I rarely use a bandsaw, probably because I'm so bad with it. I have
an old 14" Delta.

I can't get long, smooth curves. My blade always wanders more than I
wish it would.

When I tighten the blade, I strum the blade and stop tightening when I
hear the first musical note. I recently tightened it up much beyond
that, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I also replaced the upper guides with a new stone set.

When I try cutting circles and such, the blade twists. Is this an
issue about blade thickness? How wide does a blade have to be to be
stable?

(One thing I'm trying to do is doubleface tape two different wood
blanks together, cut a long S through them, and reglue opposing pieces
to make two tone cutting boards. I know I need to insert thin
flexible shim strips in the glue up to compensate for the kerf.)

Lazlo wrote:
I rarely use a bandsaw, probably because I'm so bad with it. I have
an old 14" Delta.

I can't get long, smooth curves. My blade always wanders more than
I
wish it would.

When I tighten the blade, I strum the blade and stop tightening when
I
hear the first musical note. I recently tightened it up much beyond
that, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I also replaced the upper guides with a new stone set.

When I try cutting circles and such, the blade twists. Is this an
issue about blade thickness? How wide does a blade have to be to be
stable?

(One thing I'm trying to do is doubleface tape two different wood
blanks together, cut a long S through them, and reglue opposing
pieces
to make two tone cutting boards. I know I need to insert thin
flexible shim strips in the glue up to compensate for the kerf.)

Wide? For curves you want a _narrow_ blade. The first hit I found
with a table of width vs curve radius is
http://www.furniturecebu.com/backoff....23May2006.pdf.



--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 07:36:45 -0800, Lazlo wrote:

I rarely use a bandsaw, probably because I'm so bad with it. I have an
old 14" Delta.

I can't get long, smooth curves. My blade always wanders more than I
wish it would.

When I tighten the blade, I strum the blade and stop tightening when I
hear the first musical note. I recently tightened it up much beyond
that, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I also replaced the upper guides with a new stone set.

When I try cutting circles and such, the blade twists. Is this an issue
about blade thickness? How wide does a blade have to be to be stable?

(One thing I'm trying to do is doubleface tape two different wood blanks
together, cut a long S through them, and reglue opposing pieces to make
two tone cutting boards. I know I need to insert thin flexible shim
strips in the glue up to compensate for the kerf.)

All bandsaw blades have a drift angle.

When making the blades, the teeth are set left and right. Usually one
side of teeth will end up with a sharper grind or further set away from
the blade body. (More expensive blades have a much smaller drift angle,
and could actually be not noticeable, you get what you pay for.)

As you manually feed the wood into the bandsaw blade, you need to be
aware of the drift angle of that blade and compensate your feeding to
match that drift angle.

For my 1/8 inch blade, the drift angle is about 8 to 10 degrees. As I
feed the wood into the blade, the pattern line on the wood is not feed
directly straight in-line to the blade, I swing the wood to my left 10
degrees and sort of feed the line sort of side-wise into the teeth at
about 10 degrees.

Gosh, that's about as clear as mud. Much easier to show you than type it
out. Maybe someone else who is a better wordsmith can explain better.

Note: high end bandsaw fences have elaborate blade drift micro-
adjustments. This dramatically improves the rough kerf sidewalls that
bandsaws are so notorious for.

Lazlo wrote:
I rarely use a bandsaw, probably because I'm so bad with it. I have
an old 14" Delta.

I can't get long, smooth curves. My blade always wanders more than I
wish it would.

When I tighten the blade, I strum the blade and stop tightening when I
hear the first musical note. I recently tightened it up much beyond
that, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I also replaced the upper guides with a new stone set.

Most bandsaws have tires with varying amounts of crown, and where on the
crown your blade is riding has a lot to do with how it behaves. If you
are lucky enough to have the wheels directly in line with one another
(vertically), they are not tilted in any way (forwards or backwards,
left or right), and the blade is riding directly in the center of the
crown on both wheels, then you might stand a chance of the blade having
little to no "lead" (the tendency for a blade to cut out of parallel
with the wheel axles) or twist (where the blade is riding in front of
the crown on one wheel and behind it on the other). Rarely do both
blade and machine coexist in perfect harmony, so it's difficult to
achieve such perfection; but you should at least attempt to ensure that
the wheels on your saw are properly adjusted (a good book as mentioned
by others can be helpful here). Blade lead isn't usually a big problem,
but twist can be a pain, particularly if you're trying to resaw something.

When I try cutting circles and such, the blade twists. Is this an
issue about blade thickness? How wide does a blade have to be to be
stable?

The "twist" I think you're referring to here is simply the back of the
blade rubbing the sidewalls of the kerf as you try to cut a tight curve.
This could be a simple matter of using a blade too large to make the
curve, or one with very little "set", causing a kerf too narrow to allow
much navigation. By all means, your upper and lower guide bearings
should be adjusted to "contain" the blade should such twist occur, but
do not rely on them to prevent the twist; think of those bearings as
simply a guard against allowing the twist to propagate up (or down) to
the drive wheels, causing the blade to mis-track, jump off, or even
break. You should instead select a good sharp blade of the correct size
and sufficient set to navigate the tightest radius you intend to cut.
Your blade should never wander or bind if this is the case.

You also mention that you use the bandsaw very rarely, so there is
another trick to preventing binds and twists of which you might not be
aware. Keep the workpiece moving as you navigate a tight curve.
Cutting curves takes a bit of practice, and the natural tendency seems
to be to cut in short bursts, stopping the advancement of the workpiece
into the blade as you reposition it according to the curve. Don't do
this. Keep the workpiece moving into the blade (however slowly) as you
arc it into the curve; this will work wonders towards preventing binds
and twists.

Hope this helps.

--
See Nad. See Nad go. Go Nad!
To reply, eat the taco.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/

There are upper and lower guides.

What size blade?

How thick is the stock you are working with?

As mentioned the Mark Duginske book or dvd. Search on youtube for
bandsaw videos.

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Your...1007693&sr=8-1

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg9JaAckK9o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cj15Is-Wjs



On Sat, 3 Jan 2009 07:36:45 -0800 (PST), Lazlo
wrote:


I rarely use a bandsaw, probably because I'm so bad with it. I have
an old 14" Delta.

I can't get long, smooth curves. My blade always wanders more than I
wish it would.

When I tighten the blade, I strum the blade and stop tightening when I
hear the first musical note. I recently tightened it up much beyond
that, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I also replaced the upper guides with a new stone set.

When I try cutting circles and such, the blade twists. Is this an
issue about blade thickness? How wide does a blade have to be to be
stable?

(One thing I'm trying to do is doubleface tape two different wood
blanks together, cut a long S through them, and reglue opposing pieces
to make two tone cutting boards. I know I need to insert thin
flexible shim strips in the glue up to compensate for the kerf.)

Phil Again wrote:
(snip)
All bandsaw blades have a drift angle.

When making the blades, the teeth are set left and right. Usually one
side of teeth will end up with a sharper grind or further set away from
the blade body. (More expensive blades have a much smaller drift angle,
and could actually be not noticeable, you get what you pay for.)

As you manually feed the wood into the bandsaw blade, you need to be
aware of the drift angle of that blade and compensate your feeding to
match that drift angle.

For my 1/8 inch blade, the drift angle is about 8 to 10 degrees. As I
feed the wood into the blade, the pattern line on the wood is not feed
directly straight in-line to the blade, I swing the wood to my left 10
degrees and sort of feed the line sort of side-wise into the teeth at
about 10 degrees.

Gosh, that's about as clear as mud. Much easier to show you than type it
out. Maybe someone else who is a better wordsmith can explain better.


What you need is a video, so here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X_7Xt2ga-s

Steve Turner wrote:

The "twist" I think you're referring to here is simply the back of the
blade rubbing the sidewalls of the kerf as you try to cut a tight
curve.

Or it could be that he isn't keeping his stock flat on the table. Not all
that likely but possible.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

"Lazlo" wrote in message
...

I rarely use a bandsaw, probably because I'm so bad with it. I have
an old 14" Delta.

I can't get long, smooth curves. My blade always wanders more than I
wish it would.

When I tighten the blade, I strum the blade and stop tightening when I
hear the first musical note. I recently tightened it up much beyond
that, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I also replaced the upper guides with a new stone set.

When I try cutting circles and such, the blade twists. Is this an
issue about blade thickness? How wide does a blade have to be to be
stable?

(One thing I'm trying to do is doubleface tape two different wood
blanks together, cut a long S through them, and reglue opposing pieces
to make two tone cutting boards. I know I need to insert thin
flexible shim strips in the glue up to compensate for the kerf.)

I'm going to step in here and agree with what most every one has mentioned.
However, IMHO most of what causes a blade to not be stable is actually the
saw. I had a Craftsman BS for several years, it was so much trouble to keep
in tune that I avoided using it and it basically became a waste of space.
Three years ago I purchased an 18" Rikon BS, it was improvement over the
Craftsman but IMHO not much of an improvement. I originally bought the
Rikon sight unseen from Woodcraft and returned it 2 weeks later for a
refund. Four months later I received my Laguna 16" HD BS. To change from a
1/2" blade to a 1-1/4" blade takes me approximately 10 minutes. I adjust
the upper and lower guides strictly by feel and sight and that is absolutely
all that I have to do to get perfect tracking with either size or brand
blade. No more plucking the blade for the musical note, I strictly go by
the built in gauge. I too once thought that cutting on a band saw was some
what of an acquired skill. Buying the Laguna instantly gave me all the
skill that I needed. I can adjust the fence for drift but there is no
drift. I can tilt the top wheel but very seldom have to and if needed when
going from a narrow blade to a wider blade the adjustment knob might get a
1/4 turn for a very subtle adjustment.
The saw and what ever blade is such a dream to work with that I look for
excuses to use it.

If you have an older Delta BS you should have a pretty descent machine but
it is probably not a big honk'n heavy duty machine. You may be expecting
too much from it. I suspect that you are going to be limited to a 1/2"
blade for resawing, bigger than that and you will probably not be able to
tension the blade enough for satisfactory results assuming a wider blade
will even fit. Additionally, wider blades typically do not do well when
made to go around smaller radius wheels.
Good guides are also essential. I had roller bearings and absolutely hated
them and cannot recommend them for various reasons. I do recommend ceramic
guides and again IMHO the more points of contact the better. My Laguna has
10 points where the ceramic touches the blade.

I am in no way trying to sell you a Laguna BS but only pointing out that
when I finally stepped up to this caliber of saw, blade size, blade brand,
and my skills were no longer a factor in obtaining great results. I was
cutting see-through thin 4" wide Oak veneer with the throw-in 1/2"
"non-resaw" blade that came with the saw the first week. This fall I able
to cut, with a 1-1/4" premium resaw blade, 1x6 hard maple in to 5, 5/32"
thick veneers per board very quickly and with only a pass or two through the
drum sander to clean up the slight tooth marks.

Use the suggestions made by others but know that if you still are not happy
there are better saws out there. Yes you will have to spend lots more money
but you do get a machine that makes cutting and resawing almost effortless
and almost instantly after you uncrate it.
Laguna also sells their 10 point ceramic guides for other make saws.

"Leon" wrote in message
refund. Four months later I received my Laguna 16" HD BS. To change from
a
1/2" blade to a 1-1/4" blade takes me approximately 10 minutes.

Interesting comments. A 1-1/4" blade is a honking wide blade. The width of
that blade compared to a 1/2" blade has to offer a substantial improvement
when comparing wander and twist and resawing. You sound pretty happy with
your Laguna.

"Upscale" wrote in message
...

"Leon" wrote in message
refund. Four months later I received my Laguna 16" HD BS. To change
from
a
1/2" blade to a 1-1/4" blade takes me approximately 10 minutes.

Interesting comments. A 1-1/4" blade is a honking wide blade. The width of
that blade compared to a 1/2" blade has to offer a substantial improvement
when comparing wander and twist and resawing. You sound pretty happy with
your Laguna.



The 1-1/4" blade is very stable when resawing. With the 4.5hp Baldor motor
it rips and or resaws faster than my cabinet saw. This particular blade
however is made for resawing, it is a Laguna Resaw King and pretty expensive
and I try to only use it for resawing. As for as an improvement over the
1/2" blade concerning wander and twist I really see don't see much of a
difference. While the 1/2" blade has virtually no wander or twist the
comparison in that respect does not reflect much of a difference. The saw
literally has the back bone, HD components, tensioning spring , "and"
guides that afford very good and consistent blade mounting. Having said
that and I have never tried this but the reps at MiniMax indicated that
their MM16 BS really did not need guides for the blade to track properly
with out twist or wander. I was considering the MM16 and the Laguna LT16HD.
Ultimately I preferred the Laguna guides over the MiniMax guides. The
Laguna guides literally capture the blade on both sides in an upper and
lower spot above the table and again below the table. The guides make
certain that the blade is exiting and entering the upper and lower guides
perpendicular to the bottom of the top guide and the top of the bottom
guide. Laguna has a very good video on the Laguna guides at their web site.
And yes I am very happy with my Laguna BS. The improvement comparison was
similar to when I upgraded from my 1 hp Craftsman contractors saw to my 3hp
Jet Cabinet saw, actually the improvement was probably much better than
that.