# resawing: bandsaw- thickness variance



## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

Hi all,
First I am trying this forum because I searched and did not find any relevant posts/info in other areas - so please let me know if I should move/repost! it seemed relevant here....

I am just getting started resawing thin "veneer" and thin boards (meaning not the 1/40" stuff but 1/6" plus).

I have a Laguna LT14 SUV with a new 1" ReSaw King blade.

My question is about adjusting for drift and thickness variance.

I am trying to adjust for even thickness - I am seeing .5 thousandths difference in a 12"cut... meaning for a 12" board, I slice off a 1/16" (+) veneer cut and the FRONT edge is say 0.070" and the trailing edge is 0.075"

After having "slightly" adjusted fence drift both ways a tiny bit - I am confused... I STILL have the same leading edge is thinner than trailing edge thickness ?

Any light you can shed on my setup/adjustment that would affect this would be most helpful!


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## SLAC_Engineer (Feb 23, 2012)

I'm not an expert on redrawing but if you are holding .005" then your doing pretty good. That's basically a little bit thicker than a human hair.

If you want the two surface more parallel the finish it with a drum sander or planer.


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

*to elaborate:*

I hear what you are saying,
but it means that if you are sawing a 2.5" board into 24-32 slices in a flitch,

and you stack them up....

then one end may be say 1 3/16 and the trailing edge 1 7/16, or 4/16 or 1/4" !!!

so I realize that's a 1/4" over 24 pieces,
it just seems like I could do better ?

or - I just want to understand what the cause is, and deal with it ;-)
(even if dealing with it is that's the best your gonna get kid')


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## SLAC_Engineer (Feb 23, 2012)

The wood whisperer did a good video on tuning up your bandsaw. I will have to find the link.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*a few things to check*

Is the table absolutely 90 degrees to the blade?
Are the side guides running against the side of the blade, but not under pressure?
Is the blade tensioned to a clear tone sound when plucked?
Is there any angle other then 90 degrees to a short kerf in from the end on a square cut 1 x 8"... meaning is it vertical? Test by rotating the piece over and making a new kerf along side the first one. They should be parallel.
Does the blade drift or lead to one side or the other under low feed pressure?
Does increasing feed pressure change the drift or does it just plow through?
Even though the blade may be new, it may have more set on one side than the other. 
Some woods are much more difficult to resaw than others.
They require more feed pressure and act like you have a dull blade. 
The blade or blade tension is usually the reason for any resawing issues. 
 bill


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

woodnthings said:


> Is the table absolutely 90 degrees to the blade?
> Are the side guides running against the side of the blade, but not under pressure?
> Is the blade tensioned to a clear tone sound when plucked?
> Is there any angle other then 90 degrees to a short kerf in from the end on a square cut 1 x 8"... meaning is it vertical? Test by rotating the piece over and making a new kerf along side the first one. They should be parallel.
> ...


Side guides: yes... they are ceramic inserts, adjusted to "dollar bill" gap.

The tension on blade is "high". after a certain point (near max) the tone does not change. per the manufacturer (and others) it should be "near max" for the 1" resaw king blade. some, but very little defection in blade.

As for parallel to fence, perpendicular to table, that seems NOT to be an issue. (using a machinists square)

I have tried slow, super slow, medium and fast speeds on (3+) boards - meaning I have taken 3-4 boards and run them through with same saw settings, but adjusting only the feed speed.
I seem to get the same variance (within reason).

the one thing I do notice is that on all pieces,
the more cuts I make, the more I see a curve, or a "hollow" at the middle of the board - meaning that for each cut,
I see an increasing gap, between the middle of the board and the fence, convex to the fence, concave to the board if you will... and, as I said, thicker toward the trailing end.


I will try the highest blade tension I can and see what results I get.

thanks !


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

In my experience a concave kerf means a dull blade. It's best to have several on hand at all times and sometimes they are cheaper in quantities of 3 or more. That way you can switch it out to see if the blade is the problem. I know they are expensive, I use the Timberwolf from Grizzly 3/4" x 3 TPI with pretty good results, but I haven't tried 1/16" thick veneers.
I did make a 1/32" thick slice by accident with a 14" Craftsman and a home welded 1/2" 3 TPI blade just recently. It was in 4" Oak.
I round the back edge of the blade while it's running with a stone just to take the sharp edge off. I also will stone the side of the blade if it clicks going through the side guides. I don't know if that makes any difference in the resaw ability. 

You may be pushing the mechanical limits of the blade and the machine, but others claim equal or better results so It's a mystery. Woodslicer is a blade that get good resaw reviews. 
You might check for reviews online.  bill


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## ETWW (Mar 27, 2011)

I think you are striving for perfection when the results you are getting are perfectly acceptable. I also doubt that you will be able to improve much on those results straight off the saw. Saw blade striations are probably 5 thou or more.

I'd suggest you invest in a drum sander, cut your veneer slightly thicker and then sand it down to final thickness. That will give you a smoolther veneer with uniform thickness (maybe, 5 thou is good even for a drum sander)


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## del schisler (Nov 5, 2009)

bbaley said:


> Hi all,
> First I am trying this forum because I searched and did not find any relevant posts/info in other areas - so please let me know if I should move/repost! it seemed relevant here....
> 
> I am just getting started resawing thin "veneer" and thin boards (meaning not the 1/40" stuff but 1/6" plus).
> ...


This is the blade i use now i have used the others and this one will out saw those. It is from this comp. you have to call the and get a price it will be less than you pay now. here is the web http://www.supercutbandsaw.com/


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*The Laguna Resaw King blade*

http://www.lagunatools.com/accessories/resawking

I frankly don't see how you can get a better blade, although that one hasn't been mention here as far as I know.... pretty pricey at $1.73 per inch. 

Could it possibly be that a tooth is out of tolerance causing the variation in thickness, but that wouldn't explain the concave kerf... so like I said it's a bit of a mystery. Time to call Laguna Service rep? Good luck with that as I have not heard great things about their customer service, but blades may be an outsource item.  bill


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

Good thread with some really quality responses.

After hard lessons of how not to do things with blades from Grizzly/Timberwolf, I reverted to using only Lenox and nothing else.

I must admit though, I have never bothered to cut within 0.005 on a 12" resaw before, a normal hand plane shaving is around 0.003"


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*Now this you won't believe*

No blade guides....waht?


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

woodnthings said:


> http://www.lagunatools.com/accessories/resawking
> 
> I frankly don't see how you can get a better blade, although that one hasn't been mention here as far as I know.... pretty pricey at $1.73 per inch.
> 
> I am in fact running a brand new 1" Resaw king...


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*I figured that*



bbaley said:


> woodnthings said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.lagunatools.com/accessories/resawking
> ...


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

*the jist*

thank you all for the info;

Agreed, that we are talking about small numbers here, and that on a given slice it amounts to very, very little.

My question was really related to a possible setup issue and or understanding of what causes CONSISTENT tapering on each cut,
where the end result of cutting say, 24-32 slices of a piece, results in a flitch stack with a total variance of 1/4" (or more).

Again, the point being that the start of the cut is always thinner than the end of the cut.

I will try with max blade tension and also with some other blades to try and narrow it down - admittedly I was working on the assumption that my new, sharp $1.73 per inch resaw king blade was not the issue and that it was me and my setup - OR - that it's normal and expected and just plain ok ! ;-)


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

woodnthings said:


> I round the back edge of the blade while it's running with a stone just to take the sharp edge off. I also will stone the side of the blade if it clicks going through the side guides. I don't know if that makes any difference in the resaw ability.


I'm not sure either - I thought rounding the back of the blade *mostly* had to do with cutting curves, where it was expected the back of the blade would touch one side or the other.

In the case of resaw alignment for blade drift, we adjust so that there is an even gap on both sides of the back of the blade, meaning not touching [in theory] - so the assumption would be, it is not touching and would not matter.

there, I said it... assumption ;-)


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

SLAC_Engineer said:


> If you want the two surface more parallel the finish it with a drum sander or planer.


Just to be a smart-alec, I have to ask....

How do you suggest I put a 1/16" or thinner veneer through the planer??? ;-)


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

woodnthings said:


> Does the blade drift or lead to one side or the other under low feed pressure?
> Does increasing feed pressure change the drift or does it just plow through?


the lead, or the end-result thickness variance does not seem to be related much to SPEED...

however, since as has been pointed out many times, we are talking tiny numbers here, maybe it is, but *not much*


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## wood player (Jan 21, 2011)

In the vidieo without blade guides I believe he has them but they are very far apart. I worked years ago for lakeland mills and we cut seat slats on a 30 inch bandsaw from cedar logs about 20 in. long because of the jig and all we had to set the guides high and tighten the tension. The sales rep looked at it measured it with his calipers, raised his eyebrows and said "I guess if it works" as far as I know they still do it that way 18 years later.


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## Brian Baley (Feb 22, 2009)

*UPDATE: no one solution, but persistence pays off*

All,
thank you for all your input. Since you were all kind enough to spend your time responding I thought I would update the thread with my findings / status and notes;

After much fidgeting, re-adjusting, testing, and, beer...
I ran the following:

26" x 8" x ~1/8" Cheery "veneer". This stuff is super hard and dense. super hard to cut, blows up in a planer (literally).

In the stack of 10 slices my variance from the top front corner to the rear bottom is between 1 63/128 and 1 61/128.
or about a 64th.
which, divided by 9 cuts = ~ 0.146025/64ths per slice.
or, 0.002197265625 inch.

So the variance on any given slice is 2 thousandths give or take.

wow. 
I will never complain again.

What I did (or do now);

1. start the cut very slowly and very carefully. the start of the cut is most prone to put deflection into the blade pushing it out (away from the fence)

2. use larger mechanics squares on the setup. as big as possible. It's harder than you would think to the table perpendicular to the blade. 

3. Trust the visual test of drift to the test cut for your fence. Also, this varies a bit it seems based on blade tension. mark the best blade tension in sharpie, and don't trust your blade tension indicator.

4. Push the stock into the blade much like a table saw. put the most pressure on the bottom, opposite corner of the stock from the fence, pushing with half? as much pressure toward the fence as into the blade - aiming for the blade. Only use pressure on the stock elsewhere minimally - a featherboard consistently made it WORSE not better. holding a light finger push at the bottom of stock near blade to make sure against fence works best. (worse because of vibration/sticking/etc not thickness) - that's hard to visualize I guess.

5. My saw uses ceramic guides, not roller bearings so I do not know how relevant this is to other saws - but one big key was to adjust the OUTSIDE guides flush to the blade, and (as Laguna suggests) use a dollar bill to gap the other (they don't specify which). This minimizes the push-out from the fence but still leaves enough gap.

6. True-up two sides as best as possible. I don't have an 8" jointer, so I have to resort to the flip-cut, flip-cut to average alternate flat surfaces. it seems to work well enough.

anyway, thanks and cheers!


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