Thread: Adjusting Bandsaws

Originally Posted by SNAFU11

Hi guys,not sure if this has been posted before but this guy shows how to properly set up your bandsaw which is very helpful and might help to eliminate problems that some guys might be having trouble with their own saws..i only have a small Ryobi saw at the moment but will be getting a bigger decent saw in the near future and will be adjusting the saw properly before using it...this goes for around 35 mins but very informative.....
Band Saw Clinic with Alex Snodgrass - YouTube
Cheers Mick!!!

Yep, it's been posted and referred to before, many times. Well worth taking notice of. Alex's method works well. ie. Setting tracking so that the blade gullet is centred on the top wheel rather than centring the blade itself.

This vid is excellent. I took away a heap of info.

You are correct, I changed my setup to put the gullet in the centre and it is much better.

Glad I watched it. Going to try a few band sawn boxes now

Originally Posted by Evanism

This vid is excellent. I took away a heap of info.

You are correct, I changed my setup to put the gullet in the centre and it is much better.

Glad I watched it. Going to try a few band sawn boxes now

Yep, we're never too old or experienced to learn new things. My bandsaw wouldn't work for s&*t until I set it up that way - now I can resaw, cut veneer and make bandsaw boxes without problems. No drift at all.

With the bandsawn boxes, just make sure that the table is set 100% square to the blade or you'll strike heaps of little problems.
I'm just putting the finishing coats on my latest now. Will post it in the BS Boxes section in a few days.

Hermit Steve,

You are true in that a bandsaw can be set up to "cut" and do its job. Ammm, adequately even by a complete newbie.

One of the things I was keen on was the dynamics of the device itself. I'm new to WW and it challenged me to decalibrate.

There were a billion counter intuitive notions I needed to relearn....

Bandsaws are such a foul beast. So so so simple to set up and "cut" but so hard to get it "just right".... Unless one thinks about the action of the blade and the wood... Or more like the dust that's removed and the gullets.

The vid was important, but I found the guy irritating and condescending, but we are not American. It is their style.

WHAT I did find worthwhile and worth handing down is the 4x2 trick of reversing the timber. It cut a clean groove on the front and then shimmied over the back when reversed.

Tried it in mine and it was spot on.. Happy.

It was a good technique and I'm happy to recommend it

Another thought Hermit, perhaps a few photos of your bandsaw box you mentioned.

I always love to see other peoples work. It fills me with ideas.

Love Bega. My brothers down there and it reminds me that I have been a bad brother....

Originally Posted by Evanism

Another thought Hermit, perhaps a few photos of your bandsaw box you mentioned.

I always love to see other peoples work. It fills me with ideas.

Love Bega. My brothers down there and it reminds me that I have been a bad brother....

That technique of reversing the cut block to double-check the squareness is also useful for scroll saws, by the way.

As mentioned in my last post, I will be posting some pics of my latest bandsawn box in the Bandsawn Boxes section, when it's finished in a couple of days. I'm working my way through the finish coats at the moment, then need to line the drawers and attach the drawer pulls. It's getting there, but slowly, because I'm working it in with the finish coats on my cigar-box guitar build.

Hi Everyone,I'm gonna try and view the you tube link, but one of the few disadvantages of living out here in the sitcks is my internet access is by satellite. I really miss the speed I used to have when I was still in Sydney. You tube vids here take so long to d/l I have to sit thru long interruptions while the video tries to get through to the end. I get so damn frustrated that most times I just give up and more or less accept that until the NBN is finally rolled out in the "future", You tube is virtually off limits to me for now.Bob

Originally Posted by Glenrob

Hi Everyone,I'm gonna try and view the you tube link, but one of the few disadvantages of living out here in the sitcks is my internet access is by satellite. I really miss the speed I used to have when I was still in Sydney. You tube vids here take so long to d/l I have to sit thru long interruptions while the video tries to get through to the end. I get so damn frustrated that most times I just give up and more or less accept that until the NBN is finally rolled out in the "future", You tube is virtually off limits to me for now.Bob

Bob, you might find it easier to download a complete copy first, then view it, rather than put up with the interruptions while trying to view it via YouTube.

KeepVid is good for this: KeepVid: Download and save any video from Youtube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm and more!

Just copy the video link, ( Band Saw Clinic with Alex Snodgrass - YouTube ), into the first text box, press 'Download', then when the list of available formats appears, right-click on the one you want and select 'Save As', browse to the location you want to save it etc.
This video is available to download as 480p, (181.2MB) or 720p, (712.1MB). Considering your download speed, the 480p version is probably the best choice. Let me know if you have problems, (PM), and I'll email you a copy of it.

I've built up a good personal collection of YouTube WW videos this way.

Might be faster to post it to him on a thumb drive

Originally Posted by Evanism

Might be faster to post it to him on a thumb drive

Just about.

To save messing with KeepVid, I just uploaded it, (the 480p/181.2MB version), to the 'TransferBigFiles' site. My upload speed was only ~43MB per sec, so it took a while. Even by satellite, it'll probably be faster than that to download.

The download will be available for 5 days. It's here:
https://www.transferbigfiles.com/7c3...v-8D0BO2wkubQ2

That was a very informative video! I got some cutting and tracking problems before and the part when Alex said align the deepest part of the gullet to the center of the tire, it really helped!