Bandsaw Problems - Wavy Cut When Resawing

[Jeremy Scuteri]

I have a 17" grizzly bandsaw and I had a 1/2" woodslicer on it that worked great. Then the woodslicer blade got dull. I have replaced the blade with a 1" Laguna Resaw King in hopes that I wouldn't need to replace it again. I had some issues with the 1st blade which Laguna replaced due to it being defective (http://www.ncwoodworker.net/forums/showthread.php?t=47128). The 2nd blade is better, but I am not able to get it to resaw a board without a significant amount of waviness in the cut. I have adjusted the fence for drift, ensured the blade is tracking in the center of the tires, adjusted the guides and increased the tension. I am not sure what I could be doing wrong here Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[Joe Scharle]

No suggestions sight unseen, but a 1" blade requires significant tension.

 

[scsmith42]

LOTS of tension. I run several thousand pounds worth of tension on the 1" in my horizontal resaw.

 

[Jeremy Scuteri]

Do I need to be concerned about damaging my bandsaw by putting too much tension? I have this bandsaw: http://www.grizzly.com/products/17-Bandsaw-2HP-w-Cast-Iron-Trunnion/G0513X2.

One other issue that I have is that the fence is skewed as far as it will go to adjust for the blade drift. What can I do to change the drift angle of the blade? I have heard that the crown of the tires can dictate the drift angle of the blade, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to have the blade partially hanging off of the tires and crank the tension way up.

 

[Touchwood]

Do I need to be concerned about damaging my bandsaw by putting too much tension? I have this bandsaw: http://www.grizzly.com/products/17-Bandsaw-2HP-w-Cast-Iron-Trunnion/G0513X2.

One other issue that I have is that the fence is skewed as far as it will go to adjust for the blade drift. What can I do to change the drift angle of the blade? I have heard that the crown of the tires can dictate the drift angle of the blade, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to have the blade partially hanging off of the tires and crank the tension way up.

I wouldn't be standing close to the machine if you do that !!!

The blade should always be tracking close if not on the center of the tire. That's one heck of a drift angle you're trying to compensate for. Are you sure the top and bottom wheels are co-planar??

Don

 

[Jeremy Scuteri]

This is an article about adjusting the bandsaw tracking to compensate for drift: http://www.ccwwa.org/NEWSITE/plans/BandsawTuneup1.pdf

I will have to create a jig to test that my wheels are co-planar (the table and body of the bandsaw prevents me from putting a simple straight edge across both wheels). It does seem like there is a large amount of drift that is being compensated for. Maybe wheels not being co-planar is at the root of the issues I am experiencing?

 

[ehpoole]

Without photos of the problem it can be difficult to diagnose.

However, Thursday (tomorrow) evening at 8:00PM we will have Mark Duginske as our Guest Speaker and he is an expert on Bandsaws, you may wish to coordinate with Steve Honeycutt to see if you can have your question asked during this chat.

 

[Joe Scharle]

OK, first step in tuning a BS is to rem0ve the table...

 

[bluedawg76]

wavy cuts are usually a result of insufficient tension and/or too fast of a feed rate. tracking issues reflect parallelism of the wheels -i.e. if they're not coplanar you'll have tracking issues. As for the blade, the back of the gullet should be at or near the middle of the upper wheel. Not sure how much crown you have on those wheels if any? Provided the above are optimally setup, the other cause of significant drift lies in the guides (thrust and side bearings). Here's a nice video reference for all of the above that has been helpful to me in the past:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGbZqWac0jU

HTH,
Sam

 

[Joe Scharle]

I forgot to add that I don't think any 'hobby grade' (under $5,000) bandsaw is really capable of using a blade over 5/8". Just my experience, FWIW. If you mount another 1/2" blade and all is well; I'd say it's 'fixed'!

 

[merrill77]

Jeremy and Scott - when you contacted Laguna (from this closed thread: http://www.ncwoodworker.net/forums/showthread.php?t=47128), did you get a case #? I'm pursuing the same problem and would like to be able to reference your cases if possible.

TIA!
Chris

 

[Bill Clemmons]

One other issue that I have is that the fence is skewed as far as it will go to adjust for the blade drift. What can I do to change the drift angle of the blade? I have heard that the crown of the tires can dictate the drift angle of the blade, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to have the blade partially hanging off of the tires and crank the tension way up.

Jeremy, that sounds like excessive drift. I use a 1/2" Woodslicer blade on my 14" Rikon and the drift is 0.5*. On my old Delta 14", I once had a blade that was 3.0*, and I thought that was excessive.

Like Joe suggested, I would go back to the 1/2" Woodslicer and quit messing w/ the 1" Laguna.

Bill

 

[Jeremy Scuteri]

Jeremy and Scott - when you contacted Laguna (from this closed thread: http://www.ncwoodworker.net/forums/showthread.php?t=47128), did you get a case #? I'm pursuing the same problem and would like to be able to reference your cases if possible.

TIA!
Chris

I don't have the case number. I spoke with a Laguna representative today and they are sending me out a 3/4" resaw king blade and a RMA for the 1" resaw king. I will take some time over the next few days and make sure the wheels are co-planar before trying the 3/4" resaw king. If I don't have good luck with the 3/4" resaw king, I will be returning it for a refund and I will order another woodslicer blade since I had good luck with the last woodslicer before it got dull. I am hoping the 3/4" resaw king will work out since it should stay sharp much longer than a woodslicer blade, but it has to work well in the first place before I can be worried about how long it stays sharp....

 

[CrealBilly]

new blade or resharpened blade / lots of tension / slow feed rate / guides as close to the work piece as possible.

hint: If your blade is hitting the rear bearing your feeding to fast or you have your blade set back to far on the rollers or your blade is to dull for the task.

 

[ehpoole]

I forgot to add that I don't think any 'hobby grade' (under $5,000) bandsaw is really capable of using a blade over 5/8". Just my experience, FWIW. If you mount another 1/2" blade and all is well; I'd say it's 'fixed'!

My Rikon 10-345 (18") has absolutely no problem tensioning a 1" resaw blade -- in fact a 1" blade is my primary resaw blade. I also fine tune (by honing) the tooth set to eliminate drift.

For many 14" bandsaws (particularly C-frame style), a 1/2" or 5/8" blade will be the most many of them can adequately tension. But for the larger 18"+ bandsaws, tensioning a 1" blade is generally not an issue provided the blade is of the appropriate length (an important point because some band manufacturers make their blades up to an 1" over length, which can really cut into your tensioning headroom).

Something to keep in mind when checking coplanarity of a bandsaw is that coplanarity should be tested with your typical blade installed and tensioned to its full working tension. The tensioning of any blade will slightly distort the frame of any bandsaw, so it is important that coplanarity be checked with the bandsaw under typical tension.

 

[Jeremy Scuteri]

My Rikon 10-345 (18") has absolutely no problem tensioning a 1" resaw blade -- in fact a 1" blade is my primary resaw blade. I also fine tune (by honing) the tooth set to eliminate drift.

For many 14" bandsaws (particularly C-frame style), a 1/2" or 5/8" blade will be the most many of them can adequately tension. But for the larger 18"+ bandsaws, tensioning a 1" blade is generally not an issue provided the blade is of the appropriate length (an important point because some band manufacturers make their blades up to an 1" over length, which can really cut into your tensioning headroom).

Something to keep in mind when checking coplanarity of a bandsaw is that coplanarity should be tested with your typical blade installed and tensioned to its full working tension. The tensioning of any blade will slightly distort the frame of any bandsaw, so it is important that coplanarity be checked with the bandsaw under typical tension.

Thanks for the tips Ethan. I have a 17" bandsaw, so hopefully it will be able to handle the 3/4" blade that Laguna is sending out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Should find out early next week what the result is.

 

[CLetts]

FWIW, I had this exact same problem with my brand new Laguna bandsaw. After a YEAR of basically NO HELP from Laguna I decided to try a new blade. (Up to that point I'd tried everything numerous times but still wavy cuts. I had immediately ruled out the Resaw King Blade because it was new and was so expensive it HAD to be perfect...........right?) I finally bought a $40 blade and tried it and it began cutting perfectly. Contacted Laguna and first thing the guy said was "I guess that was one of the defective blades we got in last year." (I guess it's silly of me to wonder why they didn't rule that out as soon as I contacted them with a problem) Turns out some blades had only been sharpened on one side. (P.S. my resaw king blade is a 1" and I tighten up my laguna 16" bandsaw as tight as the saw allows. when not using the saw, I release the tension.)

 

[Semmons23]

All of this is based on what Micheal Fortune says to do...for the drift I would first start by moving the blade backward or forward on the tire. you may think its centered but it may not be 100% or your blade may not really want to be centered. Assuming your blade is not defective, it should eventually run without drift.

The wavey cut is likely due to pushing with too much force. Try to push with just 1 finger.

Lastly I would experiment with the tension, he says that its not necessary to tension as high as people think...he also never uses more than a 1/2" blade 3TPI blade - he says even 4TPI is too many. If you have a Fine Woodworking online subscription look for his article there.

 

[merrill77]

I forgot to add that I don't think any 'hobby grade' (under $5,000) bandsaw is really capable of using a blade over 5/8". Just my experience, FWIW. If you mount another 1/2" blade and all is well; I'd say it's 'fixed'!

I've got a 16" Jet with the triangular frame design. Jet says it can tension blades up to 1 1/4". AFAICT, it tensions my 1" Resaw King blade just fine - no waviness or wandering during cuts. I'm no expert - just adding another datapoint.

 

[Joe Scharle]

OK gentlemen, I apologize if I have insulted anyone's bandsaw. I was trying to express a point no different from knowing that a Bobcat could possibly pull a stump that a D-12 will rip out idling. The Bobcat might not show any worse for wear or it might crack the yoke on the bucket (happened to me). Simply because the Bobcat got away with being stressed beyond it's design envelope doesn't mean the design limits are invalid.
And remember, I'm not the final authority on anyone's investments except my own! :gar-Bi