cherry, burn, bind, stall

[drumpriest]

I was cutting some cherry last night, and every piece bound after the shark splitter. So I would stop the saw, drive a shim behind the splitter, back the piece out a little, start the saw, and finish the cut.

Of course, this being cherry, it burned terribly. On one of the cuts, when I attempted to restart the saw, no blade movement, I shut it off quickly, repositioned the piece, started the saw, and everything seemed fine.

I wonder if the stall was the belts slipping, or the blade slipping?

Any thoughts?

[Ken Massingale]

What thickness is the Cherry? Since you have burning that sounds like the motor was turning the blade, or there would have been no burning. I suspect neither of the 2 reasons you mentioned. I suspect you stalled the motor. I had several instances of stalling on my BT3K with thick dense stock when the stock had stresses that caused it to close in on the blade and splitter. Now, if you could still hear the motor running, not humming, when the stall happened, then I would think the belts or blade were slipping. But, if I remember correctly the belts are cog belts and slipping would probably damage them. I would do a good inspection, which I am sure you have done, Keith.
Ken

[Tom Slick]

is the wood warping and closing the kerf?

[drumpriest]

I suppose that I could have been more explicit, however I did say this....

"every piece bound after the shark splitter. So I would stop the saw, drive a shim behind the splitter, back the piece out a little, start the saw, and finish the cut."

Which heavily implies that yes the kerf was closing, and tells of my solution to this which was to drive a shim into the kerf to keep it open. This solution worked just fine for all but 1 rip, where the blade didn't turn at all. The wood isn't really "warping", but the kerf is closing.

Ken, yeah it was burning, the BT only stalled out once. I suppose I'm just wondering how common this is with cherry. It seems odd to me that it would happen with every board. There was a small humming sound, but the motor didn't sound as though it were running, so that's probably what it was. I am not wanting to have to deal with a belt change. :-)

The saw seems ok to me, just wondered what was going on in that instance. I'm almost done cutting the long stock for this project, so hopefully it'll be ok. I've not done a ton of work with Cherry, so I didn't know if this happened often. I'm only personally had this happen with cherry and maple, none of the walnut or oak that I"ve used have exhibited this behaviour, so I was wondering if some woods were prone to it.

Edit: Ken 13/16" thick.

thanks guys,

[Ken Weaver]

I ran into a batch of pine (2x4s) where things were closing up as the pressures were released during the rip. I too used a wedge in the kerf, but the entire batch was that way. Could be your cherry was from the same tree, or perhaps large branch stock which would have some pressure rings on the bottom side of the branch.

[jabe]

The wood was warping at the kerf. It does help if you use a rip blade 24 T or less. I like the Tenryu Rapid -Cut series rip blades 24 Tooth don't use a thin kerf blade when ripping hardwoods. You can clean up the edge with a jointer, router or just shave the edge with a sharp combination blade to get rid of the burn marks.

[drumpriest]

Thanks Jabe, I was using a 24T full kerf freud ripping blade. I will probably pass these over the jointer to clean up the burn marks, thanks for the tip, I was considering a few different stradegies, including just grabbing my block plane.

[LCHIEN]

Not sure if this helps at all but the current Wood magazine issue (I guess its May, has a wooden bench featured on the cover and the their workshop "gloat" article) has an extensive article specifically on working with Cherry.

[JimD]

Kieth,

I have only limited experience with cherry but I do not think it is the species but rather the particular boards you are working with. I have had this happen on softwood and oak and maple and walnut. These boards rarely are straight after ripping for me either. My splitter is .090 and thus thicker than the stock splitter. I think that helps.

I strongly suspect that the belts were slipping. You need to look at them but if you got it turned off in time they may be fine. When I lost my belts the blade stopped turning and I did not get it turned off very fast. The saw still worked for awhile but I looked at the belts and one was completely gone and less than half the other one was there. There was melted belt on the pulleys. Hope you got it off in time.

When maple or cherry burns, I look at the blade. Often it needs to be cleaned.

Jim