George Vondriska

Bandsaw Essentials Session 1: Getting Started

George Vondriska
Duration:   42  mins

Description

Let’s make sure your saw is up-to-snuff before we do any cutting. Give the tires a once over, make sure the table is square to the blade, and everything is working the way it should.

Proper blade selection is critical, and we’ll help you make sure you’re choosing the right width of blade and tooth count for your project. Then we’ll make sure you get your blades properly installed and the all the guides correctly set.

Share tips, start a discussion or ask other students a question. If you have a question for the instructor, please click here.

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On my list of tools to have in the shop, bandsaw is always really high on the list because of its versatility. There's so much stuff we can do with a bandsaw, and I'm gonna take you through a lot of that. First thing I want to do is just talk about bandsaws in general, and make sure that when we talk about using them, we all are on the same page with the jargon. First thing, let's talk about bandsaw sizes. This is a 14-inch bandsaw.

What's that mean? Well, with the saw unplugged, when we open the housing and start looking at the wheels, 14-inch tells us the diameter of the wheels. So I want to point this out because a lot of times people will consider this the capacity of the saw. That's not the case; it's the diameter of the wheels. We've got an upper wheel and a lower wheel, and the deal with the blade, being a bandsaw, is that the blade is one continuous band that goes from the top wheel to the bottom.

One of the things that's great, I think, about a bandsaw is that as it runs, the blade is always driving down toward the table. So if you've ever used a scroll saw or a jigsaw, the cutting action on those is from the blade running up and down. That sometimes can cause the wood to also vibrate up and down. On a bandsaw, because we're always driving down toward the table, there's a very natural down pressure that comes from that cut so we don't get that rattling. Unlike a table saw, it has no kickback potential, because the blade isn't spinning toward us like a table saw blade.

Again, it's driving down toward the table. Where's this whole versatility thing come in? We can run very small blades on a bandsaw, as small as an eighth of an inch typically, very wide blades as big as three-quarter inch, one and a quarter, depending on your saw. That takes us from the ability to cut jigsaw-type pieces, really small radii in those parts, all the way up to very nice, heavy, straight cuts in logs. You're gonna see logs get cut in just a little bit.

The other thing that we get from a bandsaw is incredible thickness capacity. What I mean by that is when we raise the upper guide on the saw, very commonly this number is around six inches. What other tool in the shop would let you cut through six inches of stuff? With some saws, we can go even further and get 12 inches or even more of capacity. Where this kind of capacity really pays off is log cutting, resawing, those kinds of operations that we want to do on a bandsaw.

Bandsaws will always have an upper guide and a lower guide. I'm gonna take you through the setup on those to make sure that everything is working just right and the way it's supposed to. So more on that later. Behind the guide system, we've got bearings. Thrust bearings are what control the front to back of the blade.

More on that later when we actually get into the setup. That gives you a quick overview of what bandsaws are about, some of the jargon that goes with them, and lets us move on with more of our bandsaw class. We're ready to start moving forward with setup things that are gonna make your bandsaw work better. So one of the things I want to do is have a look at the tires on this saw. Symptomatically, one of the things you can look for is when you're running your saw and you look at the blade dead on, does it walk back and forth left and right while it's running?

If it does, that's no good, 'cause it's gonna make it really hard to do an effective cut if the blade is moving side to side while the saw is running. One of the things that can cause that is a high spot on the tire. One of the things that can cause high spots on the tires is just junk on the tires. So after you've had your bandsaw for awhile, it's quite possible that you have a buildup of sawdust and resin and pitch on the tires. The frequency of this or the likelihood of it happening depends a lot on what kind of wood you cut.

If you work with pine a lot, pine is pretty sappy. Once the sap is stuck to the tires, then, in turn, sawdust will still stick to the tires and we start to get this buildup. It's probably not gonna be perfectly uniform, so as the blade rides over that buildup of sawdust, it moves in and out in tiny increments. Down here, that causes it to move back and forth. This is most likely to happen on the bottom of the saw.

Let's have a look at that bottom wheel to help you understand this. What happens is the blade exits the table, and down here, we have this triangle that's created, this funnel between the blade and the wheel, the blade and the tire. So when sawdust gets in here, and of course this is spinning, the blade is very likely to push that sawdust against the tire, and then that begins the buildup. So we get this buildup a lot more prevalently on the lower tire than we do on the top tire. If it starts to look like these do, I'd say it's time for a cleaning, and if you have that movement, it's definitely time for a cleaning.

In order to do this, we want the blade off. We haven't talked about this yet. So let's have a look at removing the blade from the bandsaw. First thing we'll do is take this insert out of the table. We need that out of the way.

Next thing, we have to take tension off of the blade. Tension comes off the blade by lowering the upper wheel. Somewhere up here on the top of your saw, there's gonna be a device, this is it on this saw, that allows us to lower that upper wheel so that our blade gets loose. In this case, I'm just unscrewing this. The whole upper wheel is moving down.

Let's come around so you can see that a little bit better. As I lower that, the wheel's coming down just a little bit, and that's gonna be just enough that the blade is loose. When the blade goes on or comes off, and we're gonna talk more about putting a blade on in a little bit, you want to make sure we don't drag those teeth across any metal parts, 'cause that'll dull them very quickly. And we'll set this aside. We're gonna have a look later at coiling a bandsaw blade.

I've got a great trick for you on that. All right. Here's our first maintenance step on the bandsaw. What do we do to get that junk off of there? We need a solvent.

We don't want to go too strong with the solvent 'cause we don't want to dissolve the tire, that would be bad. So mineral spirits works pretty well for this. Denatured alcohol would be another good choice. We do not want to go as strong as something like lacquer thinner because that is such a strong solvent you'll probably start to deteriorate the tire. You can see it doesn't take much to get that off of there but this does have a significant positive effect on the blade running true.

All right, I'm gonna do the same thing to the bottom. I ought to let that top one dry and get it ready for our next step. Looking good. All right, let's talk about preventative steps. On some bandsaws, one of the things you'll see is a brush on the lower wheel, and that brush is there to specifically address the problem that we're working on right now which is getting this buildup off the tires.

If you have a brush on there, the way it should be working is just in light contact with the wheel, so as the wheel comes by, it's removing the dust. You'll generally only see those on the lower wheel not the upper, because the lower wheel gets the predominant amount of sawdust and sap buildup on it. In the absence of a brush, we'd still like to protect the tires on this so that we don't get a buildup really fast, and part of the answer to that is this kind of stuff. This is a woodworking-specific lubricant. We're gonna see this later when we talk about taking care of our bandsaw table.

If you've seen other videos or classes I've presented, you've seen me use this on a lot of different tools. Woodworking-specific, it doesn't have any silicone in it, and that's important. Silicone can migrate into your work if it's in the lubricant and prevent your work from taking a finish later. This stuff is sourced for you on a PDF with our class. What we want to do is spray this on the tires.

It's gonna help seal them up so it's more difficult for the sap and sawdust mix to start sticking to that tire. Same thing on the lower tire. It dries really quickly: in the time it took us to spray that lower one, just walked into the bandsaw, that was a little sharp right there, that upper one is dry. We can get the excess off. Now, a question I've been asked a couple of times is aren't we making these tires slippery, then, and that's gonna cause the bandsaw blade to slip when it's under cutting pressure?

And theoretically yes, but in practice, no. The reason it doesn't have a negative effect, the reason the blade doesn't start to slip is yes, there's a lubricant on this tire now, but there's so much contact between the blade and the tire and so much pressure holding the blade in contact with the tire that it's just not gonna start to slip on there. So that's not an issue at all. So step one, get them clean. Step two, in order to keep them clean, if you've got a brush, make sure that it's got a little bit of contact with that lower wheel so that it can knock the stuff off as it comes by.

Even if you do have a brush, spraying this product on is a good way to go in order to reduce the likelihood that the stuff is gonna continue to stick with it. No matter what, make sure those tires are nice and clean, and that's gonna help take any wobble out of your saw blade. With the tires cleaned up, what else do we need to do to keep our saw and ourselves happy? One of the things we want to do is keep the table lubricated. It's similar to keeping the tires lubricated.

In fact, we're gonna use the same product. It's that woodworking-specific lubricant. That's gonna do a handful of things for us. One, it's gonna make our material move more readily across the table; two, it's gonna help prevent rust, and just ambient humidity in the air can be enough to get these cast iron surfaces start to rust. Now, I've had people ask what if I have a machine with an aluminum table, do I need to even do any of this stuff?

The answer is still yes, not 'cause of rust, but just because of lubricity. We want to keep things moving easily across these surfaces. So I'll do the table, I'll do the fence rail out here so the fence can slide back and forth easily, anything I can do to make parts on the machine work better. Now, how about some enhancements to make us work a little better? Well, one of the things, I don't know about you, but sometimes it seems like it gets harder and harder to see what I'm looking at.

So a bandsaw is a great tool to shed a little light on the subject here. And this can make such a huge difference. I've got great lighting in my shop, I've got fluorescence everywhere, but let me throw the insert in there so we can really see. When we do this, what a difference it makes in really highlighting this area, and especially when you're cutting to a line, especially when you're cutting to a line for joinery, one technique I do on the bandsaw sometimes is through dovetails, you've really gotta be able to see the pencil line. So adding this light, which we've got sourced for you on the PDF, is a really good way to make sure you can see what you're looking at.

I chose one with a magnetic base so that if you've got other tools you want to put light on, we can move this, take it to another tool, bring it back here as needed. In fact, to take it a step further with this particular one, it's kind of cool, it's actually just a flashlight that's held in there. So if you have a need for a flashlight in other places in your shop, it'll do that for you. So adding a light is a great enhancement for the saw. Sometimes you find that the table is not big enough, and that can be front to back if you're cutting something really long, side to side if you're cutting something really wide.

A very simple solution for that is just a big piece of melamine. I've got a saw curve kerf in here that was produced on the table saw. I can put this onto the saw using double-faced tape. In fact, there's still some on there from the last use. And this is great in feed, out feed to support my work.

The other one, which is just like it but different, comes out this way. That gives me more real estate to the right of the blade for when I'm cutting something wide. So you can change the dimensions of these, you can use whatever size works for you and your work. The double-faced tape between the melamine and the tabletop does a great job, I think you'll see that in a second, of holding those two together. That's really all it takes to keep that in place.

Now, next thing I want to do is show you a trick for squaring the table. And in order to do that, I have to have a blade on the saw. So I'm gonna stop, install the blade, and then we'll come back. And don't panic, I'm still gonna show you, start to finish, what it takes to install a blade on a bandsaw, and we'll go through that process in just a little bit. But let me throw a blade on here.

We'll go through that squaring process right now. Ready for a really high tech squaring experience? One of the things with tool setup in general is that my preference is to see, when I'm checking for square, is it cutting square when the machine is running, not is it square when it's sitting here? So what I mean by this is I'm not prone to raising the upper guide and inserting a square between the table and the blade 'cause that tells me what it looks like when it's sitting still. What's it look like when it's running?

Very simple test: we need a piece of scrap that's got a straight edge on it. That's gonna go down on the table like that. Nibble in from the front. We can shut this off at that point. Keep that same edge down on the table.

Spin this around and see if the blade goes into that curve. And if it does, table is square to the blade. If it doesn't, check your owner's manual, but, very commonly, somewhere over here, there's a bolt sticking out of the casting, and that bolthead bears up against the bottom of this table. So when we angle the table and then go back to 90, the table pivots, pivots, pivots, hits the head of that bolt. That's what tells it when to stop, which should be in a position where it's perpendicular here to the blade.

So we'll want to adjust that bolt until we get this just right, but like I said, check the owner's manual to see what's right for you. So the addition of a light, lubricate your table, add bigger tables as needed, make sure your table is square to the blade. It's a really good move towards setting up the bandsaw to make sure it's gonna do what you want it to do. Ready for some information about blades? We've got a couple of things going here.

We want to talk about blade selection, and then also look at getting a blade on the saw, and also how to coil a blade. So let's start with blade selection. Very commonly, hook tooth and skip tooth patterns are used for woodworking, and really either one is gonna serve you well. Think of the hook tooth as more like the aggressive rip blade like you might use on your table saw. As a result, it's gonna cut a little bit more aggressively.

If I was picking a real resaw-specific blade, because of the amount of material we're taking out in a resaw cut, it would be that hooktooth pattern. But like I said, either one is gonna serve you fine for your woodworking needs. In addition to tooth geometry, we need to talk about tooth count. As a general rule of thumb, you want to have three to four teeth in your material when you're cutting. So how does that work?

If I'm cutting three-quarter-inch stock and I want three to four teeth in there at a time, well, then I want about a four tooth blade 'cause that would give me three tooth on my three-quarter-inch stock when I'm cutting. If I'm cutting really, really thin material, quarter-inch plywood, I should go to a tooth or I should go to a blade with a higher TPI, a higher tooth per inch count, maybe a 10 tooth per inch blade. For the most part, however, so that you're not changing blades 4,000 times a day on your saw, what I find is that a four-tooth quarter-inch blade is a great all-around general purpose blade for your bandsaw. Now, the exception to that will be when I cut something that's real thin, like maybe plexiglass, in this class, we're gonna look at cutting non-ferrous metals. Those are occasions where we do want to for sure go to that higher tooth count because that aggressive four TPI blade is gonna tear up that thinner stock.

When we go to big stock, when we go to a resaw, thinking of it in terms of three or four teeth buried in your material isn't gonna work 'cause if we've got something that's five inches thick, 12 inches thick that we're resawing, we can't possibly only get three teeth in there at a time. So at a resaw blade, selection there will be three to four teeth per inch, and we want to go wider, half-inch, maybe a three-quarter-inch blade. As a general rule of thumb, you can say you want to go about as wide as your saw can handle when you're resawing, with a three to four teeth per inch tooth count. Now, we've talked about skinny blades and we've talked about wide blades. The other thing that affects is the radius and or diameter of the circle that you can cut with that blade.

For instance, a one-inch-wide blade can cut about seven inches on an arc. Well, that's okay, 'cause if we've got a one-inch blade in there, probably what we want to do is cut a straight line, or probably want a resaw. A real skinny blade, a three-16ths-inch blade is gonna allow you to cut a much tighter circle. We've got all of this spelled out for you on a radius chart on a PDF that is with the class. So you can look there as you're choosing your blade to match up the size of the blade with the radius that you're trying to produce.

So we've got stuff to think about here. One good general purpose blade is gonna be a quarter-inch four TPI. However, when you get to real thin-walled stuff, non-ferrous metals, plexiglass, going to that higher tooth count is a good idea. Big wide blades for resawing, somewhere around half-inch or larger, three or four teeth per inch. Keep in mind that as you're choosing your blade, it's gonna be able to cut a given radius.

Match them up accordingly. That gets us to where we have chosen our blade. Now we've got to get a blade on the saw. We're gonna do two different blades here. First, I'm gonna show you a quarter-inch blade, then we're gonna come back into a wider blade because there are different parameters for the two of them.

So a quarter inch-blade. When the blade is going on, one of the things we want to pay attention to is that here, on this side of the saw, the teeth need to be pointing down toward the table, and as this blade is standing here, it's just right. It's not impossible that as blades come on and off the saw they get turned inside out like this, and thus, so now, oops, when we look at this blade, the teeth on this side are pointing up. If that blade went in the saw just like that, it's not gonna cut. There's nothing wrong with the blade.

It's just that at some point here, it got turned inside out. So step one, make sure the teeth are pointing in the right direction. Saw's unplugged. We're gonna slip the blade onto the saw and thread it through all the appropriate stuff, not allowing the teeth to drag on anything metal, and just gently set it on that top wheel. Now, here's a problem that I run into, and maybe you have too, which is I position the blade on the top wheel, then I start to manipulate it on the bottom, it jumps off the top, then I gotta come back up here.

Let me give you a good trick for that. And the trick is just a spring clamp. I'll get my cord out of the way, drape on that top wheel, grab a spring clamp, and that is gonna hold that in place for manipulating the blade and getting it in the right spot every place else. Every place else is gonna be down through the housings, again, really making sure it doesn't get wrapped on anything, it doesn't end up any place it shouldn't. And it's real easy, this.

The place I really watch the closest is right under the table, so that, with our guide systems that we'll talk more about in a second, that the blade doesn't end up serpentined around something underneath the table. So just by looking down here through the top, I can see the blade is clear, the blade is clear, everything looks good. Now we're ready to start applying some tension. So our first two steps here will be tension and tracking. So tension on this saw comes from the knob up here on the top.

As I tighten this, what's happening is that upper wheel is moving up, and that's applying tension to the blade. Once we have a little bit of tension on there, that spring clamp is gonna be able to come off the top, Front to back, what I'm doing right now with the blade is I'm locating it approximately on the center of the tire. And don't sweat that too much, 'cause we're gonna finesse it exactly where we want it in just a second. Let me turn the saw so you can see better. First thing, let's look at the back of the saw.

Every saw is gonna have a tracking or camber adjustment. Usually, it's in a position like this, and what happens as I tighten this is it pushes out the bottom of the wheel as I tighten. So when I'm turning here, the bottom of the wheel is going that way. That causes the blade to move back on the tire. If you've ever tracked a belt on a belt sander, you've already done this; same thing here on the bandsaw.

As I loosen the knob, the bottom of that upper wheel is allowed to come back in. That would allow the blade to move out. So here's what we need. Enough tension on it that as I turn this by hand, it's not gonna just fall off the front of the wheel on me. And that's where I'm at right now, that's pretty good as a starting point.

Then I'm gonna start turning this by hand, and I'm watching the tracking right here at about eye level for me, tracking being where is the blade positioned on this tire? And I'll talk in a second about the goal that I'm trying to achieve. So while I'm turning it by hand, I'm turning the knob on the back. I don't want that blade to come off the front of this wheel or the tire, and I don't want it to fall off the back of the tire. It's just about where I want it.

Where I want it is I want it the teeth of the blade to be approximately centered on the tire, teeth of the blade on the center of the tire. Here's the reason for that. If you feel these tires, they've got a high spot in the middle, they've got a crown. I want the blade to go from the center of the crown back. What that does is it helps the blade stay on the saw mechanically.

We're gonna look in a little bit at cutting, and we'll have occasion to back out of a cut. So imagine if the blade is on the front half of the wheel, then we're on the downhill side of this crown going forward. When I back out of a cut, it's pretty easy, then, to pull the blade off the front of the tire. when it's on the downhill side this way on the back of the tire, then it's very difficult mechanically to pull this blade off the front of the wheel. So teeth, center, and that's done by spinning by hand, turning this tracking knob, and let me just go through a couple of revolutions.

As I dial the knob in, the blade tracks toward the back. As I dial the knob back out, I can make the blade track toward the front. Keep turning by hand until I get it where I want it in my little happy place. All right, we're gonna quit right there. Now, one of the things that we've done to make this way easier for you to see is we've taken this entire upper guard off.

Normally, I wouldn't do that. We just did it to make this visually a lot easier for you. Let's talk about tension. When I push on the side of the blade, what I'm looking for in tension is about a quarter inch of deflection. Now, I know this is subjective, because if I push hard enough, I could get this to move a half inch.

So right now that looks to me like it's still a little too loosey-goosey. That's starting to look better. I'm not pushing that hard. The other thing to pay attention to as you buy specific blades, oftentimes the blades will come with instructions to help you tension them, and that's a really good path to follow. Okay, that's looking really good right there.

Now we've got tracking good, tension good, we're ready to start working with this stuff, the guide system. That's why we have this upper guard off. We've got a couple of things going here. We've got a thrust bearing that's behind the blade. All bandsaws are gonna have that.

We've got guides on the side, and those could be guide blocks or they could be guide bearings. Let's talking about guide blocks first. If you have steel blocks in your bandsaw, I'm a big advocate of swapping those out for phenolic blocks. These are phenolic. And the thing I really like about these is it makes setup really, really simple.

These can be allowed to simply run right up against the side of the blade. So it's gonna make that positioning really easy to do. If we have steel blocks, we have to maintain clearance between the blocks and the blade. I'll show you how to do that. Let's go through this thrust bearing first.

What we need to do is get that thrust bearing right behind the saw blade, right behind meaning we want to maintain a gap of about 3/1000s of an inch. So I've got everything loose here. I can dial that thrust bearing forward. And here's what we want: when we spin this by hand, that thrust bearing should not be spinning. It isn't until we put cutting pressure on the front that the thrust bearing will start to spin along with the blade.

3/1000s of an inch, what do we own that we could use as a 3/1000s of an inch feeler gauge? Well, that's an easy answer. Go to your printer, get a piece of paper, or if you've got any do-re-mi in your wallet, take out a dollar bill, it's about 3/1000s of an inch thick. We can slip that in there, use that as a gauge. Now, that feels okay.

Let's see if it moves with the blade. So at idle here, it's not spinning with the blade. Little bit of cutting pressure on the front from my finger, it does start to put pressure or make the thrust bearing spin. So that's starting to look pretty good. Now, realistically, do I still use a piece of paper as a feeler gauge all the time?

Nope. What I'm more prone to doing is dialing this thrust bearing forward until it does start to make contact. Right there, I can see that it's rubbing up against the blade. And then I'll back it off just a tiny bit until that contact stops, and that's my positioning. So that's another approach for you.

Now, your blocks. Here's what we want: when we have these installed. we're gonna want the front of the block even with the bottom of the gullet when we have cutting pressure on the front. So remember that we currently have a little bit of space between the back of the blade and the front of the thrust bearing. So when I position the guide blocks front to back, I'm gonna push this in so it's touching the thrust bearing, then do my front-to-back positioning on the guide blocks.

While I am doing this is I'm looking down through the top here, eyeballing the position of the block against the gullet, the valley between the teeth. Pressure on the front of the blade, and that's looking very good right there. Lock that in place. Now let's come back this way. If you're using cool blocks or if you're using phenolic blocks like I have here, the next setup is easy peasy.

We're gonna gently squeeze those until they're kissing the side of the saw blade. Tighten those thumb screws and you're done. So as the saw runs, it's just gently kissing those phenolic blocks. That's just fine. If you have steel blocks in your saw, you're gonna do this.

Take your feeler gauge, your expensive feeler gauge here, put that in-between, squeeze those steel blocks against the paper, tighten the thumb screws. Now, when I do this, take the paper out of there, that left me with 3/1000s of an inch on each side of the blade. That's the spacing I want between the blade and the blocks. If you have bearings on your saw, what you can do, bearings on the side here, guide bearings, you can bring those in the same way we did with the thrust bearing. We want to maintain that 3/1000s of an inch per side with your guide bearings so that we don't have contact all the time, but, when needed, the blade has that contact.

Here's what's really important about all of this setup. When we did the tracking, we got the blade into this equilibrium position where, if I had a good blade on here and I cut real carefully, even without using any of the guides here, I'd be able to make a cut, because the blade's in the right position on the wheel and it's under the right amount of pressure. So then what's really cool is when we add the thrust bearing and the guide blocks, we've really supported that blade, really optimized the performance that it's capable of. That's really, really important. What we want to do is make sure we get an equilibrium position first, then come and do this.

We're not relying on these devices to keep the blade in the right position up here. We're relying on tracking to keep the blade in the right position up here. Everything I did here is mirror image below the table. We have to repeat the process: set the thrust bearing, set the guide blocks, set front-to-back positioning, side-to-side positioning. We're gonna control all that stuff under the table.

Next thing I want to do, I'm gonna take this blade off, get a half-inch blade and put that on, because when we go to wider blades, our positioning on this upper tire changes. Let me pull this guy off, because I want to show you coiling a blade, as long as I'm taking this one off. Now, same thing, as I take it off, I'm just being real careful to not kink it, to not let those teeth drag on anything. If you get a kink in a bandsaw blade, that's real bad, 'cause it's almost impossible to use the blade after that. Even if you bend it back straight by hand, it's never quite gonna run the same.

All right, let's get some real estate here so you can see what's happening. Here's my way of coiling a blade. I'm right-handed, so I step on the blade with my right foot, and then the next big thing to this is gonna be what I do with my right hand. So I call it turning my hand inside out. When I'm done with this, my right thumb is gonna be pointing to my left.

When I start with it, my right thumb is gonna be pointing to my right, so my hand is inside out. Then I'm gonna bring my hand back to this position, 180 degrees, to its natural position. Spinning, spinning, spinning, come around another 180 degrees as I'm working down toward the floor, and that coils the blade. All right, one more time in super slow-mo. If you're worried about stepping on the blade if you've got a concrete floor, put a piece of wood down there, put the blade on top of the wood, then the sole of your shoe on that.

Hand inside out, come around to 180 as you work down toward the floor. Come around another 180 as you work down toward the floor. Allow the coils to form. There you go. You're not done yet.

Next step, piece of masking tape to hold that in the coil so it doesn't suddenly spring on you. Let me grab a half-inch blade, and we'll look at the tracking difference when we put a wider blade on the saw. I'll be right back. Saw is still unplugged, I put my wider blade, my half inch blade on here. Now, let's talk about down where my guide system is.

When you're going from a narrow blade to a wide blade, narrow blade comes off, wide blade is about to go on, back all this stuff up so that when we do the tracking, which we're about to do, the back of this blade isn't running into this while you're trying to work on tracking up here. All right, now, quarter-inch blade was teeth even with the crown, teeth on the center of the tire. If I do that here, gonna real carefully back this up on the tracking, so I'm dialing in my tracking knob, that's moving the blade back, back, back, if I get those teeth centered, what's gonna happen is the back of the blade is starting to suspend off of the tire. That's no good. This saw is capable of taking a three-quarter-inch blade, a quarter-inch wider than I have on there right now.

Blade would be sticking off the back of the wheel. That's no good. So the parameter on teeth centered is unless centering the teeth makes any part of the blade stick off the tire or the wheel, then we can't do that. Then we center the blade on the tire like that. Now, do we still have mechanical grab?

Yep, because we've got a crown, these are made out of metal, so as we apply tension, what's happening is the blade itself is forming onto that crown, and with our wider blades, they're able to do that. They form on the crown. That helps keep them on the saw. So depending on your saw, the line in the sand where you have to do this instead of teeth on the center is gonna depend on how wide your tires are. So you're gonna have to check your owner's manual, you're gonna have to check your saw.

Most saws, though, I can center up to a three-eighths-inch blade, put the teeth on the center, but anything over three-eighths, I have to center the blade on the wheel. So pay attention to blade selection, pay attention to getting the blade on or take the time to get it into that equilibrium position with tracking. Then, when you add guide bearings or guide blocks and your thrust bearing, you're gonna have great support on that blade, and it's gonna be making really good cuts for you, and you're really gonna like using your bandsaw.

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