Re-Sawing on a Bandsaw

[GrayFox]

My first attempt a re-sawing on a bandswa to get thin veneers turned out much less then satisfactory.

I am using a 1/2" blade, and I'm resawing a piece about 6" thick.

I'd like to ask a few questions, and solicit all the advice I can get from this group, in order to becaome a good re-sawyer. :)

1. How thick should I attempt to resaw? On my first try, I set the thickness at (I thought) just over 1/8". It turned out that the top of the re-sawn piece did come out about 1/8", but the bottom, next to the table, was in many places much thinner, some as thin as 1/16" (or maybe even less).

1. How uniform a thickness cut should I expect?

2. What is the thinnest piece of resawn veneer I can ever expect to accomplish?

1. I am using the corner edge of a piece of wood clamped to my bandsaw table as a fulcrum point to press against as I feed the stock through. I set the distance between the corner of the "guide" and the front of the blade to just a hair over the thicness I want to shave off. Is there a better way?

Thanks in advance.

[bentcajungirl]

[Jim Artherholt]

Just resawed some curly maple to >1/16" today with a 1/2" Timberwolf blade. To do so, had to make sure the blade guides (Carter) were correctly adjusted, the table was perpendicular to the blade, and the fence was perpendicular to the table. Was able to get a uniform thickness along the length and width. All 3 set up operations were essential to get the uniformity. I have an old Delta 14" saw with the original fence that came with it. Would help if I mounted a higher auxiliary fence on it.

[Alan W]

Has anyone here used hand saws to do resawing? I am considering a bandsaw for resawing to cut 6/4 stock down the 1/2" stock, mostly cherry for a while, but have wondered about using a Japanese ripping saw with like 6 teeth to the inch.

Alan

[DarylRos]

Tried it once. Once, that was it. Ripping with a handsaw was a two person operation using a very large frame saw.

I admit, I have the MiniMax 16" 3 HP bandsaw, so veneer cutting is easy.

1. Tune the saw. Make sure the fence is set for the right drift.
2. Use the right blade. It's no different than a tablesaw, when we got an Amana, Freud or Forrest. Top quality costs. Spend the 5 or so and get a Lenox Carbide blade. You can really up the tension to the absolute max (get all the necessary accessories as Iturra Design).

I can cut veneer at 1/32nd of an inch in 8" high walnut. Over and over. The blade is the key.

[Sam]

I never had much luck with the one-point resaw approach. But i have done 1/16 on 14" jet on a 6" board. My observations are a. you need a good fence (I made my own and threw away the stock fence, all mine is is 5" wide two pieces of 3/4 MDF glued at a right angle with some braces to keep it sqaure) The bland needs to be tensioned really well. (sounds like your under) Cut it slightly over and either sand or plane it to final thickness.

And most of all I've discoverd it takes practice so you know when to let up a little bit as not to over work the saw.

[vmtw]

[Andy Dingley]

Yes, I found a Japanese anahiki quite effective, but not a wonderful finish.

my two good ryoba saws, one will re-saw neatly, one won't.

[Norman Wood]

: Has anyone here used hand saws to do resawing? I am considering a : bandsaw for resawing to cut 6/4 stock down the 1/2" stock, mostly : cherry for a while, but have wondered about using a Japanese ripping : saw with like 6 teeth to the inch.

Yes, I have, of a sort. I had about a half-dozen 8'-6x6 aspen timbers that I needed to rip to 3x6 earlier this summer. I made cuts on opposite faces of the timbers with a circular saw, then finished the cuts by hand. I used a nice, old Disston D-8 rip saw that I found on Jon Zimmers' website (matched the D-8 crosscut I got from my dad).

I think the depth of cut on my circular saw is about 2-1/4 inches, so I think I had about 1-1/2 inches of material to saw by hand. With the sawing and a bit of planing, I think I spent about 20 minutes per timber. It was pretty sweaty work, and, since these were for landscaping, I could leave them in somewhat rough shape.

Norm

[charlie b]

Before you get to the bandsaw make sure your stock has at least one flat face, one straight edge and a square corner where the flat face and the straight edge come together. If you don't things will get difficult.

Get or make a fence you can set to the drift/lead angle of your blade. It will make cutting thin stuff a lot easier.

I've seen the owner of Laguna Tools cut see through slices off a block of cherry. Nice for showing off but useless since that's too thin to do anything with. A sixteenth to 3/32nd is attainable without years and years of practice and at that thickness you can do some sanding or scraping without going through it

You can also make a jig for your planer to do thin stuff.

Here's a link to resawing I put together

There's info on making a table and fence and as long as you're resawing thin consider doing some fine line inlaying. Here's a link to that with info about a thin strip planing jig

try it, you'll like it

charlie b

[Swingman]

I wish ... just paid $116 for a sheet of cherry plywood where the veneer pretty well meets that description.

[Renata]

That's what David Marks did last on weekend's show - cut a tad thicker then ran it thru a drum sander for final thicknessing.

Renata

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(no stain for email)

[Swingman]

FWIW, I just put a fresh TimberWolf 1/2", 3 tpi blade on my 14" Delta yesterday and resawed 1/16" cherry for inlays, off 4" stock, using the stock fence. In the past I've had to do quite a bit of futzing around to get things to work that well, but that sharp TW blade made the difference.

[Andrew Barss]

Swingman wrote: : I wish ... just paid $116 for a sheet of cherry plywood where the veneer : pretty well meets that description.

There was an article in Woodshop News a couple of months ago on this. The veneer mills are now producing veneers about half the thickness they used to (somewhere near .001 inch), and some sheetgoods manufacturers were saying it was to thin to final sand.

-- Andy Barss

[Andrew Barss]

Andrew Barss wrote: : Swingman wrote: : : I wish ... just paid $116 for a sheet of cherry plywood where the veneer : : pretty well meets that description.

: There was an article in Woodshop News a couple of months ago on this. : The veneer mills are now producing veneers about half the thickness : they used to (somewhere near .001 inch), and some sheetgoods manufacturers ^^^

Oops. I meant a hundredth of an inch: .01" .

[GrayFox]

I started this thread, and wanted to report that after I bought a new

1/2", 3 tpi Timberwolf blade, set up the saw according to my user's manual, I am now getting results that are, IMHO, good. I think with more practice I'll get really good.

But, the new blade made all the difference in the world.

[mdr]

Here is a site which discusses resawing using a handsaw. If you go to the index, you'll also find a discussion on building a framesaw for the resaw operation. Looks like fine, in a neander-ish way.