Resawing help

[lilgodwin]

I've looked up a bit about resawing and tried it on my own. I've already wasted some wood, even after using scrap woods to test it out.

Not sure if it's the wood type messing with me or what. But, resawing the scraps seemed to work alright. Good enough to work with anyway. But when I go to do the good stuff, I get some serious cupping... Or the blade just completely veers off to the side.

Here's a few pictures to show my setup. Block spacing and height. The blade tension is about a turn or two above the 1/2" mark. Almost where a 3/4" mark would be if there was one.







And here's the start of some cupping.



And yes, I did use the fence (miter gauge) and an extension. What the heck am I doing wrong?

[ERLover]

I am not an expert on resawing but first off you need to get some cool block blade guides, yours are too far away from the blade, and need to be reground or/and replaced.

[ERLover]

Plus your rear support bearing needs to be adjusted, look at your pic, the blade and the groove on the bearing is not aligned.

[Skizzity]

I don't know how much this matters but have you adjusted your fence to account for blade "drift"?

[JPG]

Plus your rear support bearing needs to be adjusted, look at your pic, the blade and the groove on the bearing is not aligned.

I think that is an 'original/oem' backup bearing. No 'center' groove. That is a 'wear' mark.

Fer sure the guides are severely worn and need refacing.

Drift is also likely a culprit.

Last but not least is the sharpness of the blade. The harder or more contrary the grain, the more important that is.

If you have been cutting pitchy 'soft' wood it might help to clean the blade.

P.S. Go slow!

[lilgodwin]

Thanks for the quick responses.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the blade keeps coming in and out of the groove of the upper bearings. It is the dual bearing setup by the way. And the tension, as I mentioned, is extremely high (to me anyway). Turning the bandsaw by hand, rather, spinning it somewhat quickly, the blade pops out I believe at the same spot every time, then goes back to where it should be.

I had planned on grinding down the blocks to make them like new again. I suppose that'd be good start. How close should they be to the blade for resawing?

Regarding drift. Maybe I'm not familiar with the exact term/meaning, but isn't that obviously the issue? Like, the same as cupping, where the blade moves from side to side throughout the cut.

I hadn't thought about blade sharpness. I could throw another one on there, hopefully that, along with the other suggestions, will fix the issue.

And yes, I have been going slow, but thanks for making sure regardless.

Further thoughts?

[wa2crk]

Lil
In one of your pics of the blade it looks as though the teeth are only set to the right side of the blade. The left side looks like the teeth are flat and this will cause drift.
Bill V

[JPG]

I had not noticed 'the teeth'. A gremlin fer sure.

I stand corrected re the bearing.

"Drift" as appropriate here is the tendency of the blade to be more aggressive on one side than the other. Also the word describes the end result(the cutline veers off course).

Finally with all blade 'guides' backed away from the blade, does the blade follow a line tangent to both wheels except at one place on the blade? If so it is bent. I assume you have the guides and backup bearing set to that tangent line when cutting.

Resawing thick(tall)hardwoods requires near perfect setup.

[reible]

Among the other advice given let me add that the guides should be just behind the teeth. They have to be adjusted for each blade width you put on.

1g.jpg (65.57 KiB) Viewed 11465 times

Ed

[rjent]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, is that you probably need to crank up your tension. I have found for "heavy" resawing, you need more tension on the blade than normal. JMHO