I was wondering – since I never did this before – whether I can get away with ordering 6/4 lumber to resaw to get 2 planks of lumber that I can joint/plane to arrive at 1/2inch thickness. My only concern would be the margin of error is tight if I have a bandsaw blade that drifts – I never worked with 6/4 lumber but I assume it is enough over 1 inch to allow me to resaw and still have enough left to get straight boards that I can plane down to 1/2 inch – I think my one project calls for 7/16 lumber but I want to be able to get it at least at 1/2 inch.
By the way – one website says cherry, the lumber I plan to use, comes in 5/4 but not 6/4, the next size is 8/4. Am I better off just planing 4/4 down to 1/2 or should I try to go with a thicker lumber size? Seems like a waste to plane 4/4 down that much but I will also waste wood resawing 8/4 – maybe not as much – seems 5/4 is too thin to adress bandsaw blade drift and still trying to get two planks each 1/2 inch in width after the resaw. – Tom
Edited 9/21/2008 2:06 am ET by Tom93311
Replies
6/4 leaves you a lot of margin for error on your way to 1/2" boards. I don't know what bandsaw you have or what width boards you plan on resawing, but assuming you have it properly setup you should be fine.
If you take your time and let the bandsaw do the work (as in not force the boards through too fast) you should have no problem resawing a 5/4 board to two 7/16" finish boards. There's 3/8" of margin to work with.
It's a shame to burn 1/2 of the thickness of a rough board by planing it down to size. I'd still resaw those 4/4 boards to salvage the waste, never know when you'll need it.
Just to save some $ depending on how much you need ask your hardwood suppliers if they have any scant 4/4 or in this case 3/4 .. heck just run them through the planer no resawing may be needed , unless you want to .
since the per foot price goes up with the thickness
dusty
I've resawn a lot of 5/4 to yield 1/2" after surfacing. The 5/4 was pretty flat and straight to start, and I jointed and planed with very light passes. Oh, and I use Woodslicer blades, which have a fairly narrow kerf and don't require a lot of cleanup after the fact. And I have the BS tuned as described in FWW a couple of years back so that drift isn't a big issue. IIRC, Michael Fortune wrote that article.
even on my 14" bandsaw I find drift is not an issue... when the blade twists or deflects it is, in my observations, a function of a poorly setup bandsaw and/or the material being forced through too quickly.
I find that some times when you resaw a board it tends to warp as a result of inborn stresses in the wood. Nothing to do about it but I've found that with proper procedures when jointing and planing this can be reduced or eliminated.
I recently resawed a cherry board and got two pretzels from it. When resawing I like to leave myself a little extra room to thickness plane out the saw marks and/or rejoint the board if it becomes necessary
so yea you loose a little lumber but you end up with straight boards (most of the time).
Chaim
Tom,
Maybe I am just to naive to know better, but with my bandsaw I use the fence. Have a woodslicer blade. Get a relatively smooth cut. I would start with 5/4 and think you could routinely get 1/2 inch out of it.
If not, buy the 8/4 and resaw just enough thickness to get your 1/2 finished. Joint the board and cut another slab off. Joint the board and cut another slab off., etc.
Alan - planesaw
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