record bs 400 bandsaw

[user 19915]

Help please i have purchased a 1 inch bandsaw blade and a few smaller one .Any way i can,t get the 1 inch blade to cut straight although the other blade i have in the saw will and i am familial with alex snodgrass bandsaw video but i just can,t get it right i have tensioned the blade slacken the blade done the guides so i am hoping you experienced guys will give me some suggestions ps i have posted some of the cuts i have made with the blade and using the mitre gauge and the timber was laying flat not upright as in the photo
Mock

 

[CHJ]

Are you sure you have it adequately tensioned? the only other thing would be if the tooth form (offset or sharpness) was not uniform.
But under the assumption the blade came from Tuffsaws I doubt very much it's the later for a new blade.

Have you got the side guides set just behind the tooth gullets? I don't know the 400 setup so picture does not compute for me.

 

[user 19915]

Hi and yes i have it tensioned as i have tried it with a little more and a little less tension but it,s not quite right i will have a chat to Ian in the morning to see what he suggests thank,s
Mock

 

[nev]

Is the Blade the correct length? a few mm too long and it may prevent tensioning fully.

On a similar note, could the blade be too strong for the BS400 to tension? for example if TS blades are slightly thicker and stronger than the recommended RP blade? Just a thought.

Is the BS400 capable of tensioning a 1" blade correctly? I see in the user manual
http://www.recordpower.co.uk/support/pa ... 16-bandsaw
that even though a 1" blade is listed as an available part, throughout the user guide most references are to a 1/2" blade at the largest.

 

[undergroundhunter]

I have a 1" band in my BS400 at the moment and it cuts fine. you do have to take the tension above the 1" mark on the scale. Where did you get the blade from?

Matt

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Guys, the BS400 will correctly tension a Tuffsaw's 1" blade. See the test posts in this thread....all done with one of Ian's 1 inch blades.

topic78828.html

 

[sunnybob]

for what its worth....
measure the width of the rubber on the top wheel. then adjust the blade so the gullet (the bottom of the teeth, is at the centre of the rubber tyre. Adjust the tension until the blade stops fluttering side to side, as viewed from the front.
Re check the teeth are still in the correct place.

Now adjust the guides. top and bottom the same. The side wheels should be a cigarette paper away from the blade and behind the teeth by a mm or two. adjust the rear guides so that they touch the blade before the blade teeth rub against the side bearings.
This way when the blade starts to cut the blade can move back but not so far that the teeth are squeezed by the side bearings.

Use a scrap piece of wood with a straight side and draw a line down its length. cut down that line freehand (fence well out of the way)
Stop the saw when its half way through the cut, and DONT MOVE the piece of wood!.
Carefully slide the fence up to the wood edge. Is it parallel to the wood?

If not, loosen the locking screws on the fence and adjust so it is.

If it still wanders, move the back and fore adjuster tiny amounts at a time to correct either left or right wandering.

Then, cut the wood SLOWLY! forcing the wood will make the blade turn away. It can be very boring cutting a thick piece of wood on a bandsaw.


After all that.... youre on your own.

 

[Glynne]

Just to rule out one variable, check out the length of your blade. I would be the first to recommend Tuffsaws but I did have an oversize 3/4" blade (by about 20mm) so I struggled to tension it properly.
Yours might be fine but at least you can rule out that possibility if you check.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

2 things are obvious from the photos, although tension and tracking cannot be ascertained from a photo, so it could be a combo of things.

But 1. the side guides are not forward enough, they should be just behind the tooth gullet and 2. That is a small tooth count blade for thin stock. Looks like a 3 TPI? If so I wouldn't cut less than about 1 1/2 in thick. That board looks thinner. Especially cross cutting, that blade is better ripping thick stock.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to the Snodgrass video. Set your blade tracking in the centre of the wheel, tracking with the gullets centred is just a show trick for his crowd/video. There is no logic to it, apart from not having to adjust the guides. But it limits the blade width you can use. His contention that a blade needs to be supported at the teeth is tripe, quite frankly. The wheels just make the blade move. The support comes from the guides. Those little saws he demos on will not take wide blades, so it makes little difference, but a wide blade tracked at the gullets leaves an awful lot of the remaining width dangling in space. Now think about where the tension is and how the blade will deflect, it will actually be angled down at the back. ( or trying to) How will that cut straight. I don't know, either. Conventional wisdom from millions of bandsaw users and recommendation from manufacturers say track centrally.

Mike.

 

[woodpig]

Are you using the .025" or .035" thick Tuffsaw blade? You're pushing the machine to its specified blade limit already and using a .035" thick blade may be a step too far.

http://www.tuffsaws.co.uk/index.php?rou ... tion_id=13

"The SuperTuff Premium and Fastcut blades are made from thinner material than standard blades and the main advantage of this is that a wider blade can be run on machines that usually struggle to run a wide blade. There’s also less waste and the blade is capable of running with more tension, which makes it a lot easier getting nice straight cuts.
Another advantage of increasing the tension is that it improves the beam strength of the blade, which again makes straight cutting and setting up the bandsaw a lot easier"

You may may be better off with a nice 3/4" wide .022" blade. Just a thought.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

for what its worth....
measure the width of the rubber on the top wheel. then adjust the blade so the gullet (the bottom of the teeth, is at the centre of the rubber tyre. Adjust the tension until the blade stops fluttering side to side, as viewed from the front.
Re check the teeth are still in the correct place.
.

Sorry Sunnybob but this is completely wrong for this specific saw. The 1" blade on a BS400 is almost the same width as the tyres and will not tolerate being tracked with the gullets central. As Woodbrains has said, too much blade is hanging off the back of the wheel unsupported. Please do not attempt this, it will cause problems. The blade should be tracked "roughly" centrally and with a 1" blade I can tell you there will only be a couple of mm of tyre left exposed when its tracked properly (at front and back) because I use them all the time on a BS400 myself. Getting it dead centre is not necessary, this isn't about precision, it only needs to be roughly in the middle.

Next thing is to ignore the tension meter because they're worse than useless most of the time. Just wind it pretty dam clos to the end of its range and that should be to the capacity of the saw. I

In terms of the guides, to be honest, a decent blade that's freshly sharpened and tensioned properly should cut straight WITH NO GUIDES in place if pushed carefully! The guides are an extra benefit but, particularly when the blade is new and therefore very sharp, it will cut straight entirely unaided. I've tested this many times although it's completely unnecessary to implement it, but if you test your blade after installing having only set the tension and tracking but the guides are clear (including the thrust bearing) its a very good test to see if its working. You then set the guides last of all. They should be a gnats tadger (technical term that) from the centre of the gullet ie behind the lowest dished point of the gullet and the thrust bearing should be so close as to not revolve when the blade runs freely but will revolve when a piece of wood is pushed into the blade. But I can guarantee they're not the problem you describe. Your problem is almost certainly most likely an either rubbish quality or blunt blade or the tension.

I've not read the whole thread....is it a new Tuffsaw's blade?

 

[Tetsuaiga]

I have the same bandsaw but have been using 3/4" blades.

Are you using the tracks with the mitre gauge? If you've adjusted your fence angle which I do with each new blade, then it won't be parallel to the slot for the gauge which would cause a problem. I haven't really used the slots with mine but thought about it and I think for cross cuts you need to have a system that references off the fence not the tracks.

 

[pike]

I just today used my BS400 for the first time in ages and accidentally used the rubbish factory supplied blade. I had to tension an inch or two beyond the highest gauge markings and still when I tried to cut I got results the same as yours.

I realised and switched to a tuffsaws blade and everything was fine. I also noticed it didn't need me to go so far beyond the gauge markings, although I still had to get beyond the highest mark.

I also hadn't put the guides up to just behind the teeth gullets as mentioned above. So it can be a combination of things. Bad blade? Guides? Tension. I was about ready to give in when I managed to get it working.

 

[CHJ]

I have the same bandsaw but have been using 3/4" blades.

Are you using the tracks with the mitre gauge? If you've adjusted your fence angle which I do with each new blade, then it won't be parallel to the slot for the gauge which would cause a problem. I haven't really used the slots with mine but thought about it and I think for cross cuts you need to have a system that references off the fence not the tracks.

Why would you not set the machine up for the blade to be parallel to the mitre slots and cut in the same plane?

Setting to accommodate blade mis-alignment or drift is surely accepting a setup error or blade defect.

Surely a bandsaw of the quality being discussed should be capable of being set up to cut parallel to the table slots and therefore automatically crosscut at 90 degrees.

I must admit that I ignore all the talk about blade/wheel positions as long as it's sat reasonably central on the top tyre and just check that its aligned to the table slots before I close up the guides. Admittedly it's a much lighter weight machine but it's how we always set up the metal cutting machines in my last shop.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

The good news is that this is so far off that the cause should be easy to identify when you start to eliminate possibilities.

Two things I noticed. The guides are not supporting the blade very well and the thrust bearing seems to be set too far back. However, I have an old fashioned startrite, so whats correct on mine might not be applicable to this.

Will vouch for the 3/4" fastcut blade from tuffsaws though, it's literally epic. But that said, the 1" should perform on your saw if Ian says so, he knows his onions.

A well tensioned blade should "sing" (resonate clearly) when twanged slightly with your finger. After watching Steve Maskery's DVD's I tried this and it worked. Might be worth a shot?

 

[sunnybob]

oops, didnt pick up on the blade width. I use mostly a 1/4".
yes, a 1" blade makes the gullet centre theory irrelevant.

 

[Alexam]

Hi Alan,

the third photo looks like you have the blade set too far forward. The guides should be set just off the blade sides and just behind the teeth on the to and bottob guides. The thrust bearing als needs to be set correctly, just behind the blade, but all settings of guides and bearings need to be done AFTER the blade has been set uo corrctly.

Go back to square one and back off all guiides and bearings. You will not be able to set the teeth in the centre of the blade with wider blades, so don't worry about that. Make sure that the blade runs without guides and bearings and does not move forward or back on the wheel. You will ned to do thos by hand and when you feel it's right, with the power on. If there is any forward or backward movement of the blade, you ned to re-set the small handle at the back that adjusts the tilt, but don't forget to lock it off each time you test.

Check the tension with the blade set up high, showing a maximium cut height and the following video will show how to check the tension https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8zZuDosSy0

Once the tension is right, and ONLY then, bring in the guides an bearings to the correct position. It should then run true.

Not sure why you have the 1" blade. I have a 3/4" and have found that it will tackle everything that I wish to cut. Is your blade from Tuffsaw?

Malcolm

 

[user 19915]

Thank,s for all the advice i have spoken to Ian in tuffs this morning and i have one more thing to try .Sorry for miss leading you all when i took the photo of the blade i had started to a just every thing and thought wait take a photo of the blade first i shall keep you up to date when i have time to try one more thing
mock

 

[pike]

mock, what is the one more thing you have to try?

I hope you don't mind me joining in here but I've just went to use my bandsaw for the first time in months and it occurs to me that the gauge is utterly useless and I probably wouldn't be able to tension the spring much more.. and that's for a 3/4 inch blade.

 

[user 19915]

yes i will second that the tension gauge is crap but you can do this to gain tension
there is adjustment on this machine for the blade tension. If look behind the top wheel there is a cap head bolt and nut, if you slacken off the nut and adjust the bolt this will allow you to get either more or less tension on the blade. hope this helps ? And regarding the bandsaw blade i spoke to Ian in tuffs this morning and he also told me to have a go with thicker stock as some else suggested on here but there is no difference i will have to speak to Ian again regarding this
The timber used was for a test piece for photo,s i was not cutting another 4 in piece up for the photo :roll: :roll:
Mock