Resawing problem--Resaw King and BW PBS-440

[Jameel Abraham]

I'm up against a wall here. I'm hoping someone can lend a hand. I've got plenty of bandsawing experience, and have always been able to dial in for good resawing, even on my grandfather's old Sears 12". But today I hit a wall.

I'm using a Bridgewood PBS 440 with a 1" Laguna Resaw King, tensioned to the scale on the saw.

I'm resawing 2" tall (thick) 3/4" wide cherry and maple, 18" long. I'm trying to slice off 3/32" slices. Now, I've done this dozens of times in the past, setting the fence for drift, guides set properly, everything ready. But today I'm getting some nasty drifting of the blade for some reason. About an inch into the cut my "veneer" side (which is between the blade and fence--how I've always done it--with good results) goes from 3/32" to 1/8". It's actually a bit more than this, since my fence setting is closer to 1/16" and it gets to a hair wider than 1/8".This is extremely frustrating! I've reset the fence probably 6 or more times to adjust for drift, watching for the gap in the kerf on either side of the blade, one time it will be larger on one side, the next board it will switch to the other side! And this without changing the fence setting. I've checked and re-checked my guides. Fine. The only variable I can narrow it down to is the blade. I'm guessing it could be dull. But I haven't done lots of resawing with this (supposedly fantastic) blade. Maybe 500 feet total, 2" thick resaws. This is my first Carbide tipped bandsaw blade, so maybe this is the tell-tale sign it's dull? I'm hoping someone here can shed some light.

[Jim Becker]

A carbide tipped blade shouldn't dull for a year or more of use, IMHO. Something else is amiss. Have you avoided cutting ANY curves with it?

Try de-tensioning, taking it off the saw and remounting it with a complete reset of the guides.

[Greg Funk]

I hate to say it but I had a similar experience with my Resaw King (on a Laguna 16HD) a few years back. I cut maybe 100 bd ft of maple and other hard woods but nothing exotic and nothing with nails. The blade dulled very quickly and I've left it on a shelf for the last 3 yrs. I am not keen on spending $50 to have it resharpened. I've been using bi-metal blades with no problems and thinking about getting a Lenox Trimaster carbide blade.

When it was new it cut very well. It just didn't stay sharp for very long.

Greg

[Jameel Abraham]

A carbide tipped blade shouldn't dull for a year or more of use, IMHO. Something else is amiss. Have you avoided cutting ANY curves with it?

Try de-tensioning, taking it off the saw and remounting it with a complete reset of the guides.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I've barely used this thing. I did de-tension and reset the guides, same result. This thing was never as sharp as a new "regular" blade.

I hate to say it but I had a similar experience with my Resaw King (on a Laguna 16HD) a few years back. I cut maybe 100 bd ft of maple and other hard woods but nothing exotic and nothing with nails. The blade dulled very quickly and I've left it on a shelf for the last 3 yrs. I am not keen on spending $50 to have it resharpened. I've been using bi-metal blades with no problems and thinking about getting a Lenox Trimaster carbide blade.

When it was new it cut very well. It just didn't stay sharp for very long.

Greg

This echos my experience. I just figured it was like any other carbide tool, they loose that really sharp feel quickly, but stay "pretty sharp" for a long time. Mine never gave the performance I was expecting. A fresh table saw blade almost cuts without any effort. This resaw king never felt like that. Even on a measly 2" wide board.

The recent FWW article on bandsaws mentioning 50-second resaw times with a weighted carriage on a 10" thick board kind of blew me away. With a fair amount of pressure, I'm taking 30-40 seconds to resaw 2" thick 18" long. Doesn't that seem long??

[John Renzetti]

Hi, I thought the Resaw King was STellite tipped and not pure carbide like the Trimaster
take care,
John

[Steve Rowe]

John is correct. The Resaw King is not carbide tipped.
Steve

[Jameel Abraham]

Now I feel real stupid. I paid top dollar for this thing and it's not even carbide?!

A friend used to run a Hitachi resaw with Stellite blades. He was a one man shop, and he still had dozens of blades hanging up waiting to be sharpened. He told me to stay away from stellite. Now I feel like I got gipped.

Maybe I should have gone Tri-master?

I've been looking at the videos over at Laguna, there is no way I could have EVER fed wood through my saw with the Resaw King at those speeds with decent results. I think this blade was junk to begin with, and I didn't know the wiser since I'd never run one before.
Sheesh..... Now what.....

[Steve Rowe]

Jameel,
Don't feel stupid. I thought the same thing until I talked with Laguna about it. I asked Laguna if it was suitable to resaw Makore which is high in silica. They told me it was not carbide tipped and that it was C-8 steel welded to the band and did not recommend it for high silica woods. This is what their web site indicates as well.
Steve

[John Renzetti]

Hi Jameel, One thing I just read in your post was that you tensioned the blade to the scale on the bandsaw. That might be cause of some of the problem. Those scales are notoriously inaccurate, especially if the length of your blade is on the high end of the blade length range of the machine. I don't use a tension meter but rely on the "ping" test. Maybe cranking up the tension would help also.
take care,
John

[jim mckee]

Also check the blade tracking. Move the blade guides away from the blade, slow spin the blade and check that it tracks proper, then bring the guides back in.
If a blade is being held hard (on its back side) by guides the blade will wander crazy (from tension between the upper/lower guides), then it gets warm-stretches and its all down hill from there
jim

[Doug Shepard]

Hi Jameel, One thing I just read in your post was that you tensioned the blade to the scale on the bandsaw. That might be cause of some of the problem. Those scales are notoriously inaccurate, especially if the length of your blade is on the high end of the blade length range of the machine. I don't use a tension meter but rely on the "ping" test. Maybe cranking up the tension would help also.
take care,
John

My thought exactly. I've typically got the scale on the MM16 past where it says it should be for the TriMaster blade. It just doesn't feel right at the line that the scale says it should be at. I've read a lot of posts from other MM TriMaster owners who are also driving "over the speed limit".

[Phil Clark]

Have you tried a bull nose fence instead of the long rail fence? The advantage is that the tracking problem will not affect the cut. I realize you would rather not have the problem but you can work around it with the bull nose.

[Phil Pritchard]

I've been using Trimaster III blades for nearly 6 years now on an Agazanni (Eagle in the USA?) 28in bandsaw, and more recently on a 16in all cast-iron Bursgreen saw. To resaw veneers I have to go well past the scale on the Agazanni, however, every modern fabricated saw I've tried is just the same - the scales are hopelessly optimistic when compared to the figures given on my Starrett tension gauge. I'd say that a 440mm (17in) machine is probably incapable of adequately tensioning a 1in blade with a 0.035in thick body, so the early results were down to the blade being sharp at that point. Certainly my Trimasters have done considerably better than 110 feet when tensioned to 25,000 psi - the problem is that the Aggy scale reads to a maximum of about 17,500psi. As I say, optimistic

Phil

[Jameel Abraham]

So I went out this morning and removed the blade, cleaned it, remounted it and tensioned it to both the scale, and past a couple cranks. Not much
"ping" factor with this wide blade. Same results. It did cut a hair better speed-wise, probably because it was clean, but no change in the drift. I maxed out the drift setting on my fence, pushing it way to left at the outfeed side, but the kerf still opened up on the right, with the back left edge of the blade rubbing the veneer. No matter how much I'd adjust for drift, the blade would without fail twist counter clockwise, opening up the kerf. For fun, I pushed really fast just to give an extreme example, and the blade bowed dramatically to the right, turning my veneer from 3/32" to 1/4"! Again, the only thing I can think is the blade is dull. Ugh...

[Mark Duginske]

I think that your blade is dull. I use the trimaster with the tension set according to the scale on my 20" Italian saw.

Although one of the responders was correct about the carbide blades lasting a long time with and insident wheere one hits a small stone or other object the teeth can dull quickly especially the stelite because it is so brittle.

Laguna offers a resharpening service and I send my trimaster in every couple of months.

Mark Duginske