Thread: blade positioning

Have a look at this and it works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGbZqWac0jU

I set the blade so the back of the gullet is running in the center of the wheels. I do this so I dont need to adjust the side blade guides forwards or backwards, they should be pretty close to the right position. Of course u can set the side guides wherever and just adjust the tracking to suit the position of the guides.

You can set many different ways and in the end they all work much the same, however u do need to avoid setting the blade at the back if the wheels, always make sure that atleast the teeth r forward of center on the wheels otherwise the teeth start to chew the tyres.

Hi 3 Toe,
I've had my run of the mill 14in. B/Saw since 1987.
I have always had the blade run in the Centre of the Tyre.
There are no marks on either Tyres, & it wood be the most used machine in my Shed.
Every time I have changed the Blade for a New One, I have written down the details. There has to be at least 30+ Blades, gone through my Saw.
I have never ever loosened the Blade when not in use, & I just Twang the Blade for Tightness.

Works for Me.

Thanks, Tore, I'm familiar with that video, I think it's excellent. Ive pretty much adopted that method and it seems to work fine.

Kuffy, sounds like what you're saying is also the same as in the Alex Snodgrass video. I'm happy running the blade that way, it's just when someone passionately advocates having the teeth off the front of the wheel, and implies that running the blade in the centre of the wheel is foolish, I started to wonder if I'm missing something.

Thanks, issatree, that proves the point about damaging the tyres was wrong.

Sounds like you give your saw a good workout.

If the wheels are crowned (most Asian saws) then the blade runs centred on the top wheel.

If the wheels are flat (most European saws) then it is usual to run the blade at the edge of the top wheel with the teeth hanging off.

Well, that makes sense,Chris, because this all came up when I bought a new Hammer N3800 and the guy telling me about the "forward" blade position was European.

Originally Posted by 3 toed sloth

Thanks, Tore, I'm familiar with that video, I think it's excellent. Ive pretty much adopted that method and it seems to work fine.

Kuffy, sounds like what you're saying is also the same as in the Alex Snodgrass video. I'm happy running the blade that way, it's just when someone passionately advocates having the teeth off the front of the wheel, and implies that running the blade in the centre of the wheel is foolish, I started to wonder if I'm missing something.

The problem seems to be that the differences of both are never explained and a European salesman for instance never goes into the differences or even mentions that crowned wheels exist. If a crowned wheel has the blade set up in the centre and is tracking correctly the teeth are actually not hard against the wheel as the centre of the blade is what is loaded the most. What happens when a blade is tracked correctly on a crowned wheel is you have angled the teeth using the crown of the wheel to do so and the teeth are now parallel to the fence. The biggest problem with the Snodgrass video is that he does not explain the why and what of what he is doing and if he had there would be more understanding of the "why" of it all. He also does not make the point that he is only dealing with crowned wheels which I found surprising.

When using a crowned set of wheels, the blade will automatically ride up to the centre of the wheel.

If one tries to set the teeth on the front of the wheel one will be spending a lot of time in tuning the machine instead of doing the fun part.

I have two bandsaws and run both on the centre of the wheel and do not have issues with spending time adjusting and better than that " no broken blades".

Time spent on initial set up is time well spent.


Router

Originally Posted by router

When using a crowned set of wheels, the blade will automatically ride up to the centre of the wheel.

If one tries to set the teeth on the front of the wheel one will be spending a lot of time in tuning the machine instead of doing the fun part.

I have two bandsaws and run both on the centre of the wheel and do not have issues with spending time adjusting and better than that " no broken blades".

Time spent on initial set up is time well spent.


Router

And you have just set the teeth parallel with the fence and no drift. My point was that no one seems to make the difference between the two systems when explaining things. I went from a crowned wheel saw to a European saw and was told ro set it up with the blade on the edge of the wheel, he should have asked me first what type of saw I had and what type of wheel on it and taken the conversation and explanation from there. Presumption does not help the new customer going from one to the other, it only confuses them even more.

Thanks gents, It's great to get right down to the nitty-gritty on this stuff.

At the risk of adding to the confusion, here's an excerpt from the Hammer N3800 manual:

"Saw Blade Replacement/tension

Place the new saw blade over both wheels(note the direction of the cut!)..."

"....Release the clamping lever and using the hand wheel"...(ie, the bits that adjust the top wheel for tracking)..." set the saw blade track so that it lies in the centre of both wheels (thereby turning the wheels!)"

No wonder I'm confused!?

Are the wheels flat or crowned? I would ring up the bloke who you spoke to and ask him to sort out what is what. You paid good money for it so you should get good advice.

I have watched the video and certainly wouldn't disagree with any of it.
The blade on my bandsaw is more or less in the centre of the tyre, slightly behind if anything.
I have not gone to great pains to tune my bandsaw as it is quite old and noisy and the motor is rather under-powered for my liking and not very good for resawing.

I can understand people thinking that having the teeth running on the rubber tyre would damage it but ceratainly don't think there is evidence of this.Having the teeth overhanging the front of the wheels seems to make no sense, you certainly wouldnt want to try that with a blade that is only 6mm deep!
You would want the tyres supporting and driving as much of the blade as possible.

I think there is a tendency to forget that the bansaw was surely invented to cut curves primarily and not straight lines.

Originally Posted by mark david

I think there is a tendency to forget that the bansaw was surely invented to cut curves primarily and not straight lines.

Bandsaws were invited primarily to resaw timber with minimal wastage (i.e. smaller kerf ) and curve cutting, especially smaller radii curves came later. The first machines had a lot of problem with breaking blades so they tended to be relatively wide and run on large wheels to reduce blade flex, Cutting curves of anything other than very large radii would break the blades It was only as steels and methods to join blade ends improved that thinner and narrower blades could be used that would stay together to cut tighter curves.

We tend to think of Bandsaws as furniture making machines but they have a huge footprint in wood milling, metal working and meat processing.
An example of this is in the Hare and Forbes catalog where they show 37 models of metal cutting bandsaws and 12 of wood cutting. Most of these are used as straight line cutters.

I also use mine to cut up bones for our dogs - it works a treat and serves are a regular reminder of how quickly they will remove a finger or even e a wrist