why do you resaw?

[Susumu Mori]

Hi all,

I’m a new member here and this is the first time to post, but I’ve been enjoying reading and learning from this forum for a long time.

I’m posting this because I have a question about resaw. I understand that resaw by a bandsaw is needed when we want to make veneers or bookmatch. That’s fine. However, for the dimensioning purpose, we have an option to purchase boards with different thickness, instead of resawing a thick board to thinner ones. From my local shop, I can buy 1-inch boards about 20% cheaper than 2-inch boards. Including the labor and saw blade costs, buying thicker boards (and resaw to thinner boards) do not make much sense in terms of cost. Buying 2-inch boards may give us more flexibility because we can dimension it in any ways we want; 2-inch thick legs, 1-inch thick table top, ¾-inch frames, 1/4-inch drawer bottoms, etc. But if we have a space, buying both thicker and thinner boards could be both cost and labor efficient.

I have a 14-inch bandsaw and I have seen bigger bandsaws are very popular for hobbyists. I’m just wondering how often and why you do many resaws, unless you do many veneers.

Thanks,

[Jesse Busenitz]

i have a 20" bandsaw that gets used a lot because I had a guy come mill a bunch of my logs so I use it a lot to cut up cast offs that were too small to mill anymore, but too big to throw away. Also I just made a bunch of drawers, and used it to resaw 1 1/4" to 1/2" which I don't know of anybody local that sales 1/2" solid oak. But I think you're right that if you're using 1 or 3/4" just buy it that way.

[David Hawxhurst]

book matching and veneers are why i do it. i have done it because a project was working on mainly used 8/4 but needed a few smaller pieces that i was able to resaw some of the 8/4 to get them from.

[Jim Finn]

I resaw about 500 board feet of Maple and cedar a year. I buy the cedar rough , resaw and plane it to 3/8" thickness to make small boxes which I sell.

[Jim Andrew]

I have a small bandmill, and saw my own lumber. Having a bandsaw that will resaw makes better use of my lumber. If you have a source for local lumber, you will see why. If you just buy planed lumber maybe not. I just prefer to buy some equipment rather than wood. It makes work fun when you can cut down a tree, slice it up, and then build things.

[Prashun Patel]

Personally, I concur with your conclusions: resawing for dimensional purposes is not worth it for me.

I resaw for bookmatches or laminations mainly.

I do resaw to thickness sometimes. When thicknessing down a board by more than 1/8", resawing the bulk off saves the planer some work.

[lowell holmes]

I'm building a cherry rocking chair for one of my grandchildren. You can't easily buy cherry S4S in the thicknesses needed.

I have a board that was 2 1/2" thk. X 8"x 96". I was able to make a large part of the chair from that one board that has the same grain.

You can't do that at the BORG. Resawing is required, whether by hand or machine, to do this.

[Phil Thien]

Personally, I concur with your conclusions: resawing for dimensional purposes is not worth it for me.

I resaw for bookmatches or laminations mainly.

I do resaw to thickness sometimes. When thicknessing down a board by more than 1/8", resawing the bulk off saves the planer some work.

I agree with both of you.

The only other exceptions I'll add: (1) The occasional "free wood" I'll get from friends, family, or the side of the road (I've found people throwing away huge chunks of hard maple, for example). (2) Resawing to get thin wood for small projects (like a box).

But normally, resawing for dimensional purposes (as it has been put) is kinda risky because the wood often moves quite a bit. You may not net what you need from a thicker board if it goes wonky after resawing.

[Susumu Mori]

Thank you all for quick reply.
Yes, I really like the idea to buy rough lumbers and dimension them by myself, but living in the east Maryland, I haven't been able to find a source of such lumbers. I can frequently see tree-cutting fellows cutting down trees in residential areas. Some of the trees looked so nice and I was salivating and wonder where it would go...

If I can get these lumbers, a big bandsaw and resaw make a perfect sense.

[Larry Browning]

I am a pure hobbyist woodworker I really like mission style furniture. I tend to use hardwood veneer plywood for cabinets I will often times use 1/4" trim on top of the plywood to give the appearance of a frame and panel on the sides of the cabinet. I can get 2 or even 3 pieces of 1/4" trim from one 4/4 board by resawing it. I know of no source for 1/4 hardwood, so I make my own.

[Susumu Mori]

Hi Larry,

Can you laminate 1/4 board on a plywood sheet without the problem of dimensional change of the solid wood? I wonder how the plywood copes with the expansion and shrinkage of the solid wood layer. I thought the veneer has to be thinner than 1/8 to avoid this problem. Maybe you can get away with it if you laminate the both side? But then you are not saving anything because 2x1/4 would be a 1/2 solid wood board....



I am a pure hobbyist woodworker I really like mission style furniture. I tend to use hardwood veneer plywood for cabinets I will often times use 1/4" trim on top of the plywood to give the appearance of a frame and panel on the sides of the cabinet. I can get 2 or even 3 pieces of 1/4" trim from one 4/4 board by resawing it. I know of no source for 1/4 hardwood, so I make my own.

[Jim Matthews]

As Larry indicates above, resawing from the same board allows you
to "wrap" grain from the same board around legs.

This emulates riftsawn lumber that may not be available.

I mainly resaw for drawer fronts, for best matching.

It's important to remember that resawing can be used on
much thicker materials to make thin, robust strips that
are stiffer than standard veneers.

I attended a 9 day course of instruction with Paul Sellers,
and this method was displayed on making table legs,
so that adjacent legs would have book matched grain.

All four "facets" of the legs then had vertical grain displayed,
even though the stock had been riftsawn.

The resawn strip was glued between the adjacent legs.
The bandsaw was used to rip the dried assembly down the middle,
resawing the applied veneer.

The legs were then rotated 90 degrees away from each other
to expose the freshly cut, bookmatched faces.

It was simple, efficient and striking in appearance.

http://paulsellers.com/2013/06/veneering-for-book-matched-legs/

[Lee Schierer]

I am a pure hobbyist woodworker I really like mission style furniture. I tend to use hardwood veneer plywood for cabinets I will often times use 1/4" trim on top of the plywood to give the appearance of a frame and panel on the sides of the cabinet. I can get 2 or even 3 pieces of 1/4" trim from one 4/4 board by resawing it. I know of no source for 1/4 hardwood, so I make my own.

I can buy 1/2" and 1/4" hardwood from my local supplier, but the cost is the same as buying 3/4 thick finished flat stock. When I need 1/4" material for flat panels, I will resaw the 3/4" thick boards and plane the sawed side to 1/4. That gives me 1/4" material at half price.

[Loren Woirhaye]

It's cool for fine casework aesthetically, but you can just buy veneer too. I seldom resaw even though I have a dedicated resaw. I'll get to it sooner or later and do a run of bookmatched work. I mostly steam bend instead of laminating curves.

I think the whole resaw capacity thing is overblown. Resawing can get pretty nerve wracking in widths over 6". 6" wide veneers are fine to work with and keep in mind that the wider the cut, the more tiny alignment errors get magnified, resulting in wedge-shaped boards. The alternative is to be extremely fussy about sharpness and setup, which takes time. If you're resawing fine woods for guitar plates it's worth the effort to get that 9" cut dialed in.

I live in Los Angeles and there is no availability of local woods and no backyard sawmills to buy from. All my wood comes from a hardwood dealer.

Machinery choice has everything to do with the type of work you aspire to do.

That said, a 20" band saw is a fine thing, regardless of whether it's used for resawing. It can do an amazing range of work and to accurate standards.

[Peter Quinn]

On a few rare occasions I have resawn thick stock to get good color match and grain match, but mostly it's for veneers or bent laminations. Often ime splitting a piece of 8/4 can yield 2 cupped and useless scraps which can't be flattened, it's a gamble at best. Better off to look for sequenced matched hardwood in the thickness needed than resaw, but not many regular dealers sell wood that way.

[Andrew Hughes]

I like building furniture form the same tree. So I need my band saws to rough out the slabs in pieces it all starts from there.Looks better to me when the piece is from the same tree.
I have a little tiny saw table saw. Just don't use it as much as a bandsaw.I know I am not being normal.:)

[Larry Browning]

Hi Larry,

Can you laminate 1/4 board on a plywood sheet without the problem of dimensional change of the solid wood? I wonder how the plywood copes with the expansion and shrinkage of the solid wood layer. I thought the veneer has to be thinner than 1/8 to avoid this problem. Maybe you can get away with it if you laminate the both side? But then you are not saving anything because 2x1/4 would be a 1/2 solid wood board....
Hmm, This has never been a problem for anything I have done. Have you had problems with this? Also, If there was a problem with expansion/contraction of the 1/4" solid wood trim pieces, wouldn't there be a problem with the face frame as well? I have never had expansion/contraction problems with solid wood face frames attached to a plywood cabinet. I have never even heard of this being a problem.

[Yonak Hawkins]

I can frequently see tree-cutting fellows cutting down trees in residential areas. Some of the trees looked so nice and I was salivating and wonder where it would go..

I don't know about other cities but, in Atlanta, there's a popular repository where tree removal companies can drop off usable logs. They are then bought by local sawyers who saw and sell urban harvested lumber. Some sawyers are shy about cutting residential trees, however, because they don't know what's inside them that may cause problems when milling.

Susumu, you ask very thoughtful questions. I have enjoyed this thread.

[Art Mann]

I sometimes build jewelry and keepsake boxes from expensive hardwoods. I use 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" routinely and 5/8" on occasion. I also do inlays of 3/16" material using a CNC router. Sometimes, the wood needs to be a very precise thickness. I find it both easier and more economical to resaw and plane my own lumber from rough cut rather than trying to find someone who will sell me all those thicknesses of material that are accurate to +/- 0.005" thickness. I don't usually need material wider than 8" and so I use a Craftsman 14" steel frame saw. I bought it for $300 on closeout and it has been a good investment.

[glenn bradley]

Often the figure is not going in a direction that make the "factory" edge proper. I frequently (more often than not) cut boards out of material to obtain the figure look I am after. I also resaw for all the other reasons as well but, this is a mainstay for me ;-)

[Jim Matthews]

Hi Larry,
Can you laminate 1/4 board on a plywood sheet without the problem of dimensional change of the solid wood?

I've done it, and the results are mixed.
Not all woods are sufficiently stable with the seasons to
be cut so thick. Not all sections of the tree are dimensionally stable.

I have one drawer front made from Burr Oak that bent a 1/2" Baltic birch
into a bowl shape. I can't really use it.

My latest resawn panels are thinner, about 6mm thick or less.

It was once common practice to apply "backing" veneer to both sides
of a panel to equalize the forces.

When you're dealing with a resawn section as thick as 1/4"
that can be impractical.

http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/backer-veneer.htm

[Jon McElwain]

I can buy hardwood at my local woodcraft store, but the price is usually a fair bit higher than my hardwood supplier. Woodcraft has the advantage that they will often sell S2S, S4S, 1" thick, or 2" thick for the same type of wood. My hardwood supplier will get a delivery of wood and the whole thing might be 2" thick. If I resaw, I can get three boards out of a 2" thick piece depending on the project. I also have a some wood milled when I get the chance to collect some logs from the wood bank or from a local arborist. It's really nice to be able to resaw this lumber to close to final thickness.

[Brett Robson]

I use a lot of 1/2" poplar for drawer sides and bottoms. I buy 8/4 and can generally get three, 1/2" pieces out of it. It's a fair bit of labor to do all the sawing and planing, but it's a lot cheaper than buying 4/4 stock and planing it all down.

On occasion I saw a veneer or two as well.

[Myk Rian]

I mainly resaw for drawer fronts, for best matching.
Which is what I did for this tool chest. I also re-sawed to make 3/8" panels for the sides and top.

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[Susumu Mori]

Thank you all,

This has been quite a learning to me.
Based on Yonak's comments, I did some search and found this site;

http://www.woodmizer.com/us/ResourceCenter/FindaCustomSawyer.aspx.

It turns out, there is an urban sawmill that uses local harvests just 30 min from my home!
I'm very thrilled to visit there and see what I can find. What I like about this idea of using rough lumbers is;
1) I would get a sense of conserving resources. It's pity to see some lumbers end up in a landfill or become mulch!
2) Hopefully, it would be cheaper than buying S2S / S4S from wookworking shops.
3) I can justify my recent upgrade of the bandsaw :)

It must be fun to make a furniture from rough lumbers. We'll see.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Susumu, the lumber will be green and that makes proper drying a fundamental issue. It's a great resource and a great course if you know what you're getting into.

[Susumu Mori]

Yeah, I'm thinking about making a space beneath the enclosed deck.
They also offer "solar klin dried". Not sure what it means.
I need a space to store them anyway because my basement is already filled.
I wonder how you guys store rough lumbers.

At this moment, the most important question is how much cheaper they are. Unless they are much cheaper, buying S2S as we need (therefore no need for a large storage space) may make more sense...


Susumu, the lumber will be green and that makes proper drying a fundamental issue. It's a great resource and a great course if you know what you're getting into.

[Jon McElwain]

If you go down the road of harvesting your own timber or trying to dry wood that you get from your local sawmill, I highly recommend the book "The Conversion and Seasoning of Wood." It addresses your question about the solar kiln, and it gives a great basic outline for anyone looking to convert timber to lumber.


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[Prashun Patel]

I have harvested and dried my own lumber. It is very doable, but will take some effort, education, time, and space. It's a fun and rewarding process, but you can end up initially with a lot of waste or ugly boards that you probably wouldnt have bought if you had the choice.

My advice is to start small: get a 24-30" long log that looks clean and clear. Build a bandsaw sled and have a go at resawing it into boards. A smaller log will be easier for you to handle yourself and to assess (when you deal with longer logs, there can be surprises inside).

Do you have a chainsaw? Cutting logs into workable halves and quarters can often be easier with a chainsaw than on the bandsaw.

[Bruce Mack]

I have resawed dimensional lumber for the purpose of having it cup. A 2x8 will give me 2 pieces which I plane and/ or joint and set aside for weeks to months. The cupping often results in a fair curve. The pieces are used to make the small boxes and chests I favor. With a shellac/dye finish the result can be elegant.

[Yonak Hawkins]

At this moment, the most important question is how much cheaper they are. Unless they are much cheaper, buying S2S as we need (therefore no need for a large storage space) may make more sense...

There is a compromise. If you are thinking about harvesting and drying lumber then you must have the capacity to surface the rough cut boards. You can buy rough-sawn lumber at a commercial lumber yard that's kiln dried. That would save on surfacing charges to get it to S2S. You could build a simple storage area that's relatively dry and safe from the elements to store it.

If you do buy green lumber and don't mind waiting a year or so before you can use it, for a significant savings, you could use the same storage area as described above as long as it's, also, well ventilated (passively is OK as long as there good air movement). You should stack it properly and it's a good idea to keep it from drying too much too quickly, especially from the ends (applying a product like AnchorSeal would help in this regard), as well as actively removing the moisture from the area for the first few weeks of being cut, (this may already have occurred at the lumber yard, whether properly done or not could be ascertained by asking them and if they shrug their shoulders you can be pretty sure it wasn't. On the other hand, I have bought some quality lumber from lumber yards that didn't follow recommended procedures. Some of them are somewhat anal-retentive in origin anyway.

[Chris Padilla]

I tend to buy large planks (8/4-12/4, 2" to 3" thick) in the 10-12" wide area around 8-12' long because I can get them at good prices. (I once got 150 bf of hard maple for $4/bf...a very good price here in California, many years ago...I still have two untouched planks left from that...will make a bench top one day)

It is "fun" wielding large, heavy planks through my joiner/planer and bandsaw to get dimensions I want.

Cutting up large planks of wood typically yields you better color match for your project.

Bandsaws tend to be safer than table saws for ripping thick-ish wood. Kickback tends to be less of an issue. Now this doesn't mean that a bandsaw won't cut body parts off...just that kickback, the #1 safety hazard from tables saws, is more or less eliminated in a bandsaw. Bandsaws are the main tool in European shops akin to table saws being the main tool in the US.

And finally, my main reason for having a nice 20" European bandsaw (MM20) is to saw my own thick (1/16") veneers.