Re-Sawing, how big of a band saw

[John TenEyck]

Lots of good info. there Allan, but you are dead wrong that you have to use a pivot fence with a 14" saw. What your saw is telling you is that it needs a new blade, or the blade needs to be moved on the wheels, or the wheels need to be aligned. My 14" Delta with riser cuts beautifully straight as long as I do those three things. I use a 7" shop made straight fence set parallel with the miter slot and regularly baloney slice nice straight veneers or resaw stock. 10"+ hard maple, oak, etc. I often get tolerances of no more than 0.005" on 3/32" slices 10" wide and 3 to 5 feet long. A bad day is a deviation of 0.010".

Moving up to a bigger saw will make it easier because you can run higher tension (compared to a CI Delta), but the basics are still the same.

John

[David Kumm]

DSCN2809.jpgDSCN2810.jpgDSCN2811.jpg If the saw is decent you shouldn't need to move the fence. Handfeeding is the real issue and it is a problem either way. This is cut on both sides, about .04" thick with a deviation of about .005 as John says. Dave

I made a real effort to get the light so it shows the saw marks and you can see which is the second side.

[jack forsberg]

I am seeing a lot of short length in these cuts on the small saws and i think longer cuts will generate heat and the blades will dull more rapidly and the set lay down with long cuts and that when all hell brakes loose . So in that case the tipped blades may offer a better cut when you have to feed slow because you are under powered and running short blades. What would impress me is the last cut boys

[Scott T Smith]

What is the recommended HP for re-sawing all types of hardwoods. I buy slabs from the sawmill and need to cut down to useable sizes. I get 4/4 and 8/4

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Scott, are you resawing as a hobbyist or resawing as a business? If as a hobbyist a couple of HP should work. If as a business you need 15 - 30 hp.

How wide of a cut do you need to make? Resawing boards into veneer or simply resawing a 4/4 board into a pair of 2/4 boards? How frequently will you resaw - hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly? How accurate of a cut do you need to make? Modern production resaws can maintain tolerances within a few thousands of an inch across the resawn board or alternatively provide a very fast feed rate albeit at a slightly lower quality.

All of these factors would influence a recommendation.

[Allan Speers]

Lots of good info. there Allan, but you are dead wrong that you have to use a pivot fence with a 14" saw. What your saw is telling you is that it needs a new blade, or the blade needs to be moved on the wheels, or the wheels need to be aligned. My 14" Delta with riser cuts beautifully straight as long as I do those three things. I use a 7" shop made straight fence set parallel with the miter slot and regularly baloney slice nice straight veneers or resaw stock. 10"+ hard maple, oak, etc. I often get tolerances of no more than 0.005" on 3/32" slices 10" wide and 3 to 5 feet long. A bad day is a deviation of 0.010".

Moving up to a bigger saw will make it easier because you can run higher tension (compared to a CI Delta), but the basics are still the same.

John

That's good to know. And yeah, that was my sole reason for upgrading - so I could use a wider, thicker, higher tension blade for less deflection. Also because I wanted a carbide blade, and they are all kind of iffy on a 14" saw. I'm probably going to get a 1.25" Laguna Resaw King. Expensive, but you can resharpen it up to 5X, so ....

[Alan Lightstone]

Absolutely not. Why mess around moving the fence between every cut? Set the fence once, slice away...

Look in this thread (post #11 I think) to see how I do it; http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...wing-questions

Another convert here to John's method (and awesome sled, which I built during that thread). I still use it all the time. At the woodworking show I saw someone demonstrate a sled made to cut baloney style. It looked impressive at the show, but I didn't bite. The biggest problem I have this way is the top to bottom thickness. Getting the Driftmaster perfectly square to the table is sometimes the issue. That being said, I'd love to have more room and get a MM20 or such. While my Laguna has a 3 or 3.5HP motor, a beefier saw would be better.

[Roger Pozzi]

Why don't you adjust the blade so it tracks properly and leave the fence alone?

Regards, Rod.

Plus 1 !! Works for me.

[Dan Hintz]

Absolutely not. Why mess around moving the fence between every cut? Set the fence once, slice away...

Look in this thread (post #11 I think) to see how I do it; http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...wing-questions

That veneer jig is pretty slick, John... adjustable tension, plenty of surface area pushing the stock flat, etc. Wish I could buy something like that relatively inexpensively.

[glenn bradley]

I am an "enthusiastic" home shop guy. I have a 17" with 2HP and wish it were more powerful. It does a beautiful job but, I feel I am right on the edge of the capabilities of the machine when resawing 12" stock moving about 1" per second.

[Erik Loza]

I am seeing a lot of short length in these cuts on the small saws and i think longer cuts will generate heat and the blades will dull more rapidly and the set lay down with long cuts and that when all hell brakes loose . So in that case the tipped blades may offer a better cut when you have to feed slow because you are under powered and running short blades. What would impress me is the last cut boys

Bingo ^^^^... The number one issue I see with guys in this situation is thinking, "Oh, I have this fancy carbide blade, so I can feed super-fast with it". The blade will last a long time and give the results you want, but will also easily burn and dull if you push it too hard. Does not seem to matter the size of saw, by the way.

Erik

[ian maybury]

To John. Jig? This is a JIG!!!!!!!

That was one of my favourite threads. It's pretty complex, but it addresses the million dollar question of absolute flatness that gets overlooked so often in woodworking, and that results in inaccuracies the source of which isn't always obvious. It's so often the case that the stock isn't quite flat, the table and the fence ditto and the pressure we apply to hold the work down variable so it springs back and forwards - next thing we know something is 0.5mm off and we don't know why.

Just looking at the photos of it again. This is probably my being a PIA, but I wonder if it might not be possible to make a quick and dirty version?

Hinge two rectangular boards in very roughly 12in h x 24in long x 3/4in thick ply from one vertical edge - having cut multiple parallel slits in one for about 3/4 of the 24in/horizontal dimension and fitted a roller like yours to each 'finger'. (or maybe a nicely rounded and waxed end would slide on the work without too much friction/making feeding too stiff and avoid the need for rollers? - not a big deal) Drop a sausage shaped inflated bag, a trip of soft polyurethane or some other form of long spring in the gap between the boards so that it acts to tend to pivot the two boards apart at the hinge. The combination of the air spring and the elasticity of the fingers would act to apply the required pressure, with the air pressure/spring position adjustable and each finger to a fair degree independent.

Maybe even fingers alone would have enough spring do the business much like a featherboard - a highly elastic material like GRP could be used if needed. The fingers presumably wouldn't need much travel - not unless the stock was highly irregular. It'd take a bit to figure out to how to mount the whole deal properly, to sort out the details of the layout and to dial it in...

[Scott Brandstetter]

Wow guys, since I am new at re-sawing, I had no Idea what this thread would do. Good debate for sure. Not knowing what I should have included in my original thread, I will tell you that right now I am simply going to use the band saw to cut 11 inch (varies) wide 4/4 boards into 8 inch wide pieces so I can then clean up on the jointer, planer, etc. I will also be doing the same with 8/4 lumber. From what I'm reading, for my purpose, my current Jet should be fine, make sure the saw is set up correctly, and obviously a good blade.

Thanks for all of the help......now, continue to debate LOL

[Art Mann]

I have just read through all these posts and they are interesting. However, they may not properly address the original poster's question. When he says "resaw" does he mean he is turning one 4/4 slab into two 7/16" thick slabs for example (my definition of "resaw") or is he really trying to rip a straight edge on a board with raw edges? What does he mean when he says "slab"? When I worked in a giant sawmill 3 decades ago, slabs were pieces of lumber that hadn't been run through the edger yet to eliminate the bark and provide parallel edges. From his very brief post, it doesn't seem to me that he is talking about making veneer at all but I could be wrong. My resaw requirements are to slice a 4/4 to 6/4 board into thicknesses that can be drum sanded easily to 3/16", 1/4", 3/8" or 1/2" lumber for boxes and CNC carvings. The board has typically already been sawed roughly to length and is seldom more than 2 feet long and never more than 12 " wide. For my requirements, the Laguna 14/twelve does a great job. Additional power and speed would not make much difference since resawing is a tiny fraction of the time I spend on a particular project.

Conclusion: The requirements for a bandsaw depend mostly on how the tool is to be used. The OP hasn't provided enough information yet, in my opinion. Maybe he will return with a few more detail.

[John Lanciani]

Bingo ^^^^... The number one issue I see with guys in this situation is thinking, "Oh, I have this fancy carbide blade, so I can feed super-fast with it". The blade will last a long time and give the results you want, but will also easily burn and dull if you push it too hard. Does not seem to matter the size of saw, by the way.

Erik

The other side of that is that feeding too slowly prematurely wears out a blade just as fast, or faster. The ideal feed speed for any blade (circular, band, etc.) is achieved when the gullets are just about full when the tooth exits the stock. Too slow of a feed (either from lack of power or just feeding too slowly) "uses up" tooth sharpness without achieving the maximum amount of work. Any given tooth only has a finite number of passes through the stock in it before it dulls, regardless of whether it is taking a full gullet's worth of swarf away or only 25% of it. Friction kills blades through both abrasion and heat cycling, and taking twice as long to make a cut as is neccessary adds significantly to the friction and the wear.

My experience is that the retail branded carbon steel bands that lots of folks use and swear by are junk in less than an hour of hard use. HSS blades are good for 10 times that or more and good carbide blades last an order of magnetude longer still. If purchase price is all that matters buy cheap and replace often, but if total cost per cut is what is important carbide becomes really cheap really fast.

[Art Mann]

Wow guys, since I am new at re-sawing, I had no Idea what this thread would do. Good debate for sure. Not knowing what I should have included in my original thread, I will tell you that right now I am simply going to use the band saw to cut 11 inch (varies) wide 4/4 boards into 8 inch wide pieces so I can then clean up on the jointer, planer, etc. I will also be doing the same with 8/4 lumber. From what I'm reading, for my purpose, my current Jet should be fine, make sure the saw is set up correctly, and obviously a good blade.

Thanks for all of the help......now, continue to debate LOL

I must have been writing my last post while you were also writing yours because I didn't spot it. As it turns out, only a small part of the discussion has anything to do with your original inquiry. I would call what you are wanting to do as parallel ripping rathr than resawing. It is still interesting though.