Marc - The bandsaw can be your best
friend or your worst enemy, depending on how well you tune it up. Today, we've got Alex
Snodgrass in the shop, and he's gonna show us
the absolute best way to tune up your bandsaw. ♫ Hit it Now, it seems like ages ago at this point, but back in episode 13
of The Wood Whisperer, I showed my method for
tuning up a bandsaw, and it worked pretty well. It was something I
learned from David Marks and saw other woodworkers do. I thought it was a good thing to pass on. Well, since then, I've
gotten a lot of emails and contact from people who say, "Have you tried the Snodgrass method?" And my response was, "Who
the heck is Snodgrass?" And since then, I've gotten to know Alex. He's been at all the woodworking shows. You may see him as the guy cutting these amazing little reindeer in under a minute. The guy is just insane on the bandsaw. But he has a video on YouTube
showing his tune-up process, and it's, you know, shot live at one of the woodworking shows, so I thought we could do
something a little bit better, try to get a nice, clear,
concise setup video, and I invited him out to
the shop and he said, "Yes." So, here we are, a great
setup video for you guys so you can tune up your bandsaws. Let's get to it. Alex - All right, now, I've completely disengaged all of our guides. The first thing that you
wanna do is adjust your blade so that the deepest part of the gullet is right in the center of the wheel. So, we use our tracking adjustment here, and we'll just adjust that
so that everything lines up so that the deepest part of the gullet's in the center of the wheel at the top. And the reason we wanna do that
is you have a crowned wheel, and if you've got a crowned
wheel and you center the blade, like most manuals or books tell you to do, well, all you're doing
is putting the blade in the center of the wheel
and giving it a pivot point. So, what we wanna do is back that blade up so that the deepest part of the gullet is in the center of the wheel. Now all that tension and rigidity is at the front of the blade,
not the center of the blade, and the only thing that
these side guides have to do is to prevent the back
edge from fishtailing, which is a whole lot easier than trying to force the front edge
where you want it to go. Don't worry about the bottom wheel. As long as the whole
blade is on the wheel, you shouldn't have to worry about it. All right, now, next, we wanna make sure that we've got proper
tension on the blade. I'm not a big fan of the
gauges, I don't trust it. They can be a little inaccurate, so this is the way that I tension a blade. First, I wanna make sure
that I open the door. Don't check the tension
on this side of the blade. Check it on the inside of the door. Lay your finger on top of the
guard, and push on the blade. The reason we wanna do that
is there's no resistance down the left side, and
when you lay your finger on top of the guard and push, you're getting a consistent feel. What I like is about a
quarter of an inch deflection on that blade, pushing on it, without, essentially, turning
my finger white or numb. So, once we've got it set, make sure that you re-check
and rotate that wheel that the deepest part of the gullet is still in the center of the wheel. Reason being if you have to loosen it, it could cause it to go back. If you tighten it, it will
cause it to come forward. All right, now, our next
adjustment is going to be our side guides, front to back. We wanna make sure that we adjust these so that they're just behind
the deepest part of the gullet. And the reason that we wanna do that, just about 1/16 of an inch, the reason that we wanna do
that is if the side guides are actually into the gullet,
even just a little bit, that is where your tooth set starts. And if you get it into that gullet, it's gonna flatten those teeth
out, forming a knife edge, and then the blade's gonna seek the easiest route through the wood. So, we'll get this set up. We've got that set on the top. We'll do the exact same
thing on the bottom. Snug that up. Now we're ready to adjust
our thrust bearings, top and bottom. Now, again, we just
want that thrust bearing just as close as we can
get it to that blade, without it actually
touching when it rotates. See, it's just wanting to rub, so we need to bring that
back just a little bit. If we get it too far forward, what's gonna happen is
it's gonna tweak that blade just enough to cause it to drift. You can see it's not rubbing now, but it takes little to no
effort to make it actually rub. You wanna make sure that
your thrust adjustment is the most accurate. Make sure you take the time
to get this one just right. Too much flex. Generally, what I tell people is if you can touch in the center with as little as a fingernail, and both the top and the bottom move, but when you rotate the wheel, they don't, you're good. All right, now, we need
to adjust our side guides so that they're close to the blade, but not actually touching it. All we have to do is keep the
back edge from fishtailing, or no longer forcing that front
edge where we want it to go. And if you always have bearings rubbing against that blade
while you're cutting, you're gonna destroy
bearings very quickly. Make sure we're not
giving it any rotation, but it doesn't take a
whole lot to get that one. And we'll do the same thing on this side. Get just a little rotation there. Now, we've got the side
guides set on the top. We'll repeat it for the
bottom, and we're ready to cut. We wanna level the table up, and the easiest way
that I found to do this is to get a piece of two-by,
this is a two-by-four. If you use a two-by-six, be
a little bit more accurate, but we wanna make a cut,
flip the piece over, bring it around back. If the blade will go back into that cut, we know our table is level
across the whole surface, not just up one side or the other by using, say, a simple square. The way that I used to do this
was just take a straightedge, lay it flat, right there on the table. Make sure that you're lining it up with the body of the blade,
but in between the tooth. Remember, the teeth have an offset, so you don't want that offset. But by laying it up against
the body of the blade, I can kind of see where that fence aligns to the body of the blade. Now, there's an easier way,
and that is with a F.A.S.T. A F.A.S.T. is a Fence
Alignment System Tool that has a groove for
the offset of the teeth, a magnet for the body of the blade. It simply drops right on to that blade so that the teeth are in that groove, so we don't get skewed again
to the offset of the tooth. Now, it's much easier to
see where it lines up. They come in all different sizes, 1/8, 3/16, quarter, 3/8, and 1/2. If you want an exact 1/8 inch, well, then, we put it on
the inside of that blade, and simply bring that
right up to the F.A.S.T. Now, we get an exact 1/8 every time. The other cool thing
about these F.A.S.T.s, since they're magnetic,
they stick right to the saw, making it much easier to find than that tape that you
laid down two seconds ago and don't know where you put it. All right, now, we're gonna make a cut, but we're gonna try to
make it as thin as possible to show you just how accurate these guides can allow your saw to cut. (saw whirring)
(upbeat music) - So, Alex tells me that he can go even thinner than this
if we wanted him to, but we just ran out of time. And plus, you get to a
point where the blade gets a little bit close to the fence, and you could start to cut
a little bit of a divot in there, and I did not wanna do that. Not to mention, all the veneer that I cut is gonna be thicker than this. I'm never really going to
cut anything this thin, but you could see, the
results speak for themselves. Now, just a good quality blade, a little bit of time
invested in the tune-up, and you can get incredible results from pretty much any bandsaw. I mean, honestly, no
matter how powerful it is, how big it is, any bandsaw
would benefit from this process. All right, so, thanks to Alex Snodgrass and Carter Products for
helping us out with this video. And hopefully, you'll take this
information into your shop, tune up your bandsaw, and get
amazing results like this.
It's the same basic setup process that is in the old video that everyone always links to, but it's not a dim, low-quality video from someone sitting in the audience at a tradeshow... it's a nice, crisp, clear, well-lit high quality video with lots of good close-up shots. This should be the new reference video that everyone links to whenever someone has a question about bandsaw setup, IMO.
I used the process to set up my new (old) 14" Delta bandsaw a few weeks ago and had great success. I had never even used a bandsaw before... I bought this old Delta from someone who inherited it from his father-in-law, spent a few bucks on replacement bearings, new blades, new tension spring, etc and after watching the video a few times and following the setup process, the saw was cutting like a dream.
One bandsaw video that would be helpful would be one that details how to set the tension properly on a grizzly style quick release system. I called them once and the guy spent 10 minutes trying to explain it to me, and said they get a 90 minute class on it, and there is really no good way to explain it - at some point, it just clicks.
And I just got a new (OLD, 1949 model Delta 14") bandsaw, this video is perfect timing for me!