Bandsaw Resawing

[Jelly]

I've noticed a trend of threads on getting medium capacity "Prosumer" bandsaws and fitting the widest, coarsest toothed resaw blades available to allow the resawing of wide boards. By all accounts a good blade will give reasonable results.


My question is this, is there room in the market for a small model of Wide-Band Resaw?


As far as I know the smallest available has been the 28" Wadkin PBR, which is an adaptation of the bursgreen narrow bandsaws, after that it's the 30" Robinson pitless resaws.

Fig 1: A Robinson pitless wide-band resaw.

As you can see in the photo they'rea tad big, and that's a baby one...

There are obvious limitations on how small a bandwheel you can use as the blade gets wider and thicker to accommodate increased tension and greater cutting capacity/feed rate, but I can't escape thinking that a machine suitable for a medium sized workshop is quite possible by reaching a compromise, most likely on the feed-rate.

Single Phase goes without saying, but what else would people want from such a machine in terms of overall size, capacity and features?

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

I would think that it'd need to be usable as a conventional bandsaw too. Beyond that I'm not sure; my Axminster White bandsaw (precursor, I believe, to the Trade range) does resawing pretty well for me with a moderately deep Tuffsaws blade. I simply don't have space for a second bandsaw and only 10-20% (at a guess) of its work is resawing.

 

[Beau]

Think Hitachi used to make a smallish resaw.

 

[Normancb]

The Hitach CB75F was a small bandsaw sold specifically as a resaw machine taking a 75mm wide blade. AFAIK it's now out of production so I guess it wasn't a success.

 

[RobinBHM]

http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-CB75F-Woo ... op?ie=UTF8

Made for the American market I think, Ive never seen anything like that over here.

Re-saw blades have a very short run time before needing re-sharpening, something like 8 hours. Blades are expensive £50 or so for swage set, £70 or so for stellite tipped.

The wadkin PBR is not the greatest re-saw, its an adapted narrow blade saw. My experience is that it tends to snap blades too often.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Just get one of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF_BR1Cf-9c
Paddy

 

[Droogs]

Just get one of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF_BR1Cf-9c
Paddy

Only problem I can see is the neighbours might complain about the noise. I live in a flat and like to be considerate when I can

 

[Jelly]

Just get one of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF_BR1Cf-9c
Paddy

In all seriousness, I would If I could (and will if I can). Steam-powered machines were my first real interest as a child, and you don't really grow out of it.


It's interesting to note the feedback from owners of the little Hitachi online, conclusions seem to be it's underpowered as but does function well as a narrow bandsaw.

Noting as well that the PBR is limited by the compromises of converted a narrow bandsaw, it seems like the best approach would be to design a small resaw from the ground up to use a wide 3" or 4" blade, and incorporate the facility to fit and tension narrow blades for pattern work. Power would be an issue though, as if the 15A supply to the Hitachi was unable to power it sufficiently then you'd be forced to use a motor requiring a 32A circuit or 3-phase, (my electronics knowledge is pants, so it could be that 16A 240V can deliver a much bigger omph than, 15A 115V but my suspicion is that it's rather more complex than that).