My First Time (Resawing, I Mean)

[Russ Mullins]

My bandsaw is the 17" Grizzly G0513X. I've had it since late last year, but haven't had the need or occasion to use it much until now. I needed to resaw some 7" wenge for accent pieces for a project I'm making. So last night, I installed a new Timber Wolf 3/4" 2/3 VPC resaw blade and tuned everything carefully. This was my first serious attempt at resawing. After checking and rechecking everything, and trying out a scrap piece, I ran the wenge through.

I was blown away; it was a thing of beauty. The saw and the new blade cut very smoothly, with no drift. It was a near orgasmic experience.

Ok, I know this is no big deal to most of you who have been doing this for awhile. For me, however, it was very cool and satisfying. I took a 4/4 board and (after planing the two resawn pieces) turned it into two .400" boards, which is exactly what I needed for the project.

[Allan Brown]

Russ,
That's something that I'm looking forward to myself! I'm 95% all hand tools, but would like to get a Craftsman 14" bandsaw just for resawing. I'm glad you had such a good experience. I can relate to the "feeling" when performing certain operations with my chisels, planes, scrapers, etc.
Allan

[Mike Cutler]

Congrats Russ.

Being able to effectively resaw opens up a lot of possibilities for book matching as a design element. It also conserves on wood.

You must have a nice DC system also. Wenge is kinda nasty to mill.

[Curt Harms]

Congratulations! Resawing & bookmatching is so cool. That Griz 513X looks like one nice machine. I had some reservations about the 0513 though many have it and are pleased. It sounds like the 0513X addressed those areas.

[Dan Drager]

Nice job Russ. Glad you didn't hack up that wenge.

Allen, you might want to check out the new issue of Fine Woodworking before investing in a 14" bandsaw. They have a wonderful review of a variety of them.

[Jack Ganssle]

Russ,

I agree. There's something oddly fun about resawing. Maybe because you're so close to the wood.

Sometimes I practice to see how thin of a piece I can cut. So far the thinnest is about 0.018" using my G0555X in 8" wide hard maple. It's amazing.

Jack