Am I to Stupid for WW?

[bobs64ford352]

I just bought a 18" Rikon, last year and had trouble on the first boards I tried to practice resawing with, both with the flat fence and single point attachment.  The cuts were very uneven and the blade kept walking leaving hills and valleys and was cutting diagonally.  I tried cutting slower with the same results just less pronounced.  The main issue I had was the blade drift was really bad and too much to compensate for with fence adjustments.  I set the saw up per instructions and was getting a bit discouraged.  A few days ago, after probably 5-6 months of not doing anything in the shop or touching the BS, I gave it another whirl and found I was slightly off on my table being square to the blade and the big thing was the blade was riding too far back on the crown.  I made the table square and adjusted the upper wheel until the drift was reasonable and adjusted the fence to compensate for the minor drift.  I put some 6.5" purpleheart through it and I came out with what I thought were very acceptable results.

There are definitely more knowledgeable guys here, but I would find a good set of BS tuning instructions online or in a magazine and be thorough and double check everything.  I have also found, like in this case, that if I'm getting poor results and I get discouraged then I come back at a later date with fresher eyes and go over the setup again and I'll end up finding the problem pretty quick.   Usually ends up being a "duh" moment.

Bob

[dejavu]

RWE said to put a waste board through to see what angle the saw cuts at.

As you do that, half way through the waste board, stop the saw, hold the board still and draw a pencil line on your BS table top.

That gives you a bit of a guide as to what your real board will do.

[AHill]

You've gotten some good advice, but I think you need even more basic advice.  Go online and look for a video on "Bandsaw Tuneup".  Or, better yet, go get a book on Bandsaw Basics (Duginske's is a good one) and walk through the process on setting up your bandsaw.  You'll learn how to ensure the wheels are coplanar, how to make sure the table is perpendicular to the blade, how to adjust the tracking of the blade (probably the biggest source of not cutting straight), how to properly tension the blade, adjusting your guides, how to select the proper blade for the job (for resawing, it's the biggest blade your saw can tension, with 3 tpi), etc.  Until you've checked all the things relevant to the setup, any single one might be the cause your inability to resaw consistently.  Some species of wood are also more apt to mistrack as well.  Adjusting the fence for "drift", IMO, is treating a symptom and not the disease.  If a bandsaw cut always drifts, then there's something else that needs to be corrected.

My 2 cents.

[Halfathumb]

RWE said to put a waste board through to see what angle the saw cuts at.

As you do that, half way through the waste board, stop the saw, hold the board still and draw a pencil line on your BS table top.

That gives you a bit of a guide as to what your real board will do.

You're right along with many of the previous suggestions. I'm going to start with the owners manual for setup and go from there.

Thanks everyone for some great advice.