Using bandsaw for thicknessing

[Dan Demonty]

Hi folks, I'm newly registered but I've been lurking the forum for a long time. Thanks for all the great infos I found here!

I thickness stock with a dw735 with factory knives. Most of the time, I don't enjoy this step of the process. I just ordered a ResawKing for my 14/12 bandsaw and was thinking it could be used to get stock to thickness. I don't mean making panels or veneers. I mean taking 4/4 rough stock, jointing it on the jointer (or by hand if too wide) and getting the other side finished on the bandsaw, to get a 3/4 finished board.

Does anyone do this? I found a lot of infos about resawing, but nothing specifically about "standard" thicknessing and jointing the second face of a board. What you think?

Thanks

[David Falkner]

It seems like by the time you clean up one side there will be very little remaining for the RK to take a bite of, since it's going to take 1/16" anyway. You might end up with a bunch of 'veneer like' pieces but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Michael Weber]

Like David said, with 4/4 to 3/4, there isn't much room for doing it. It does make sense to do that to remove a majority of any excess width before finishing in the planer if you need to take a lot off the width.

[David Ragan]

I usually approach it the way you are outlining.

Who wants to spend an hour dulling out your DW735 blades with all the unbearable noise, or using hand tools? Not me.

For me, that is a great use of a bandsaw.

But-like has been said, be very careful, cause I have done this on mahogany, gotten a little blade drift, and then my entire piece was no good, cause I scalloped out some-too thin.

[Susumu Mori]

For rough lumber, I use my bandsaw+RK to dimension the board after I flatten the two adjacent surfaces at 90 degree with a jointer.
This makes the subsequent planing step much shorter; just one or two passes.
As I start to use Domino more often recently, which requires only one finished surface as reference, the absolute parallel and thickness uniformity across different parts of the furniture is no longer required.
So, I sometimes don't bother using a planer anymore. After the dimensioning by the bandsaw, I clean-up the saw marks using jointer, hand planer, or sander for the non-critical surfaces (the surfaces that are not used as references). I start to see my planer being use less and less. I used to have a lunch-box screamer, which I hated. So I liked this approach.

Having said that, I'm not sure if a bandsaw is a good approach for thicknessing a wide and thin board.

[Marty Tippin]

I don't think you'll ever get a "finished" surface from a bandsaw; it'll still need to go through the planer for the final thicknessing. And has been mentioned, blade drift can ruin your whole day pretty quickly...

[Jim Wheeler]

Thirty-something years ago I did not have a thickness planer; at that time they were still a rare item in a home shop. I made black walnut statuary mounts from stock that had to be edge-glued to get the necessary width, and I would begin with rough pieces a fat 8/4 inches thick by 6 inches wide and 24 to 30 inches long (depending on end checks.) After jointing a face and edge I routinely re-sawed these to almost a finished thickness of 1-3/4 inches on my 14 inch Delta bandsaw. Then I would clean up the sawn face with a light pass or two on the jointer.

I never had any problems doing this; I always got an accurate thickness end to end, right off the saw, sawing against a fence. The fence was set parallel to the miter gauge slot and the slot was set parallel to the center-tracked, 1/2 inch blade by a one-time shifting of the table on its trunnions. Blade tension was always set to only the 3/8 inch blade mark. I never experienced drift or bellying, and any thickness discrepancy usually crept in from the clean-up pass on the jointer. Eventually I got to the point where I didn't bother with the clean-up pass, because I had to hand plane and/or belt sand after glue-up anyway. I was making three to four of these mounts every week or two, and it was bread and butter money for me. I think I eventually built fifty something mounts.

The one caveat about re-sawing to thickness is this: Usually much more wood is removed from one side than the other. Depending on the ratio of the thickness to the width of the board, it can often cause warping - usually only cup or bow. In my case, I wasn't removing much more of the thickness in sawing than what was removed from the other side in the initial jointing. Also, I was using boards that were relatively thick compared to their width, and black walnut is a fairly stable species to begin with. If I had been using 4/4 stock instead of 8/4, I might have had more cupping - which would have necessitated planing the initial working face again.

Jim
​
He who welds steel with flaming pine cones may accomplish anything!

[Mike Cutler]

I do it all the time. I start with rough 4/4, Joint a face and an edge, bring it close to dimension on the bandsaw and finish with the drum sander.
To be fair though, I have an 18" bandsaw with a Lennox 2/3, Varipitch, TriMaster, specifically set up only for resawing. It never does anything else.
If you can't hold pretty tight tolerances across the face of the stock you are resawing, it might be better to just put it through a planer.

[Jim Wheeler]

I do it all the time. I start with rough 4/4, Joint a face and an edge, bring it close to dimension on the bandsaw and finish with the drum sander.
To be fair though, I have an 18" bandsaw with a Lennox 2/3, Varipitch, TriMaster, specifically set up only for resawing. It never does anything else.
If you can't hold pretty tight tolerances across the face of the stock you are resawing, it might be better to just put it through a planer.


How wide are the boards you begin with and what species are they?

Jim

He who welds steel with flaming pine cones may accomplish anything!​

[Dan Demonty]

I don't think you'll ever get a "finished" surface from a bandsaw; it'll still need to go through the planer for the final thicknessing. And has been mentioned, blade drift can ruin your whole day pretty quickly...

I was planning to take a final pass with the planer, or just with my bu smoother if the RK delivers as advertised...

I was missing the possible wraping issue. I always take some passes off the jointed face with the planer in an effort to "equilibrate" the board. I will be aware of this now, thanks Jim.

As I'm not used to large resawing on the bandsaw (for now I rip and cut tenon sheeks mostly), is there a minimum thickness needed for the thin piece that will be removed on the outside of the blade? What will happen if there isn't any at some point in the cut? Is it what you mean David, would it alone cause drift?

Thanks again for the replies!

Dan

[David Ragan]

I was planning to take a final pass with the planer, or just with my bu smoother if the RK delivers as advertised...

I was missing the possible wraping issue. I always take some passes off the jointed face with the planer in an effort to "equilibrate" the board. I will be aware of this now, thanks Jim.

As I'm not used to large resawing on the bandsaw (for now I rip and cut tenon sheeks mostly), is there a minimum thickness needed for the thin piece that will be removed on the outside of the blade? What will happen if there is any at some point in the cut? Is it what you mean David, would it alone cause drift?

Thanks again for the replies!

Dan
Im not sure i understand your question, pls ask me again?

[Dan Demonty]

Im not sure i understand your question, pls ask me again?

Sorry... When you said your piece was no good after getting some blade drift, was it because the piece you was removing on the outside of the blade was too thin? Does taking a very thin piece off can cause drift?

Dan

[Shawn Pixley]

I also seldom use a thickness planer. I joint with hand planes. Thickness on the bandsaw. Then clean up the other sides with hand planes. I have a good stack of thins left from this.

[David C. Roseman]

Sorry... When you said your piece was no good after getting some blade drift, was it because the piece you was removing on the outside of the blade was too thin? Does taking a very thin piece off can cause drift?

Dan

Dan, I think what David Ragan means, and I agree, is that trying to take too thin a cut causes the lateral pressure on the fence side of the blade to be so much greater than on the other side that the blade will drift to the outside due to lack of support. This can happen with even a heavy bandsaw and blade. A sharp blade, good tension and slow feed can help, but the tendency is there.

[Judson Green]

I was planning to take a final pass with the planer, or just with my bu smoother if the RK delivers as advertised...

I was missing the possible wraping issue. I always take some passes off the jointed face with the planer in an effort to "equilibrate" the board. I will be aware of this now, thanks Jim.

As I'm not used to large resawing on the bandsaw (for now I rip and cut tenon sheeks mostly), is there a minimum thickness needed for the thin piece that will be removed on the outside of the blade? What will happen if there isn't any at some point in the cut? Is it what you mean David, would it alone cause drift?

Thanks again for the replies!

Dan

Yes I think it is better to be able to cut a full kerf, thus even pressure on the blade resulting less or no deflection. As David C Roseman says in his post you will stand a much better chance if you go slow with a very sharp blade.

[Dan Demonty]

I'm glad I asked, I'll put it to the test as soon as the RK arrives.

Thank you!

Dan

[David Ragan]

Dan, I think what David Ragan means, and I agree, is that trying to take too thin a cut causes the lateral pressure on the fence side of the blade to be so much greater than on the other side that the blade will drift to the outside due to lack of support. This can happen with even a heavy bandsaw and blade. A sharp blade, good tension and slow feed can help, but the tendency is there.

I never thought of it like that. But, I have noticed that somehow, once the blade is out of the cut (wanders laterally out past your veneer slice, for instance) good luck.

How I imagined that it works is that (probably due to operator error) the blade drifts away it's intended path one way or the other. When it's away from your fence/desired finished piece, no harm done. When it is toward the fence---if your margin for error is too close, your finished piece may be too thin. More scrap firewood.

David Roseman above is right in the three big factors of sharp blade, good tension, and slow feed. Also, look @ some of the threads about resawing and blade drift, esp re: Laguna Driftmaster fence.

I once took a piece of mahogany 4/4 x 18" by 18' and just got a shadow box out of it by wanting to resaw the darn thing into the correct thickness, wasted a bunch of wood. I will not make that mistake again.

I am fortunate to have really nice equipment, but lack the skill to use properly most of the time.....so I sneak up on these things.

[David C. Roseman]

Oops, hope I didn't confuse things by jumping in with my post #14. When I said taking too thin a cut, I was describing the setup where the waste is on the outboard side of the blade (i.e., opposite the fence side). That's what I thought Dan was describing when he asked about dimensioning his rough-sawn stock on the bandsaw, where he would run the newly-jointed edge against the fence in order to end up with a uniform width of material. I don't cut much veneer, but when I have, I've always trued my stock to a uniform width first, then sawed the veneer on the outboard side of the blade, but with a simple jig (shop-built) supporting the outboard edge to prevent bow and drift of the blade. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZSDfLjDk8I

[David Ragan]

Oops, hope I didn't confuse things by jumping in with my post #14. When I said taking too thin a cut, I was describing the setup where the waste is on the outboard side of the blade (i.e., opposite the fence side). That's what I thought Dan was describing when he asked about dimensioning his rough-sawn stock on the bandsaw, where he would run the newly-jointed edge against the fence in order to end up with a uniform width of material. I don't cut much veneer, but when I have, I've always trued my stock to a uniform width first, then sawed the veneer on the outboard side of the blade, but with a simple jig (shop-built) supporting the outboard edge to prevent bow and drift of the blade. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZSDfLjDk8I

Your comments were in line w what ive always done-as time has gone by and the myriad of ways ive found to screw up in shop, i revert back to the science in trying to grasp "what just happened"..... For sure, wood as a material is often not uniform in structure, and when you go cutting into it, best to leave room for a different type of gross configuration when youre done