Learning to resaw

[Mark Baldwin III]

One of today's primary tasks is to prep some lumber for a couple small projects. One of the projects requires a bit of resawing. Not something I've done before today. Steve Branam has a good article, http://www.closegrain.com/search/label/Resawing. That was just enough inspiration to get me going.
So, from start to completing the rough plane work was 50 minutes. (you guys are going to be sick of me by the time I get through all of my firsts on these projects )
gun box (2).JPGgun box.JPG

the whole process here: http://milwaukeemonastery.blogspot.c.../resawing.html

[Steve Branam]

Hey, thanks! Glad it was helpful!

[Mark Baldwin III]

Thank YOU, Steve. My three primary sources when I want to check out a technique are here at the Creek, your blog, and Derek's site. Putting it up here is a way to say thanks, and also to let any other novice (like myself) who comes along know that if I can do it...they certainly can!

[Tony Shea]

As of late i have been doing a lot of resawing by hand, unfortunatly a bandsaw hasn't been in my budget or space limitations for a while and probably wont be for another while. So I'm stuck resawing by hand. I built a frame saw for the proccess but still always come back to a 5 ppi Diston #7. It can be tiring but I really enjoy sawing by hand. Once you get the practise in sawing this can produce some very accurate resawing. My frame saw is a bit tougher to stay on track but does get the call for wider stock.

I've been on the lookout for a 4ppi or less full size hand saw for some time now for this exact purpose. But I have had zero luck and am not even sure they exist without having to drop half the cost of a decent bandsaw on a custom handsaw.

[Tony Shea]

Oh and I would love to see your display case for the revolver. One of these days I need to make myself some sort of display for a pair of Colt Single Action Army's I have kicking around. They are my pride and joys and need a case to suit them.

[Mark Baldwin III]

Oh and I would love to see your display case for the revolver. One of these days I need to make myself some sort of display for a pair of Colt Single Action Army's I have kicking around. They are my pride and joys and need a case to suit them.

I hope it turns out the way I'm picturing it. I'm getting better at the vision to reality thing though. There are dovetails involved, so I have some practice to do there. So far my dovetailing hasn't been so good. Most of my attempts have been in soft woods, pine and such. I'm better with my chisels on stuff like cherry and walnut, so I'm hoping to pull it off. So, yeah, when I get there, there will be plenty of pictures.
The pistol, on the other hand, has been living in a towel, tucked away in a closet for a number of years. That's no fate for such a neat piece. Got a flint lock I could make a case for too...

[Chris Griggs]

Nice work Mark. That's definitely not one of favorite things to do by hand. Looking forward to seeing the project(s) come together. Don't practice those dovetails for too long - something about taking the leap and doing them in a project gets you better at them then any amount of practice on scrap (or it did for me anyway). Thanks for sharing.

[David Keller NC]

Mark - It would definitely be worth your while to build a frame saw to do this so that you could use a 3 tpi hook tooth bandsaw blade. Resawing by hand is hard work (as I'm sure you've found out by now!). The speed at which you can do this is greatly influenced by the tpi of the blade, the blade thickness, the blade width, the set, and aggressiveness of the tooth filing. In particular, panel saws are not ideal for this process because of the plate width. The wide plate causes a substantial amount of friction, even if they're properly taper ground.

This is a guess on my part, but I'd estimate that a 3 tooth, zero degree rake angle, 1/2 blade width and moderate set band saw blade in a frame saw is roughly 3 times as fast as using just about any panel saw for the purpose. And a frame saw is very easy to build - you can get all of the parts out of your scrap pile and the local hardware store (except for the blade, which is easy to come by from a woodworking supplier).

[Mark Baldwin III]

David- A frame saw has been on my to-do list for quite some time, I should bump it up the list! I have a band saw blade that I intended for this purpose and just need to do the work. The other option I've thought about is the ECE 5ppi blade that Adria carries.

[David Keller NC]

Hmm - That's interesting, I might order one of those. THe problem with using bandsaw blades in a hand-powered saw is that most of the available blades have too much set. That works great in a powered saw that holds the blade rigidly between two roller guides, but not so good when hand-sawing because the wide kerf and thin blade lets the saw flop around too much. Thanks for the heads up, I may order a couple of those to try them out.

[Tony Shea]

Very nice find Mark on that ECE blade. I will also have to order myself one to try out. Looks promising.

I agree David that a bandsaw blade is not ideal in a frame saw. Takes a lot of work to get the blade designed for hand work. It is doable but one must realize it is not ideal out of the box.

[Joe Cunningham]

I've been on the lookout for a 4ppi or less full size hand saw for some time now for this exact purpose. But I have had zero luck and am not even sure they exist without having to drop half the cost of a decent bandsaw on a custom handsaw.

Go rust hunting and find a hand saw with a poorly sharpened, but otherwise decent saw plate (just to cut down on your work for the next part). Then joint it down with a mill file and cut your own PPI.

I'm planning on doing the same, except to find a decent saw plate with a munged up handle, and using that saw plate in a frame saw for resawing.

[Steve Branam]

Well, speak of the devil, I just completed my Hyperkitten frame saw last night, sized specifically for the Putsch blades that I already had. At least in the pictures, they are identical to the ECE blades. I have the 5ppi rip mounted in it now. I also have 3ppi 1/2" bandsaw and 5ppi 5/8" bandsaw to try out. I'll let you know how it works out.

I ran into problems using my regular ripsaw on wide mahogany, so decided it was time to finish up my frame saw.

[Steve Branam]

Got my frame saw done and tried using the Putsch 5tpi blade. I put Vise-Grips on the wing nut to get leverage to crank it down twanging tight and gave it a try after creating a starter kerf on the corner with the rip saw.

The frame saw seems to add yet another dimension that needs to be controlled. In addition to maintaining the blade plumb to the cut and square across, as with a panel saw, now I was getting issues with twist due to side force from one side of the frame or the other. This was causing the blade to head off track even when the other factors were ok. Variability in 3 dimensions resulted in less control. With all that pitch, yaw, and roll, I wasn't able to get the right correction to get it back on track.

This was similar to the problems I had with a regular frame saw. Now, I know there are people who use both types of frame saw with success (including some who claim panel saws are impossible to control), so this clearly an issue of practice. Like everything else, this is a skill to be developed. It doesn't just magically work. That means I can't just start using it right away for my mahogany resawing, I'll end up with worse results than I had with the panel saw.

Last night, I used my panel saw to rip 12/4 walnut cabriole leg stock, and was able to maintain the cut just a hair off the marked line for its entire length. This stuff was easy as butter after trying to resaw 12" wide mahogany with that saw. Skill with one type of wood does not guarantee the same skill level with other wood, especially across large width. What I'll try next with the mahogany is rip the 12" width down to two 6" pieces, resaw those, then shoot the edges and glue them back to full width, guitar-back style.

[Tony Shea]

Steve I have to agree with you about the Frame saw dynamics. It is a whole different set of sawing skills to be learned, one which I have not yet been patient enough to learn completely. Although on a real wide (12") peice of curly maple that I had plenty of thickness on, I sent it through its' paces. I wasn't all that happy with my cut but it did seem to increase my speed by almost double. The weight of the saw and the two handed hold really helped with pushing it through such a wide board. Not to say I want to do this any time soon.

I would much rather stick with a full size hand saw.