Making Internal Cuts on a Bandsaw
Jimmy DiRestaDescription
If you’ve been using a bandsaw for a while you may have run into this issue; how do woodworkers do internal cuts on a bandsaw? For instance, if you’re doing lettering, how do you cut the inside of an O or D? We were lucky to recently have Jimmy Diresta in the shop, and he showed us a great bandsaw technique that allows these internal cuts.
An amazingly versatile tool
Bandsaws are great. They can be used for so many different tasks. Ripping wood? Use a bandsaw. Crosscutting small parts? Use a bandsaw. Doing joinery? Use a bandsaw. WWGOA has lots of great bandsaw tips and tricks you can take advantage of.
The thin kerf pays off
If you typically use a table saw blade with a ⅛” kerf, compare that to the kerf of a bandsaw, about .032”. What’s the benefit? Less of your expensive material going up the dust chute. This may not be a big deal on everyday material, but when you’re cutting wood that’s $$$ per board foot, every little bit helps.
Unlikely to have kickback
All the cutting pressure from a bandsaw blade is down toward the table. On table saws the cutting pressure is toward the operator. So, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever get kickback when using a bandsaw.
And now you can do internal cuts
On top of all of these great bandsaw attributes, now you know how to do internal cuts with your bandsaw. Remember to open the internal cut up by cutting with the grain whenever possible. That’ll make the glue seam even more invisible, leaving your woodworking friends wondering how you pulled this off.
A lot of people get hung up on the idea of using a bandsaw to cut the internal parts of some of the letter forms that have inside cuts, and I'm gonna show you a trick I learned many years ago on how to solve this problem, and you could end up like that, but use a bandsaw, and I'm gonna demonstrate it right here. I wanna just show an important thing I did, is when I came in, I went down, and I went back around, and I crossed this cut right there, so that it stays in line. I didn't try and turn as soon as I came in to stay on the line, I went back around, and then came and finished my cut, if you noticed what I did there. And now we take the letter and we cut it completely in half. All right.
So now I cut it completely in half, and I'll take some glue, and I'll glue it together. And in this case I went cross grain, but if you went with the grain in your letter form, you'll have a much easier time hiding that bandsaw cut. Little bit of glue, force that together, and there you go. That's how you can cut inside of a letter, and disguise your work toward the finished piece.
Really good videos. I will have to try this one.