Grizzly G0513 Bandsaw Blade to Table Alignment

[Leo Butler]

I purchased a (lightly) used Grizzly G0513 17" bandsaw a month ago. Came with a few blades of poor provenance and performance, except for a 3/4" vari-tooth blade that appeared unused. I put it on the saw and tuned everything up to my satisfaction with the exception of having the back of the blade at 90 degrees to the table. Using my 9" square (a good one), with the top of the blade touching the back of the square, there's about a 0.032 gap at the bottom of the square.

Looking at the position of the blade on the wheels, the blade is sitting a solid 1/8" more forward on the bottom one vs. the top one. I can see a small variance of blade position on the bottom wheel from the side to the bottom, with the blade at its most forward position at the very bottom. This is generally consistent with the angle of the blade seen with reference to the table.

I have the blade fairly tightly tensioned but I didn't use the flutter method or a gauge (building the gauge this weekend). The deflection test puts it about right, I think. More tension would tend towards pulling the bottom wheel in the right direction.

Adjusting the table with some shims is doable but my gut tells me something else is off. I'm going to release all the tension and move the blade into a center position on both tires then retension, and see how much of a correction to the angle with respect to the table that provides. I can also increase the tension more and see whether the blade tracking/position on the bottom wheel improves.

Any thoughts as to other things I should be looking at?

- Leo

[Mike Kees]

Leo ,my advice is do not jump down the rabbit hole of adjusting the lower wheel until you have tried everything else first. I once owned a Steel City 18'' bandsaw and adjusted everything until it was as close as I could get to perfect. Took me about a week of playing ,man did I learn a lot. When I was done that saw was really fun to use. The lower wheel adjustment was necessary on my saw and consumed about 2.5 of the days I messed with it. I set my saw up with the wheels co-planer under tension with the blade size I would use the most. Table square to the blade in two planes. Table miter slot lined up to the blade. And my guidepost square to the table in two planes. Everything on that Steel City was made adjustable. Interestingly when I went through my Centauro there were very few adjustments, the Italians built that saw to line up the way it should from the factory.

[Dan Lambert]

You typically won't have to do any adjustment to the lower wheel, unless someone has tried to realign it, or replaced something and misaligned it. Chances are very good, with the saw being lightly used, that neither of these has occurred. In that case, don't mess with the alignment of the lower wheel unless the saw blade will not track correctly on the top wheel. Set the blade so the the bottom of the gullet of the blade rides dead center on the wheel, and get your guides set correctly (depending on whether you have rollers, discs, or whatever). If the blade will properly track and remain in that position on the top wheel, you don't have a real issue from what I can see.

If the side of the blade is perpendicular to the table when the table rests against the stop, you can make a truly vertical cut in relationship to the table. I would be much less worried about whether the back of the blade is perpendicular to the table than the side of the blade to the table.

If the blade is significantly out of alignment Tracking correctly, but misaligned to vertical, front to back) after running the saw for a bit and doing some cuts with it, then you could shim one side of the trunion to bring it back into alignment. I've never had to do that, but I don't know why you couldn't.

Before I started messing with the bottom wheel alignment, I'd give Grizzly a call and ask then what they would suggest you do. They made the saw, and know more about setting it us and getting it cutting true than anyone.

[Bruce King]

I have the same saw and it says in the manual to shim to line up that small issue.
If you are using a wide blade for resawing you don’t line up the base of the gullet to the center of the wheel, you just center the blade.

[Leo Butler]

You typically won't have to do any adjustment to the lower wheel, unless someone has tried to realign it, or replaced something and misaligned it. Chances are very good, with the saw being lightly used, that neither of these has occurred. In that case, don't mess with the alignment of the lower wheel unless the saw blade will not track correctly on the top wheel. Set the blade so the the bottom of the gullet of the blade rides dead center on the wheel, and get your guides set correctly (depending on whether you have rollers, discs, or whatever). If the blade will properly track and remain in that position on the top wheel, you don't have a real issue from what I can see.
I don't think I have a major problem, but I didn't want to assume too much given that the manual indicates the front-to-back vertical alignment should be adjusted. Once I saw the position of the blade on the lower wheel, which I hadn't really looked at until today, it just raised enough of a question (in my mind) to warrant asking others who have (as Mike said) gone down the rabbit hole.

My first resawing attempts on some 6" poplar indicate I don't have any major problems beyond gaining more experience. I think the euro guides aren't ideal and I'm experimenting with them but I'll wait until I've turned a few more 8/4 scraps into sawdust and possibly usable veneers to make any serious adjustments.

- Leo

[Leo Butler]

I have the same saw and it says in the manual to shim to line up that small issue.
If you are using a wide blade for resawing you don’t line up the base of the gullet to the center of the wheel, you just center the blade.
Thanks, Bruce; that's exactly what I've done. I started to line up the gullets but it was quickly obvious that the wide blade wouldn't allow for that. The (very dull) 1/2" that was on there before would have allowed for that just fine, but not the 3/4".

I adjusted the table to the blade and I've re-checked it twice and it's square to well within the measurement tolerances. My first resaw experiments with the veneer on the fence side of the blade had some interesting issues, so I'm planning to try to cut the same thickness of veneers with the poplar offcut I have on the waste side to see if it behaves any differently. I'm limited to planes and scrapers for now so veneering is probably not going to be my main use for the saw, but from a learning standpoint I'm going to continue to experiment with the veneers.

And I may need to buy a new resaw blade in any case; it would be easy to assume the one I have is fine, but the seller couldn't remember where he bought it so I shouldn't make too many assumptions about it.

- Leo

[Bruce King]

I bought the grizzly resaw fence and it really helped. Also I had been reluctant to tighten the blade enough but am now. I also release the tension when finished. Sometimes I need to just nip a small piece and don’t bother to turn on the dust collection. This has caused me to forget it when making a large cut so I made a sign to lay on it that says turn on DC and tension blade. This also helps remember to release the tension too. Since I use my table saw mostly I tend to forget.

[Curt Harms]

I would certainly buy a new blade. Bandsaw blades can have significant issues and appear perfectly fine at least to my eyes. I'm not familiar with the G0513 but on most bandsaws I'm familiar with the only front to back table adjustment is via shims under the mounting bolts. My first bandsaw was a Grizzly G1148, a pretty light steel frame 15" saw. I took a piece of 1/4" plywood with a good straight edge and cut it into a sort of a C shape so it would fit vertically over the table. Held it up to both wheels and tinkered until both edges of both wheels were touching the ply. The blade would track in the center of both wheels and it would resaw 7" pretty well after a motor upgrade.

[Mike Kees]

There is a reason bottom wheels are adjustable, sometimes they need it. On my saw this adjustment was very touchy, a very small movement of one of the four bolts or even the locknut on those bolts affected the adjustment. You have to be able to determine what area of the wheel needs to move which way and think through it . If you jump in and just start turning the adjustment bolts ,well it might take awhile. I tried working by myself long enough to figure out what I needed to do and most of how to do it. At that point I grabbed my son to help, things went way quicker after that. I nearly wore out my plywood co-planer gauge. The worst thing is that saw was tuned to perfection and then I sold it.:D Curt is right about buying some new blades and seeing if your problems go away before messing with everything. A lot of bandsaw problems are nothing more than a blade.

[Dan Lambert]

I have the G0513 with the Euro disc guides, and I haven't had any real problem caused by the guides. They work differently that roller bearings or "cool blocks", but they can work quite well when adjusted carefully. I don't do any super thin veneer type cuts, but routinely cut ~1/8" thick (or slightly thinner) panels, and haven't had any real issues. Most of what I do when resawing is to take 4/4 or 5/4 and cut it to 1/8" to 1/4" thick panels to make boxes of various sizes. I have had good success with using this saw in this way.

One of the things that I do is to use a tall feather board to keep pressure applied to the resaw fence, placed just at the leading edge of the feed side of the blade. By doing that, I'm sure that the workpiece is truly vertical, and the thickness of the panel will be pretty uniform. I usually use a 1/2" blade for resawing, unless I'm sawing a section of a log or something similar. There are a few times when I change over and use a 3/4" blade, but I've not had any real need to do so for the type of panels I've been cutting.

[John TenEyck]

Why is 1/32" out on the back of the blade to the table important to you? I'd put the blade on the center of the top wheel and verify you have 20ksi on it, or whatever value you prefer, using a tension meter and then check again before doing anything. And then I'd think about why I needed it to be less. I honestly can't think of one task I use my bandsaw for where that would be important.

John