Snodgrass bandsaw tuneup not working out so well

[Noel Poore]

I haven't watched the video for a while, so my recollection may be off, but I thought he recommended centering the blade on the upper wheel. I have has very good results by doing this, even if It turns out I misunderstood

Noel

[Phil Thien]

IMHO, that Snodgrass video gets a couple of basic concepts wrong. If you're interested, they are: (1) That the tension scale on 99% of bandsaws will not accommodate blades of slightly different lengths (he doesn't seem to understand how spring scales work). (2) That wheels in the same plane will somehow cause the blade to track poorly.

Hard to qualify him as an expert given those points.

ANYWAY...

The blade should be centered on the top wheel.

When the blade is running center of the top wheel, it will run slightly front of center on the bottom wheel.

When the blade is configured like this, you will get nice, straight cuts without having to adjust your fence for drift.

[Noel Poore]

The blade should be centered on the top wheel.

When the blade is running center of the top wheel, it will run slightly front of center on the bottom wheel.

When the blade is configured like this, you will get nice, straight cuts without having to adjust your fence for drift.

That is precisely my experience.

Noel

[Tai Fu]

I centered the blade on my 18" bandsaw (using 1" Woodmaster CT) and didn't have the problem you describe. That blade is set too far back. Actually at high tension it may not even be possible to set the blade that far back unless you're strong enough to turn the tracking knob to match.

[Myk Rian]

I don't care what Alex Snodgrass says. I put the blade smack in the center of the upper wheel.

[Michael Dunn]

I don't care what Alex Snodgrass says. I put the blade smack in the center of the upper wheel.

I think it's different per saw. I followed his setup to the 'T' on my. 14" Cal-Hawk with a good blade and was absolutely perfect.

I followed the same setup to the 'T' on my Rikon 10-340 and I have issues. At this point I think it's my technique (resaw) and a bad blade. Every saw is a bit different though.

[Chris Fournier]

Sadly, this is another instance of "I saw it on the web...". As Phil has pointed out the tension gauge comment is simply wrong. If you don't understand this concept, no matter how empahtic you are I would take every other thing that you said under advisement.

I certainly see no need to remove the table to "understand" how the lower and upper guides work together. What a waste of time.

Coplaner debunked? Grab a piece of paper, or a cad program and draw out your bandsaw and play with the wheel alignment, blade behavior is not capricious or mysterious.

I have customers come to me every day with pearls from the web that they have gleaned. Pearls that typically defy logic, science and the truth. But they saw it on the web.

The web is a resource once you have learned the fundaments of your topic, until then it is a buffet of lies, half truths and comedy all topped off with a touch of hearsay and a granual of truth.

The web has no discipline, why would you go there for good practice?

[Cyrus Brewster 7]

The blade should be centered on the top wheel.

When the blade is running center of the top wheel, it will run slightly front of center on the bottom wheel.

When the blade is configured like this, you will get nice, straight cuts without having to adjust your fence for drift.

Bingo! We have a winner.

[Julie Moriarty]

The blade is back to where it was. Where it was when I resawed a hundred or more feet of 6"-9" sapele with no problems. And I too saw no benefit to taking the table off, nor did it speed up the tuning. In fact it would have increased the time factor. It seems from what's been posted here, Alex's tuneup might work for smaller bandsaws, but not for all, especially the larger ones.

[John TenEyck]

Taking the table off will allow you to check the alignment of the wheels. If they aren't aligned no amount of any other adjustments will get a saw to cut straight, at least not a saw of the 14" Delta type. One other thing I didn't mention before is your blade needs to be sharp. Ok, that's obvious, but what's not so obvious is that they need to be equally sharp on both sides and with the same set. Still obvious? OK, what's really not obvious is that brand new blades may not be. I had 3 brand new blades that would not cut straight. I didn't have any more, so I finally took one and sharpened it on my chainsaw grinder (which is not all the hard to do on a 3 tpi blade, BTW). That blade instantly cut straight afterwards with no other changes to the machine.

John

[David Kumm]

The video I watched was limited to small saws with 1/2" or less blades. The problems come when applying those principles to wide resaw blades. Small Asian saws in particular run oval shaped crowned tires. The tires compress a little under tension so much of a small blade is supported if placed anywhere near the middle to the tire. Won't be the case with larger blades, with flat tires or even with larger crowned tires. The big saws with crowned tires are not oval like the small saws, they are shaved on each edge with a flat spot in the middle. they do not come to a point so the blades tend to find their spot somewhere on that flat. On a wide blade you want support over as much of the width as possible and that should dictate the placement. The video was demonstrating- and selling- a specific size saw to primarily a scroll saw market. Dave

[Bill White]

I set up my G0555LX just the way Grizz said. No probs at all, and the saw works very well. I use no blade wider than 1/2".
Bill

[Julie Moriarty]

One other thing I didn't mention before is your blade needs to be sharp. Ok, that's obvious, but what's not so obvious is that they need to be equally sharp on both sides and with the same set. Still obvious? OK, what's really not obvious is that brand new blades may not be. I had 3 brand new blades that would not cut straight. I didn't have any more, so I finally took one and sharpened it on my chainsaw grinder (which is not all the hard to do on a 3 tpi blade, BTW). That blade instantly cut straight afterwards with no other changes to the machine.

John

FWIW, when I began this big project I knew I needed a good resaw blade. After a lot of help here, I settled on a Lennox Woodmaster CT. That's Carbide Tipped for those who don't know. As I said before, I must have resawed 100'+ of 6"-9" sapele and never had a bit of a problem. The longest pieces were over 9'. I managed to get (3) 7/16"+ pieces out of stock 1-3/4" thick. And that's after planing. Very little waste. You can't do that with a dull blade.


When I saw the video I thought, "Do you mean I can get even better results out of my bandsaw?" Aligning the blade is pretty simple - turn a knob. The guides on my saw are also easy to set, just turn a thumb screw. So making the adjustments was pretty easy. But all of the sudden the rear bearing on top wasn't contacting the back of the blade properly. And that's when I posted here.

Before I made those adjustments, I resawed some jatoba. Again, no problem. The problem came from fixing what ain't broke.

[Tai Fu]

I have a similar bandsaw to the Jet JWBS18 (but it has no tension gauge, spring, has a smaller knob at the top of the saw for tension adjustment, crappy fence) and got the Woodmaster CT for it too. It doesn't really make a very smooth cut compared to say a standard carbon steel or bimetal blade but it chews through wood like it's not even there, even if it's really thick (like 9" wide maple). However I do not know if it's because it needs more tension or something because I already tensioned the snot out of it. I keep it on my saw for general work (because it's not the easiest thing to change out) but the skilsaw makes a smoother cut... it just can't chew through 9" of maple.

I even thickness boards on the bandsaw by resawing them into the right thickness and then passing the other side ONCE through the jointer (if I needed to make more than one pass, then I flip the board over to prevent tapering)

[Steve Rost]

I am entering this discussion a little late but what the heck! Best discussion I have read on bandsaws, at least it agrees with I have found as true. Julie you have one nice shop!