Drift Problems with Resaw King

[David Weaver]

I think throwing it away is the way it will go. It's behaved the way it's behaving now since the beginning, and it never really has felt sharp, but at the same time, with an almost square tooth, it would be unlikely that it would have that same sticking feeling on your fingers that a hook blade would have.

I think either the blade is defective, was never sharp, or is just a bad match for an asian saw. When laguna was gung ho about selling these when they introduced them, I wish they would've taken the time either to get the blades right or to know which saws they work on and which they don't.

[Glen Blanchard]

It would be interesting to see how that blade would cut on an Italian bandsaw.

[David Weaver]

Anyone with an italian bandsaw that would use a 137" blade is welcome to it.

[Glen Blanchard]

17" too short for my mm16. Dang it.

[John Coloccia]

I went through 2 or 3 RK blades until they sent me one that worked right. I have 2 of them here. I haven't tried the second one yet, but it had better work as well as this first one. Getting a working BS blade from them was one of the most frustrating things I'd ever gone through. I have to say, though, that now that I have a working blade, it cuts BEAUTIFULLY. The finish is incredible for a band saw.

Have you checked for a bad weld? That should be pretty obvious.

Maybe you just have a bad blade. Why not call them, explain the situation, and send it back to them. See if they can fix it or if they sent you a bad blade to begin with. It should cut dead straight, but it's not as sharp as something like a Woodslicer. A Woodslicer goes through wood like butter. The RK takes a little bit of pressure, but it stays sharp a LONG time.

[Andrew Joiner]

I would crank up the tension as high as you can get it that did miracles for me. I would still call Laguna and explain the problem if that doesn't work. The first resawking I got from them had 3 teeth tips ground off askew by the weld. They promply sent me a good blade.

I have a new Resaw King I got 3 years ago. It's 15/16" wide with 2(almost 3) TPI. The teeth are almost square and don't feel sharp at all. I tensioned it to 1'' on my saw gauge. I tested it a bit when I got it and was unimpressed with the smoothness of cut on 6" and wider resawn faces. The cuts were not as smooth as a glue joint rip table saw blade, not much smoother than a 1/2" timberwolf!

3 years later I sliced a 6" wide 12/4 quilted maple slab into near perfect 1/16" veneers with the same blade. Both faces are smoother than most of my table saw blades! The set up was the same as my tests 3 years ago, except I did tension the blade more. This time I tensioned the blade as much as I could by hand on the tension wheel of my Grizzly 21" saw. The saw gauge read just over 1-1/8".

[lowell holmes]

Michael Fortune has recommended blades from BC Saw in Canada. I only have a 14" Jet, but I have used, gone away from, and now back to the BC sawblades.

I think their blades are Starret. I was having problems withdrift and absolutely couldn't resaw.

After returning to the BC blades, those issues have gone away. I don't know if they would help you, but their prices are very competitive and it wouldn't cost you that much to try one.

You might want to check into them.

[David Weaver]

Yeah, Iturra has starrett, and I think I might be able to get the starretts locally, too. Any thoughts on whether any of the bimetal blades, etc, leave a decent finish, or do they leave a fairly coarse finish?

[David Weaver]

I would crank up the tension as high as you can get it that did miracles for me. I would still call Laguna and explain the problem if that doesn't work. The first resawking I got from them had 3 teeth tips ground off askew by the weld. They promply sent me a good blade.

I have a new Resaw King I got 3 years ago. It's 15/16" wide with 2(almost 3) TPI. The teeth are almost square and don't feel sharp at all. I tensioned it to 1'' on my saw gauge. I tested it a bit when I got it and was unimpressed with the smoothness of cut on 6" and wider resawn faces. The cuts were not as smooth as a glue joint rip table saw blade, not much smoother than a 1/2" timberwolf!

3 years later I sliced a 6" wide 12/4 quilted maple slab into near perfect 1/16" veneers with the same blade. Both faces are smoother than most of my table saw blades! The set up was the same as my tests 3 years ago, except I did tension the blade more. This time I tensioned the blade as much as I could by hand on the tension wheel of my Grizzly 21" saw. The saw gauge read just over 1-1/8".

Yeah, tension wise I was all over the map last night. I pushed it past the 1 1/2" mark on the tension gauge ever so slightly. knowing that indicator might not actually amount to much, I can only describe the normal setup as such - I usually take a 3/4" timberwolf and tension it between the 3/8" and 1/2" marks and it tracks dead straght as fast as I can feed the saw.

The RK that I have is the thin kerf one.

[Chris Padilla]

I think you have a bad RK...simple as that. Resawing consistently is the true test of a good blade IMO but then again, I mostly use my MM20 for resawing. After I bent up my Lenox Trimaster (carbide...competitor to Laguna's RK) and had it fixed, it never really cut the same nor as smoothly and cleanly but it was too pricey a blade to toss out and it still gives a good cut...just not as good pre-bending.

I dunno about tension. I ignore the gauge on my MM20 and tension until I can't deflect the blade more than a 1/4" and then I crank it a tad more.

I don't believe in drift, either, and feel it can be dialed out of any saw although I'm sure there are saws that could be difficult to dial in.

There is another blade you could try that doesn't cost too much. I am almost 95% certain that it is the same blade David Marks (Woodworks) uses on his big blue bandsaw to cut veneers and such. It is a Lenox Diemaster2--a bi-metal blade. I have one that is 1/2", 6 tpi (yes, six teeth per inch), and hook style. I don't think it would cost you more than $40 for this blade in your size. I have been very impressed with its performance in cutting veneers. They are not as smooth as the Trimaster but the DM2 has a thinner kerf so it is one of those "half dozen, six of these" kinda things. Most people that I've recommended this blade to have been very happy.

[David Weaver]

Chris, thanks for the suggestion. I have done some resawing with the TW blades (which worked surprisingly well, all the way cutting veneers literally the week I got the bandsaw), but as I generally use the bandsaw infrequently and only when I can't rip by hand because of time constraints, a 6 tpi blade would probably be a good solution.

Maybe it's unreasonable for me to think the saw should cut within 5 thousandths or so on width on 4/4 material, but I don't believe that to be unreasonable with a heavy fence and a grip tite. I only wish my saw was an MM20, though!

(on the positive side, I do think the laguna blade is about to go out in a flat rate box. If it works on someone else's saw, that's great).

[Erik Loza]

When David Marks did some work for us, I remember that his blade of choice for all the strips in his bent-lam projects was the Die-Master. Prior to his workshop, I had never seen one before. Looked like a hacksaw blade. I asked him why he didn't use a carbide instead. His response was, "Because I have to buy them, myself", LOL. Anyway, the Die-Master gave really good results on the Purple Heart and all that other weird stuff he works with. Obviously, you will have to play around with the feed rate with that many teeth per inch. I'd give it a shot.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[David Weaver]

After this conversation, I did order a diemaster II, one in the thin kerf setup and with a 6/10 variable pitch to err on the side of a clean cut. However well it works, it will beat the frustration I was dealing with last night.

[Chris Padilla]

When David Marks did some work for us, I remember that his blade of choice for all the strips in his bent-lam projects was the Die-Master. Prior to his workshop, I had never seen one before. Looked like a hacksaw blade. I asked him why he didn't use a carbide instead. His response was, "Because I have to buy them, myself", LOL. Anyway, the Die-Master gave really good results on the Purple Heart and all that other weird stuff he works with. Obviously, you will have to play around with the feed rate with that many teeth per inch. I'd give it a shot.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

That is nice to have it verified. I watched closely on all the Woodworks that involved his bandsaw and that is what I came up with as I hunted around.

[Bill White]

"I've resawed veneer down to about a sixteenth with the timberwolf on the pivot fence" Your quote.
And the answer is........? BLADE PROBS.
Don't wear yourself out with a goofy blade. Call 'em, send it back, whatever.
Just my thoughts.
Bill