Your Approach to Resawing?

[John Motzi]

There are at least three schools of thought on how to setup a fence for resawing on the bandsaw:

A short fence which extends just past the blade to allow the thin stock to curl free and not pressure the remaining cut, such as illustrated in FWW #177 pg 94;
A simple full length fence which extends well beyond the blade such as illustrated by DJ Marks on his show and Jerry Work on the MM forum
A pivot "fence" which allows one to vary the stock feed angle such as the Duginske fence sold by Rockler & Kreg.
Which do you use & why do you find it superior to the other methods?

(I mostly use the long fence method but I have used the short fence on occasion. I find the long fence easier to feed especially near the end of the cut when I move myself to the outfeed side. I have a MM16 Bandsaw and use a 1/2" carbide blade.

John Motzi
Downingtown, PA

[lou sansone]

hi john
I have used the long and sort of long fence method and they seem to work fine. I am not normally sawing veneer though and maybe I would want something different for that. I have use this setup on an Italian 24" machine and now on an american 36" machine with very good results.


Here is a quick example just playing around with some cherry.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=19149

lou

[Jim Becker]

I used a point-fence on my Jet 14" saw, but just use the stock fence with my MM16...it's dead-on accurate.

[Chuck Nickerson]

Option #3 (pivot fence) works best IF you have a steady hand and a good eye.I do not have a steady hand. So I'm better off adjusting a front fence so it's aligned to the blade drift, and then riding the fence. It takes me a couple of minutes to align the fence, but I can then resaw with a lot less cussing.

[Mark Singer]

Like Jim said , on the bigger saws...the stock fence and a high fence if necessary...a point fence on the 14" saws...

[Bart Leetch]

I think with the 14" saws it depends on how the saw is set up. It is my understanding that if the saw is set up so the blade rides centered on the wheels & is able to stay there you can use a straight flat fence. The picture is the fence I use to re-saw on my Grizzly G1019 14" saw on which I installed 1 1/2 hp motor I had in the shop. with a 1/2" Timberwolf blade I have been able to re-saw up to 12" thick material. In playing around one day showing a friend the saw I sawed the outside ply off an 8" piece of plywood right down the glue line, using this simple fence clamped with the clamps in the picture.

[Steve Stube]

John I guess my method would be closest to option #3 but it differs slightly in that I use a ball bearing roller mounted vertical (roughly 3" OD roller by 6" tall as it is mounted) and the tangent point is set at the front edge of the blade and the offset of the tangent is the target thickness. It offers little resistance to feeding and variable compensation to changing blade set changes - well as good as your eye is to following the pre scribed line.

[Bart Leetch]

John I guess my method would be closest to option #3 but it differs slightly in that I use a ball bearing roller mounted vertical (roughly 3" OD roller by 6" tall as it is mounted) and the tangent point is set at the front edge of the blade and the offset of the tangent is the target thickness. It offers little resistance to feeding and variable compensation to changing blade set changes - well as good as your eye is to following the pre scribed line.

Huh..... pic please :confused:

[Steve Stube]

Bart, I did a terrible job of explaining myself. I've been to the shop with camera in hand twice but have not located the roller I was speaking of. Let me try again to explain. The roller (3" OD X 6" long IIRC - the exact numbers may change when I get the little bugger in my hands for a photo) is made of phenolic and has a ball bearing in each end of it. A shaft goes thru it with one end of the shaft mounted in a piece of strap steel and secured. The strap is used to clamp the roller to the saw table in a vertical position such that the roller axis is parallel to the blade. The bottom of the roller is above the table by the thickness of the steel strap/bar and a spacer. Okay so far?

Now clamp the roller so that its center axis lines up with the leading edge of the blade and at the same time located on a line that it is perpendicular to the direction of cut. The distance/space/offset (whatever term you like) from the blade to a tangent point on the roller is going to be the thickness of the material you cut. Hope that helps.

[Peter Engelmann]

This seems to work for me. (If the picture comes up...)

[Jim Becker]

Peter, that's GREAT!

[Steve Stube]

Now I know where it went. Just kidding. Thank you Peter, that looks like a swell rendition of what I tried to describe but with improvement. I'm going to stop looking for my contraption roller as this is a better example anyway.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

I have tried the "good eye" method, with the point fence and it sure doesn't work for me! I don't have a good eye I guess :)

A long fence and a feather board have worked for me.