Thread: Re-saw Band Saw

John, is that the floor of an operating theatre or your shed.

Once you turn on the magnets, it is nearly impossible to move the blessed fence , let alone "accidentally" knock it off alignment, unless you are blessed by the Stuff Up Fairy

Originally Posted by Pat

John, is that the floor of an operating theatre or your shed.

Once you turn on the magnets, it is nearly impossible to move the blessed fence , let alone "accidentally" knock it off alignment, unless you are blessed by the Stuff Up Fairy

Pat,

Bandsaw by Laguna ... clean floor and clean air by Clear Vue Cyclones. My shop was a disgusting mess until I got the cyclone and modified the machines for 6 inch ports.

I have taken PJT's advice and discovered that cutting veneers so the veneer is on the right side of the blade gives a better result (especially when cutting wide veneers). The downside is that the fence must be adjusted after each cut. This makes a magnetic fence problematic in this application. I am playing with making a re-saw fence that is clamped to the original 80 mm high fence, so that the drift adjustment is preserved and so I can use the scale to move the fence (say) 4 mm each time.

Once the new saw was set up I changed the old saw to a 1/4 inch blade. The plan is to leave the re-saw blade on the new machine.

Saw a video recently that gave a great tip ... when setting up a saw, remove the table first. I did. It worked like a charm. Setting tension and aligning guides was quick and painless. The time taken to remove and replace the table was well spent.

At the suggestion of Pete (PJT) I now keep the veneers to the right of the blade ... keeps the reference surface constant and am now getting better veneers. Thanks Peter!

Made a 222.2 mm high fence from an old HMR particleboard kitchen cabinet door. See pic. Why 222.2 mm? Because I can ... because it is a nice number ... because I want to be able to say to Laguna, "Mine is bigger than yours, and cost me three 8 mm bolts and T nuts rather than $188".

222 mm fence.jpg

After ensuring the blade and the fence were parallel, and checking the drift, some veneers were cut from a 200 mm wide board. Started at 3 mm and worked quickly down to 1.5 mm. Max delta from measurements all around the veneer is 0.25 mm. Oh Joy, Bliss and Happiness! Be still, my grumpy old heart!

The only thing remaining to be done is to set up featherboards to keep the work pressed against the fence. It is the tiny movement in the board as I feed it into the blade that is giving me a few tooth marks and that 0.25 mm variation.

Saw a stackable featherboard arrangement at Carba Tec's site, and will look them over. The need is to keep constant pressure against the fence at both top and bottom of the board. All ideas and suggestions gratefully accepted.

I can see why a power feeder would work so well. Constant pressure and feed rate would give a cut as good as a good table saw. But at $1,300, a power feeder is a tad expensive.

So, the Laguna 14"SUV is a very good machine, and by my reckoning, well worth what I paid for it. I can compare it with nothing other than my old Trade Tools machine, and am unable to compare it with other decent saws ... but for now I am a happy chappie. Now I can restart the hunt for timber from which I can cut pretty veneers. All the nice timber I found a month ago was too big to go over my old Trade Tools 14"saw ... but there is a power of difference between a throat depth of 165 mm and 355 mm.

The sales gods were kind to me and I shifted a bunch of festool gear i never use.

This leaves me with a bunch of "tool cash" to be used on a replacement for my existing BS....resawing....can't wait.

What is a decent price to expect to pay? Gregory only? Do they hold specials (I'm always pretty broke)? Do they bundle in any way?

Hi John,

Saw is looking good, a few notes on my procedure for veneers, wood....a planed flat face and a square edge to the face, face up against fence and edge on table, machine.....square fence to table and blade square to table, check all with a good engineers square, this is necessary for paralell slices, sounds like you are close anyways.

Consistant width movement of fence per slice, xmm per time as you say.

The last 15mm or so of board thickness can sometimes start to form a curve as the slices come off and tension is released, sometimes I will remachine or I leave extra thickness (sapwood/less figured) wood on so I only end up cutting down to a 25mm or so width board, you could also glue/doubleside tape a waste piece onto workpiece, the thicker piece is also safer/easier to handle.

If you cut the exit end of the board at an angle, say 5° (wide at top nothing at btm) you can watch the blade exit all the way down the width, this can help to show up any deviation from paralell and it allows for a controlled exit from the wood rather than a sudden exit if the end is square.

I use a bit of candle rubbed on all sliding surfaces then polished off.

Then it's just a matter of taking slices.



Pete

Originally Posted by pjt

Hi John,
If you cut the exit end of the board at an angle, say 5° (wide at top nothing at btm) you can watch the blade exit all the way down the width, this can help to show up any deviation from paralell and it allows for a controlled exit from the wood rather than a sudden exit if the end is square.

Pete,

Onto most of those things already, but the above tip is one I had not thought about. Thanks. This board provides a great brains trust.

The new saw is a dream. My only real remaining issue is to keep the board pressed uniformly against the fence ... exercising my mind around this now ... perhaps a jig with three or four softish wheels (a bit like a power-feeder) where the height of the top wheel(s) is adjustable. It seems to me that if there is something pressing the wood against the fence, all I need to do is concentrate on a nice steady feed rate. Any bright ideas?

Originally Posted by Evanism

The sales gods were kind to me and I shifted a bunch of festool gear i never use.

This leaves me with a bunch of "tool cash" to be used on a replacement for my existing BS....resawing....can't wait.

What is a decent price to expect to pay? Gregory only? Do they hold specials (I'm always pretty broke)? Do they bundle in any way?

Evanism,

I paid $1,895 for my Laguna 14" SUV. This was boosted to about $2,400 by the time I added a mobility kit, a 1 " re-saw king blade (which is excellent) and delivery to my place. Gregory's threw in a 3/8th blade, but they were firm on prices. Given that when I placed my order they had backorders for over 30 machines, we are not surprised by this. The SUV is becoming very popular ... they will sell anyway ... no need to discount them at this stage.

Still, when I looked around to find a saw that would give me something close in terms of depth of cut, the SUV was $400 to $750 cheaper than the bigger machines and it still had a deeper cut than most of them. Laguna designed this machine with re-sawing/veneering in mind. I have a few minor niggles, but overall I love it. Watching those 1.5 mm veneers come off the saw so uniformly convinces me I got a good deal.

I had planned to sell my old BS. But it is not worth a lot and I chose to keep it for cutting curves etc only. That way the re-saw blade stays on the SUV more or less permanently, meaning less fiddling changing blades, setting guides and adjusting for drift. It is a cheap Trade Tools 14" machine, but since I replaced the upper guides, it does a reasonable job and dust collection on it is excellent.

Look around ... get a saw that suits you. I am pretty keen on the SUV, but every shop is different. I started by looking for a second hand machine that had a depth of cut of about 300 mm, but fell in love with the 355 mm depth of cut on the SUV as well as the other goodies not present on most second hand machines like tensioning lever, ceramic guides, foot switch/brake and 3 HP motor ... and all of this on a 14" machine.

Originally Posted by John Samuel

Pete,

Onto most of those things already, but the above tip is one I had not thought about. Thanks. This board provides a great brains trust.

The new saw is a dream. My only real remaining issue is to keep the board pressed uniformly against the fence ... exercising my mind around this now ... perhaps a jig with three or four softish wheels (a bit like a power-feeder) where the height of the top wheel(s) is adjustable. It seems to me that if there is something pressing the wood against the fence, all I need to do is concentrate on a nice steady feed rate. Any bright ideas?

Not sure about bright ideas but....
2nd slab boards.jpginfeed side long view.jpg
These are two types of rollers I have had setup on the fence at different times, I have thought about setting something like this setup on the rightside of the blade when cutting veneers, it will also determine the thickness of veneer each time, there might need to be an additional spring loaded mechanisim which could be as simple as featherboards to firmly press the work onto the fence.



Pete

Originally Posted by pjt

These are two types of rollers I have had setup on the fence at different times, I have thought about setting something like this setup on the rightside of the blade when cutting veneers, it will also determine the thickness of veneer each time, there might need to be an additional spring loaded mechanisim which could be as simple as featherboards to firmly press the work onto the fence.
Pete

Thanks, Pete.

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of 2-4 rollers/wheels that press the work piece against the fence. As you say, it should be possible to use such a set-up to set the thickness of veneers, but the rollers/wheels would need to be hard to do that.

Also playing with the idea of pneumatic wheels. That way I might be able to use air pressure in the tyre to set the amount of pressure on the fence and don't need to fiddle with springs. But that precludes using the rollers/wheels to set the veneer thickness.

Someone must have addressed this issue before.

John

Originally Posted by John Samuel

Thanks, Pete.

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of 2-4 rollers/wheels that press the work piece against the fence. As you say, it should be possible to use such a set-up to set the thickness of veneers, but the rollers/wheels would need to be hard to do that.

Also playing with the idea of pneumatic wheels. That way I might be able to use air pressure in the tyre to set the amount of pressure on the fence and don't need to fiddle with springs. But that precludes using the rollers/wheels to set the veneer thickness.

Someone must have addressed this issue before.

John

Yes, one set fixed that doesn't move (veneer thickness) and another set able to be spring loaded (push against the fence), I seem to recall a bunch of after market gadgets, like feather boards and short fences, if I recall there was a fence? gadget for single point sawing with a set of small bearings (wheels), I think they might have been mag base as well, maybe the same people that make the grrripper, might be worth a look.


Pete

Originally Posted by pjt

Yes, one set fixed that doesn't move (veneer thickness) and another set able to be spring loaded (push against the fence), I seem to recall a bunch of after market gadgets, like feather boards and short fences, if I recall there was a fence? gadget for single point sawing with a set of small bearings (wheels), I think they might have been mag base as well, maybe the same people that make the grrripper, might be worth a look.


Pete

Trouble is I am not impressed with what I have seen, and I have not yet got any feedback from people who have had a crack.

The magnetic stuff does not seem tall enough for pieces 200+ mm high.

Might have a crack at making something up myself.

Cheerio!

Boy would I love to get one of those bandsaws.

Only problem for me is they are not available in in WA.

Has anyone heard any rumours of anyone stocking them in Perth in the near future?

Originally Posted by legin

Boy would I love to get one of those bandsaws.

Only problem for me is they are not available in in WA.

Has anyone heard any rumours of anyone stocking them in Perth in the near future?

Yes on another someone mentioned Beyond Tools maybe stocking em. Maybe for those of us in Perth and are in the market should look at doing a group buy (however that works). Beyond are probably watching.