Bandsaw wandering when resawing pallet wood

[sickasapike]

Hi all, not expecting much more than 'thats what you get with pallet wood', but thought I might pick up a tip or two and see what people think of a possible solution.

I'm resawing 10mmish pallet planks into 3 x 3...4...2..3..2.. mm thick slices with a bandsaw (300 quidish Record Power model), the saw is almost new, I went to pains to get it nicely set up and have rechecked it today; so not looking for advice on that as such, but while stays straight enought for my purposes with most planks, sometimes it wanders a lot more to one side (or the other, no pattern so not just down to the natural drift which I've just learned about), almost to the edge and I stop the saw and rescue it one way or another, presumably this is fair enough given the quality of the timber and what I'm trying to do ?

I'm not after dead straight cuts, it's for a rustic (err, cheap !) bit of panelling that I'll sand smoothish at the joins when it's in-situ so don't mind the wander as long as it doesn't get too silly.

I was thinking, if I make some kind of 'point fence', like the corner of a piece of timber of the right height clamped down level with the leading edge of the blade so I could vary the angle of attack and so rescue the wavering a little better when it happens.

Assuming I work it so as not to chop my fingers off, is this a good idea or will it not obey and just stress the blade more ? - any harm in trying ?

 

[hammer n nails]

Sounds like the blade has been used for curves in the past new blade from tuff saws will probably sort it

 

[sunnybob]

blade tension? a slack blade will wander everywhere.
Blunt blade.
speed of cut too fast (very easy to just push the wood through, rather than let the blade cut)
Blade following the grain on rough wood. If there are angled grain, big knots, hard and soft areas, all will divert the blade.
Blade drift. Yes it WILL happen each time you change a blade. Lots of advice and videos on this. Check each time you fit a different blade, but that's the only time it will need checking

 

[sickasapike]

Sounds like the blade has been used for curves in the past new blade from tuff saws will probably sort it

Hi, it's a pretty new blade, I do have a new spare but want to keep it for nicer work; I'd rather have the wandering then sully the new blade on this wood (I read pallet wood is hard on blades in general) but ta for the pointer.

 

[sickasapike]

blade tension? a slack blade will wander everywhere.

I did a lot of youtube watching and reading about setting it up as I'd heard it's a bit of a black art so think it's reasonably well set up (I'd say it was bang on but I'm a beginner so not qualified for that phrase yet !), it mostly cuts dead straight and it flexes about 4mm with a good push - actually, is that too tight ?

Blunt blade.

No, pretty new

speed of cut too fast (very easy to just push the wood through, rather than let the blade cut)

Yeah, I may be guilty of that, lots of planks to cut so hard not to be tempted to push, thanks, I'll ease off a bit and and see if it helps.

Blade following the grain on rough wood.

I think that's most of it, the majority go through nicely and big knots definitely do it, so that theory makes sense.

Cheers for the advice !

 

[dickm]

Definitely recommend a point fence for that application, but on my saw (the ubiquitous ex-school 352) finger pressure giving 10mm deflection would say not enough tension.

 

[dzj]

Sometimes when cutting resinous wood, gunk will clog up the gullets
and the saw might wander. Particularly if your blade has a higher TPI count.

 

[sickasapike]

Definitely recommend a point fence for that application, but on my saw (the ubiquitous ex-school 352) finger pressure giving 10mm deflection would say not enough tension.

Great, I'll give it a try, I was thinking I must have heard/read the term 'point fence', I initially thought I was coining it but naaa .

After posting I went and actually measured it by loosening the fence, holding it against the stops to eep it parallel, putting it against the blade and flexing, fence got moved to about 5mm so edited the post.

 

[MattRoberts]

What blade is it? What width / number of teeth? You need a resaw blade ideally (wide and low tooth count)

 

[mock]

I bet you have caught a nail in the wood some where
Alan

 

[sickasapike]

What blade is it? What width / number of teeth? You need a resaw blade ideally (wide and low tooth count)

Ah yes, not a dedicated blade for the purpose; it's the one that came with the saw, 6tpi and 1/4 inch wide; more of a general purpose one I guess.

The saw takes 70 1/4 inch long blades, presumably a half inch wide blade would be better; I'll not be doing a great deal of this and am firmly spent up for the year on shop toys, I'm about 20% done already so will solidier on with the slimmer one.

Very good, not to mention obvious (d'oh), point though, thanks.

Even though I'm the wrong side of a half century ancient, I was just about to gripe about buying blades in units reminiscent of the meaningless archaic carvings on the flip side of my rulers... but fear that might divert the thread somewhat :wink:

 

[MattRoberts]

That's probably the culprit then - check what the max width blade for your bandsaw is and look for about 3-4 tpi. I'd recommend tuffsaws for blades.

 

[sickasapike]

The point fence is great, much better !

 

[sickasapike]

That's probably the culprit then - check what the max width blade for your bandsaw is and look for about 3-4 tpi. I'd recommend tuffsaws for blades.

Thanks, am going to keep with the standard one for this but will pick up a wider one after the massive money splurge season

 

[andersonec]

Those planks are about 100mm so when cutting with your blade you will have about 24 teeth in the wood with no chance of the dust being removed and with the blade being only 1/4 inch it will not cope, It is getting clogged and cannot cut so you will need to push harder and force the blade to cut, it will then wander. If you look at a Tuffsaw's "Fastcut" blade you will see there are about 3 tpi with a smaller tooth between each cutting tooth, these are designed to take away the waste making it easier for the cutting teeth to do their work, there is going to be a fine balance here because the less teeth there are the rougher the cut is going to be but for 4 inch timber a rough guide would be 3 or 4 TPI and a 1/2 inch wide blade, for a finer finish you will need more teeth.
Bear in mind also that pallet wood is going to be full of grit and your blade will blunt very quickly.

 

[sickasapike]

Thanks, I'll check out a decent dedicated resaw blade when the coffers open again next year.

My general purpose blade is tracking better with the point fence and a little wiggle here and there, plus applying a tad more patience. the blade has only ever seen pallet wood so when this pallet project is done I think I'll switch out for the new blade and keep the old one for rough work/spare.

 

[sunnybob]

wood is wood, be it pallet or ebony.
Its the metal embedded in pallet wood that makes most of us shudder.
Use the blade till its blunt, get it sharpened, and use it again.

 

[sickasapike]

Ta, yep - I guess wood is wood as you say; ingrained grit and wotnot is the problem, most of it it pretty clean, the bulk are from a local printers that have paper delivered on virgin ones, they're the mini-pallets. I have a few big ones that I've picked up here and there and they're much grimier and nailier.

At what point does a blade justify sharpening, rather than just replacing ? The one I have is 11.99 at Screwfix so I assumed it's essentially a consumable.

 

[sunnybob]

re sharpening depends on what it costs.
If its 75% or more of a new one, then buy new.
After 2 years of looking around I found a bandsaw and circular saw sharpening service that only costs 3 euros per blade, and they will even send it courier to my local town included in the price.