Roy Hatch
11-14-2007, 5:03 PM
At least for me, thanks to Michael Fortune's article in Fine Woodworkings publication, "Power Tool Basics." Whenever I resawed a board I found it necessary to feed at an angle from right to left. It always frustrated me because I believed that you should be able to feed straight through in alignment with the blade. But I had no idea how to make that work.
Much has been written on the subject of the need to have the upper and lower wheels coplanar, so to move the upper wheel was out of the question. Furthermore, the Delta manual specifically states that the blade should be centered on the tire and that's where I had mine. Who am I to question the people who made the saw and wrote the manual? Nevertheless, after reading Fortune's article, which seemed to make sense, I was ready to start breaking the rules.
His article explains that the blade is riding too far to the rear when having to feed from right to left and my I/2 inch blade was as near center as I could get it. So I moved the tracking adjuster a quarter of a turn which shifted the blade noticeably toward the front of center. It's not coming off the wheel, so what the heck. And just to add more to the question of what works best, I took Fortune's advice and reduced tension to that for a 3/8" blade. (I've played with tension previously and found that it had little affect on where the blade tracked, so I don't attribute my results to the change in tension.)
Eureka, it works. This is not to recommend that anyone try this procedure if you are not familiar with band saw adjustments, but if you do, MAKE SURE THE POWER CORD IS UNPLUGGED WHEN MAKING ADJUSTMENTS. Obviously, the guides need to be adjusted too.
Roy
Much has been written on the subject of the need to have the upper and lower wheels coplanar, so to move the upper wheel was out of the question. Furthermore, the Delta manual specifically states that the blade should be centered on the tire and that's where I had mine. Who am I to question the people who made the saw and wrote the manual? Nevertheless, after reading Fortune's article, which seemed to make sense, I was ready to start breaking the rules.
His article explains that the blade is riding too far to the rear when having to feed from right to left and my I/2 inch blade was as near center as I could get it. So I moved the tracking adjuster a quarter of a turn which shifted the blade noticeably toward the front of center. It's not coming off the wheel, so what the heck. And just to add more to the question of what works best, I took Fortune's advice and reduced tension to that for a 3/8" blade. (I've played with tension previously and found that it had little affect on where the blade tracked, so I don't attribute my results to the change in tension.)
Eureka, it works. This is not to recommend that anyone try this procedure if you are not familiar with band saw adjustments, but if you do, MAKE SURE THE POWER CORD IS UNPLUGGED WHEN MAKING ADJUSTMENTS. Obviously, the guides need to be adjusted too.
Roy