you've used for curves for resawing. The curve cutting can apparently slightly alter the set on the blade, which can make future straight cutting problematic.

[Jason Beam]

Buy a better quality bandsaw and and you will see the difference!
Adam

Are you kidding me?

What makes his saw lower quality? He's got a perfectly fine saw.

Did you know that the highest quality saw on the planet could have these same problems?

Now, if you're willing to pay for the solution you propose, I guess I wouldn't object. But don't you think it'd be more productive to offer suggestions on how to tune a saw to work properly?

His saw's fine ... throwing money after the problem (short of a good blade) is not solving the problem at all.

[Paul Murphy]

Fine WoodWorking issue 159 page 44.
John White has an excellent in depth write-up on resawing with a 14" bandsaw.
I built and adjusted his fence to my saw for drift,
and with a Wood Slicer 1/2" blade I am satisfied with the results.
(John also has a book on shop machinery, it's probably also in that book)

There are 2 or 3 schools of thought on a fence. Point contact fence, where you guide the work and you compensate for drift. Full contact fence (as john White describes), where you adjust the fence to drift. The final variation is either set whatever fence once to desired veneer thickness(as john White describes), or set fence for each cut to Board minus kerf minus veneer (too much work for me).

Go ahead and do the full coplanar wheel, perpendicular guidepost, fence drift, guide, and table tune-up. It's fussy precise work, but once done, you should be able to resaw 1/16" veneer consistently.

The larger bandsaws are nice, allow faster feed, and can resaw crazy wide boards, but before buying one I would try what John White has done. It works well enough for me on the saw I already own, and within my budget.

[Tim Dorcas]

A couple of things:

I have already spent a fortune on my bandsaw in terms of modifications. And I am using a good quality blade and it's a new blade. Buying another bandsaw is not really an option at this point.


My fence is designed for resawing and at a minimum everything is square: the fence, blade and table are all square to themselves. I check this everytime before I resaw anything.

There have been a few recommendations regarding blade drift. I will have to do some research to see how I can better reduce this.

One of the things I find incredibly frustrating about woodworking in general is the correct setup of each tool. My lathe vibrates a little but I've already adjusted the legs, added weight, checked the belt, and tightened screws where I could. My grinder wheels wobble a bit but I've purchased a balancing system and the wheels are true before I put them on the grinder. The biggest offender is my bandsaw and I can't tell you how many times I've screwed up a nice piece of wood because I can't get a reasonably straight cut.

Okay...I think I'm done ranting.

I do appreciate everyone's advice and I said when I started I'm open to trying some different approaches to fixing my problem.

Thanks!

Tim

[Gary Muto]

I can say that I have never adjusted either of my saws' wheels to be coplanar and I've got ZERO drift. I refuse to believe that I'm just lucky, given two different saws, different ages, different blades, different sizes, different makers ... no, it's not a coincidence. Nobody should have to tilt their fence to account for drift. Some do, and that's entirely their choice. I chose not to :)

I just purchased a Rikon 14" deluxe bandsaw and during set up, I could not see a way to adjust the wheels to be coplaner so I called Tech support (thinking that I could get some shims).

I was told what Jason said That by adjusting the camber on the lower wheel while using the OEM Blade and proper tension that I could center the blade on both wheels. I was able to get dead center tracking on both tires simultaneously doing this. I finished assembly, changed blades and performed a resaw cut on a 5 1/2" board and was within 0.010" top to bottom and end to end (+/- 0.005") using the fence. I did not use the resaw post or adjust the fence for drift.

I have to say that I really didn't believe this would work and knew that I'd be calling back tech support. It turns out that I did. I had to tell them that the procedure was easy to follow and that my results were excellent. I really didn't believe that I could change blades and still have good tracking.

I never rechecked but my wheels were originally ~1/8" out of coplaner when I adjusted the camber (tracking adjustment) on the top wheel. I don't think adjusting the camber on the lower wheel would have changed that.

[Gary Muto]

I replied to Jason's posting (#11) so you may not see it. I can discuss the adjsutment method for the lower wheel with you if you like. PM me if you are interested.

[Lance Norris]

Lance,
I am running an after-market Carter bearing kit on my venerable 15" General 490 bandsaw and the instructions were very clear about setting the bearings: don't have them touch the blade, but moved away from the blade approximately the thickness of a piece of paper. I've been doing this for some time now and they work really well at resawing.

What roller guide set are you using?

Marty Schlosser
Ottawa, ON

Marty...I have 2 bandsaws, the one I resaw with is a Grizzly G0457. When I resaw, I dont have any problems with a quality cut. I use the bearings just touching the blade. It has the stock bearing type guides. I was thinking of anything I could, that would help the OP out. Since I wasnt clear what exactly his problems were, I just threw out what no one else had yet suggested. As to the notation in the Carter manual, I cant see any reason why you cant run the bearings up tight, for resawing, that is. For cutting curves, thats a different story. Some twisting of the blade can be helpful for curves. For resawing, unless you are cutting thousands of board feet at a time, and heat and bearing life could be a problem, I see no reason why you cant run the bearings tight to the blade. Sometimes a little pitch will stick to the bearings, but it scrapes off easily.

[Danny Burns]

This helped me.

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/library/resaw.pdf

[Paul Murphy]

Tim, one thing for sure:
You're going to have to set your fence to drift angle, or zero drift angle to the fence.

One thing the 1/2" Woodslicer blade helps with on a small saw is that it is small enough to tension properly. Some small saws will not reliably tension a standard thickness 3/4" blade, and then the cut is unpredictable.

[Tim Put]

Agreed. I think drift should be adjusted by tracking though, not by angling the fence to something other than parallel to the miter slot. Which also means one can have zero drift (defined here as nominal angle of cut as referenced to the plane of the guide, whether fence, miter gauge or other) when cross cutting.

Also agreed on recommending against 3/4" blades on small saws. The real problem is not (or at least is only half) depth, but thickness. Most 3/4" bands are over a third thicker than most smaller bands. The cross sectional area of a typical 3/4" band is double that of a 1/2" band. Thicker bands also aren't designed to bend around smaller wheels and fatigue more quickly.

[Tim Put]

... I never rechecked but my wheels were originally ~1/8" out of coplaner when I adjusted the camber (tracking adjustment) on the top wheel. I don't think adjusting the camber on the lower wheel would have changed that.

That is a smart way to do it. Why didn't I think of that?

Look at the geometry again. I think you'll find you almost certainly did make the wheels coplanar, just no longer a plane quite perpendicular to the ground, and in a much more elegant way.

[Tim Put]

Let me try to explain why I think that. Ignoring the likely multiple iterations, simplifying to just two steps, the top wheel and the bottom wheel.

The first step, top wheel: you adjust the tracking knob, tilting the wheel until a plane extended out from the wheel (or a straight line passing through the center of the wheel rim top and bottom) passes through the hub of the lower wheel.

Step two, the lower wheel: now you tilt this wheel until plane extended out from the wheel passes through the hub of the upper wheel.

Assuming the left/right adjustment is fine, these two planes are now identical, the wheels are coplanar.

[Rick Fisher]

The single most important thing to me is the guides being set-up. I use my bandsaw to rip all my lumber.. The Tablesaw only see's ply..

I set the rear wheel the thickness of a piece of paper from the blade, when ripping or resawing, the rear wheel spins like mad..

I think no matter how well you set the guides, you can always do a better job.

I have a new problem with my saw.. When I really work it.. really hard, the top tire (Urethane) starts to move off the upper wheel.. it ends up off about 40%, but the blade stays parrallel to the wheel.. Its really weird. The point is that the blade still never wanders, even when its only 1/2 on the tire..

[Gary Muto]

I should check to see if the wheels are coplaner, but I'd have to take the table off and I'm just too pleased with the performance to want to find out.

[Mark Koury]

I have to agree with the "don’t adjust the fence for drift" camp.
If you have crowned wheels and a good blade then accurate resawing should be possible.

The one thing that has not been too emphasized previously is the table alignment.
Step one should be aligning the fence to table (miter slot or front edge).
Step two: align fence to blade (use a wide blade). Do this with the blade centered on the upper wheel (using tracking adjustment).
Step three: resaw cuts against the fence can then be adjusted by slight changes in the blade position on the upper wheel. (needless to say, the table and fence have to also be adjusted for vertical square to the blade as well as adjustment of the guides)

I have never had to adjust the camber of the lower wheel. But, I can see where it might be needed. Generally, if the above doesn’t work a new blade should solve the problem.

A good article that touches on some of this is by Michael Fortune, Five Tips for Better Bandsawing, FWW #173. Here is a link if you have access to FWW: http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ToolGuide/ToolGuidePDF.aspx?id=24093

No doubt a lot of geometry going on here!

[John Thompson]

You're Viking blade is the same as the Timberwolf and P A Wood blade as Lee Valley describes it as previously called Timberwolf in their description. All these blades come off coils of blade made by the same manufactures in Sweden. They just have different companies completing the weld off the roll.

1/2" 3 tpi is correct for your 14" saw for re-saw using a low tension blade as the ones mentioned above. So... I have read through all the info you have been given here which is a lot. I see contradictions as to how far to set the guides from the blade.. how important is co-planular... tracking vs fence adjustment for drift.

What I have not heard with the exception of a light mention by Frank Drew is Tension.. He hit upon it and mentioned that is is sometimes far greater than you might expect. And I agree..

So.. how do you determine the tension you are using and have you attempted to both lower and raise tension using scrap wood to see if it makes a difference. Did you use the flutter method to determine a starting point and then adjust up (some cases down) until you hit the bulls-eye?

And I would also pay attention to feed rate as you should not be the factor determiniing it.. the saw and blade should. It will tell you what the proper feed rate is. I personally don't think the distance of the blade guides matter as much as tauted on re-saw. I set mine back around 1/32" and when I re-saw... the blade rarely touches the side bearing nor the rear thrust bearing unless I force the feed rate which will induce wander.

I have backed the guides off my BS in re-saw to the point it would litterally be impossible for the blade to touch them. It cut just as well so.. that tells me personally that blade beam strenght is more important than many so called guru's believe it is. I would get some scrap and spend a little time determing the tension your blade and saw is begging for.

And I am not saying the other things are not important as they are. A BS is the most finicky tool in your shop but.. once you get to know it probably one of the most useful IMO.

Good luck...

Sarge..

[Andrew Joiner]

And I would also pay attention to feed rate as you should not be the factor determiniing it.. the saw and blade should. It will tell you what the proper feed rate is. I personally don't think the distance of the blade guides matter as much as tauted on re-saw. I set mine back around 1/32" and when I re-saw... the blade rarely touches the side bearing nor the rear thrust bearing unless I force the feed rate which will induce wander.

I have backed the guides off my BS in re-saw to the point it would litterally be impossible for the blade to touch them. It cut just as well so.. that tells me personally that blade beam strenght is more important than many so called guru's believe it is. I would get some scrap and spend a little time determing the tension your blade and saw is begging for.



Sarge..

Interesting Sarge. I would guess with a new blade that would work best. The guides are probably more important as the blade dulls.

Do you always resaw with the guides backed off ?

[John Thompson]

Andrew... a sharp blade with the appropriate number of teeth and set for the given job works best. Not necessarily just a new blade. I'm using a Lennox 3/4" bi-metal.. 3 tpi at the moment which does require much more tension than a low tension blade as the WS.. Timber.. etc. But... the 18" Steel City BS I have has large double springs to give me that required tension.

That blade has over 1000' linear feet on it and still going strong at the moment but I do always keep another blade on hand as there is nothing worse you can do in re-saw than use a dull blade. BTW.. a new blade does not assure accuracy. I have run into several new blades over the years that had a bad weld and one that had bad set in the teeth. Both are a problem and I the first thing I do when recieving a new blade is to take it out of the package and check weld. I don't want to have to call 6 months after I recieve it upon opening it to make the call if I have a problem.

As for the guides.. I back them off around 1/32" on that 18" saw. On my smaller 14" BS I use with a 1/4" 6 tpi blades just for curves... I use the dollar bill method.. round the back of the blade to reduce drag and use cool blocks as the guides come into high end play on curves.

Now.. when I did re-saw on a 14" BS I did use the dollar bill method using a 1/2" Woodslicer blade. The backing off was just an experiment one day after I got the larger 18" BS just to see what would happen. What happened was nothing really as it performed the same backed off as it did runnning tight..

So... does tight fit as the blade gets older better. I don't know as I always ran my 14" tight on re-saw. I have noticed no differentiation on the larger saw until it gets dull to the point I change. Once that point arrives I change it and get another back-up coming as I don't have time for down time until a new blade arrives.

Good question and would require someone observing the results closely over time. I doubt the magazine boys have time to do a over time test and probably most of us amateurs don't have the interest or time to do so. So... the question will probably be just an opinion on each of our parts as to what we think based on our own experiences from experiemtation or just by co-incidence.

Regards...

Sarge..

[Myk Rian]

I use hardwood guides. Set em against the blade, bury the teeth in them, and get busy sawing. No muss, no fuss, and cheap.

[Gary Muto]

Mark,
Generally the lower wheel camber should not need adjustment. When I called Rikon Tech support they told me that there were some saws that were not adjusted right. The procedure is not even in the owner's manual since it should not have to be performed.
I wonder if a lot of saws need the adjustment and people are unaware, but I've talked to other woodworkers and all have told me that their blades track centered on both wheels. My visits to woodworking stores does not support that. I'd say a little more than 1/2 of the dozen or so saws that I looked at indicated a need for some adjustment.

[david kramer]

I have to agree with the "don’t adjust the fence for drift" camp.

I don't really understand this camp. The fence is made to be adjusted, and it takes all of three minutes to do, so I don't know why you wouldn't do it. Anyway, there's lots of ways to do anything in woodworking so if you're happy, I'm happy :). Just make sure that your fence cuts straight.

I recently did a lot of resawing with a 3/4" 3tpi timberwolf blade, and I found that I wasted a lot of material, between the thick kerf of the 3/4" blade and planing the next face smooth. People on this board advised me to
1) tune the saw properly
2) try a different blade.

So I bought a 1/2" woodslicer spend the last two nights practicing. This is on a Grizzly 555x with riser b.t.w. What I found is that for softwood, it realy doesn't matter what you do, everything comes out perfect :)! I had some scraps of 8" cherry and maple that I practiced getting veneers out of. I think I spent a total of maybe 6 hours and 4 or 5 bf of stock before I was happy. Practice does help!

I found that saw tuning really is the key. Make sure that you have enough tension. IMHO too much is better than too little, but obviously you don't want to fatigue the blade. My saw has a quick-detension when not in use.

I made sure everything was square, with the bearings at two one dollar bill's worth offset from the blade. Get a feel for the feed rate that that wood and blade want. The cherry fed a lot faster than the maple. After maybe 20 or 25 really crappy veneers I was finally able to consistently peel off 1/16" veneers, with no more than a 1/64 or 1/32 pass through the planer to get to the next one.

On the subject of timberwolf vs woodslicer. For my saw the timberwolf cuts a lot faster, which is no surprise, it's bigger and has bigger gullets. It leaves a much rougher finish and takes a bigger kerf, so more waste. I think I'll stick with woodslicer, but the timberwolf was fine too. Maybe one day I'll try a 1/2" timberwolf for a more fair comparison. I just bought what the folks at Suffolk recommended.

I hope this helps.
David

[Prashun Patel]

I suggest you contact the folks at Suffolk Machinery. Tell em what yr cutting, and they'll fit you with the right Timberwolf blade. It's pretty economical to boot!

[Myk Rian]

I don't really understand this camp. The fence is made to be adjusted, and it takes all of three minutes to do, so I don't know why you wouldn't do it.
I agree. I always adjust the fence and have never had a problem.