Bandsaw blade tracking problem

[Joe Shinall]

Hello creekers, I have a small problem, not too major, just frustrating because I like things to work when they say they should.

I have a G0514x2 19" Grizzly Bandsaw. I have 1/2", 3/4", and 1" blades that track perfectly fine with very little adjustment between each.

I just bought a Timberwolf 1/8" blade for it and can't get the darn thing to track straight to save my life. I have spent 4 hours on it, tensioning, retensioning, tracking, retracking, adjusting here, adjusting there, etc...

Should I just chalk it up to being too small of a blade even though Grizzly says it will take a 1/8" blade? I'm looking to cut some curves, mainly small letters about 3 to 8 inches tall for the wife. Would a 1/4 or 3/8 blade work good for that and maybe track better? Use to use a 1/8 blade on my old 14" Rigid with no problem. Pretty new to this big beast of a bandsaw.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Calvin Jamison]

Adjust the tracking to where the gullet rides just a fuzz forward of the crown, this will give better support for the teeth, and tension just until the blade stops fluttering. As for blade size, you could probably use a 1/4 blade and be alright. I use a 1/4 for scroll work on my 18" and it works great.

[Joe Shinall]

Adjust the tracking to where the gullet rides just a fuzz forward of the crown, this will give better support for the teeth, and tension just until the blade stops fluttering. As for blade size, you could probably use a 1/4 blade and be alright. I use a 1/4 for scroll work on my 18" and it works great.

So you mean cheat towards the front side of the wheel?

[Calvin Jamison]

Yeah a little. To where the crown is just behind the gullet. Dont mess with your wheels to make them co-plainer,I have in the past, got my wheels perfectly co- plainer, and had trouble with tracking afterward. I have checked bandsaws at stores, and different place's I've worked and none of them are co-plainer. I think the manufacture builds them that way for a reason. Or your bandsaw is totaly busted and you should sell it to me, ha ha.

[Tai Fu]

I don't know but it seems like it might be better to use a scroll saw for really tight turns. By the way I get consistent tracking issue with my bandsaw too, I discovered the shaking is due to blade tracking issue, as in the blade would move front and back (not side to side) unless it's riding against the thrust bearing, in that case the shaking would stop. I'm not sure if it's a coplaner issue.

[Phil Thien]

What does the 1/8" blade do, tracking wise? Does it cyclone forwards/backwards on the wheels?

Timberwolf blades w/ bad welds are not unheard of.

[Calvin Jamison]

Timberwolf and bad welds is very true. Lenox & Starrett make very good blades, and they don't cost that much more than a timberwolf blade.

[Tai Fu]

So is blade moving back and forth bad weld? My bandsaw is doing this consistently with all blades regardless of manufacturer so I think it's not bad weld...

[glenn bradley]

1/8" is a small blade for any bandsaw. I have run a 1/4" blade on my 17" G0513X without issue but, the roller-style guides would make it very easy to munch a small blade's teeth; there's just not much room for error there. If the thrust bearing isn't positioned to keep the set out of the rollers, the blade would be shot in the blink of an eye. Kind of like touching the dirt with your chainsaw for "just a moment" . . . a moment is all it takes ;-)

Carter sells a rig for using small blades on bandsaws for scrolling style work; a "Stabilizer" I think it is called (?). I have so-so success with an 1/8" blade on my 10" bandsaw but, I get that by burying the blade in some blocks I use for guides. The available area behind the gullet of an 1/8" blade is just really small for getting a good position with hard guides in my experience.

I have run a lot of Timberwolf blades and they did have a run of bad welds a year or so ago. They always cheerfully replaced them but, then the problem went away. I just assumed that someone's nephew who was welding blades as a summer job went back to school or something. Maybe they just got tired of hearing from me :D.

[Calvin Jamison]

The aluminum wheels can warp if over heated.

[Curt Harms]

1/8" is a small blade for any bandsaw. I have run a 1/4" blade on my 17" G0513X without issue but, the roller-style guides would make it very easy to munch a small blade's teeth; there's just not much room for error there. If the thrust bearing isn't positioned to keep the set out of the rollers, the blade would be shot in the blink of an eye. Kind of like touching the dirt with your chainsaw for "just a moment" . . . a moment is all it takes ;-)

Carter sells a rig for using small blades on bandsaws for scrolling style work; a "Stabilizer" I think it is called (?). I have so-so success with an 1/8" blade on my 10" bandsaw but, I get that by burying the blade in some blocks I use for guides. The available area behind the gullet of an 1/8" blade is just really small for getting a good position with hard guides in my experience.

I have run a lot of Timberwolf blades and they did have a run of bad welds a year or so ago. They always cheerfully replaced them but, then the problem went away. I just assumed that someone's nephew who was welding blades as a summer job went back to school or something. Maybe they just got tired of hearing from me :D.

The Carter stabilizer is the only option I see as viable for saws with bearing-type blade guides and narrow blades. As Glenn says, there is very little flat metal behind the gullets for bearing-type guides to bear against. If you can retrofit guide blocks - cool blocks or shop made wood blocks, you can bury the blade in the guides and let the blade cut its own space.

[Tai Fu]

My bandsaw has cast iron wheel, and I think by the time it got hot enough to warp the blade would have been gone... I mean the wheel doesn't contact the workpiece at all. I don't think warped wheel is the issue here...

[Joe Shinall]

Thanks to all the responses. The wheels are cast and brand new, only cut a few things on it so heat is no issue and all my other blades from 1/2 - 1" work great.

No matter how easy I go with the tracking knob, barely touching it, it just won't stay centered. It will look like it's completely centered and tracking fine for about 6 or 7+ turns of the bandsaw wheel but then it just gets off and I have to try and track it back the other way. I tried cheating it a bit today towards the front just a hair as suggested, still didn't work, just kept walking towards the edge of the wheel.

I have a scroll saw but I just like the big table of the bandsaw and dust collection hookups I have, which is why I was giving it a shot. I use to have a 14" Rigid with a 1/8 blade and loved to use it over the scroll saw on small crafts. Might just have to stick to a scroll and rig up some DC to that side. I ordered a 1/4 blade from Timberwolf so will see how it goes before I put the reason on the blade. Thanks again for the info guys.

[Frank Trinkle]

This video may help. I learned a lot from this presentation...especially the fact that some of this experts advice is significantly different from "books" that hype other techniques. His worked for me in spades!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGbZqWac0jU

[Jim Matthews]

I wonder if the tension you've applied has compressed the tires, such that they deform.

If the tires are now eccentric (they might be extrusions, with a "weld" of their own) this could induce what appears
to be a high spot to the blade as it rotates. I'm with Frank on the Snodgrass recommendation,

put the bottom of the gullet at the center of the wheel.
That works for me. Dropping the table to get the lower guides adjusted
made things much easier.

If you've only got one set of guides engaged, there's a longer span
of blade that's unsupported. I would think that a smaller blade would be
easier to adjust, so affirm the basics first - before disposing of the blade.

Please post your findings, this is just the sort of malady plaguing most of us.

[glenn bradley]

This video may help. I learned a lot from this presentation...especially the fact that some of this experts advice is significantly different from "books" that hype other techniques. His worked for me in spades!

Like any demonstrator with years of experience, Alex makes it all seem so easy. He is a pleasure to watch. He moves at a fast pace but, important points that he makes are:

- Center the gullet on the crown (for crowned-tire saws this obviously means the wheels are co-planer, not as important on flat tires).
- No bandsaw should ever have drift (it never ceases to amaze what me people will spend on gadgets or in time trying to compensate for a saw that just needs to be aligned).

Alex can do some trick stuff with the Carter Stabilizer and if you get a chance to catch him at a show, he is always willing to take the time to go over any of his methods or answer questions.

[Phil Thien]

Like any demonstrator with years of experience, Alex makes it all seem so easy. He is a pleasure to watch. He moves at a fast pace but, important points that he makes are:

- Center the gullet on the crown (for crowned-tire saws this obviously means the wheels are co-planer, not as important on flat tires).
- No bandsaw should ever have drift (it never ceases to amaze what me people will spend on gadgets or in time trying to compensate for a saw that just needs to be aligned).

Alex can do some trick stuff with the Carter Stabilizer and if you get a chance to catch him at a show, he is always willing to take the time to go over any of his methods or answer questions.

There was just another recent thread where much of this was debunked, like the center of gullet on center of crown. Caroline's saw was working just fine, she tried to follow this advice, and it didn't work out well.

[glenn bradley]

There was just another recent thread where much of this was debunked, like the center of gullet on center of crown. Caroline's saw was working just fine, she tried to follow this advice, and it didn't work out well.

Who's Caroline? :) I don't know that a single occurrence (or a few) is actually a debunker of something ;). Did Caroline get her problem fixed? I had a 14" saw once that would just never perform well no matter how much voodoo I threw at it. Turned out the frame was tweaked; there was no way that saw was ever going to cut correctly :(. I gave it a decent burial.

There is no one fix for all situations. Wider blades would not fare well with the gullet riding the center (I think Julie M. found this out when trying to run a 1" blade on a 1-3/4" tire and applying Alex's approach). I do not agree with all of Alex's recommendations but, he can make a small bandsaw sing :).

[Gus Dundon]

You should change your band saw blade.

[Phil Thien]

Who's Caroline? :) I don't know that a single occurrence (or a few) is actually a debunker of something ;). Did Caroline get her problem fixed? I had a 14" saw once that would just never perform well no matter how much voodoo I threw at it. Turned out the frame was tweaked; there was no way that saw was ever going to cut correctly :(. I gave it a decent burial.

There is no one fix for all situations. Wider blades would not fare well with the gullet riding the center (I think Julie M. found this out when trying to run a 1" blade on a 1-3/4" tire and applying Alex's approach). I do not agree with all of Alex's recommendations but, he can make a small bandsaw sing :).

Oops, it was Julie (sorry Julie).

I keep going back to one aspect of Alex's video where he tells people to ignore the tension scale on the saw. He says that blades welded at slightly different lengths will make the readings on tension scales worthless. Of course, this isn't true and tension (spring) scales don't work like that. Differences in blade length are irrelevant, as long as the blade's length falls within the range for which the bandsaw was designed.

He also tells people coplanar wheels aren't important. Most bandsaws are shipped with the wheels aligned to suit a variety of blade widths. Whether you're using a 1/8" or 1/2" blade, the position of the wheels will be a good compromise to track the blade decently.

Dismissing coplanar wheels because most saw wheels aren't perfectly coplanar from the factory doesn't help a guy with problems because his wheels are way out of alignment and won't track any blade particularly well.

He kinda reminds me of a woman at a state fair that was hawking some fancy blenders. She suggested that everyone watching the demonstration buy one of the machines and use it to make juices and smoothies using natural ingredients. "In fact," she said, "if you have diabetes, you can make natural juices and smoothies and you don't have to worry about sugar because the body reacts to sugars from natural sources differently than refined sugars." At that point, a woman in the audience that was an MD spoke up and said "I'm a doctor and that is almost entirely untrue, don't tell people that."

I was like 12-YO at the time. When the demonstrator said it, it sounded good to me. Thankfully there was someone there to correct her.

[Tai Fu]

But how do I know if my wheels are coplaner? I don't have anything long enough to measure that... and even if I did the frame gets in the way (it's a 18 inch bandsaw after all). What about trial and error, move one wheel one way and see how the blade tracks?

[Phil Thien]

But how do I know if my wheels are coplaner? I don't have anything long enough to measure that... and even if I did the frame gets in the way (it's a 18 inch bandsaw after all). What about trial and error, move one wheel one way and see how the blade tracks?

First, you don't do any of this if your bandsaw is working properly. I cannot stress that enough. Don't mess with tools that already function well.

If your saw doesn't track blades well, make sure it isn't blades with bad welds, or worn out tires, or some other cause. Eliminate all variables before embarking on this.

If you have eliminated everything else, you can make a straight-edge from a piece of plywood or MDF. They talk about how to do this in the books, you can probably find websites, too.

You can use the straight edge to check the wheel alignment with no blades installed. If they are not coplanar, note the current location of the wheels, and then adjust the wheels so they are more closely aligned (maybe split the difference in half). Now try mounting and tracking some blades again. If it works better at multiple blade widths, maybe try splitting the difference again and making another adjustment in the same direction. If it is better, keep going. If it got a little worse, shift the alignment in the opposite direction.

You aren't likely to find this helps unless your wheels are quite a bit out of alignment.

AND AGAIN, note the starting locations so you can get back there.

And AGAIN, don't do this with a saw that is functioning fine.