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Thread: Slicing Veneer with the Amazing Woodmaster CT

  1. #16
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    Mike, if you're happy that's all that matters. 12 ksi is half of where the Woodmaster CT performs best. Your photos shows it still performs well, but I'm sure at a pretty slow feed rate. If you're happy with that, that's fine with me. Horsepower allows you to utilize the full cutting capacity of the blade, assuming there is enough tension on it. I have not found any evidence of over feeding yet with the Woodmaster CT. That thing is a wood devouring monster. I regularly slice 12" wide veneer. Horsepower is key to making that an efficient process. I remember slicing 10" veneer on my 14" Delta bandsaw, with a blade at 12 ksi, coincidentally. I made a lot of veneer that way but it was a slow process at best and good quality required constant attention.

    You can argue all you want but adequate tension and horsepower make for efficient operation, consistent high quality, and maximum production from the blade.

    John

  2. #17
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    John, thx for your comments on the accu slicer...
    Maybe its more useful with hired employees to prevent them from doing something stupid and injuring themselves. There is another one or two of these on the market that work off the same premise, i.e. the off cut has no support, (the opposite of traditional tall fence use) hence my deli slicer analogy.

    I have the same Grizz you do, and the 5HP motor sure helps a lot with cut speed and reduced burn marks in tall wood. I too think proper tension matters, but not in all applications....if u are re sawing 2" tall wood with a good 3/4" sharp blade, seems almost any tension will work, but not true when you re saw 16" tall wood. So like all things mechanical, detals matter. It seems there are endless videos these days showing how to solve re saw problems, they all seem to disagree over what matters most.

    IMO, the right blade matters more than anything. Example, I had a worn cheap 3/4" blade on the saw doing lots of 2x cutting for construction work.... and needed to re saw a lot of 2x16's for fence pickets. I had some bad drift issues. So, I start fiddling with all the common fixes, location of gullets on the tire, bearing positions...then I remembered, I had a cheap, abused blade on the saw, which worked fine for cross cuts. Replaced it with a new 3/4" TimberWolf carbide re saw blade and it was plug n play success, perfect cuts, no drift, no adjusting anything. I also follow the Timberwolfs suggestions on tension and blade width recommendation, which has been very helpful.
    use 3/4" width under 2K Jenka hardness scale
    use 1" width over 2k jenka hardness scale

    BTW, in the video, u see a thin, 1/2" non carbide re saw blade. The reason he uses this blade is reduced kerf, to reduce waste as people who buy that system cut some very costly veneers, so waste really matters. If there is any merit to the premise of "no pressure on the off cut", we can always provide a 1/16" or 1/8" releif in the fence after the blades teeth, which would prob. offer the same benefit. If nothing else, this must be helpful for heat relief as after the teeth cut, the remainder of the blade will not be making contact with the wood.


  3. #18
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    Beautiful results John. When it comes to the bandsaw it seems when you find your happy place, work there, eh? I resaw 10" veneer between blade and fence with a 1/2" Resaw King applying tension with the flutter method. On my particular saw when the blade is happy, it tends to stay happy. I also feed as steady as I can by hand. Listening to the machine let's you really smooth things out once you are familiar with your particular setup.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  4. #19
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    Good point, Will. Nothing else matters much if the blade isn't sharp and I will add, with equal set on both sides. And that last point is one major advantage for carbide blades. They have no set, that is, the teeth are not bent left or right like on traditional blades to create a kerf. The kerf is derived by the teeth being wider than the band, and they are ground during the production process to have the same offset from the band on both sides. That makes them cut straight with no tendency to pull left or right from unequal set, or leave score marks from one tooth that happens to have more set than the others, like sometimes happens on regular blades. It also makes it possible to resharpen them without having to "reset" the teeth, too.

    I have thought about relieving the area behind the blade on the resaw fence to let the veneer go where it wants to but haven't found any evidence that it's actually needed. I'm not against it, just not convinced it's needed.

    As far as tension goes, adequate tension is never a bad thing. Thin material or thick. I have that blade set up for 24 ksi and that's what's on it whether I'm ripping 8/4 stock or slicing 12" veneer. The saw is designed to handle it and the blade performs best in that range of tension. Seems straight forward to me. The problem comes when you have a saw that can't handle the tension, like my little 14" cast iron Delta. It can barely put 12 ksi on a 1/2" blade. I once tried to put more on it and found that the upper blade guides moved out of alignment to the right, meaning the frame was deflecting - a lot. Nothing good happens then. The only way I can put higher tension on a blade on that saw is to use a narrower blade and/or one with a thinner gage band. I can run a 1/4" blade at 18 ksi without issue and, not surprisingly, it cuts very well. Not a practical idea for resawing thick stock, however, but great for ripping and other work on thinner stock.

    Know your saw and pick blades that will allow it to maximize the ability of those blades.

    John

  5. #20
    I am interested in your feather board set-up. Where can I find your website?

    Richard

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike King View Post
    FYI, I have a Starret tension gauge. I put it on my 1" Woodmaster CT and here is the result:

    Attachment 484230

    And here is the result of resawing a bunch of Sapelle:
    Attachment 484231

    What does higher horsepower really give you? Perhaps the ability to resaw more quickly, but the real issue is whether you overfeed the blade, and horsepower isn't going to solve that; in fact, it may encourage it.

    Mike
    Horsepower allows a lower strain on the motor, it doesn’t change how much power is needed for a given task. Feed rate is going to depend on the blade and material dimensions more than motor HP.

    Tension does certainly matter when feeding stick with a power feeder. I adjusted the wheel last week to dial in exactly where the tension had the blade cutting perfectly.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  7. #22
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    The only reason that blade ever comes off my 24" saw is to put on a cheap, non-carbide tipped one in questionable wood that has any chance of damaging a carbide tooth.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Holcombe View Post
    Horsepower allows a lower strain on the motor, it doesn’t change how much power is needed for a given task. Feed rate is going to depend on the blade and material dimensions more than motor HP.

    Tension does certainly matter when feeding stick with a power feeder. I adjusted the wheel last week to dial in exactly where the tension had the blade cutting perfectly.
    Tension really matters when 1) the guides are not set properly (they should be extremely close to the blade to provide support and, well, guidance to the blade) and 2) the upper guide is not lowered to just above the stock. That's when tension tries to make up for an improperly setup saw. Then there's the additional factor of blade not being properly set on the upper wheel so that when using the fence the back of the blade is not in the center of the kerf with the result that the blade pulls or pushes the stock on or off of the fence. Add to that improper feeding technique that shoves the stock across the kerf. And then there's feeding the stock so quickly that the gullets are overpacked with chips/dust. All of these are factors that folk may try to use tension to mitigate when the simple solution is to setup and use the saw properly.

    Did you look at the quality of the cut on those slices of sapelle? That was done with 12kpsi, half of what folk are suggesting is needed for a Woodmaster CT. I often have difficulty determining which side of the resaw was jointed and which was sawn...

    Mike

  9. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike King View Post

    For those of you with differing thoughts, I'd highly suggest that you find an opportunity to work with Michael. Not only will he open your eyes to what a bandsaw can do, he will teach you a bunch of techniques you've never seen anywhere else.

    Mike
    At the risk of designating myself as Michael Fortune's marketing agent, yes, I will say from my own experience that Michael's approach to bandsaw use is very good, and in some ways novel. He really expanded my appreciation for what a bandsaw can do, especially with the use of various jigs and fixtures.

    I will confess that some of his setup ideas were in direct conflict with my long held beliefs. But trying to keep an open mind, I came back to my shop, tried setting up my saw Michael's way, and that's the way it has stayed. I was on the verge of selling my smaller bandsaw due to frustration with it but now I wouldn't part with it.

    But I digress, all I'm trying to say is if you have the opportunity to take his bandsaw workshop, regardless of your position on tension, guides, HP, etc, you'll still come away with some useful knowledge and it will be an enjoyable experience.

    BTW, great veneering sawing John, look forward to seeing how you put those veneers to use.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike King View Post
    Tension really matters when 1) the guides are not set properly (they should be extremely close to the blade to provide support and, well, guidance to the blade) and 2) the upper guide is not lowered to just above the stock. That's when tension tries to make up for an improperly setup saw. Then there's the additional factor of blade not being properly set on the upper wheel so that when using the fence the back of the blade is not in the center of the kerf with the result that the blade pulls or pushes the stock on or off of the fence. Add to that improper feeding technique that shoves the stock across the kerf. And then there's feeding the stock so quickly that the gullets are overpacked with chips/dust. All of these are factors that folk may try to use tension to mitigate when the simple solution is to setup and use the saw properly.

    Did you look at the quality of the cut on those slices of sapelle? That was done with 12kpsi, half of what folk are suggesting is needed for a Woodmaster CT. I often have difficulty determining which side of the resaw was jointed and which was sawn...

    Mike
    I did look at those slices of Sapele. I commented about how good they looked and how well the Woodmaster CT cut even at that low tension. But again, you are missing the point about adequate tension. At adequate tension guides are almost unnecessary when cutting in a straight line. Setting the guides really close to keep a low tension blade cutting straight is backwards thinking. Everything gets easier at adequate tension and blade production is maximized. The only reason not to run at adequate tension is because the saw isn't capable of applying that much tension to the blade at hand. In that case, I would choose a narrower blade.

    John

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike King View Post
    Tension really matters when 1) the guides are not set properly (they should be extremely close to the blade to provide support and, well, guidance to the blade) and 2) the upper guide is not lowered to just above the stock. That's when tension tries to make up for an improperly setup saw. Then there's the additional factor of blade not being properly set on the upper wheel so that when using the fence the back of the blade is not in the center of the kerf with the result that the blade pulls or pushes the stock on or off of the fence. Add to that improper feeding technique that shoves the stock across the kerf. And then there's feeding the stock so quickly that the gullets are overpacked with chips/dust. All of these are factors that folk may try to use tension to mitigate when the simple solution is to setup and use the saw properly.

    Did you look at the quality of the cut on those slices of sapelle? That was done with 12kpsi, half of what folk are suggesting is needed for a Woodmaster CT. I often have difficulty determining which side of the resaw was jointed and which was sawn...

    Mike
    If you run a power feeder you can’t run the guides directly above the stock. Last batch of kumiko slats was 1000 pieces, 8’ long. I’ve tried lower tension settings and it wears the blade unevenly when using a power feeder, hurts to throw $19/bf in the trash because of a setup error. Perhaps it’s worth considering that your setup does not work for every setup, but works well for yours and I’m not discounting that.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Verwoest View Post
    I am interested in your feather board set-up. Where can I find your website?

    Richard
    Richard, this link should take you to the correct page: https://sites.google.com/view/jteney...ard?authuser=1

    There is a SketchUp model at the bottom of the page that you can download for free. Please let me know if the file doesn't download for you, should you try. If you don't use SketchUp I can probably print PDF files and send you those separately.

    John

  13. #28
    Great, thank you John. This looks like a great idea. I really like how the rollers stack. Do you remove rollers if/when you are resawing a narrower board? And if so, do the uprights get in your way?

    I do not use Sketch-up. If you could send me a PDF that would be great.

    Richard

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Verwoest View Post
    Great, thank you John. This looks like a great idea. I really like how the rollers stack. Do you remove rollers if/when you are resawing a narrower board? And if so, do the uprights get in your way?

    I do not use Sketch-up. If you could send me a PDF that would be great.

    Richard
    The feather board you see is 12" high, but you can make it any height you want by adding/subtracting rollers. The rollers stay in place for all resaw and veneer slicing, regardless of board height. The ones needed engage, the ones that aren't need don't get in the way. You push the work through from the front; the feather board never gets in your way. A roller stand, or other means as you choose, on the outboard side catches the work. To facilitate other work, the whole thing comes off the table in a few seconds by removing two clamps.

    I'll send you a PM with some PDF files.

    John

    Instead, I added some drawings with key dimensions to the photo file link on the webpage. Together with the photos, anyone should be be able to build the feather board. But if there are any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

    John
    Last edited by John TenEyck; 08-12-2022 at 9:31 PM.

  15. #30
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    I made one of those feather boards a number of years ago with huge help from John Lanciani. It really is a very nice design. Highly recommended.

    I just tension my 1" blade to about 25K on my Starrett gauge, and use the featherboard on my FB710, and get pretty good results. Instead of clamps, I use Magswitch magnets to hold it down. Much easier.

    I aim for slightly thicker and then send through the drum sander. Results have been excellent.
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