Hello all: I wanted to provide some information on proper band saw adjustment. I do use my saw for ripping and resawing very successfully. My serfaces require very lettle smoothing and are straight and square. I am able to cut veneer less than 1/8".
I found this article on Highland Hardware. They do a much better job of talking about bandsaw adjustment than I could. I will make some comments before and after as this relates to me as a blind wood worker. It didn't cut and paste very well. I'd suggest getting the pdf. Recommendations: Good rip fence. ball bearing guides (They can contact the blade while guide blocks don't. (guides blade more steady) a good resaw blade (sharp and clean) Make sure the saw is adjusted such that the blade tracks as close to the center of the bottom and top wheels as possible. Make sure no guides are deflecting the blade when blade tracking is being adjusted. This is the html version of the file http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/library/resaw.pdf. Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web. Page 1 Slicing WoodA Practical Guide to Successful ResawingTo begin at the beginning: resawing is cuttinga sawn plank into thinner planks. Thus the cut runsthrough the plank's width, which distinguishes resawingfrom ordinary rip cuts where the blade runs through thestock's thickness. Its all ripping in any case, and thetechniques well review here apply just as well to rip-ping 8/4 stock as to sawing 10 veneers or 5 drawer sides. The bandsaw is the ideal tool for this job. Its farsafer than a circular saw, because it doesnt cause kickback. Its narrow kerf and vertical blade movement makeit extremely efficient, wasting minimal wood and cutting relatively easily and quickly even with a low-powersaw. Resawing is easy; all you have to do is cut straight lines (very straight indeed). This requires nothing morecomplicated than appropriate blade selection, adequate tension, effective stock control, and practice.Blade Selection: No ContestAs you saw through very thick stock, each saw tooth shaves out an enormous amount of waste. In order tomaintain a reasonably productive feed rate, there has to be somewhere for that waste to be stashed out the wayuntil the teeth emerge from the cut. Otherwise the gullets between the teeth fill up and stall further advance untiltheyve cleared the stock. Blades with about 3 teeth per inch (tpi) have large gullets which can accommodate asmuch waste as youll generate by sawing through thick stock, and they'll handle anything less substantial withno trouble at all. Youve made the best choice of all with our Wood Slicer?, whose thin-kerf, variable pitch 3-4tpi design makes it the smoothest and quietest resaw blade on the market.In principle, the wider the blade, the higher its beam strength and the better it can maintain straightness.Wider, however, isn't necessarily better. Almost all U.S. woodcutting bandsaw blades over 1/2" wide are .035"thick, thicker than the Wood Slicers total kerf width. 3/4 blades are set far more coarsely as well. They morethan double the load on your saw, and they cut so roughly that they're clearly a step in the wrong direction.High Tension: No WorriesTension may be the least important factor in successful resaw setup, but its significant nonetheless. Ad-equate blade tension helps keep stock centered even if your control isn't flawless, and it reduces the blade'stendency to flutter under thrust. It's easy to set a satisfactory amount of tension. Install the Wood Slicer on yoursaw, with lateral guides and thrust bearings opened up and backed off both above and below the table so theydo not contact the blade. Crank on some tension, and then give the blade a sharp sideways poke about halfwaybetween the upper and lower wheels. The blade will deflect a short distance and then seem to hit a wall; if youpush a lot harder it will bend farther, but there's a fairly distinct point where it quits deflecting easily. Add ten-sion until this sideways movement is just 1/4" to 5/16" on saws with 6 depth of cut, or about 3/8" - 1/2" onsaws with 12 depth. By the way, don't look at the saw's built-in tension gauge until you're finished; there's noneed to confuse yourself with arbitrary numbers. After youve gotten the hang of tensioning by feel, check thegauge and use its reading as a setup guide.Once the blade is tensioned and tracked properly, theres one last bit of tuning you can do that can make a realdifference in performance. Before you bring the lateral guides and thrust bearings up close to the blade, close thewheel covers and turn the saw on. If vibration blurs the blade, try increasing or decreasing the tension very slightlyuntil the blade runs smoothly in a straight, quiet line from wheel to wheel. Cuts will be smoother when you elimi-nate this source of fluttering in the kerf, and the saw will run quieter and more efficiently as well.Stock Control: A Leading QuestionCutting straight lines is easy: find out how the saw wants to do it, and do it that way. That might soundfacetious, but it's actually a fair description of what works. Every bandsaw blade, unless there's something se-riously wrong, can cut straight lines, but each will do so in its own way; each blade has its own "lead angle". Ifyoure resawing just one or two pieces, it will be easiest to use a point block fence, a curved fence tall enoughto hold your stock upright while leaving feed direction up to you. Mark the cut line full length on the stock(leaving a generous margin for error), set the point block to your target width and freehand the cut, adjusting -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 2 feed direction as you go. Its an imperfect technique; youll waste more wood and spend more time at thethickness planer than ideal, but overall youll get the job done quickly. When you need to resaw more than acouple of pieces, however, it will probably be more productive to set up a straight fence and make the cuts withpredictable, repeatable accuracy, minimizing waste and finishing time.Here's where most of us go wrong, so pay attention: When determining the proper feed direction for cut-ting straight lines with any particular blade, it's what cuts that counts, and nothing else. Your miter slot doesn'tcut wood, so it doesn't help to set your rip fence parallel to it. The front edge of your table doesn't cut either, sodon't bother reaching for your square. If your fence can't be skewed right or left at least 1/2 out of parallel tothe miter slot you wont be able to use it, so make your own or get one of our FasTTrak bandsaw fences instead,which we provide with instructions for making it fully adjustable. Outfit your fence with an auxiliary face highenough to hold your resaw stock securely vertical5 or 6 should do.Take a piece of 8/4 scrap wood two or three feet long, joint an edge straight, and mark a line parallel to thatedge. Rip freehand along the line, adjusting your feed direction until youre cutting consistently straight downthe line. When youve split the line for 4 or 5 inches, stop. Hold the stock still on the table and shut off the saw.Mark a pencil line (which can be erased later) on the saw table along the straight edge of the test piece, then setyour rip fence parallel to the pencil line. This is a first approximation; now youre ready for fine tuning.Make a short resaw cut, either in the work at hand or scrap of similar hardness and roughly similar width. Withthe cut completed, stand a straightedge against the resawn face of the board. Unless youre just plainlucky, youll see that the blade bowed left or right within the stock. The way the blade bowed tells youhow to fine tune your fence for very precise resawing. You know that the solid body of a blade cantsimply move sideways through solid wood. To create a bowed cut, the teeth must lead to one side oranother within the wood (where theyre free of the lateral guides constraint), twisting the blade andmaking it saw its way out of vertical. To keep the cut vertical, adjust your fence to match the way theblade twisted. If the blade bowed to the left, adjust the rear of your fence slightly to the right; if theblade bowed right, reset fence angle slightly left at the rear. Make another test cut and check the faceof the wood again. It may take three or four tests to get the fence set for flawless sawing, but oncethats done you can resaw piece after identical piece, with cuts so straight that one pass through theplaner is all its takes to produce clean, flat wood at your target thickness.Slicing Wood: Just Do ItOnce you've done all of the above successfully, you can't go wrong unless you feed too fast or too slow,or let the blade get good and dirty. Feeding too slowly will cut the wood okay, but it will wear out the blade a lotfaster than need be. Youre feeding too fast when the completed cut shows pronounced bands of wide diagonaltooth marks. Practice feeding at a moderate, consistent pace, just slow enough to leave a smooth surface.Several species of timber can cause rapid buildup of debris on the blade, and any wood eventually will bakeon a load of trash. Material crusted around the teeth can make it as hard for them to cut as if they were dead dull,and it can affect the blades lead angle, too. The longer you wait to clean a blade the harder it will be, so cleanit often. If a quick scrub with a Scotch-Brite pad laced with mineral spirits doesn't do the trick, take the bladeoff the saw and hose it down with our Blade & Bit Cleaner, wait a few minutes and then wipe clean. If you sawresinous wood regularly, Dri-Cote blade treatment will help retard accumulation of resins and junk.There's one last detail to cover: keeping your fingers attached. The bandsaw may be the least hazardousresawing tool in the shop, but please remember that anything that turns hard wood into sawdust can do muchworse to you. As you resaw, you'll often find yourself pushing the stock with one hand while holding it againstthe high face of your rip fence with the other. It's tempting to let your pressure hand slide along toward theneighborhood of the blade, but that's not cool; imagine the blade bowing within the wood and unexpectedlysawing its way out through the face your hand is pressed against. It can also be tempting to push the wood rightup to the last half inch and then pull it through the final bit of the cut. Once again, imagine the worst case wherean unseen crack allows the last two or three inches of the plank to split apart suddenly, just as you're pushingfirmly toward the blade. Use a bit of scrap as push block instead.Theres plenty more to know about resawing, of course, but this should be enough to get you started suc-cessfully, after which doing it will teach you anything else you wish to know. So go do it!Copyright ? 2001 Highland HardwarE Here are some comments and suggestions I have from my experience using my band saw: When observing blade flutter while the saw is running, use a stick about 18" long with a knotch in one end. Turn the saw on, tuch the stick to the back of the blade. Move the stick left or right until the back of the blade falls into the knotch. Nake sure the stick is about half way between the top and bottom wheels. You will be able to tell if the blade is fluttering or not. Don't worry about the section on the curved rip fence. Unless you can follow a straight line, You won't be able to use this method. You would best be served by setting a properly adjusted rip fence. The steps talking about getting the initial fence angle are good for us to know so we can have an idea how the over-all procedure works. However, A line drawn on a table top or on a board isn't going to do us a hole lot of good. I would suggest starting with a fence adjusted to be square. This will give you a good starting point. It might take a few more adjustments before the job is done; but, you won't need help. You have your tention adjusted, your guides are all holding, but not deflecting the blade. You need to make sure your table tilt stop is adjusted so your blade is square with the table. Now, it is time to see how the saw cuts. Get a 2x4 about 18" long and joint one short and one long face. The jointed faces of the 2x4 should be placed against the table and fence such that the tall face is against the fence. Adjust the fence so that the blade will shave off about a 1/8" slice off the unjointed long face. The thin shaved piece will be discarded. You need to determine if the resawed face is concaved or or convex. As the fence gets zeroed in, this will get harder. I use a straight edge and a feeler guage. If the face is convex, the back of the fence should be moved left. If the face is concave, the back of the fence should be moved right Keep in mind, these adjustments are small. It is easy to completely loose where you were and where the fence should next be positioned. I would suggest using a block clamped to the back of the table tuching the back of the fence as a reference. Use a feeler guage to adjust the back of the fence a known distance from the block either left or right. When resawing or ripping, be sure to adjust the guides and tention as close to the settings when the fence was adjusted. Make sure the blade is tracking in the center of both the top and bottom wheels. I think that about covers it. Hope that helps. If you have any questions, let me know. Terry
