Resawing Long 4x6's

[Ken Massingale]

O.K., I posted about some 4x6 Walnut and Cherry I grabbed off of Craigslist. I'm looking forward to getting some nice 4/4 boards and a couple of mantels out of it.
Well, I've run into a 'challenge' while resawing it.
I ran a 6' 8" piece thru the Rikon 10-325 last evening and it throughly whooped my butt. I setup roller stands at the endfeed and outfeed sides of the BS, positioned the end of the stock against the fence and held snug with a featherboard at the blade, and another featherboard on the outfeed side.
All went well until about 2 feet of the stock had been resawn. At this point the stock decided it wanted to slide on the infeed roller stand, resulting in it compressing the featherboards and pulling away from the fence, first on the outfeed side then the infeed side. I have to do this alone, I think having someone to stabilize the stock while I keep it against the fence would work, but that's not usually an option.

I need to come up with infeed/outfeed tables. I'd like to use the miter slot on the BS table with matching slots on the tables and make a long jig like I made for short logs. However that jig needs screws into the stock and I'd hate to loose ~1/2" of stock.
So, I'm open to suggestions, please.
Thanks

 

[WoodWrangler]

Yuck ... big, heavy boards, a fast moving super sharp blade, a small bandsaw table and one person ... been there, done that!

The best bet for longer boards is to get a buddy to help support the outfeed side. But, like you, that's not always an option for me (usually not, in fact).

The roller stands are a bad idea in my opinion. They cause too much pull as they roll, and if they are like mine they are not the most stable things. You may just want to create an outfeed support table, free-standing, with a very smooth top (laminate?). Set it about 1/16" lower than the bandsaw table and set it a couple feed away (where the support begins to be needed). This might make it more manageable and is a cheap solution (I'm imagining some 2x4's, MDF top, and optionally some laminate to protect the MDF better.

 

[Gofor]

Here is the setup I used for resawing some 8" BW. Using the drill press with a smooth board clamped to it as an outfeed worked well and was easy to set up. In the pics is a pice of planed walnut, but I also have used a melamine surfaced shelf, which i waxed. Using cross braces clamped across a step ladder for infeed support let me concentrate on keeping the feed against the fence and going at the right rate, instead of having to worry about lifting it also. I set my outfeed support almost level with my saw table (within 1/32"), but lay a straight edge on them to make sure they are in the same plane.



Having a flat side against the fence, and a squared, straight bottom edge is crucial to this type set up working. Hope this helps.

Go

 

[sediener]

I may be completely out of line here but isn't it a bad idea to have a featherboard on the outfeed side? Won't that pinch the cut and lead to burning?

 

[Ken Massingale]

Thanks Jeremy and Mark. You've planted a couple of seeds for me to work with.

Steve, when I use a featherboard on the outfeed side of a bandsaw, I apply light pressure compared to the one on the infeed side. The bulky 4x6 had a mind of it's own. When it slid on the roller stand (infeed) sideways, it was pushing the other end of the 4x6 away from the fence. But with the stock being 6+ feet long, it just compressed the FB and did what it wanted to anyway. :-(


I'd never use a FB on the outfeed side of a tablesaw.

 

[Travis Porter]

I don't have pics, but I made around a 6" wide by 4 foot infeed and outfeed assembly for my saw. Rollers are a pain especially on a bandsaw IMO.

 

[Travis Porter]

I may be completely out of line here but isn't it a bad idea to have a featherboard on the outfeed side? Won't that pinch the cut and lead to burning?

No, I think you have a point. It isn't as big of a deal on think resaw or a bandsaw in general, but not something I normally do either.