Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm just bumping this old thread up because it is awesome. Not just best blades, but best theory and practice for resawing. Especially fryovanni's post towards the bottom of the first page. I was glad to find it, others might be too

Peace,
Sanaka

My experience with Timberwolf/Viking bands is not good. New they cut nicely, but once they start to dull a little, they quickly heat up and lose their set. Then they get really hot and dull in a hurry -very short lived for me.

Try looking at the Lenox kerf-master bands from Spectrum Supply. Then cut nicely and last far longer for me than the Timberwolf/Viking bands.

-jd

I thought I would ask my question on here instead of posting a new thread. Has anyone had any experiance with woodmaster ct with 2 tpi? I was going to try it out, but spectrum supply ran out of it and I am not sure if I should wait the 3 weeks for it to come in. I am now debating on just getting the ct with 1.3 tpi. Any opinions?

Trying to sort through all this info to decide what blade to use on my Jet 14" saw (with riser block)... I don't do a lot of resawing, but I'm getting ready to cut maybe 40 sets or so out of various woods - black limba, hard maple, white oak, black walnut, etc - the toughest of them probably being a piece of Makore I should be able to get a couple of sets out of.

Up till now, I've used a Woodslicer. I've been thinking it's time for me to get a carbide tipped blade, but after reading all of this, and another recent thread on the same topic, I'm still uncertain as to the best choice. The Lenox Trimaster, 1/2" width? Or - ? Any additional advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks -

:mrgreen: Is this a private fight or can anyone join in?- Old Irish Saying- I have had a couple conversations with Louis Iturra of Iturra design and that has helped shorten my learning curve on resawing. I have tried alot of blades on my last two saws. I had grizzly 14" G0457 with the tall throat 2hp motor and now I have a Shopfox 21" with a 5hp and ceramic guides. This is my sixth bandsaw 1. Rockwell 14", 2. Inca 330, 3. Inca 710, 4. Minimax pro 32, 5. G0457 Grizzly 14". Resawing is not easy! Alot of factors to deal with. I love bandsaws but they can be the toughess machine in the shop to set up because of all the variables. They don't recommend large blades on a small bandsaw because they can't be tensioned properly and if the wheel is small they will work harden and break. I used a 1/2 trimaster on my Grizzly 14" and it was pretty good but if I pushed hard I could stop the saw in a 8" cut. One over looked thing is the blade speed. Resaw bandsaws have a fast blade speed that one reason I opted for the 21" 4600fpm. Iturra in his catalog shows how to soup up a Delta 14" to resaw with a different pully set up to get it up in the neighborhood of 4000 fpm. I could see a big difference from the Grizzly at 3000fpm as the blade has to get rid of the saw dust. I am still learning about resawing lately I have been using Lenox bi-metal 1' variable tool like the wood slicer. They work very well and the finish surface of the cut is very good. I wish I could sharpen them as the cost about $65 bucks a piece. Good tip in a previous post about cleaning them. Sometimes dull is really just dirty. One thing worth mentioning to potentional resawers is you process after the machine is well set up. The stock has to be flat and square. If the wood has a warp in it it won't contact the fence properly. So I face joint and edge joint my wood. I have screwed up alot of wood trying to skip this part. I bought some nice Sapele today but it is already at 3/4" but it may have developed a warp in storage. In my experience 1 set and an orphan is better than two junk sets. Buy thicker wood and rejoint often I usually do it every couple slices. It because errors compound. I have tried cutting several slices one after the other without rejointing and it was a big mistake. So maybe this will help or maybe someone can help in my resaw technique. I failed to add that I spent alot of time working on my fence adding a high corian fence and making a micro adjuster. I am working on making it a little more solid so it won't deflect. I have nice wheel hold ins I bought from Stockroom supply but it is easy to overtighen them and deflect the fence we are talking thousands but with guitar we talk in thousands. Bill The Greenman

Has anyone actually compared the number of sets you can resaw with a carbon vs a carbide blade to see if the price difference is worth it? I can get a 111" carbon kerfmaster from Spectrum Supply for $18, or a carbide trimaster for $144. Will the carbide blade really resaw eight times as many sets as the carbon blade? Thanks, Paul

Well, I decided on the Woodmaster CT but it only comes in 1" widths and there is no way my 14" Grizzly could tension that so I'm ordering a new bandsaw

Thanks for your input, Jim. Much appreciated.


Apparently you're experience has been different, Jim. Maybe the solution is simply a very slow feed rate - ?

Joey,

All of my re-saws run a 7/8" tooth spacing. I would rather have fewer teeth than more as the issue in resawing is removing the sawdust. More teeth means smaller gullets which means more sawdust is trapped in the cut unless you really reduce your feed rate which creates other problems. The statements made above are general in nature and look like they were made for a 14" saw. By your blade length your saw is larger than that so I would keep your band. Your sawing schedule (6 slices per inch) is very ambitious and I will be interested to hear how you make out. When sawing for your own use you can get away with this but when I saw (even when I custom resaw for others) the best I is 4 slices per inch with .055 kerf.

Shane