My beast in action...

[Paul B. Cresti]

..resawing that is. Since we seem to have questions every so often about bandsaws and what kind I should get and what the different ones are used for...I figured I would give some of you and update on how I have been using my new MM24. I am making a house full of custom trim here and the first order of business is beaded casing. I typically by oversized stock and plane/face joint it to the correct thickness. Lately I have been face jointing one side, straight line ripping on my slider (see pictures for an update on my rip jig that actually works!) and then resawing on my bandsaw to the almost correct thickness. I then make a few final passes on my planer. I save all of the sliced pieces/extras to do bent laminations, solid edging for plywood and general shims.

The first three pictures you will see me resawing a 13"+ plus board a little over 8'-0" long. To date I have resawed roughly 200bd ft. I figure I have about 600 to go....

The next two pictures is my handy dandy slider ripping jig...

[lou sansone]

hi paul
looks like the setup is working nice for you. what thickness did the poplar come in? Would you have prefered to have it in the thickness that did not require resawing or is there some advantage to it.

lou

[Gail O'Rourke]

Paul, very impressive.....I like it.

[Al Navas]

Paul,

It looks super! And you have the bandsaw tuned very well, as the cut shows very few marks. Well done!


Al

[Tyler Howell]

Another day at school.:cool:
Some people pay for all this information.
Thanks Paul

[tod evans]

jeeze paul, you`re working in tight quarters! is that an 8` board jammed against the wall on the infeed side? tod

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Couple of questions Paul. What type of blade are you using? And it doesn't look like you are using anything to hold the work against the fence. How are you feeding the stock?

[Paul B. Cresti]

Tod - yep I am that tight...why do you think I call it a one man shop ;)

Dennis - I am using a Lennox Trimaster 1" carbide. The only thing that holds the stock against my fence is me. I use one of those flat (w/ foam rubber) push pads to hold the stock against the fence as I am pushing with the other hand. Since all of my reference is against the fence all I really require is fence that is parallel to the blade. I square the table to the blade, the fence to the table and tada! nice straight cuts. This of course assumes the saw can properly tension the blade.

Lou- the poplar is 5/4. I have learned through my past experiences that I no longer will by stock "close" to the final thickness, I make all of my molding/millwork thicker than the norm and I make the majority of my own millwork (except crown if I do not need to but I have done that too). If my millwork does not match in close to as exact profile (as I can) and thickness I have a heck of a time during installation time. Not to mention the prebought millwork never creates the shadows that are truly needed to make the profiles read

Al- the lines that you do see are there only because I am hand feeding and at times have to stop or slow down to reposition my hands. It is quite amazing what a good blade and a robust bandsaw can do.

[Ken Garlock]

Hi Paul, that is a real band saw.:)

You say the fence is parallel to the blade. Can I assume that a 1" blade does not have drift tendencies?:confused: What tension are you using, 30,000#?

[Paul B. Cresti]

Hi Paul, that is a real band saw.:)

You say the fence is parallel to the blade. Can I assume that a 1" blade does not have drift tendencies?:confused: What tension are you using, 30,000#?

Ken,
No drift that I know of if I have the correct tension and hold the stock against the fence. Tension?? not sure never measured it, as I do not have a tension guage. I place the blade on and tension it using the 1/8" deflection method with my fore finger. If when I cut it works well, I am done.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Isn't it amazing Paul, how much a slider changes things?
Once upon a time ripping a sheet of ply was a beast of a job requiring support and outfeed tables. The rip fence was soooo very important once upon a time. Now ya just toss it one the slider and do a cross cut/rip along either the 8, 12, or 4 foot sides & the same for those long boards. Nearly everything, it seems, can go on the slider and it's so very much safer.

[Carl Eyman]

Am I imagining things or is resawing often done with a "point fence" by which I mean a dowel or vee shaped stick parallel to the blade alowing the stock to be rotated to follow the line. I was suprised to see your solid fence. Can someone enlighten me? ( Hey, I see your excellent results; so obviously your sydtem works).

[Jim Becker]

Carl, a point fence works very well for resawing in certain circumstances and with certain saws. These bigger machines that use wide blades and don't have the teeth in contact with the tire don't suffer as much from "variable" tooth set/wandering, so once you set up the fence to provide a parallel cut, you can easily use a tall, fixed fence for resawing. I used a point fence on the Jet 14" saw I used to own; I don't on my MM16 with the 1" carbide tipped blade. Straight as an arrow...

[Paul B. Cresti]

Isn't it amazing Paul, how much a slider changes things?
Once upon a time ripping a sheet of ply was a beast of a job requiring support and outfeed tables. The rip fence was soooo very important once upon a time. Now ya just toss it one the slider and do a cross cut/rip along either the 8, 12, or 4 foot sides & the same for those long boards. Nearly everything, it seems, can go on the slider and it's so very much safer.

Cliff,
You are soo right....a slider is such a simple concept...it is nothing more than a table that slides past the blade, thats it! It amazes me that the American market never caught on until more recently

[Paul B. Cresti]

Carl, a point fence works very well for resawing in certain circumstances and with certain saws. These bigger machines that use wide blades and don't have the teeth in contact with the tire don't suffer as much from "variable" tooth set/wandering, so once you set up the fence to provide a parallel cut, you can easily use a tall, fixed fence for resawing. I used a point fence on the Jet 14" saw I used to own; I don't on my MM16 with the 1" carbide tipped blade. Straight as an arrow...

Ditto on what Jim said. I too owned a 14" jet at one time and used a point fence. With these big saws & big blades....there is nuttin to it

[Roy Wall]

Paul,

Do you us a feather board or anything to keep it tight to the fence????

You must have some serious skill --- because if I was holding that board --the back end would be wobbling all over the place.....thus creating havoc with the cutting edge:eek: .....

I guess if you really keep the pressure against the fence with those foam pads the board will stay tight:confused: :) !!

[Paul B. Cresti]

Paul,

Do you us a feather board or anything to keep it tight to the fence????

You must have some serious skill --- because if I was holding that board --the back end would be wobbling all over the place.....thus creating havoc with the cutting edge:eek: .....

I guess if you really keep the pressure against the fence with those foam pads the board will stay tight:confused: :) !!

Not sure if you would call it skill but I do not have any problems holding the board. It requires some muscle but i do not have a problem with it...they do not call it woodWORKING for nothing ;). If you check back to my past posts about my bandsaw fence you will see that it is quite a substantial fence "system". The faces that I add to the subfence are all much bigger than the actual stock cast iron fence. Add to that the fact that the fence does not deflect, I have rollers before and after the table, a very big main table to begin with and the fact that I have the reference face of the stock face jointed and the edge against the table squared to that face.....I can get very good results. Then again the bandsaw might have something to do with it too :D

[Matt Day]

I agree with the slider comments. How I coped before I am not sure. I have the 8' MM slider and using it to break down sheets and straight line ripping is invaluable. I have the MM20 and I have to admit I wish I bought the 24, to have that little extra table size and throat capacity would be a nice addition but not one complaint about the MM20. I too have a Delta 14" bandsaw to make those tight curve cuts I find doing it this way saves me a lot of time in setting up different blades all the time.

Can you say I have a little attraction to the white machines made in Italy?

Just an FYI David, but the OP's thread is from over 3 years ago.