Official Luthiers Forum!

http://www.amazon.com/Laguna-Tools-Drif ... B001V62GZE

$275, Free ship.

Works on most any bandsaw. Check out some of these videos, especially where the guy creates 4 slices at about 0.01" all within a few thou of each. And he was not even trying hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zucJs-K4iA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-DfZY67GY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8zq15GpnXU

There are more videos out there.

Hope my wife took the hint for my birthday!! Or I will be admiring these from afar.

Mike

I guess resawing is not a popular sport here (since one can buy the required material already resawed). However, I love finding logs on the roadside and taking them home. You never know what you might get. My Driftmaster fence arrived today. It is a serious chunk of metal. Will install tomorrow. I also bought a Laguna Resaw King bandsaw blade. Have heard nothing but good things about them. We will see.

BTW, the sale is still on.

Mike

I've hovered my mouse over that fence on Amazon several times since you posted this, but haven't convinced myself to pull the trigger yet.

I don't do a lot of re-sawing (yet), but it has one feature I really like over my OEM (PowerMatic) fence, and that is the angle on one side that allows you to lower the guide onto thinner pieces of wood. My factory fence won't allow me to get the fence closer than about 1 1/2" with the guides down. Kind of a bummer considering the price of the saw..

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Jim Hansen

Well, it is a bit pricey, but when the sale is over, it will be way pricey. I just found out they are coming out with an 8" fence that will fit this system (add-on).

I can assure you that it is a very hefty piece of equipment. Plan to install it tonight.

Mike

Got part way through the install, but some of the bolts were too short. Argh. Mcmaster is my friend.

No, I could not find them at the borg.

Mike

Its installed. Really easy to knock out the drift. And the cuts are very repeatable. Even at 0.08"!

Mike

What size is the blade 3/4"? And how smooth is the cut?
Man, I would like to have that fence. Too bad that they didn't make it a 20 thread instead of a 16. Much easier to count .050" a turn then .0625. I changed the screws on my mini mill for that reason. They should make that an option too.

Chris,

The blade I bought is the 1" Resaw King. The sales person said "cuts smooth like 220 grit". I have only cut some soft pine planks in my testing. Those were very smooth. I will let you know when I get to the hard stuff. But so far, I really like that blade! I got it for half price when I bought the driftmaster direct from Laguna. They were selling them direct for a while when Amazon ran out. I bet you could call Tim Lory at Laguna and get the same deal on the blade.

I agree with you on the threads. It is what it is. But it is SO cool to crank the handle and get another board just as thick as the last one! I was skeptical till I tried it. The fence itself is mounted on a pivot so you can quickly and easily adjust for drift.

It all locks down very solid. Once you have it set, repeatable cuts everytime.

Mike

+1 for the Laguna Driftmaster Fence and 1" Resaw King blade combo! I have them on my Italian version LT20SE (bowl turners) bandsaw. I can resaw veneer down to 10 mil easily and with great repeatability, and no need for sanding. I'm planning on making jigs to cut my own kerfing material and bindings on it shortly.

One thing I do is "over tension" the blade a little. I had some very slight grain-following drift issues early on when resawing taller pieces of hard wood. I discussed this with Laguna, who suggested tightening the blade quite a bit more than their normal suggested tension. They told me that it won't do any harm at all to the blade (it's operating well within its safe limits still) as long as you release the tension after use. Once I did this (about 20% more tension), I experienced no grain-following drift at all.

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Dave,

I would be interested in seeing your binding and kerfing jigs...

Mike