Resawing on a bandsaw? Question on magnetic fence and Carter F A S T guide

[Matt Lau]

Dear PowerCreekers,

I want to resaw some boards to guitar veneers (about 6" wide or smaller).
I have an 80's Rockwell 14" Bandsaw that is a workhorse.

I also have a Kreg fence/resaw attachment that I've been trying to use.
It's honestly been very frustrating since it deflects about 1-1.7 mm during use.
My guess is that this is because it's bolted to one side of the table only.

I'm thinking of getting a Carter F A S T guide and making a fence with baltic birch plywood and some on/off magnets.


Can you guys give me insight?

I've had more success ripping freehand than with my Kreg fence, except for very small pieces of wood like binding.

[lowell holmes]

I typically resaw and then joint the sawn edge on my thickness planer.

[Nick Decker]

I thought about the Carter FAST things, until I thought about the $50 they want for them.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind spending money on good tools, and they may work fine, I don't know. But you can do pretty much the same thing with a rare earth magnetic disc and a good steel ruler. Just attach the disc to the blade, being careful to avoid the set of the teeth, then attach the ruler. Voila. You can now see the angle of your blade drift.

The other thing I've learned is that blade drift becomes much less of a problem with a good blade.

[Mike Berti]

Not an expert, but from what others poststed before, the problem may be with the blade. Here are a few things to (re)check:
1) proper tensioning
2) blade not designed for the job or is too dull.
3) the position of the blade on the upper tire. The tire isn't straight, but concave. The leading edge of the blade should be placed in the right place.
4) the blade guides may be touching and pushing the blade

[Bill Jobe]

Perhaps you're fully aware of the kinds of magnets available but here's a site that sells magnets so strong they can be fatal if used carelessly.
I was going to buy a sample pack, but the shipping was outrageous.
https://www.googleadservices.com/pag...Q0QwIIw&adurl=

[John Lanciani]

Keep it simple, if the fence is deflecting at the rear clamp the rear end of the fence to the table. I have a Driftmaster fence on my saw and even it needs to be clamped when I'm resawing wide and long veneer to keep it from deflecting.

[Earl Rumans]

I have the Carter Magna Fence II on my bandsaw and I mainly use it for resawing. https://www.woodcraft.com/products/c...magnetic-fence I have been very happy with it and it is very stable.

[Nick Decker]

I have the Carter Magna Fence II on my bandsaw and I mainly use it for resawing. https://www.woodcraft.com/products/c...magnetic-fence I have been very happy with it and it is very stable.

Your luck was better than mine. The one I had was not square when locked down. Rather than trying to mess with shims, I sent it back.

[Curt Harms]

Dear PowerCreekers,

I want to resaw some boards to guitar veneers (about 6" wide or smaller).
I have an 80's Rockwell 14" Bandsaw that is a workhorse.

I also have a Kreg fence/resaw attachment that I've been trying to use.
It's honestly been very frustrating since it deflects about 1-1.7 mm during use.
My guess is that this is because it's bolted to one side of the table only.

I'm thinking of getting a Carter F A S T guide and making a fence with baltic birch plywood and some on/off magnets.


Can you guys give me insight?

I've had more success ripping freehand than with my Kreg fence, except for very small pieces of wood like binding.

If you think the problem is the end of the fence moving, could you clamp the other end of the fence? Or clamp a block to the saw's table tight against the end of the fence so it can't move? And I too have found that better blades help, as does switching to a new blade if it starts to drift. Blades that might be worn enough to drift while resawing may still be fine for other bandsaw tasks.

[Randy Heinemann]

From your description it's not clear to me if you are using the Carter MagnaFence or some other product they sell. I own the MagnaFence (It is the Fence II I think.) It's never deflected for me when resawing. Once the 2 magnets are switched and tightened down, they are virtually immovable. If the fence is deflecting during resawing, I would think that means that, for some reason, the magnets are worn out (if that is possible). I would call Carter support and report the problem. They appear to be a good solid company, are likely to be interested in the problem, and willing to remedy it. Anyway, it's worth a try.

I am not sure how purchasing the Carter FAST guides is related to your deflection problem, but I find them useful; just probably a bit too expensive. I've used then for other things besides setting up for resawing also. Anyway, I think they work well.

I would suggest that, if you haven't done so already, check all the setup steps you regularly do when installing a new blade, like adjusting the guides, centering the blade gullets on the wheels, tensioning the blade. All of those are important.

Then, as a final comment, a dull blade is the cause of a lot of problems during resawing, so a new blade (if the one currently installed is old), might be the solution. The guy from Carter has said repeatedly that blades should be dedicated to resawing because when cutting curves, the set can be taken out of the blade if the blade gets too hot while cutting a sharp curve. If the blade has been used for curve cutting as well as resawing (as we all have done on occasion), the set might be ruined.

[Randy Heinemann]

Your luck was better than mine. The one I had was not square when locked down. Rather than trying to mess with shims, I sent it back.

Do you mean that it did not lay flat on the bandsaw table when the magnets were turned "on" to make contact with the table? Did you check your table for flatness? It would seem almost impossible for the MagnaFence not be flat on the table. It is milled from aluminum track type material which, almost by definition, flat.

[Nick Decker]

Do you mean that it did not lay flat on the bandsaw table when the magnets were turned "on" to make contact with the table? Did you check your table for flatness? It would seem almost impossible for the MagnaFence not be flat on the table. It is milled from aluminum track type material which, almost by definition, flat.

What I mean is that when locked down, the face of the fence was not at 90 degrees to the table. And yes, the table is flat.

What caused it? I'm not sure, but it might have had to do with the rubber interface on the bottom of the fence. I do know that I had read of others having the same squareness problem with the Magfence in the past. I was hoping that the problem was fixed, but in my case it wasn't. Amazon, of course, took it back no problem.

I would add that Woodpeckers replaced one of the aluminum extrusions on my router fence, when I first got it. Definitely shouldn't assume that anything is almost "flat by definition."

[Chris Parks]

There is no such thing as drift if the blade is tracking correctly and is sharp. Understand that tracking the blade properly determines whether it is parallel to the fence and setting a fence for "drift" is setting it parallel to the blade.

[Bill Brammer]

Same with the Carter Magnafence and FAST system. I bought all of it and sent it back. The Magfence was way out of square and by the time I used the leveling screws to get it square with the table it was spongy due to the nylon tips on the leveling screws. Thus, when you "turn on" the magnets, the fence moved away from the FAST alignment tool roughly 1/16 of an inch. If the fence was square, I would love it, but the whole fence was teetering on the leveling screws and it just didn't work well. Too bad, great idea, bad aluminum hogging/extrusion.

[John TenEyck]

Here's my setup for slicing veneer on my 14" Delta with riser block.



I use an old Unisaw fence with a piece of MDF mounted to it, so that it's exactly 90 deg to the table in the vertical plane and aligned parallel with the miter slot. A feather board holds the bottom edge of the stock tight to the fence; I use a jointer pad to hold the upper portion tight. I use a 1/2" x 3 tpi blade. It's pretty easy to slice veneer with this setup as long as the blade is sharp, right down to the last cut.





These were all around 0.100" and the tolerance was about 0.010" max..

John