While we're Resawing-Single Point or Fence

[Carroll Courtney]

Along with safety, using sharp blades and such,what form of fence do you use to get the best cut?The blade type is #1,so what fence?Single point,you know where the piece of pipe is mounted on the fence.Or do you use the fence itself and adjust for the drift?I have never use the single point,and I have the Kreg fence that I adjust for the drift and it works good.Is the single point better?Just wondering Carroll

[Charlie Plesums]

Your cut with a single point fence is only as good as you can follow the line you draw on the wood. Personally, I haven't used that approach since I learned how to align my bandsaw - now I routinely cut veneers against a tall, flat fence.

[doug faist]

Another vote for the flat fence. I have an Agazzani 18 and use a fence about 8" high which I occasionally check for flat. I cut .075" thick pieces for Shaker Boxes with no problem at all.

The secret is to tune the band saw within an inch of it's life. It's tedious, but once it's done your saw will cut like dream. With a sharp blade I get no drift whatsoever.

Doug

[Stephen Edwards]

The secret is to tune the band saw within an inch of it's life. It's tedious, but once it's done your saw will cut like dream. With a sharp blade I get no drift whatsoever.

Doug

Amen. With two Grizzly BSs I get no drift at all. I keep reading articles and threads about BS drift. These two saws are the only ones I've ever used for resawing. I have no drift in either of these saws using a 6" resaw fence and a sharp blade.

It took me "forever" to learn to properly tune the saw. As someone else noted in a recent thread, "there seems to be a lot of mystery" surrounding Bandsaws! I believe that what works for one person and their BS may not work as well for someone else, even if they have the same saw. It doesn't make sense but that's what I think.

[Jason Beam]

Flat fence. Drift is a cop out as far as I'm concerned. Tuned properly, there'll be no drift. Accepting drift is apparently so acceptable that books, magazines and videos actually advocate it and people come to believe it's the right way. A well-tuned saw will have no drift. :)

I've adjusted about a dozen saws now (I get asked by fellow ww club members quite often) and one of the tests I require we do is to ensure there's no drift. We resaw a 3-4" wide scrap and check it for parallelism and learn that even their little 9" Ryobi with a 1/4" blade can slice off 1/32" thick veneers all day long. A good blade and a good setup are all ya need :)

[Cary Falk]

I have always used a flat fence. I had a 14" Delta and now own a Grizzly 513x2.

[John Coloccia]

Flat fence. If I wanted to guide it by hand, I'd just as soon slice it with a bow saw and at least have some fun with it. :D

[Greg Hawthorne]

For re-sawing wide boards, an interesting fence is described in the current edition of the Australian Wood Review (see "perfect resawing" in http://www.woodreview.com.au/currentissue/)

The jig has two fences, a fixed fence (left hand side of the blade in the thumbnail for the article), and a floating fence that keeps the board hard against the fixed fence with a combination of ball-bearing rollers and used valve springs.

A reasonable amount of effort involved in making the jig, but worth investigating if you regularly re-saw wide boards.

[Jerome Hanby]

+1. Any personal skill I can avoid give me a better product.


Your cut with a single point fence is only as good as you can follow the line you draw on the wood. Personally, I haven't used that approach since I learned how to align my bandsaw - now I routinely cut veneers against a tall, flat fence.

[mike holden]

Carroll,
you forgot another option - NO fence.
I find *I* get better results with no fence at all. Just scribe a line on one edge,set the other on the table and saw away.
No fuss, no muss, no bother.

Just another option,
Mike

[John Thompson]

I use the stock fence left with a taller piece of phenolic attached to it and a secondary fence similar to the one Greg posted from the Aussie Wood mag. My secondary has a piece of miter track that rides the slot with 1/4" threaded T handles attached. The bolts and T handles ride in a through slot on the secondary fence that allow forward-rearward movement.

The secondary keeps the stock tight to the main fence which makes a big difference when re-sawing stock over 30" IMO. I don't see the need for the ball bearings really as a mine simply has a sacrificial wood face and has been working fine for years.

[Jeff Willard]

While looking over (can't confess to actually reading the instructions :eek:) the manual for my recent bandsaw purchase, single-point fences were addressed. I was informed by the author of this superb work of literature that I didn't need that, because now I own a "real bandsaw". Seriously-their exact words. I thanked them, and now use one of the many after market flat fences they also sell-all adjustable for drift :rolleyes:.

[Eddie Darby]

Both fence styles have their own uses.

If you are trying to resaw from a piece of wood that is not perfectly rectangular/square in it's shape, then a point fence will do the trick.

If you have a piece of wood that is truly squared up, then a fence approach will give more support.

[Ken Werner]

A well-tuned saw will have no drift.


Jason, I've tuned my PM 141 saw as best I can. Still have to deal with drift. How do you avoid / overcome drift?

Thanks in advance,
Ken

[Jason Beam]

Jason, I've tuned my PM 141 saw as best I can. Still have to deal with drift. How do you avoid / overcome drift?

Thanks in advance,
Ken

Hi Ken :)

Are your saw's tires crowned? The crowned tire is the secret for me. I adjust the tracking just a little bit to get the blade riding in such a way that the crown actually twists the blade a little bit in one direction or another to eliminate any drift. Provided a blade is properly sharpened and set, this technique only takes a couple tries (usually one extra to remember which way to adjust the tracking to accomplish the direction you want to twist).

This adjustment is very small and I haven't found any saw/blade combo that needed a whole lot of adjusting - it just takes a little fiddling the first couple times and then you've got it down. I've found that once both wheels are perfectly coplanar and the blade rides in the same place on both wheels, you'll get a very consistent adjustment that is both predictable and stable.

If the adjustment takes the blade too far off the middle of the wheel before it'll cut straight, that's a clue to me that my blade is bad.

If you've got flat tires, this gets a little trickier. Many folks have added some crown to their wheels by layering masking tape or stretching rubber bands around the wheel. Others carve the crown into the tire itself. The crowning seems to be the silver bullet for a lot of folks. I've only encountered one saw with flat tires and riding the blade right up on the edge with the teeth hanging over the wheel yielded no drift without further modification. I've heard that some folks haven't been so lucky - they usually ending up crowning their wheels in some form or another.

[Dan Mitchell]

Your cut with a single point fence is only as good as you can follow the line you draw on the wood. Personally, I haven't used that approach since I learned how to align my bandsaw - now I routinely cut veneers against a tall, flat fence.

Same here, with the addition that I find a magnetic feather board very helpful for these cuts.

Dan

[Ken Werner]

Thanks Jason!

[glenn bradley]

I don't adjust for drift. I align my saw to cut straight and just cut. For that rare piece that is too tough for my saw to impose it's will on (really unruly grain) I use a knife-like fence (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=70335).

[Myk Rian]

I tried a single point once and scrapped the idea. A fence with a featherboard works best for me.

[Larry Lukens]

Flat fence (Kreg) and featherboard. On my Delta 14-inch, there is no drift with this setup. I use the Highland Woodworking "Wood Slicer."

I've cut white oak veneer and resawed 6-inch white oak with no problem.

[John Thompson]

I don't adjust for drift. I align my saw to cut straight and just cut. For that rare piece that is too tough for my saw to impose it's will on (really unruly grain) I use a knife-like fence (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=70335).

That is a point fence you linked, Glenn. They can be many shapes and sizes but all work off the principle of the leading point is used for support on the cut and you guide the stock. I used one for years on a smaller saw on certain cuts and still do for certain cuts as rough rips on my largest BS on very thick stock.

Regards...