Bandsaw Help

[Marty Schlosser]

For resawing, if they are bearings, adjust them tight to the blade, so they are spinning with the saw running. .

Lance,
I am running an after-market Carter bearing kit on my venerable 15" General 490 bandsaw and the instructions were very clear about setting the bearings: don't have them touch the blade, but moved away from the blade approximately the thickness of a piece of paper. I've been doing this for some time now and they work really well at resawing.

What roller guide set are you using?

Marty Schlosser
Ottawa, ON

[Tim Put]

I agree with the above about drift. A fence shouldn't have to be adjusted for drift. Drift can be adjusted by tracking. If that doesn't give you enough adjustment range (and the table is square to the wheels [if any blade has ever had low drift on a saw then it is]) then the blade is bad, either asymmetrically set or different lengths along the front and back edges or similar.

I tend to agree there should be some space between the blade and the guides. One wants to expose the blade to as few fatiguing bends as possible, especially on a 14" saw. At the same time, if your guides aren't spinning at least some of the time when cutting, they aren't doing anything, so either your blade isn't wandering at all and your cut is perfect, in which case go back to your workshop and use it, or you need to set them closer.

[Adam Grills]

Buy a better quality bandsaw and and you will see the difference!
Adam

[Phil Thien]

I think you've received lots of good advice. Basically, starting w/ the blade centered on crowned wheels/tires, taking a test cut and checking for drift and trying to eliminate drift as much as possible. Finally, aligning the fence to whatever drift remains.

I will add, though, that your blog says you're using Viking blades. I'd try a blade that lots of people have had good luck resawing with. Either the Blade Runner, WoodSlicer, or Timberwolf blades would give you a good control for making sure your blades aren't causing problems.

And finally, some people suggest not using a blade you've used for curves for resawing. The curve cutting can apparently slightly alter the set on the blade, which can make future straight cutting problematic.

[Jason Beam]

Buy a better quality bandsaw and and you will see the difference!
Adam

Are you kidding me?

What makes his saw lower quality? He's got a perfectly fine saw.

Did you know that the highest quality saw on the planet could have these same problems?

Now, if you're willing to pay for the solution you propose, I guess I wouldn't object. But don't you think it'd be more productive to offer suggestions on how to tune a saw to work properly?

His saw's fine ... throwing money after the problem (short of a good blade) is not solving the problem at all.

[Paul Murphy]

Fine WoodWorking issue 159 page 44.
John White has an excellent in depth write-up on resawing with a 14" bandsaw.
I built and adjusted his fence to my saw for drift,
and with a Wood Slicer 1/2" blade I am satisfied with the results.
(John also has a book on shop machinery, it's probably also in that book)

There are 2 or 3 schools of thought on a fence. Point contact fence, where you guide the work and you compensate for drift. Full contact fence (as john White describes), where you adjust the fence to drift. The final variation is either set whatever fence once to desired veneer thickness(as john White describes), or set fence for each cut to Board minus kerf minus veneer (too much work for me).

Go ahead and do the full coplanar wheel, perpendicular guidepost, fence drift, guide, and table tune-up. It's fussy precise work, but once done, you should be able to resaw 1/16" veneer consistently.

The larger bandsaws are nice, allow faster feed, and can resaw crazy wide boards, but before buying one I would try what John White has done. It works well enough for me on the saw I already own, and within my budget.

[Tim Dorcas]

A couple of things:

I have already spent a fortune on my bandsaw in terms of modifications. And I am using a good quality blade and it's a new blade. Buying another bandsaw is not really an option at this point.


My fence is designed for resawing and at a minimum everything is square: the fence, blade and table are all square to themselves. I check this everytime before I resaw anything.

There have been a few recommendations regarding blade drift. I will have to do some research to see how I can better reduce this.

One of the things I find incredibly frustrating about woodworking in general is the correct setup of each tool. My lathe vibrates a little but I've already adjusted the legs, added weight, checked the belt, and tightened screws where I could. My grinder wheels wobble a bit but I've purchased a balancing system and the wheels are true before I put them on the grinder. The biggest offender is my bandsaw and I can't tell you how many times I've screwed up a nice piece of wood because I can't get a reasonably straight cut.

Okay...I think I'm done ranting.

I do appreciate everyone's advice and I said when I started I'm open to trying some different approaches to fixing my problem.

Thanks!

Tim

[Gary Muto]

I can say that I have never adjusted either of my saws' wheels to be coplanar and I've got ZERO drift. I refuse to believe that I'm just lucky, given two different saws, different ages, different blades, different sizes, different makers ... no, it's not a coincidence. Nobody should have to tilt their fence to account for drift. Some do, and that's entirely their choice. I chose not to

I just purchased a Rikon 14" deluxe bandsaw and during set up, I could not see a way to adjust the wheels to be coplaner so I called Tech support (thinking that I could get some shims).

I was told what Jason said That by adjusting the camber on the lower wheel while using the OEM Blade and proper tension that I could center the blade on both wheels. I was able to get dead center tracking on both tires simultaneously doing this. I finished assembly, changed blades and performed a resaw cut on a 5 1/2" board and was within 0.010" top to bottom and end to end (+/- 0.005") using the fence. I did not use the resaw post or adjust the fence for drift.

I have to say that I really didn't believe this would work and knew that I'd be calling back tech support. It turns out that I did. I had to tell them that the procedure was easy to follow and that my results were excellent. I really didn't believe that I could change blades and still have good tracking.

I never rechecked but my wheels were originally ~1/8" out of coplaner when I adjusted the camber (tracking adjustment) on the top wheel. I don't think adjusting the camber on the lower wheel would have changed that.

[Gary Muto]

I replied to Jason's posting (#11) so you may not see it. I can discuss the adjsutment method for the lower wheel with you if you like. PM me if you are interested.

[Lance Norris]

Lance,
I am running an after-market Carter bearing kit on my venerable 15" General 490 bandsaw and the instructions were very clear about setting the bearings: don't have them touch the blade, but moved away from the blade approximately the thickness of a piece of paper. I've been doing this for some time now and they work really well at resawing.

What roller guide set are you using?

Marty Schlosser
Ottawa, ON

Marty...I have 2 bandsaws, the one I resaw with is a Grizzly G0457. When I resaw, I dont have any problems with a quality cut. I use the bearings just touching the blade. It has the stock bearing type guides. I was thinking of anything I could, that would help the OP out. Since I wasnt clear what exactly his problems were, I just threw out what no one else had yet suggested. As to the notation in the Carter manual, I cant see any reason why you cant run the bearings up tight, for resawing, that is. For cutting curves, thats a different story. Some twisting of the blade can be helpful for curves. For resawing, unless you are cutting thousands of board feet at a time, and heat and bearing life could be a problem, I see no reason why you cant run the bearings tight to the blade. Sometimes a little pitch will stick to the bearings, but it scrapes off easily.

[Danny Burns]

This helped me.

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/library/resaw.pdf

[Paul Murphy]

Tim, one thing for sure:
You're going to have to set your fence to drift angle, or zero drift angle to the fence.

One thing the 1/2" Woodslicer blade helps with on a small saw is that it is small enough to tension properly. Some small saws will not reliably tension a standard thickness 3/4" blade, and then the cut is unpredictable.

[Tim Put]

Agreed. I think drift should be adjusted by tracking though, not by angling the fence to something other than parallel to the miter slot. Which also means one can have zero drift (defined here as nominal angle of cut as referenced to the plane of the guide, whether fence, miter gauge or other) when cross cutting.

Also agreed on recommending against 3/4" blades on small saws. The real problem is not (or at least is only half) depth, but thickness. Most 3/4" bands are over a third thicker than most smaller bands. The cross sectional area of a typical 3/4" band is double that of a 1/2" band. Thicker bands also aren't designed to bend around smaller wheels and fatigue more quickly.

[Tim Put]

... I never rechecked but my wheels were originally ~1/8" out of coplaner when I adjusted the camber (tracking adjustment) on the top wheel. I don't think adjusting the camber on the lower wheel would have changed that.

That is a smart way to do it. Why didn't I think of that?

Look at the geometry again. I think you'll find you almost certainly did make the wheels coplanar, just no longer a plane quite perpendicular to the ground, and in a much more elegant way.

[Tim Put]

Let me try to explain why I think that. Ignoring the likely multiple iterations, simplifying to just two steps, the top wheel and the bottom wheel.

The first step, top wheel: you adjust the tracking knob, tilting the wheel until a plane extended out from the wheel (or a straight line passing through the center of the wheel rim top and bottom) passes through the hub of the lower wheel.

Step two, the lower wheel: now you tilt this wheel until plane extended out from the wheel passes through the hub of the upper wheel.

Assuming the left/right adjustment is fine, these two planes are now identical, the wheels are coplanar.