Straight rips on band saw

[derekbang]

Admittedly a newbie to band saws. I've gotten by with just a jigsaw for a couple years and didn't have room for a large band saw. My neighbor got a 14" Grizzly and thus kindly donated his 9" Ryobi bandsaw to me.

I got a new 1/4" blade for it, installed it, adjusted tension and tracking, adjusted the thrust bearings and guide blocks (upper and lower) and gave it a whirl. While it does a great job cutting curves, I had heard that you could get pretty straight rips on a bandsaw also. I installed a fence and was not pleased with the results.

My question is this - should I expect a properly adjusted bandsaw to give me a pretty straight rip (without much blade wander) and just need better equipment, or have I somehow not adjusted what I have properly? Or is it that I have the wrong size blade installed?

[bmyers]

Get about a 2 wide inch piece of wood about 18 inches long and draw a line down the center of it. Start cutting along that line and do what you need to make the cut follow the line. If the blade drifts to the left of the line, swing the tail of the piece to the left. Once you cut about half way through the scrap piece, stop feeding it through, hold it firmly and shut off the bandsaw. Clamp the piece in place on the table.

This is your drift angle. You'll need to account for that somehow in your fence setup.

Also, you can use a pivot point if you just need a few strips. You can do some searches here for "drift angle" and bandsaw and you might pull up some more threads on it.

Enjoy your new saw (ie you'll want a bigger one)

Bill

[LCHIEN]

most bandsaws have some drift angle as Bill described.
If you want to rip straight then you need to set the fence paralel to the drift angle.

There are several causes of drift angle and the D.A. will probably be different for different blades and tensions.

The way most people rip stuff is to put a 1/2" or wider blade on the saw which will keep the saw line straight and then put a pivot board out perpendicular to the fence and ending the rip width away from the blade. The pivot board should be curved or rounded on the end to allow the workpiece to rest against it for spacing of the rip but allow the board to be guided at the angle it needs to be parallel to the board.

drift can probably be minimized but not eliminated by using good quality blades with non-stamped teeth that have offset to one side and the proper tension. Also the way the blade is centered on the wheels - tracking will have an effect, I imagine.

[Mainemarc]

Hi Derek:

The 9" saw will always be limited in ripping operations because of the extremely small size blade it can handle, and because it just can't tension a blade like a larger saw can.

But going up to the 3/8" size (the largest your saw can handle) does make a noticable difference. You wouldn't think that extra 1/8" would do much, but it does make rip cuts easier.

You haven't wasted money getting the the 1/4" size. You really need both; the 1/4" size cuts tighter radius curves.