Hello again :-)
I've been super active in the shop lately, so I guess my questions piled up a bit. Thanks again for any advice.

Separate from my table saw thread, I have a question around my band saw.

I recently installed a new ¼” blade on my Grizzly G0555, and have tried to very closely follow the manual in terms of installation procedure. Previous to using this blade, my experience was mostly with wider blades.

During my first test cuts with the new blade, the blade became dislodged from the wheels… as if I pushed the blade off the wheels.

I inspected the rubber tires on the wheels and they are in like-new shape. I figured I needed more tension on the blade, so I followed the steps in the manual to accomplish that (from memory, those steps were basically: tightening to a certain point, manually rotating the wheels to see the blade center on the tire, running machine while reducing tension only until you see some "flutter", then tightening a bit from that point). I checked all the roller guides and they are a paper’s width to the left/right/back of the blade, so it seems they are in the right spots. All that checking helped, and I’m not dislodging the blade anymore…. But…

I have to feed even thin (e.g. ¾”) boards of soft woods like cedar and pine very very slowly else I can see the blade being pushed again, and I fear that I’ll dislodge it like before. And as I try curve cuts, the blade has difficulty following even gentle curves.

Do you think I need even more tension? Did I perhaps choose a bad blade? Is blade deflection and difficulty following curves on a bandsaw just a normal thing I should get used to? Any other pointers I should try?

Thanks again!!
Bob R.