I got a chance to use my freshly sharpened 5.5 pt thumbhole D-8 to rip something over 3/4" wide over the weekend. I was re-sawing a 5" board of 4/4 cherry to get out stock to make a few boxes.
I can keep the front of the cut right on line, but the back of the cut drifts to the right. I haven't had a problem with side-to-side drift in any normal ripping. I used a plow to put an 1/8" groove down the center of the front and back of the board to help guide the rip, but it didn't seem to help. If I'd had a bandsaw, I would've used it. Instead I ended up hogging off more than I wanted after the rip with a scrub and ending up with two pieces between 1/4 and 3/8. Not ideal, but acceptable for what I was doing.
How can I correct this problem? Would stoning the side toward the drift fix it or screw up regular operation?