I hope this is the right place to ask a question without getting it cut.
Does anybody have a idea to use only the sled to resaw without a fence.  No matter what I try the fence gets the wood in a bind?  Thanks  Philip

I'm cutting popular, sweetgum and alot of cherry.  I;m using a 30 year old 14" Rockwell bandsaw.  It cut great using a sled I made but it takes to much time and a lot of for error measuring one at a time.

Resawing can be done 2 ways, rough for turning stock, which most of us use. Then you can resaw fine veneers that are 1/16 thick and need almost no sanding, which is just short of rocket science... So, first is to make sure your saw is set up straight and square. If you are going to use a fence, then you need to make sure the fence is dead true to the blade. This can be the difficult part since most blades are not very wide and it is difficult to measure it out perfectly. One of the bandsaw set up books tells how to get this close. Another method is a high fence with a round post for the vertical part, and it is lined up with the teeth of the blade and you correct as you go. Most of the time for me, I use a pencil line and cut to that. Chalk line works well also. Of course to get boards/cuts with parallel sides, the bottom surface needs to be dead flat, and the sides parallel to the blade. I have seen some fence set ups that are commercially made, but most of the time I do not need that kind of accuracy.

robo hippy

robo_hippy wrote on Aug 19^th, 2016 at 11:02pm:


While I don't necessarily "disagree", these are only 2 types of re-sawing which are the extremes. Re-sawing can be done in many methods depending on what outcome your looking for. 
robo_hippy wrote on Aug 19^th, 2016 at 11:02pm:

If you don't have your saw aligned properly(whatever method you use) it will be almost impossible to ge a parallel cut. The method Reed described and the photo Ron showed are good ways of re-sawing without having to rely on fence and/or blade alignment.

What size are the pieces being cut? How high, how thick and how long

I haven't seen it posted previously but what kind of blade are you using and HP of your saw and the over-all width of the wood you're trying to re-saw?

You did reference in your initial post that you've done it successfully in the past but are looking for a quicker way to get through the process.  I've done some re-sawing in the past and on those occasions where it's been the most successful my saw had to be tuned quite closely and executed with care.

william trench wrote on Aug 21^st, 2016 at 5:51am:

+1

I think we've entered the two schools of thought here.

william trench wrote on Aug 21^st, 2016 at 5:51am:

This is easily corrected by the tracking adjustment.
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Don Stephan wrote on Aug 21^st, 2016 at 7:51pm:

IMO
Not really much of an issue with the bandsaw, as the back of the blade is still moving in a downward direction. Where as a Table saw the rear of the blade is moving upward and can throw the wood once it's been pinched.
Take care when using any tool.
Tools don't have brains, you need to use your own.

Don Stephan wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2016 at 7:59am:


Don, I agree with your assessment but that's a different problem and again, two schools of thought.
On Tablesaws,
Many European saws used to have fences that terminate just beyond the blade. While this helps to reduce the binding issue, it also has limitations.
Moat American saw have long fences, beyond the standard 27" table top. While these fences can provide a straighter cut if used properly, due to the longer reference area, there is still the potential to bind. This is one reason why the riving knife was adopted.

While the wood closing up beyond the cut can happen on a bandsaw, it is less likely to bind the blade due to it's small width and lack of teeth on the area that might bind. This makes it less likely to be a safety hazard as I mentioned above.
While I have had the situation happen as you described, (pushing away form the fence into the blade) this is typically isolated to a particular piece of wood, maybe 1 in 100, not something that would make me change my re-saw setup.