thickness sanding on TS or DP

[tom coleman]

I am resawing some hardwood on table saw to make thin stock for small boxes. Stock is 6 inches wide and 3/4 inch thick. I want to reduce it to 1/2" or 3/8 inch thickness. I am using 1 3/4 hp hybrid table saw. My initial resuts are so-so. I am using a featherboard to hold stock against fence, Freud rip saw blade and only removing 1 inch in each pass. I end up with shallow ridges resulting from multiple passes over rip saw blade. Perhaps I should only use featherboard for first pass because the featherboard is causing the sides to compres on subsequent passes?

I have seen articles in Shop Notes suggesting the use of sanding disk on table saw or a drum sander on drill press for thickness reduction. Anyone have experieince with these?
Suggestions re resawing on TS and poor mans thickness sanding much appreciated

[Derek Stockley]

if you're proposing to run a sanding disk in your table saw and pass the board between the sanding disk and the fence to smooth off those ridges, I would think that's a pretty dangerous thing to do - I'd give a rough guess that you have about an 80% chance of launching the workpiece back toward you in that scenario.

Personally, I do not and would not use my table saw for resawing. The poor result you're describing is part of the reason, and the safety issues inherent in making multiple passes to complete a cut and in having that much blade extended while doing so make me very nervous.

That said, if you're going to do it that way, I would expect that simply because of minor imperfections in the alignment of the blade to the fence and possibly a very small amount of runout in either your blade or the arbour of your saw, you're guaranteed to get some degree of scratching, burning, or ridging on the resawn surface. If your saw is lined up fairly well, then I'd expect the marks to be shallow enough to sand off with a ROS or a couple of strokes of a hand plane.

If you're getting deeper marks than a few minutes with your sander can handle, check:

1) That your blade is parallel to the fence along the fence's length
2) That the blade is perfectly square to the table
3) That the fence face is perfectly square to the table
4) That the board is passing perfectly square to the table throughout the cut and you're not rocking it at all
5) That the board isn't bowing as you complete your cut - removing a lot of stock from one side of a board has done this to me a few times when resawing on my bandsaw. One time it bowed so bad that it stopped my (rather wimpy) bandsaw by sideways pressure on the blade.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Have you adjusted your TS? I get glue ready rips on mine with a Freud glue line rip blade. It takes a lot of effort to set up, but those ridges can be gotten rid of. Most times I can take 1 pass with a sanding block to get rid of the fuzz and I can glue.
What hybrid? Most hybrids are of good quality and should be able to produce glue ready rips. Also, a full kerf blade may reduce the amount of blade flutter, which would result in a cleaner cut.

Just my $0.02.

[Lance Norris]

You can thickness sand on the DP with decent results, make a fence and set it to the thickness you need, well... make multiple passes taking a small amount each time to sneak up on the thickness you want. make sure you pass the wood into the direction of the spinning drum so that it doesnt get grabbed and thrown. I have done this before with acceptable results. Do you have a jointer? Use it to face joint the face you are trying to clean up. Or Grizzly now has a 10" drum sander for $419 shipped. Check craigslist for a used Jet/Performax, Delta, or Grizzly drum sander. They can be had in the $3-400 range. If you have the cash available, this is the way to go for sanding/thicknessing thin strips.

[Chip Lindley]

Sanding away 3/8" or 1/4" of stock on a tablesaw is asking a lot! Bandsaw or tablesaw is best used to resaw the stock close to finished thickness. Tip: flip the stock and resaw from both sides, leaving a thin strip connected at the center. Then saw through that web with a handsaw. Then, some sanding is in order! A tapered sanding disc can be used in the TS to "sneak up" on the final thickness. The disc would only be useful, taking light passes to sand out saw marks from your rip blade.

Early on, I had good success using an 8" tapered sanding disc on my TS to sand thin veneer strips to same thickness for cabinet refacing. But, I was only removing bandsaw marks, and making the veneers constant thickness. Don't try the same thing with a flat sanding disc! The slight taper of the disc allows straight-line sanding when the saw arbor is tilted 3 degrees, making the tapered disc 90 degrees to the table. Thicker wood pieces would be easier to handle between the disc and saw fence than the thin veneer strips I was smoothing. Very light passes must be made, and slight adjustments in width must be made by barely bumping the fence.

I got my disc from Sears, Eons ago. Woodworker's Supply still sells a 10" one:

http://woodworker.com/table-saw-sand...search=sanding

[Myk Rian]

I've been very successful using a thin kerf 7 1/4" blade on my TS to do an initial 2 edge rip with the blade full up, or leave 1" in the center with a 2 edge rip. I then finish it on the band saw.
This one. http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053
Another trick is to cement sand paper to the sides of a 10" rip blade. It sands as you re-saw it.

[Lee Schierer]

Perhaps I should only use featherboard for first pass because the featherboard is causing the sides to compres on subsequent passes?

Bingo, that's your problem. You cannot press against the sawn part of the board when making the subsequent passes. You need to only press against non-saw areas. However, this doesn't mean don't use a feather board you just need to elevate it so it presses higher up on the wood. You also need to insure that your face fence is perpendicular to the table surface.

Before I purchased my band saw I used to do similar rips on my TS up to full blade height and multiple passes. You need to do a good blade to miter slot to fence alignment to get cuts free of burning an tooth marks. A good quality rip blade is essential to doing this. A combo blade just won't cut it. On your final pass, have some wedges (cabinet shims work well) to stick in teh kerf behind the blade to keep teh two halves from pinching the blade as you make the final cut. Kickbacks are always possible when doing rip cuts so don't stand in the line of fire at any time just to be safe.

[Floyd Mah]

Make a jig. It can be just an "L" shaped fence, with the right side of the "L" running along your current fence. Put a couple of triangular pieces in the jig to hold the fence upright and to rest your hands on for pushing. Make the fence thick enough to prevent flexing (3/4"). This will keep the cut straight. You can attach a strip of hardboard to the bottom to rest your workpiece on (optional). That will only cause you to lose 1/8" of cut (vs. a crosscut sled which will be thicker). Make the base wide enough so that you have some place to put your hands away from the blade, since there's no need to make it small (and hence more difficult to handle).

Clamp your workpiece to the jig fence. On your first passes, the workpiece will be solid, so that the clamps can be placed anywhere above the blade height. You wouldn't want to position the clamps too low or the workpiece will be flexing once it passes through the blade. When you flip the board to cut the other edge, place thin wedges or a thin wood strip or hardboard to keep the first saw cut from closing and clamp the wood again to the fence. You can place feather boards so that the workpiece and jig will stay on course. Be care full to not overlap the cuts, the thin strip of wood will help keep things together.

This should address all your concerns: Safety (keeps hands away from blade, avoids kickback from blade binding), accuracy (allows feather board and jig construction) and repeatable. Furthermore, if you set up a sanding disc, you can use the jig to hold the workpiece and do your sanding in two passes. Also, you would be better off not using the featherboard with this setup, since you have good control of the jig if you make it sufficiently large.

[Greg Portland]

If you have a tenoning jig for your TS you can use it to make this cut (use the shims that Lee mentions for your last cut). If you don't have a tenoning jig then you can make one out of MDF pretty easily.