Band Saw Drift

[dusty]

The fence was just featured as a special in the email flyer. It looks neat but it is just another item that seems to negate the value of good old know how. See "Woodworking Tool Review" on this forum for the new fence designed to resolve this problem.

The procedure that Hal presented earlier in this thread works great. After reading it I went out to the shop and resawed several pieces of scrap. I didn't need a calibre to measure the thickness of my ultimate success but it certainly works.

However, one recommendation - build a fence attachment with an extended surface about two feet long and at least as tall as the stock being resawed. Adjust this so that it forms a perfect 90 degree with the table top and aligns with the drift angle. Clamp it GOOD to the fence and saw away.
___________________
Making Sawdust Safely

[hfmann]

Great Paul! I'm glad it worked so well.

Take care,
Hal

[deanthom]

The instructor in my travelling SS class told us that all blades have a "drift" or "lead". All of my blades are SS brand and I haven't tried any others although there are some that fit the SS.
I could agree if the instructor said MOST blades have a drift, or if he said all NON-GROUND blades have a drift. But not all. Or even if he said all CHEAPER blades have a drift.

Drift often happens because the blade was punched out of stock (did I already post this explanation here? If so, please forgive). Think about cheap washers out of zinc or really soft steel. One side has nice, rounded edges and the opposing side has a sharper, much more distinct edge around the cuts. When you have that kind of rolled edge on the back of a bandsaw blade (or a scrollsaw or coping saw), the wood can't pass parallel to the blade. It gets pushed up so that the teeth are ALWAYS cutting at an angle other than 90º.

Solution? Take a sharpening stone carefully to the back edge of the blade to remove that little ridge left from punching the blade out. Called "tuning" the blade. Once you've honed that ridge away, your wandering ways will be eliminated or dramatically reduced, at least those caused by the ridge.

Point being that there *are* quality bandsaw and scrollsaw blades where the teeth are ground out of the steel rather than punched. Because the blades are ground, the blades are more expensive, but they've done the tuning of the blade for you and made you a much more precise tool, often of much better quality than the typical punched blades.

FWIW.