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What kind of resaw fence do you use? I have a 16 Minimax with a 3 1/2 metal fence. I have been thinking of making one like the one in one of the bandsaw books I have, maybe 7" high made of of MDF. I tried resawing some engleman and stopped after two slices, wasn't going so well. I guess I need to work on the learning curve with more scrap wood. Resawing was going well with wood that I hadn't paid for!!!

Thanks

Peter

You get what you pay for, but one of the things I have read, and seen demonstrated, is that the alignment of the fence and the blade from top of cut to bottom of cut is critical.  One way to test is to make a shallow test cut, then, with the saw off, of course, flip the piece over, so the cut is now at the back side of the blade, but with the same side against the fence, and see if the alignment matches the test cut.  If the blade won't fit in the test slot, the alignment is off, and adjustments need to be made.

You probably already know this, but just thought I'd chime in, because I thought it was a neat trick.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I user the Kreg fence with the micro adjuster available from Lee Valley. It has set screw adjustments for the vertical, a normal screw adjustment for blade drift and a sweet micro adjuster to set the depth of cut. I have extended it vertically by bolting a piece of MDF of the appropriate height.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

I have something similar to Todds except it attaches to the regular fence.

I have the same thing using a couple of pieces of plywood. One side is 8" tall and the other side is 4" tall. Just flip it over depending on what size you need to cut. It was easy to make and I used a machinist's square to make sure it was all truely square. Used scrap blocks of 1x4 epoxied in place to brace the angle.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Does anybody use a point type?

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

I just made myself something that's essentially identical to Todd's fence, just with MDF (flatter than my ply) and a few blocks of scrap basswood holding everthing perfectly square (screw and glue). Minor modification: I've got a pair of strong rare earth magnets screwed into the bottom (each with a pull of about 65 lbs). Light tapping to adjust, and a single clamp to make double-sure nothing moves, and the whole thing works a treat!

I'm using the 4" fence that came on my Laguna 16HD and have gotten great accuracy using it. If you make sure it's relatively close to parallel, then the guides are the bigger problem after that.

I do clamp the fence down at the far side with a C clamp, rather than just using the built-in clamp on my side, to ensure it stays straight under pressure. If you've got rigidity then you can adjust until you get consistent precision, but if you don't have a rigid setup then no amount of adjustment will give you precise results.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I should note that I'm only resawing hardwoods on my saw right now up to about 8-9". If the wood is flexible, then you might need to support further up to ensure the pressure of the blade isn't bowing it.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Just finished a fence like Hodges described. I placed two T nuts from underneath with 1/4-20 screws that I can adjust from the top to give it some fine adjustment. It looks good, but I'll see tomorrow when I go back to resawing a billet.

Thanks

Peter

I've got a Baker 20" 20 hp horizontal resaw with a conveyor belt feed, and we use carrier boards to run wood up to a maximum of about 14" wide through the thing.   There is a hydraulic motor on the powered hold down, too, which keeps the wood well under control.   The accuracy of the machine suffers if we push the limits on width, but at guitar back sizes, we can hold plus or minus about 5 thousandths across the board and in repeatable thickness.   We've recently switched from the Timberwolf ASS blades over to 1 1/4 vari-pitch Laguna carbide which takes out a bit more kerf, but leaves the wood smoother, so the net loss to saw and sander is about the same or better than with the super thin kerf Timberwolf blades.

Ya gotta love those Laguna blades...is that the new Resaw King Rick? Have they switched to carbide finally?
I use the older Resaw King's for stuff and get fantastic results, except with really tough woods like Brazilian or Bubinga. I dulled one really fast in some Brazilian.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

[QUOTE=Don Williams] Ya gotta love those Laguna blades...is that the new Resaw King Rick? Have they switched to carbide finally?
I use the older Resaw King's for stuff and get fantastic results, except with really tough woods like Brazilian or Bubinga. I dulled one really fast in some Brazilian.[/QUOTE]

I second that, I just toasted one in a log of Braz a couple weeks back. Did get an awesome yield from it, though, so worth it even though the blade's going to cost some bucks to resharpen.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I use a flat fence, with a small bit of relief cut into the outfeed. I have an adjustment screw that allows me to make small adjustments if needed to square the fence and blade. I use a straight piece of metal that I clip to my blade to check the blade against the fence to ensure they align. I made the fence so that it is square to the table, and added an adjustable reinforcement to ensure the guide remains square under pressure. The fence is clamped at both ends to ensure it does not slip. I use a machinist square to confirm the blade is square to the table. I pay close attension to how I feed. Keeping a steady, straight feed with light steady pressure against the fence. If I am squaring a billet I use a table that I made that holds the billet at both ends(to keep it steady). The table tracks on the miter slot. Since I use it to create sqaure edges on split bolts it is important that the wood is secured firmly at both ends as it is suspended for the most part. I get very good results using this method.

I use a few different types of blades. For very low loss I will use woodslicers(although Mattia mentioned to me I should use Bladerunners). I use timberwolf for common cutting with smaller blades. I use Lennox Woodmaster for higher volume cutting(where a slight increase in kerf loss is not an issue), this is my work horse.

One other little mod I made that worked very well was to swap out my bearings. I replaced the two small bearings and metal spacer on my stock guides. With one wider(guides my blades up to 1-1/4") with a small bearing behind that(never gets touched because I don't use blades that wide). The wider bearing is more stable, smoother, with less heat generated. The wider bearings ran $20 a pop(regular smaller bearings ran $5 each), but it was worth the money.

Peace,Rich