A few bandsaw related questions form a novice user

[Ruhi Arslan]

I've got cleaned up polished and checked and rechecked everything I can on the newly acquired bandsaw. Although it was advertised as "never used", all bare metal surfaces were rusty which cleaned up nicely. Sanded the wheel tires to remove crusted build up. Cleaned the brake pad and inside the drum on on the lower wheel. Checked all the safety switches. Cleaned up all the ceramic guides. Wheel bearings are all good and since they are sealed, nothing I could do anyway. Checked the fence to table, blade to fence and upper guide post to blade for right angles etc. I removed the attached hack job cable and installed a proper 10/3 cord with a twist lock plug. Fired it up to make some dust which did plenty of.

My questions are;

1) How do you dispose unwanted blades? One of the blades which came with the BS must have been left on with tension so it kind of binds as I rotate the wheels. (Guides are not touching). It is also rusty and do not want to take any chances with it. Is there any second life use for it cut into smaller pieces?

2) Blade is tracking just fine but the position of the is not the same in between upper and lower wheels relative to each other. Laguna recommends to center the blade on the wheel as opposed to placing it such that the teeth are just off the tire towards the front. When I place and let it track at the center of the upper wheel, blade is set slightly towards the rear end of the tire on the lower wheel. It seems like, wheels are parallel but planes are offset a bit. Again, it tracks just fine but should I care how the blade is positioned on the wheel as long as it's tracking

3) When I tighten the fence, it rotates making it difficult to set the width of the cut. There is a second threaded hole on the opposite side of the knob. Was there supposed to be another bolt to take the slack out so it won't rotate when tightened?

4) Adjusted for drift using one of the methods I have learned by eye balling the gap behind the blades wake and adjusting the fence to evenly divide it on both sides of the blade. For a foot long rip (1/16" thick), the thickness varied less than 0.001". Is that acceptable? :D

[Stephen Cherry]

Is the blade binding at the weld? If so, this could be ground flat and used. Otherwise, the blade could be cut up to use as a scratch stock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-sp3xR-vt8

[Josiah Bartlett]

I dispose of my used blades by folding them up and chucking them in the recycle bin. Unless you feel like sharpening them, or have some project like making scratch stock, there's not a whole lot of use for used BS blades.

I think 0.001 over a foot of length is about as good as you will ever get.

[Harry Niemann]

Best fence for bandsaw is simply a 3/4 " piece of stock with a bull nose slightly to the rear of center of the blade, and spaced back to the thickness of your cut. This allows you to guide the material either way as needed to follow a line drawn on your stock.

[glenn bradley]

Hi, knowing the make and model and having some pics will help you to get better answers.

[John Coloccia]

1) rusty blade? Toss it. I fold it up, wrap it a couple of times with duct tape, and toss it.

2) You may not be not coplanar or the crown may be messed up (maybe when you sanded it). The question is, does this really matter? Personally, unless it's so bad that it looks dangerous, like the blade might slip off, this wouldn't be high on my list of things to do. Some weekend, after you've thoroughly studied and understood the proper way to do this (or better yet,enlisted the help of an experienced friend), go ahead and attack it. Then you'll at least be able to appreciate the difference.

3) If you keep a little pressure on the fence's lock lever as you move it, it will keep it straight but still allow it to move.

4) real pros shoot for half a thou. If you want, I can buy that junky old saw from you so you can go out and get a professional saw...

[Ruhi Arslan]

It is a Laguna 16HD with 144-146" blade (pre 150" change). When I sanded the tires, I took so little just to clean up the surface. I don't think I sanded enough to change the profile. Blade teeth gutter hangs about half way off the edge of the tire on the lower wheel while the upper blade tip sit s at the edge of the tire. It may not be even noticed by some but because I am in the process of learning, I pay attention to what's going on. Got 10-1.5 bolt to place it on the second thread on the fence slider to reduce the swing from the fence which almost eliminated that swing. When I removed the wheels to cleanup brake pad and the brake drum, I didn't want to mess up with the shaft not to disturb the alignment. I've cut up some of the rusty blade to make scrappers. IT came with four extra blades so I didn't hesitate. I've ordered more blades with different sizes (1/4", 3/8", 1/2" and 3/4 Lenox with varying TPIs) since all I've got are 1" blades including a couple of them Resaw Kings.
Blade is loose in the pics but pretty much the smae location when tightened. Do I need to loosen it this much when not in use?
John,
I don't know which part of the CT you are at but if you agree to meet me at the Marcus Dairy one Sunday morning and buy me a short stack of unedible pancakes (uncooked dough) that they make, I'll drag this old rust bucket behind my motorcycle since the saw has the mobility kit. :p

[John Coloccia]

Unless you're using a wide blade, it sounds like you're tracking a bit closer to the edge of the wheel than I normally would, but that's not a big deal. There are several conflicting theories of how a blade should track. I don't pay attention to any of them. :) I tend to track the blade dead center on the wheels. With your setup, the crown and the tension will tend to kick the teeth to the left, so my guess is that you needed to angle your fence a bit left to right to get the cut straight. I'll also guess that if you track different blades in the same spot, the drift changes.

You'll really know how you're doing when you try to resaw a board. That's where any problems will show up. This is why I recommend just using it for a bit first. The only thing worse than making a tweak is making a tweak and not knowing if you made things better or worse.

You should release the tension when you're not using it. I guess that particular saw doesn't have a quick-release tension lever? That would be a very worthwhile addition if someone makes one.

Marcus Dairy in Danbury? I'm just east of Hartford but I travel out your way every now and again. I'll buy you as many stacks as you want and two ice creams for that show :)

[Van Huskey]

Best fence for bandsaw is simply a 3/4 " piece of stock with a bull nose slightly to the rear of center of the blade, and spaced back to the thickness of your cut. This allows you to guide the material either way as needed to follow a line drawn on your stock.

I agree but only on a saw with some limitation that prevents a good straight resaw.

With a well tuned bandsaw that can properly tension a good resaw blade and a fence that can be set for drift accurately can slice very accurate veneer all day long. It is really hard to accurately slice veneer with a "point fence". They will work whrn the saw can't be tuned correctly but are a major chore.