Band Saw Help!

[ronmetz]

I have a HF 14” with riser block and am using a timber wolf ½” blade. I want to resaw a 2.x8x8. I want a finish piece 11/8” thick.
I have a Rocker table and fence. I have set the fence angle by drawing a line down the center of a board and cutting half way thru free handed and have set the angle of the fence using the straight side of the board. I have also set the saw up as far as tracking tension etc.
The problem is when I begin cutting, the board wants to slowly put away from the fence. No matter how hard I try to keep the piece pressed to the fence the board wants to pull to the right. Within 1 foot the piece has pulled away 3/16”.

Even using a 2x4 I get the same result.
Any ideas what I’m dong wrong?

Ron

[LCHIEN]

I have a HF 14” with riser block and am using a timber wolf ½” blade. I want to resaw a 2.x8x8. I want a finish piece 11/8” thick.
I have a Rocker table and fence. I have set the fence angle by drawing a line down the center of a board and cutting half way thru free handed and have set the angle of the fence using the straight side of the board. I have also set the saw up as far as tracking tension etc.
The problem is when I begin cutting, the board wants to slowly put away from the fence. No matter how hard I try to keep the piece pressed to the fence the board wants to pull to the right. Within 1 foot the piece has pulled away 3/16”.

Even using a 2x4 I get the same result.
Any ideas what I’m dong wrong?

Ron

Probably the tracking angle is not right on or changes with applied feed force and other dynamic factors.

Many people use a "single contact point" fence instead of a long fence.
This is a vertical bar or arc attached to but away from the fence
so that the point of contact of the wood and this new fence is a vertical line or a Point when viewed from above. The new fence is located right adjacent to the blades teeth .
You use a featherboard to keep the wood tight to the new fence which is set away from the blade by the desired thickness and you steer the wood to keep the cut on line.

[Wood_workur]

Probably the tracking angle is not right on or changes with applied feed force and other dynamic factors.

Many people use a "single contact point" fence instead of a long fence.
This is a vertical bar or arc attached to but away from the fence
so that the point of contact of the wood and this new fence is a vertical line or a Point when viewed from above. The new fence is located right adjacent to the blades teeth .
You use a featherboard to keep the wood tight to the new fence which is set away from the blade by the desired thickness and you steer the wood to keep the cut on line.

precisely.

What you want to do is rip a 2x4 on a line parallel to the edge, and when you are half way through, stop the saw, withOUT moving the 2x4 AT ALL. then take a pencil an draw a line parallel to the edge of the 2x4, and you have a setup line for your fence, that is perfectly adjusted for the bade drift. All thats left to do is to adjust the fence to be parallel to that line.

[ronmetz]

Loring,
Thanks for the quick responce, I have tried using a single contact point type fence. with the same result. I have not tried using a featherboard however.
I have even use fiber board so that there would be no grain stress , same thing.
I have used this set up before resawing 8"" logs and did not have this issue.
It amost seems something has changed with the saw?
Could the blade be damage and cause this"

[LCHIEN]

Loring,
Thanks for the quick responce, I have tried using a single contact point type fence. with the same result. I have not tried using a featherboard however.
I have even use fiber board so that there would be no grain stress , same thing.
I have used this set up before resawing 8"" logs and did not have this issue.
It amost seems something has changed with the saw?
Could the blade be damage and cause this"

I'm not really an expert on this but I'll bet there's a lot of factors that affect the so-called "drift" angle.

1 how the blade is maunufactured
2 tension on the blade (may vary from use to use)
3 feed force
4 feed rate
5 thickness of resaw
6 wear and spacing of the guide blocks
7 material being cut - species, density, moisture content, etc.
8 grain orientation
9 wear on blade
10 where the blade rides on the wheels

so that's why the single point contact fence works better. But if you don't have a featherboard, and don't dynamically steer it correctly, then it will drift off, eventually.

[jabe]

Use a skip tooth blade or rip blade, less tooth on the blade will do a better job. It'll help control the drifting because less teeth on the blade allows it to clean out the cut more effectively.

[Ken Massingale]

Crank the tension up a bit at a time till it cuts properly.

[Wood_workur]

Crank the tension up a bit at a time till it cuts properly.

but don't over do it!!

here is a guide to tensionig:
http://www.suffolkmachinery.com/six_rules.asp

[gary]

Crank the tension up a bit at a time till it cuts properly.

I agree with Ken on this one. The blade should be 3 TPI (4TPI max) as well for resawing.

BTW: I have a 3/4" Timberwolf mounted on my G0555 bandsaw. The Suffolk people told we it would fit and I could tension it and they were correct. The spring is almost fully compressed and it resaws great.