[Woodworkers] Resawing

Sat May 1 08:57:33 PDT 2021

Rick and Dave,

   Thanks! When I first started resawing I used a single point fence. Basically, I attached a big dowl to the fence so you follow your line regardless of drift. This does work but it almost guarantees a ripple cut. I do have aftermarket fences on my BS’s to allow for drift. There are several articles on how to determine drift and then adjust your fence for it. However, I prefer not to do that and use my fence at 90 degrees. Mainly because with my ½” blade it cut true so I know it can be done. My problem with the ½” blade is it works well on not wide boards but really wasn’t designed for resawing wide boards. It did well on the one wide board cut but was the gullets were full and severely caked. I had to soak the blade in blade cleaner to clean it (i.e. a brass brush wouldn’t clean it without soaking).

   So having said that, Scott Phillips said an interesting thing in his video – if you have drift, you have ruined the set on your blade. I wonder if that’s why one ¾” blade drifts like crazy but the other ¾” blade cut true (slow, but true). BTW, I watch all the WW shows on TV too 😊. With regard to tensioning – I also over tension (example: my ¾” blade was tensioned to 1”). What I’ve read is you tension it until it starts to flutter and then back off a few turns to eliminate the flutter. That’s what I did on my other ¾” blade and the surfaces on both boards were pretty nice. But, again, is that because of the set.

   Thank you for your responses!!

Chuck

From: Rick Allen <rla_buy at yahoo.com> 
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2021 7:42 AM
To: woodworkers at sawdusters.org
Cc: chuck.steger at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Woodworkers] Resawing

I have never been taught how to resaw and this is my “made up way” of doing it.  Also I don’t resaw very much, maybe 20 bf a year.  No doubt there are better methods.

My understanding of drift is to account for the drift as yo cut by adjusting the angle of attack.  The only pressure on the board as you cut is at the pushing end of the board. A lot of folks like to use a fence and press the board against the fence as they cut.  I find that doing so causes the blade to bow in the wood.  I like the pressure at the cut to be neutral except for the push from the end of the board.

On Apr 30, 2021, at 10:34 PM, chuck.steger--- via Woodworkers <woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org <mailto:woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org> > wrote:

I’m going to respond to my own post and ask a question. I made 2 changes, I cut the width of the board down  and used my other BS with a ¾” 3 tpi hook tooth blade (different BS blade lengths so different blade). This worked. But, I noticed when I cut the wide board, it cut fast and easy (albeit, drifting) and the new cut was on the line but cut slower. I had to the clean the blade with a brass brush after each cut because the saw dust from the rosewood was caked on the blade. Tedious but worth the effort to get a good clean cut (no drift at all). 

So the question is, if you over tension a blade does that cause drift? Because my only 2 culprits are blade sharpness and tension, right?

Chuck

From: chuck.steger at gmail.com <mailto:chuck.steger at gmail.com>  <chuck.steger at gmail.com <mailto:chuck.steger at gmail.com> > 
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2021 9:59 AM
To: woodworkers at sawdusters.org <mailto:woodworkers at sawdusters.org> 
Subject: Resawing

I have a couple of band saws where I keep a ¼” blade on one and a ½” blade for resawing on the other (yeah, lazy!). In the past I would use a wider blade for resawing but really liked the ½” 6 TPI blade so I kept it on. Yesterday I was resawing a 11” wide by 14” long piece of Bolivian Rosewood (real dense wood). I used the ½” blade and it was slow going but never drifted and cut beautifully. In fact, that’s why I use this blade – no drift. However, when I was finished and looked at the blade, the gullets were full, the blade was caked with saw dust and I honestly was surprised it did so well. So, I changed to a ¾” 3 TPI hook tooth blade. It cut much faster and easier but drifted like a son of a gun. In fact, it drifted so badly, it ruined the piece. The good news is I needed a thinner piece, so that became the thinner piece. But, when I was sanding both pieces on the drum sander it was obvious how badly it drifted. Because the previous blade cut to the line with no drift, I could cut 1/16” over my finished thickness. However, with the ¾” blade, I couldn’t. So, I marked a ½” line to get a finished 3/8” thickness. As I monitored the cut, it was drifting so badly, I had to stop or it would have cut into my 3/8” thickness. BTW, it drifted at the bottom and I was monitoring the top which is why I didn’t see it the first time.

So, all that to ask why the drift? Is the blade not sharp enough (I had used it before so maybe dull?), not tensioned enough, or ???? I think it was tensioned enough but I still throw it out there as a question. Why would the ½” cut so beautifully and the ¾” cut so badly? I cleaned up the ½” and was tempted to put it back on but I don’t want to because it’s really not designed to do what I was doing.

One thing I’m going to try today it to cut the 11” width down to a narrower piece (that I would need anyway) and try resawing a narrower piece.

I ordered new blades but, of course, they won’t be here for a few days and I want to resaw today.

Chuck

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