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I'm just curious as to what set ups some of you use for your resawing of back / side sets if you don't mind sharing. What saws you use. What blades are more appropriate and tips and techniques for keeping the cuts consistant throughout without a lot of sanding and losing as much of the bookmatch. Photos of your set up with particular attention to the guides to keep the cuts consistant. Anyone care to share ?

The best recommendation anyone can give is to buy a book called The Bandsaw Book -- before you buy your saw! It has great information on how to select a saw and how to keep your saw well tuned.

In the meanwhile, here's a couple tips to get started.

First, get a good saw. I use a Laguna 18", which I love. It uses Laguna ceramic guides, which are great.

Second, keep your blades sharp. I use 3 tpi. I don't think blade width matters that much --- I have good results with both 3/4" and 1/2" blades. I have used carbide and regular ol' wear-out-fast steel, and I don't think it makes much difference as long as they are sharp.

Third, and most important, align your fence to the blade. In all likelihood, your blade does not track at a 90 degree angle to the front of your table, and is guaranteed not to track parallel to however your fence came stock. To align the fence, draw a line down the middle of a scrap piece of wood a couple feet long and feed the wood into the blade, following the line without the fence (freehanding). Turn your saw off halfway through and look at the angle of the side of the board. That's angle your fence should be at. (Make sure the blade is centered in the kerf, such that you have not knocked the board one way or the other.)

One other point on getting good bookmatches: When you select your wood, pick wood for which the grain pattern does not shift between the front of the wood and the back of the wood. In other words, if your saw cut and sanding chewed up 1/8" of wood out of the middle, would it make a big difference in the grain pattern you get on each half? If your sapwood ends 1" from the edge on the front of the board, but 2" from the edge on the back, your bookmatch will be off no matter how little waste you have from the cut.

Finally, don't get greedy! If you try to get the maximum possible number of slices from a board, you will just get a bunch of slices that must be sanded too thin in order to remove the saw marks. Give yourself room for error.

Good luck.

Kelby for the most part has some good advice. I'm just gonna give you a few pointers we go by..

- Like Kelby said, don't slice too thin. If your saw is set up properly and your getting a nice clean cut 3/16ths is a good thickness to aim for. If the blade pulls a little it's not the end of the world and its close enough you aren't wasting..

- If your doing a lot of wood Carbide is a must. Even if your not it's a good investment. Carbide cuts a lot cleaner, stays sharp longer, and you can sharpen them yourself (if you have a steady hand, a dremel with a flex shaft and a lot of patience)

I'd recommend a 3/4inch carbide blade with variable 2-3tpi. The variable tooth helps clean the cut.

- A powerfeed is always helpful. They improve consistency in cutting speed and pressure/angle on the stock being cut. They also make the process easier physically and keep your hands a little further away from the blades.

- Lastly if you find your blades, guides and wood are getting hot and/or burning a blade mister will keep everything cool, lubricate the blade and often help keep the blade from gumming up.

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Kelby, a question for you about the Laguna guides:

Have you noticed any significant amount of heat/sparks being generated at the back of the blade when resawing? I was resawing some 8" wood recently on my Laguna and noticed the top, back edge guide glowing and throwing sparks. I was using a brand new Timberwolf blade and I didn't think I was pushing it that hard. What concerned me most was the thought of hot sparks flying into my dust collection system.

I wrote Laguna with this question and this is part of the response from Jay Andrews; "The sparks are normal, even a glow at the rear thrust bearing when pushing on the blade. " So, it's normal, but it still makes me uncomfortable. TomS38561.2536921296

Tom this is normal. Particularly with a new blade. Once the back of the blade wears a bit from rubbing on the blocks it will subside. You can also round off the back of a new blade with a file or sandpaper on a wood block while the blades is running.
I also agree with most of the above. I have the Laguna 16"HD and a Grizzly 17" I have found the Laguna Re-Saw King to be the best blade I have used to date. Narrow kerf, smooth cut and they can be re-sharpened about 5 times. I havn't had much success trying to hone a carbide blade by hand. Cutting some exotic woods eats steel blades for breakfast. No offense to Kelby but I don't agree with no runout from front to back. I have not found this to be a problem. I would have left a lot of beautiful wood by the wayside if I followed that rule. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately)trees grow round and not square so some runout even in QS wood is inevitable. Bobc38561.2991087963

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Bandsaw Articles from Highland Hardware.

I too have the Laguna 18 but with Euro guides. They were the only problem with the saw, especially the thrust guide.

Solution: for sixty bucks a machinist made me a set of small shafts with a circlip keeper to replace the thrust bushing setup. I installed a standard ball bearing the same size as the thrust bearing surface, and my saw was on a different level of great instantly.

The cost for the bearings, three bucks each. Easy to replace and now I'm sawing like a banshee with a carbide blade. Tension is important, use the articles.

I wanted those ceramic guide upgrades, but I'm glad I went the other route with ball bearings, no sparks, no red glow. The side guides are still Euro, they don't get the abuse the thrust bearing does. I hated the sparks and damaged thrust parts of the Euro. Necessity is the mother of.......

good to see you Bruce

Thanks for the tips..and the links. You guys are very helpful. I have some reading to do so I'll be back later.

FYI this is the resaw we're currently using
Grizzly Resaw

and these are the blades I've had the best success with

Lennox 2-3tpi
I'm sorry I think I said we used 3/4inch. Turns out they are 1inch

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Thanks for the info Jason. That looks like a great saw. Only problem for me is, I'm in Brazil. I would love to buy one of those but, the import tax into Brazil is about 200% LITERALLY... So, I'm working with older vertical bandsaws like in the old days. Just thought some of the guys were using the same type and had been through some of the same obstacles I've been through. Just looking for tips and tricks they may have used to resolve some of their issues. But, thanks a heap ! Maybe I can look into something on that line available here.

i use an ancient walker turner. what are some of the specific problems you are experiencing? know what the problems are will go a long way to getting possible good solutions.

Michael,
Pictures are worth a thousand words...the main problems I've had are twisting of the blade. Keeping the cuts consistantly straight. I read a couple of articles yesterday from links given on this post. I think some of that info will help but, would still like to see a photo or two of someones guide set up. How they incorporated that onto the older saws. Are the guides made of wood, aluminum, steel or something else. How is it mounted to the surface plate? The blade info was particularly helpful. I was under the impression that the wider the blade..the less twist you would have. This was obviously not the case. I don't know if you have a photo of your set up, or would want to share that info but, if so, I would really like to see it. Thanks a heap....

i'm not sure what you mean by twisting of the blade. your guides,if correctly adjusted, should keep the blade straight if you have the tension set correctly. what kind of saw and guides do you have? what is the hp rating of the saw? is your thrust bearing correctly adjusted and working properly? have you found the lead angle of your blade and set your fence accordingly? is your table perpendicular to the blade and your fence perpendicular to the table, i.e. is the fence face parallel to the blade? how tall is your fence? are you resawing from round log wedges? are you using a sled to hold the wedge for sawing? or are you cutting from sawn billets? are you getting cupped cuts?

Hi Michael. Has it been hot in Odessa? I got two 104F degree readings in the shade North side of the shop.

Still think all rosewood, see those pics all the time on my PC. Nothing yet.

[QUOTE=crazymanmichael] i'm not sure what you mean by twisting of the blade. your guides,if correctly adjusted, should keep the blade straight if you have the tension set correctly. what kind of saw and guides do you have? what is the hp rating of the saw? is your thrust bearing correctly adjusted and working properly? have you found the lead angle of your blade and set your fence accordingly? is your table perpendicular to the blade and your fence perpendicular to the table, i.e. is the fence face parallel to the blade? how tall is your fence? are you resawing from round log wedges? are you using a sled to hold the wedge for sawing? or are you cutting from sawn billets? are you getting cupped cuts?[/QUOTE]

I think he's talking about the blade wandering.. it happens in dense and/or twisted wood. The blades will pull away from the guides or pull into them so hard the blade will bow between them. The easiest way to counteract it is to set the tension as high as you can get away with and go slow.

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