Resaw question

[David Kumm]

My Oliver 217 has a 14" resaw and it gets used fairly often if I'm building cabinets as I like resawn veneer on end panels if not covered up. My 116 has 20" of resaw but i've never needed it. Hand feeding becomes a problem as does the tension and frame stiffness. When bandsaws started increasing their resaw capability it was primarily a marketing gimmick and the frames were not reinforced properly for twist, nor were the spring assemblies re engineered for the extra tension needed. That has improved on the MM and Laguna 24x24. I was happy when the old 24" saws had a 14" resaw as that was appropriate for most usage. I had an ACM 18" in the late 90s with 12" of resaw and it would only handle pretty soft wood at that height. You can do occasional 12+" resawing with a smaller machine but it isn't efficient and you will need a drum sander to clean up the inconsistent thickness. Dave

[Brian Holcombe]

This board is 15.5” wide, it was for another Woodworker who wanted to finished it at 1/4”~. Goncalo Alves. I marked a line and basically eyeballed it as I cut at the top while maintaining the bottom with the fence. It was a little hairy but overall he was quite happy with it.





I cut these 18.5” white oak veneers for myself, unfortunetly the client hated them, so they wound up as the back of the drawer fronts



I did not own a machine jointer at the time when I worked these boards, the oak I prepped by hand, the Goncalo I checked with winding sticks and sawed it.

[Mike Cutler]

Why not just buy boles of lumber kept in sequence?

I did this for the first time a few years back.
A flitched trunk of a tree takes up a lot of space.


I'm not a big fan of oak personally, but what did the customer not like about that oak. It would have looked fantastic when done.
Those are nice re-sawn pieces. Great work!

[Brian Holcombe]

I can understand that, it’s ok if you are fine with one or two species or have tons of space.

They did not like the flatsawn-ness of it I replaced with quarter sawn and they enjoy that currently. A bit of rework but a happy client is invaluable.

[Jim Becker]

My older MM16 only has 12" re-saw height. I personally haven't found it to be limiting other than a number of years ago, there was this one hunk of log that I would have liked to be able to refine on the bandsaw before putting it on the lathe. But that was a one-time deal. That said, when I've visited with woodworking friends who have the newer machines with 16" re-saw height, I see distinct advantage in having a much better view of the workpiece in some cases.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

How often do you resaw a piece of wood greater than 12" in width?

I've got a 24" MiniMax and wouldn't even try it.

[John TenEyck]

I've got a 24" MiniMax and wouldn't even try it.

Well that's a shame. All it would take is an appropriate blade and tall fence.

John

[rudy de haas]

If I can interpret part of the OP's question as "when is it worth having a big enough machine to resaw 12"+ boards?" I would argue would be that it depends on what you do. Speaking only for my own case, my answer is "never" because (a) I'm a beginning home hobbyist; and, (b) big resaw is what I think of as batch job - something that comes up rarely but would normally have multiple boards to be cut and can therefore be most sensibly handled by having someone else do it.

For example, I have about 180 board feet of santos mahogany in 6/4th thickness and an average of 10"+ width self-adjusting to our local climate right now. This spring and summer that wood will become our new kitchen cabinet fronts (among other things) and will need to be cut to about 5/8ths before finishing for that. To make that happen I will either pay a friend to do it on his 5HP General bandsaw or cut the boards to 6-7" width and use my table saw. Either way my little 14" bandsaw (CX104) does not get used because it's simply inadequate for the job.