Timberwolf blades, how smooth should the cut be?

[Tim Solley]

I have a Grizzly G0555 14" band saw. I was thoroughly unimpressed with the blades that came with the saw, so I bought four Timberwolf blades a couple of weeks ago. These blades cut a little better, but not what I expected. I'm starting to think that maybe my saw is ou of whack.

When I make a cut, the wood comes out ridged, like a Ruffles potato chip. It's not as bad with the Timberwolf blades, but still there. Even the 3/4" veneering blade that the tech. said should cut "glassy smooth" leaves bad ridges. I've tried fooling around with the blade tension, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be appreciated.

Tim

[tod evans]

tim, feed will affect a bandsaws cut alot! do you have a feeder?

[Tim Solley]

Thanks Tod. No I don't have a feeder. I get this ridged pattern no matter how I feed the wood, whether freehand or against the fence.

One thing I did notice. When turning the wheels by hand and sighting along the blade, is that at a certain point, the blade seems to twist just ever so slightly. I assume this is where the ridged pattern is coming from. I would think that's a problem with the blade, but I see it on every blade I own. Could this be an issue with wheel alignment? Tension?

Thanks,

Tim

[Jim Hinze]

One thing I did notice. When turning the wheels by hand and sighting along the blade, is that at a certain point, the blade seems to twist just ever so slightly. I assume this is where the ridged pattern is coming from. I would think that's a problem with the blade, but I see it on every blade I own. Could this be an issue with wheel alignment? Tension?

Tim

Your gonna get ridges or saw marks no matter what you do, the goal is to minimize them.

Here are some things to check:

1. Upper and lower wheel being co-planar.
2. Make sure tires are clean and not full of pitch and gunk.
3. Ensure the thrust bearing is about a dollar bill's width from the back of the blade.
4. Add more tension.
5. Make sure the guide blocks are about a dollar bill's width from the sides of the blade.
6. Don't push so hard when resawing (that's partially why the blade is twisting), let the blade do the work...
7. Make sure you've aligned the fence for blade drift.

[tod evans]

tim, without seeing your set-up in the flesh it`s dificult to offer sound advice. jim has given you the basics of resawing allready so no need to repeat those. the likleyhood of getting a single bad blade from a reputable dealer is very slim and the likleyhood of 3-4 all being bad is even slimmer so i`d suggest checking all of your saws alignments and adjustments and trying different feed rates...02 tod

[Frank Fusco]

Jim said, "7. Make sure you've aligned the fence for blade drift."

What does that mean?

[Dennis Peacock]

Jim said, "7. Make sure you've aligned the fence for blade drift."

What does that mean?

Frank,
When cutting on a bandsaw, the blade will often "drift" during a cut. This is due to how the cut is going as well as woodgrain and such. Every blade will "drift" to some degree and adjusting the wood to where the bandsaw cuts straight or as straight as possible is just normal proceedure. With my bandsaw, I have to slant the wood at about 5º clockwise of straight-on to the blade. Depending on the cut? It will want to drift towards the inside of the cut or the outside of the cut.

Clear as mud? :confused: :rolleyes: :D

[Hoa Dinh]

Even the 3/4" veneering blade that the tech. said should cut "glassy smooth"...
Tim,

I'm not gonna sugar-coat it. The fact is simple: the tech. was lying.

IMHO, there is no way a BS cut can be "glassy smooth." Some bandsaws/blades are better than other, but none of them can match a well-tuned tablesaw when it comes to ripping. And the cut on a well-tuned TS is hardly "glassy smooth." I always have to sand.

You can minimize the ridges, but I doubt even with the best BS & blade one can totally eliminate them.

Also, I get better quality cut when resawing with a 1/2" blade than with a 3/4" blade (both Timberwolf). My saw is a Rockwell 14" metal/wood cutting BS with riser block, 2 HP motor, and aftermartket high-tension spring.

Funny thing, depending on when you call and who to talk to at Suffolk, sometimes a 3/4" blade is recommended for resawing, sometimes "there is no way a 14" BS can properly tension a blade wider than 1/2"".

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on BS, just voice my opinion based on my limited experience.

[lou sansone]

how fast are you feeding it? That will effect the surface of the wood. I will try to do a little test sample tonight and time it for you and you will see what is possible.
lou


see my follow-up post on page 2
lou

[Frank Fusco]

Frank,
When cutting on a bandsaw, the blade will often "drift" during a cut. This is due to how the cut is going as well as woodgrain and such. Every blade will "drift" to some degree and adjusting the wood to where the bandsaw cuts straight or as straight as possible is just normal proceedure. With my bandsaw, I have to slant the wood at about 5º clockwise of straight-on to the blade. Depending on the cut? It will want to drift towards the inside of the cut or the outside of the cut.

Clear as mud? :confused: :rolleyes: :D

Interesting. I just tighten down my fence and cut. If there are problems, I'm not bright enough to see them.
As for Hoa's comment. I resaw quite a bit on my 14" Grizzly G0555 bandsaw with a 3/4" blade. I don't know how to properly tension so I just tighten until it feels tight.
What do I need to do to get all the problems folks talk about here? :D

[David Eisenhauer]

Draw a straight line down the length of wood to be ripped. Do not use a fence at this point. Carefully hand feed the wood into the blade and adjust the angle of entry (wood into blade) by hand to result in a straight cut on the line. About half way into the rip, turn off the saw and carefully hold the wood so that it maintains the angle of entry into the wood. That angle that it takes to feed the wood into the blade so as to result in a straight cut is called "drift". Draw that line on the table and match the fence to that angle.

[David Eisenhauer]

With no other information, I'd almost automatically say that your tension is not high enough and you are feeding too fast. The 14" saws are slow resawers (resawyers?). As already posted, you will never get a "glass" smooth cut, but you can get a fairly smooth cut with a new, sharp blade, correct tension, and feed rate. I describe fairly smooth as a cut resulting in 1/32" "tall" ripples, which will still need adressing in some fashion.

[Jim Hinze]

Jim said, "7. Make sure you've aligned the fence for blade drift."

What does that mean?


Frank,

Like Dennis said, all bandsaw blades will drift somewhat during a cut, some more, some less. Here's a simple procedure to test for drift and adjust the fence...

NOTE: This is assuming that your bandsaw fence can be adjusted to either toe in or toe out...

Get a piece of hardwood (I prefer thicker... 5/4 or 8/4) and prepare it as you would normal stock, joint/plane/rip so you have a nice square piece at least 36" long and 2" to 4" wide. With a strait edge, draw a line down the length of the board .. this is going to be your rip line.

You'll need an adjustable bevel guage to make life easier...

Move the fence out of the way and begin ripping the board ON THE LINE. In order to stay on the line, you'll have to adjust the feeding of the board either to the left or right.

Every 6 to 12", stop and set your bevel guage to the angle the board is currently running at... on your third check (about 30" into the board) the bevel guage setting (board in relationship to the table) is the blade drift. Lock down the bevel guage and turn off the saw...

Now take the bevel guage and adjust the fence to match the guage...

This should be done every time you change blades.

Here's a link to DIY Network where David Marks explains it a bit better...

David Marks Bandsaw tune up & Blade drift adjustment (http://www.diynet.com/diy/wk_tools/article/0,2037,DIY_14429_2278285,00.html)

[Chuck Powell]

I have a Grizzly G0555 14" band saw. I was thoroughly unimpressed with the blades that came with the saw, so I bought four Timberwolf blades a couple of weeks ago. These blades cut a little better, but not what I expected. I'm starting to think that maybe my saw is ou of whack.

When I make a cut, the wood comes out ridged, like a Ruffles potato chip. It's not as bad with the Timberwolf blades, but still there. Even the 3/4" veneering blade that the tech. said should cut "glassy smooth" leaves bad ridges. I've tried fooling around with the blade tension, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be appreciated.

Tim

How far apart are the top of the "ridges" and how high are they? I mean, are you seeing ridges (tops close together) or waves (tops an inch apart)?

My experience with a Timberwolf PC 1", 3 TPI blade is that a very light pass on the planer will clean it up. The cut is not silky smooth but I would not call it ridgy...the face is very flat...NO waves. I hand feed all stock.

As far as the blade twist...mark one of your wheels and rotate by hand noting where the twist occurs. See if it happens at the same point on every BS wheel revolution (ie, is the "twist" blade-related or wheels/tires-related)?

[Loren Hedahl]

Is it possible the "set" of the teeth isn't consistent? You could check this by cutting a little ways into a piece of wood then power down.

Now rotate the wheel by hand to move the blade slowly through the kerf you just cut.

If there is a tooth or two that have more "set", I would think it would be apparent and you could mark them and deal with them individually.

It could also be the weld area. The same test should identify if this is the case.

Good luck, and it would be nice to know what the problem was when you get it all figured out.

[John Shuk]

Depends which blade you chose. I would call Suffolk Machinery. They are very much in the know about bandsaws. Not only are they able to help but they are very willing. All my Timberwolfs come from them.

[chester stidham]

I would check the aligments on your B.S I also have a G0555 saw and it needed some fine tuning when new but works well now even with the junk blade that came with mine it cut better then yours befor tunning and even better after. read your manual and follow the alignment pocedures also Temberwolf recomends less tennison then what the factory dose. go to there web page and there you well find there recomendations for there blades i set mine that way with out a problem. and I do think that they make the best blades for the money but you well never get a tablesaw grade cut when I resaw I always cut larger then what i need and run it thru a planer. hope this helps also if you can't tune it out by your self call Grizzly for advice. but first read the manual one more time.:o

[Dave Fifield]

I had ridges in my bandsaw cuts too, until I purchased one of those inexpensive hand-held grinding stone thingies to "grind" the back of the blade with. Once I had treated my blades (in situ) to a bit of smoothing with that thing, my cut smoothness improved remarkably. YMMV.

Dave F.

[Sean Sarmast]

Agreed. This is absolutely necessary to achieve the smoothest cut possible.
One nice thing, you only need to do this once per blade as the drift angle of the blade remains constant.
A tutorial with pictures: http://www.rd.com/americanwoodworker/articles/200008/main/page4.html


Draw a straight line down the length of wood to be ripped. Do not use a fence at this point. Carefully hand feed the wood into the blade and adjust the angle of entry (wood into blade) by hand to result in a straight cut on the line. About half way into the rip, turn off the saw and carefully hold the wood so that it maintains the angle of entry into the wood. That angle that it takes to feed the wood into the blade so as to result in a straight cut is called "drift". Draw that line on the table and match the fence to that angle.

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Adding MY .02. about tension. Tiberwolf Blades are NOT tensioned like other blades. If you over tension them, you WILL break them!

The correct way to tension their blades is to "snug" them up, turn on the bandsaw. The blade will seem to wobble. ONLY tighten till the wobble stops. Then, take ONE more turn on the tenion knob and you're set.

As others have said, I have yet to see a "Glassy" smooth finish off a bandsaw.

Bruce

[lou sansone]

here are a couple of photos from my bandsaw that I took tonight. I needed to resaw some 10" wide poplar boards for a project. This is using a 1/2" timberwolf blade. feed rate was about 5 feet a minute and I was getting a decent looking surface. I will end up gluing a couple of these boards together and then just put them through the wide belt to clean up.

hope this helps
lou

[Allen Bookout]

Tim,

When I got my bandsaw I found a video at the Library that was excellent for describing how to properly set up your bandsaw as well as how to use it properly. You may be more advanced that I am but it was invaluable to me. I think that even experienced bandsaw people could get something out of it. You can see the quality of cuts to expect out of it.

If you are interested the name of the video is:

"Mastering Your Bandsaw" by Mark Duginske.

If your library does not have it I know that you can purchase it online. After I watched it I obtained one to retain for myself. For me it was worth the price as it eliminated the fussing around to figure out how to get the best performance out of it.

Good Luck! Allen