Bandsawing a large board

[masonsailor2]

I think as long as you take your time you can pretty much resaw anything that will fit through the SS band saw. In 1980 my wife and I were building our first house together and we decided to buy a SS with all the SPT’s. We had very little money and it took a while. During the framing process we culled out any 2x4 and 2x6’s that were clear DF and set them aside and stickered them to dry. A year later we were out of money and were down to the exterior trim. We decided to use all the DF to make the exterior trim. We used the band saw to slice a whole stack of lumber in half giving us 1x6 and 1x4 trim. It took a while but the SS came through with flying colors.
Paul

[BuckeyeDennis]

I think as long as you take your time you can pretty much resaw anything that will fit through the SS band saw. In 1980 my wife and I were building our first house together and we decided to buy a SS with all the SPT’s. We had very little money and it took a while. During the framing process we culled out any 2x4 and 2x6’s that were clear DF and set them aside and stickered them to dry. A year later we were out of money and were down to the exterior trim. We decided to use all the DF to make the exterior trim. We used the band saw to slice a whole stack of lumber in half giving us 1x6 and 1x4 trim. It took a while but the SS came through with flying colors.
Paul

That's been my experience too. My own acid test was sawing an up a piece of Osage Orange log that barely fit through my SS bandsaw. It was a piece that had been in my woodpile for over 20 years (that stuff never rots), and it made "old hickory" look positively soft in comparison. But the SS bandsaw cut it with no problem, using a cheap resaw blade.

That's why it caught my attention when Forrest had to repeatedly wedge the kerf in that big cherry board. My own bandsaw is on a Power Station, which also has an internal CVT, but only a 3/4hp motor, if memory serves.

[charlese]

First let me thank Forrest for this very interesting post

Now a few words about using the Speed Reducer with the PowerPro while bandsawing. In my experience with the bandsaw and a PP, I found clunking of the PP to be a very undesirable feature of sawing at 900 to 950 RPM. I have never noticed any lack of power, even during resawing without the Speed reducer - just the damn clunking. Clunking vibrations have the effect of loosening set screws and possibly other things not yet discovered.

In trying to solve the problems caused by clunking, I have returned my PP to Shopsmith twice. They have gone over the machine and returned it. In addition, we had a beneficial conversation via e-mails. Shopsmith wanted me to return my bandsaw for a re-build, but I turned that offer down, as there were absolutely no issues while using the loaner headstock (a standard Mark V) during the first repair.

During conversations with SS I was told that the steel sanding disk will end clunking issues. Didn't work for me, but is seems to for Forrest and that's a good thing!

I thought I'd try a speed reducer to increase the speed of the PP - and it worked So that's what I use. Got to say that the sawing and the noise are both very smooth! I don't know about any increase in power, but from what I've read about the PP motor, I think any power increase, if present, is negligible.

One of these days I will change out parts of my bandsaw. It will be interesting to see if these changes affect anything related to clunking. I am particularly interested to see if upper bandsaw wheel changes have an effect. Although my upper wheel needle bearings are always greased, there is a little (very little) wobble on that shaft with no saw blade.
Is this compounded when a large blade and the increased pressure on the wheel is used?

[admin]

If I had all of the equipment, I'd gladly become your "test station". But since I do not, I will patiently wait for the results. I am confident that there will be takers on this forum. That is what makes it so valuable to the Shopsmith community.

I am just disappointed that we do not see evidence that Shopsmith is listening (though I believe they are).

We know of one that is listening.

I believe SS desires to be non intrusive to this forum. Other than direct forum related responses, only once(to my knowledge) has SS interjected a comment(i.e. SS engineer re power pro software tweaks) and that was for a very good reason.

I am not ignoring Nick's earlier responses. I did not consider them to be 'SS' responses. I do miss them!!

I have passed the question to our Engineer. He wanted to go back to his test data to be able to get a good answer. Because of how this motor works, it apparently isn't a simple answer.

Please be patient. He is busy with a number or projects, which will likely prevent us giving quick response for your question.