I’ve been a hobbyist for 3 or 4 years now, and because my shop has room only for a table saw, a bench, and router table, I have been dimensioning by stock entirely with four planes: jack, jointer, smoother, and scrub. I have grown to love this method, especially as my skill at it has risen, and even with a shop large enough to fit a jointer & planer, I’d probably still largely dimension this way.
But here’s the problem. I feel as if I’m wasting a lot of wood. Using a scrub plane to get a 4/4 board down to 9/16″ for drawer sides, for example, reduces almost half the board to shavings. If I had room for a bandsaw, I could resaw the board down to start with. When I made a pair of frame-and-panel doors recently, I resawed a board by hand to bookmatch the bird’s eye panels, but it took more time than I spend reducing a board down with a scrub plane. Granted, the saw I used was a 30-year-old cheap, plastic-handled Sears ripsaw, but is there a better way to do this, or at least a better tool? (I don’t much care for resawing on a table saw.)
I don’t mind the time when it comes to bookmatching door panels, but I’m building more drawers at the moment and I feel awfully wasteful scrubbing off so much wood to get the boards properly thicknessed, even though the boards are “only” poplar.
Norman
Replies
Find a friend with a bandsaw.
or
Buy a large bowsaw.
Contact Mike at Wenzloff and Sons saw makers. I'm sure he can set you up with the proper saw for the task. He comes here from time to time, and also has a website.
Jeff
Here's the Wentzloff link:
http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/
Where are you located, Norman?
Thanks, Ralph. I've shot Mike an e-mail.I'm in southeastern Mass. Sharon, to be exact.Norman
I was going to offer occasional use of my 20" Inca, but the commute to New Mexico might be a bit too far. ;-)
Although I can't think of a lovelier state in which to work. I love the Southwest.Thank you for the kind offer anyway,
Norman
Hi Norman
You require either a bandsaw (power) or a framesaw (hand).
Personally, I'd rather have a good bandsaw than a tablesaw. I have not used a tablesaw in about 12 months - 9 of those months was because my tablesaw was in storage. I had my bandsaw to use for ripping and resawing, and I really did not miss the tablesaw at all. I have been back in my workshop with all my tools for about 3 weeks and the tablesaw has yet to be plugged in. I did upgrade my 14" Rigid bandsaw to a 18" Hammer, which has totally blown me away! The ease of resawing is just phenomenal. This is an expensive machine, but came after several years using an inexpensive, lower powered version which did an adequate job.
Given that you want to keep your tablesaw, I'd find more room by shedding the router table - or, at the least, building it into your tablesaw's extension.
I have a link to making a framesaw below. This is if you want to go this route. Frankly there is nothing wrong with going down both routes (and, incidentally, I have done all my thicknessing for many years with just handpllanes as well).
http://www.hyperkitten.com/woodworking/resaw.php3
Regards from Perth
Derek
If I only had room for one machine, table saw or bandsaw, my table saw would be sitting out in the back yard. The band saw is very worth while for the style of work you are doing. Which is about the same as what I am doing.
If you can tell me how to load a picture on this site I will show you a pic of my frame saw. Other wise try to dig up a copy of Woodworking the Right Technique by Bob Moran
This link has a similar saw:
http://www.hyperkitten.com/woodworking/resaw.php3
but mine is about twice as long. I used a section of resaw band saw blade. I had to change the angle on the teeth to a wider sharpening angle because it would just grab and not cut.
Once you go through all this you will buy a bandsaw. I went through making the saw and resawing many planks. I have a nice Laguna bandsaw now and it is way, way, way worth the money. Just buy a band saw. I am a total human power, hand tool, quiet and peaceful shop sort of person. I love my band saw.
Just cut to the chase and make room for it. You will save a bunch of time and can get on with the projects you want to build and save a ton of wood.
Once in the old days I even had a bandsaw in my kitchen if you can believe that. My girl friend's saw and very low use. But that was more than twenty years ago. Young and foolish I think they call it.
PS: I needed to take less than a quarter of an inch off a ten inch wide plank the other day to make it the same thickness as several other planks for a table top. Very hard wood. Rather than scrub it off I resawed it off and now have a totally usable sheet of verneer seven feet long ten inches wide and about a quarter thick. Bob's your uncle. Get a GOOD band saw and you to can do this. Would have been nearly impossible to hand saw this little bit off and keep it thick enough to be usable
PPS: Oops sorry for duplicate link. Sick minds think alike. : )
Edited 10/31/2008 9:52 pm by roc
Edited 10/31/2008 11:11 pm by roc
Edited 10/31/2008 11:11 pm by roc
Not to pick a nit, but if you start with 4/4 and want 9/16" what remains will probably be scrap anyway. When I resaw S4S pine I get 5/16" boards. If you want 2 1/2" boards you'll need 5/4 at least. For 9/16' you'll probably need 6/4.
Another nit, what's the difference between ripping and resawing? If you take a 4x4 and slice an inch off it lengthwise, was that a rip or a resaw operation? In my shop, I'll rip 4" thick material. I don't break out the frame saw until I'm in 6" territory or greater. So it's possible your drawer sides may be narrow enough to simply saw with an open saw. You'll want a blade as long as possible and pretty coarsely toothed.
Adam
In addition to a long saw you may want to (try) to enlist your girl friend to help you saw (don't tell your wife) . It goes much faster if you have another set of eyes on the back side of the plank. Other wise you wind up sawing a few inches, flipping the plank, sawing a few inches , flipping the plank, sawing a few inches etc., etc., etc., adnaseum ! just to keep on the line. For any thing over two feet long I say get the band saw.
Where do you buy your hardwood? The couple places I usually frequent have very large bandsaws and can resaw for you at an extremely cheap cost. They charge by the minute but for even 8-10 boards we might be talking $5-10 extra. I've never had them resaw for me as I've got a BS but I know it's an option. I have done a few odd boards by hand and it takes way more time than I want to invest. Even if paid myself just $1 an hour it would cost me way more to do it myself than just paying them the extra milling charge.
If you build it he will come.
douglas2cats,I like my wood guys but while I was there one day a person came in and was asking if they would resaw some of their wood for him. He said he saw that they had a band saw so he figured he would ask.They actually told him that people think this is possible on a bandsaw that size but "in reality" it is not and so they wouldn't do it. I felt so bad for the guy I almost offered but I work full time at a "real" job and so my shop time is priceless to me. Just want to work on MY projects.Apparently there is at least one local guy here that hires out to resaw dry wood to order.>Norman
Just need to ask around at the local Woodcraft store etc. for the name/phone of a local to resaw for you. I just noticed after rereading your post that you are talking poplar wood. Even a coarse ( 5 1/2 tooth ) rip hand sawhttp://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=toolshop&Product_Code=PZ-HS303.XX&Category_Code=works well for smaller softer wood planks. This is almost fun with poplar but the harder woods, oak etc, can get to be serious work FAST.
Edited 11/1/2008 10:03 pm by roc
Thank you all for your terrific replies. Yesterday, I dimensioned the drawer sides that led to this post in the first place. They are unusually deep—just a shade under 12 inches—so to resaw the stock, I'd need a bandsaw with at least that much cutting height. As Adam said, getting 9/16 inches out of 4/4 stock would leave an offcut that would probably be too thin to be of much use anyway, especially as in this case the stock is poplar. And roc, I actually resawed a piece of bird's eye maple recently using a cheap rip saw, and although the pieces came out great, it was a lot of work that took quite a bit of time. So I know I can do it. I also imagine that, as you say, doing the same thing with poplar would be a great deal easier.I've had my eye on one of the Grizzly 17-inch bandsaws (the GO513X2), which has 12-inch resaw capability, but with all the ductwork in my basement furnace room—where my shop is located— I don't have enough ceiling clearance for it. I work at a college, and there is a shop available to me with two bandsaws in it. But I had a bad experience there trying to resaw that bird's eye maple. The blade was so dull that I got a lot of burning and scorching and some serious drift. The saws are in an art shop, as opposed to a woodworking shop, so God knows what the students are cutting with it. The shop manager has since changed the blade on that bandsaw, but I haven't tried it since then.Thanks again to all. You have been a big help.Norman
Edited 11/2/2008 2:07 pm ET by nboucher
Hi Norman,Ceiling clearance smealling clearance ! Where's your sawsall man! Turn the breaker off to those circuits first ! Just kidding. Better fire works if you leave 'em on!Ok maybe I have had too much coffee and not enough shop time.>12" resaw
Those are some deeeep dwaaass !
You don't need to do it all in one shot. Glue up narrower to make wider and plane. We are hand planing fools you and I. Ok if I had a 13" planer I would undoubtedly use that for 12" drawer sides. Moving on . . .Keep in mind the weight of a bandsaw that big. If you move now and then OH mama !Wow you didn't tell us about the access to the big shop saws ! ! ! !Buy some blades and put em on for your work and carefully coil em up and take them away with you when done.I'm pulling for ya ! We are all in this together. ( Red Green)Edited 11/2/2008 2:30 pm by roc
Edited 11/2/2008 2:33 pm by roc
Roc,
You beat me to the punch with the suggestion to buy a couple of good sawblades to use on the art shop's bandsaws. That would be a minimal expense, and a whole lot of time and energy savings compared with hand-resawing.
Plus, no need to put money into a bandsaw that the original poster says he cannot fit into his shop. So, we're thinking alike here, and that could be dangerous!
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
Thinking ? nahh it hurts when I try that !
Norm - I'm not suggesting that my 14" Delta bandsaw with a riser block is an ideal situation for regularly re-sawing 12" wide boards (a 5 HP Laguna 24" would be a whole lot better), but it does work and work well for the task so long as the pieces are relatively short, the blade is a skip-tooth coarse 3 TPI, and you spend the time to align the wheels carefully, set the guides correctly, and use a point fence. Generally, it takes about a minute to re-saw a 3 foot long, 12" wide walnut board. Mahogany goes faster, maple slower.
And you can easily fit the Delta in a low-ceiling height shop. Mine's in a basement, and the ceiling height with duct work varies from 6-1/2 feet to just under 7 feet.
Thanks. I've looked some of the 14 inch saws like the Delta. I noticed on Craigslist that someone near me is trying to unload an old 14-inch Jet. About a year ago I actually ordered one of the Grizzly 2HP, 14-inch saws (the GO457), but it was backordered with a long wait, long enough for me to get cold feet and cancel the order. One factor was that the 17-inch Grizzly with cast-iron trunions and two blade speeds was only $125 more.Of course, reading Knots, and the ever-present advice to overbuy, I end up suffering with paralysis by analysis. Sometimes it's just better to pull the trigger and say the heck with it. We'll see.
"Of course, reading Knots, and the ever-present advice to overbuy, I end up suffering with paralysis by analysis. Sometimes it's just better to pull the trigger and say the heck with it. We'll see."
Yeah, no question about that. What I found with my Delta is that it wasn't up to snuff out of the box, but I expect this with any hand tool or power tool. In my case, I manufactured a better dust collection system in my shop ( a simple piece of plywood and a 4" dust collector port that I tapped screw holes for in the cast iron frame), a set of wheel brushes (I think these were Carter brands - they were cheap), and a set of bearing guides, plus the riser block from Delta. I didn't find it necessary to change the tension spring.
To tune the saw, I balanced the wheels so that they spun freely without returning to the same orientation, checked their co-planarity (this didn't require any adjustment), and carefully aligned the blade guides.
All in all, an extra $125, plus some shop time for the dust collector port (the newer Deltas have this integrated into the casting, so you might not need this). I also made a point fence out of scrap plywood - also no big deal.
The result is that you really can re-saw 1/16" off of a 12" wide board, though it takes a little practice. Before the extra effort, I'd guess that blade wandering made it possible to re-saw no thinner than 1/4" off of the same 12" wide boards. Well worth the effort, in my opinion.
Wow, a sixteenth is pretty impressive. I'd be happy with an eighth.I bit the bullet last night, looked at my budget, and bought the well-reviewed 1.5 hp, 14-inch Grizzly GO555X, thanks to the Microsoft Cash Back program on e-Bay. The saw sells for $575, and the cash-back thing will return about $144 back to me in 60 days, which means the purchase won't bust the family budget. After adding freight, this saw will be just a bit more expensive than the used Jet. I'll also get the riser block for it, giving me 12-inch resawing capacity. And it should just fit under the ductwork.Thanks for the tune-up advice. I will be looking at getting a Timberwolf blade soon and other upgrades as needed. No doubt I'll be search Knots for more tune-up advice.Norman
I end up suffering with paralysis by analysis.
I did that when I first saw my wife... I was sitting on a Chicago mailbox. Very strong steel boxes..
I saw her out of about five other girls walking! MAYBE SIX!
When thinking back I could have picker out from a thousand girls!
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