Author Topic: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?  (Read 5294 times)

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Offline toomanyknots

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Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« on: April 27, 2013, 06:56:08 pm »
I have been using the woodslicer from highland wood working, and they go dull on me so fast, it really doesn't seem worth the 40 bucks for a blade. They work great for the first little bit of use, but then shortly go dull it seems. I am thinking about buying a carbide tipped blade for longer life. I have heard good things about the lennox trimaster and the laguna resaw king. Anybody got any experience with these blades? I got my bandsaw in my basement, with a low ceiling. When the wood slicer goes dull, it takes me forever to rip just one 80" hickory backing, which because of the low ceiling the sound kind of reflects off and is hurting my ears, even with hearing protection. So I am trying to rip them as fast as possible on the bandsaw. It's really not an issue with a new blade, as it cuts great when it is new. ;D
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline PEARL DRUMS

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2013, 08:57:17 pm »
I dont do any resawing, but love my Timberwolf blades for all the other cutting I do. They are worth the money.
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

Offline JonW

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2013, 09:29:12 pm »
I don't do any resawing either but I will say that the $10 blade I got at Harbor Freight has been going strong for two years now. 4TPI BTW.

Offline toomanyknots

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2013, 09:57:45 am »
I would pick up the laguna because it is close to me locally, but the only thing is I have heard that a 14" bandsaw can rarely tension a 3/4" blade as much as necessary. I have read it is a thicker blade too, so it needs a bit more tension than most 3/4" blades?
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline Badger

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2013, 12:44:48 pm »
Knots you can use the cheap 10.00 carbon back blades 1/2" 3 or 4 teeth per inch and resaw fine. I resaw tropical hardwoods as well as osage and domestic white woods with mine. Their is a little trick about adjusting the drift on your saw that makes the cuts go much faster. First of all set your saw up properly, most important you want the blade tracking in the very center of the top wheel. Adjust your tension and guies and bearings, plenty of online set up tutorials.
     The secret to fast resawing is take a ruler and hold it against the edge of your board and then draw a straight paralell line the length of your board on the inside edge of the ruller about 1" in from the edge of the board. Now carefully feed the board through your saw with no fence cutting straight down your line, adjust the feed angle on your board until it feeds straight through without you moving the back. You may find it is between 1/8" and 1/2" out of square with your fence. This is fine, install a board on your fence at the exact same angle you had to feed the board through at for a straight cut. You will see a remarkable improvement.

Offline lostarrow

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2013, 03:17:11 pm »
The less teeth the better . The blade needs the bigger gullets to get rid of the sawdust on thicker cuts.
If your blade is way out of square , you need to adjust the tilt on the top wheel to get the blade tracking in the center of the rubber.Then adj. the back bearings out so they almost touch the back of the blade. The blades I buy are less than 20 bucks. If you are cutting staves there is always the risk of it twisting and kinking or braking the blade. I don't think there has been enough curse words invented yet for me to do that to a 40 dollar blade ;). If you try racing through a cut you wont get the chip clearance neccesary for a good cut.
  For hearing protection, you can double up. Ear plugs with ear muffs over top. Makes a big difference. I do this sometimes when I'm planing real hard lumber.

Offline toomanyknots

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2013, 04:05:12 pm »
Knots you can use the cheap 10.00 carbon back blades 1/2" 3 or 4 teeth per inch and resaw fine. I resaw tropical hardwoods as well as osage and domestic white woods with mine. Their is a little trick about adjusting the drift on your saw that makes the cuts go much faster. First of all set your saw up properly, most important you want the blade tracking in the very center of the top wheel. Adjust your tension and guies and bearings, plenty of online set up tutorials.
     The secret to fast resawing is take a ruler and hold it against the edge of your board and then draw a straight paralell line the length of your board on the inside edge of the ruller about 1" in from the edge of the board. Now carefully feed the board through your saw with no fence cutting straight down your line, adjust the feed angle on your board until it feeds straight through without you moving the back. You may find it is between 1/8" and 1/2" out of square with your fence. This is fine, install a board on your fence at the exact same angle you had to feed the board through at for a straight cut. You will see a remarkable improvement.

Thanks for the advice Steve. I do have the drift angle compensated for using a wooden fence clamped onto my actual fence at the angle of the current blade, using some thin wooden wedges to get it just right. I think these woodslicer blades just go dull on me really fast. They do cut nice and fast at first, but then after just a little bit it starts to take forever to make a cut. I am only resawing about 1 1/2" high.

The less teeth the better . The blade needs the bigger gullets to get rid of the sawdust on thicker cuts.
If your blade is way out of square , you need to adjust the tilt on the top wheel to get the blade tracking in the center of the rubber.Then adj. the back bearings out so they almost touch the back of the blade. The blades I buy are less than 20 bucks. If you are cutting staves there is always the risk of it twisting and kinking or braking the blade. I don't think there has been enough curse words invented yet for me to do that to a 40 dollar blade ;). If you try racing through a cut you wont get the chip clearance neccesary for a good cut.
  For hearing protection, you can double up. Ear plugs with ear muffs over top. Makes a big difference. I do this sometimes when I'm planing real hard lumber.

Currently, I have been using some ear muffs rated at 25 decibels, and some of those foam ear plugs. The ear plugs suck though, they keep popping out of my ears. Even if they don't though, it doesn't seem to be enough. My ears (and head) will still hurt, and I will still have temporary hearing loss to a degree. Everything will sound kind of muffled for a day or two, I notice it mostly when having to turn the tv up, or playing guitar and it just isn't enjoyable to play because it sounds muffled, like I am playing with ear muffs on, but I don't have any on. The last thing I wanna do, as a guitar player, is to go partially deaf. I have read that over a certain decibel, like 30 or something like that, that sound is transferred mostly through the bones in your skull instead of the ear canal. I tried putting on a skull cap and then the ear muffs, (with the ear plugs underneath) and it actually worked pretty good, even though the ear muffs didn't have a great seal of course. I'll buy another better skull cap, double up, and see if that helps. It wouldn't be that big of a problem I would think, if it didn't take darn near 10 minutes or longer to make one cut, or if I had a garage with the door open where the sound wasn't bounced right off the concrete wall, etc.
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline lostarrow

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2013, 06:58:37 pm »
That's a bit bizarre that it's that loud. The bandsaw is one of the more quiet machines in a woodshop.Is it quiet before you start your cut? Are the earplugs the tapered kind!  Try changing stlye/type/brand of plug. Not all created equal.  same with the earmuffs. Had a cheap pair once that actually made the sound seem louder. They have to have good foam in the cups and a good soft seal around the ears,otherwise your safety glasses hold them away from your head.I've been in cabinet shops and construction sites for 20 years and can still hear a rabbit hopping in the snow at 30 yds. Hearing is definitely something I cherish and protect.

Offline toomanyknots

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2013, 07:18:10 pm »
That's a bit bizarre that it's that loud. The bandsaw is one of the more quiet machines in a woodshop.Is it quiet before you start your cut? Are the earplugs the tapered kind!  Try changing stlye/type/brand of plug. Not all created equal.  same with the earmuffs. Had a cheap pair once that actually made the sound seem louder. They have to have good foam in the cups and a good soft seal around the ears,otherwise your safety glasses hold them away from your head.I've been in cabinet shops and construction sites for 20 years and can still hear a rabbit hopping in the snow at 30 yds. Hearing is definitely something I cherish and protect.

It's not that it's really that loud, it's just the way my set up is in my basement. The ceiling is pretty low and I am kinda boxed into a little area where the sound bounces off the concrete walls, combined with making a bunch of 80" resaw cuts that takes ten minutes or more for each cut (with a dull blade I guess). With a brand new sharp woodslicer the cuts are nice and quick. It is pretty quite before making any cut.
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline Tom Leemans

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2013, 10:28:53 am »
There's a ton of resawing info on youtube.

Offline Carson (CMB)

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2013, 12:41:04 pm »
I had always adjusted tracking of the blade so that it rode in the center of the wheel, but recently learned that for re-sawing, it is best to put the deepest part of the gullet tracking in the center of your wheel, rather than the center of the blade in the center of the wheel.  I switched to this approach and wont go back.  However, you probably wont be able to run larger than 1/2" blades on most 14" saws when setting them up this way. 

I don't wear protection ;D

A good band saw is not loud.  When you kill the power to the saw does it slowly and steadily come down or does it shutter and come to a halt rather quickly?

Make sure your guides and thrust bearings are set-up correctly.  Guides can dull a blade if thrust clearance is too high.

All that said, my blades dont stay to sharp too long either.  I am thinking about trying a custom carbide blade at some point, but like lost arrow said it can still get bound up and twisted...

"The bow is the old first lyre,
the mono chord, the initial rune of fine art
The humanities grew out from archery as a flower from a seed
No sooner did the soft, sweet note of the bow-string charm the ear of genius than music was born, and from music came poetry and painting and..." Maurice Thompso

Offline toomanyknots

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2013, 03:51:01 pm »
slowly and steadily come down or does it shutter and come to a halt rather quickly?



Slowly and steady. I will try out the different tracking you use.
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline Badger

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Re: Good resaw blade for a 14" bandsaw?
« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2013, 05:12:16 pm »
  I am going to try out the other method fro tracking as well, I have in the past adjusted my tracking for less drift but din't pay any attention to where it ended up.