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Harvesting green wood.

pencheff

pencheff

Joined
Nov 2, 2005
Messages
224
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Location
Lancaster, PA
Website
www.gvpencheff.com
I'm slowly harvesting bowl blanks from a walnut tree recently taken down in my yard. With your help I've overcome my newbie chainsaw operator problem and am now able to chainsaw slabs with a minimum of fuss. Thanks!

For today's lesson I need advice and help with bandsaw blade tooth configurations and what is best for cutting green lumber. I have been able to make nice neat circles from what I've chainsawed so far but it has been a struggle. My 1HP 14" bandsaw really complains when cutting sapwood with a standard 3/8" or 1/4" blade. I have to order custom made blades for my saw so I'll buy whatever I need. So what do I buy?

A primer on hook/skip/raker would be useful. For me and for all the lurkers 😎

Working with green wood is completely foreign to me and frankly a bit unnerving. It's creating machinery maintenance problems I've never had to deal with before. If you can give me any tips on how to keep all this ... well I can't really call it sawdust can I? ... call it green wood cutting waste product from adhering to and gumming up my guide bearings, blades and bandsaw tires I'd appreciate it.
 
Bandsaw Blades

Go to www.suffokmachinery.com

This is the home of Timberwolf Blades. Lots of detailed information there on what kind of teeth and hooks and skips and TPI stuff. Worth reading.

Call the phone number and the people are very knowledgeable.

What you want is a 1/2 or 3/4 inch blade. The largest your machine can handle. You want a 3 TPI hook skip tooth pattern.

The skip and 3 TPI will allow plenty of room between teeth to clear the sawdust from the kerf. The hook will help in the thick material you are cutting.

You will regularly be cutting 6 inch material. If you have a riser block on that saw, you could be cutting 9 - 12 inch. You might even want to go to a 2 TPI blade. The folks at suffolk machinery will know for sure.

Cost: The same as my local tool store for Vermont American blades.

John 🙂
 
Greg - I was in the same spot you are now in, and I ended up buying a 14" bandsaw so I could prepare roughouts.

Now that bandsaw hardly ever gets used. For me it is much easier to use a compass to draw a circle on the roughout and just cut off the corners with a chainsaw. Why?

It's pretty fast. The chainsaw teeth don't get bound up (whereas bandsaw blades can get bound up or kinked). No resin build up on the chainsaw either. Your bowl blank doesn't have to be completely round. A few small corners are pretty easy to cut off on the lathe.

The bandsaw is setup with a 1/2" blade, 3 TPI. But it hardly gets used for sawing. I clamped two 6" wide boards to it, and it makes a nice handy table so at least it gets used for something!
 
What stnick said sounds good. I have about 3TPI on my 2 horse bandsaw and dont think I have enough power, but I'm sometimes trying to cut 16" thick.

Wider blade, less teeth, and you will see your bandsaw rip through blanks much nicer. That 1/4 blade you're using burned my wood sometimes before cutting it on the thick stuff. 😱
 
Suffolk site is a good place. You want good set in the teeth, regardless of hook versus skip or rake pattern. Makes the kerf a bit wider than the blade so that steam you're generating with the cutting heat doesn't just bind the fiber into blade and stall the saw. Fewer TPI hauls trash better than many, which is why people recommend it. Slow feed rates help as well. I keep 3-4 TPI blades on mine because it's also a general-purpose tool for my other work, and you'll want at least 3 teeth in a 1" board for stability of cut.

The bandsaw allows you to do two very smart things with your blank, gain clearance and gain balance. I have seen the best piececutters around chew themselves up with chainsaws, so I confine my rounding with that saw to those cases where I have to for clearance reasons. I've dismounted and trimmed too many nubs for bed clearance already, and some of that even from the bandsaw. After making round, I generally nibble off the ends of a log half at an angle to get the weight closer to centerline, which keeps me from having to weight the lathe or chase the toolrest.

A circle jig is an excellent idea, because it forces you to cut properly, where you're not turning without advancing. You've got to sacrifice a quarter inch in depth of cut to make one, but you can take it back by nibbling top and bottom then taking the middle to round. Makes a six inch saw into a seven or better. Getting a flat, stable surface to work with on the blank is the key to good cutting, regardless. Number of ways of doing it. Mine involves a scrub and jack plane, others use their drill press and stop to overlap Forstner plunges, that old standby the Wagner Saf-T-Planer, or even power planes and router jigs. Matters not how you get there, I suppose. Level of comfort for me is the hand tool, but it's difficult to get parallel faces with one, something nice, but not absolutely required. Sometimes you miscall a knot by a bit and end up tilting after the trim anyway.

Get some ceramic guides. They are slick, wear-free and positive in their control. Also unaffected by the wet and acid they might encounter while cutting.
 
Drawing Circles

Another way to draw your circle on a very rough surface- Make various size cardboard circles. Lay appropriate size circle on the blank and spray paint around it. Gives your chainsaw some idea of where to cut.
 
I've described my setup for roughing blanks a few times. I've got an old (un)Reliant 14" with a riser block, a 2hp motor, and a home built plywood platform extention added. The 2hp motor (check your table saw's, since you won't be using it any more) gives the extra oomph and the extention table makes cutting big pieces of wood much easier and safer. I tend to use a 1/4" skip tooth, 3tpi blade but that's mostly due to having gotten about 10 blades free with the saw (purchased from a fellow turner who upgraded). This works pretty well with green wood up to 11" thick, though ya gotta go slow and it wanders all over the place with the 1/4" blade.

One thing that helped alot with the green wood cutting was to add an upgraded tensioning spring to the whole setup. This allows a tighter blade which is handy to keep from building a standing wave above the wood on thick stuff. The springs that come with the el cheapo saws really are pretty wimpy and bottom out before giving enough tension, especially for thicker blades and saws with risers.

Dietrich
 
I still use my bandsaw to cut the blanks. There is a new bandsaw blade that is specifically designed for woodturners to not bind up in green wood. It is available from Highland Hardware in Atlanta. You can go on line and order it. It works better than any blade I have used. Sweet when you are trying to make the big cuts. Be safe. The two scariest times for those using the bandsaw is first, when you are ignorant and scared, the second when you are experienced and careless. I have three friends that are sans digits because of the beast. Good luck.
 
For cutting circles, I'd recommend a 1/4" or 3/8" blade unless you'll only be doing 12" or larger circles. A wide kerf is also a big advantage for cutting circles. But it seems that most general purpose band saw blades are going to narrow kerf. (I'm not sure I agree with all the reasons I've heard for that move, but it's good marketing.)

If you're cutting thick stuff, less teeth per inch is better. I have a 14" Delta with riser blocks and do a lot of ripping / resawing to prepare turning stock. I've ground every other tooth off my blade, making it a 1.5 tpi blade so there's only 18 teeth in the wood when I'm using the full 12" height. Today I was ripping some 11" thick white oak with a freshly sharpened blade and had no trouble at all, even with the standard 3/4 hp motor.

For thick cuts, less teeth and a sharp blade are the keys. Even a high-end blade with alloy teeth will only last for 4-5 hours of cutting thick hardwood stock before it either needs to be sharpened or replaced. (I usually sharpen my blade at least once a day when I'm processing a lot of wood.)

p.s. A sharp blade is much less likely to clog or gum up. If the blade is clogging, it's time for a sharp blade.
 
Last edited:
Brian Hahn said:
I've ground every other tooth off my blade, making it a 1.5 tpi blade so there's only 18 teeth in the wood when I'm using the full 12" height.
Click to expand...
Doesn't that make the set (of the teeth) all in one direction?
 
Brian,

How do yo go about resharpening your band saw blade. I've got a Delta 12" that was a cheap, less expensive option to their standard (and very good) 14" model. Sorry I bought it, but it works pretty good. Anyway, I do have a good quality blade, a Timberwolf I think, 1/2", 3 tpi. I use the saw pretty frequently and lately it just doesn't want to cut anymore. I was thinking of using a Dremel to sharpen the teeth...

Brian
 
dkulze said:
..... I've got an old (un)Reliant 14" with a riser block ...........
Click to expand...
I guess that we all have nicknames for our cheap import tools. My old 14" bandsaw is a Ohio Forge brand (Homey Depot house brand many years ago) which I call an "Ohio Forgery" since it is a poor knockoff of the Delta bandsaw.

Bill
 
Steve Worcester said:
Doesn't that make the set (of the teeth) all in one direction?
Click to expand...
The blade that I like has a three tooth pattern - left, right, raker. Removing every other tooth just reverses the pattern. I haven't run across a simple two tooth pattern, but in that case I'd remove two teeth and leave the third to preserve the alternating pattern. Five tooth patterns and variable tooth patterns are more of a problem, and a variable spacing is about the only way to preserve an alternating pattern.
 
resharpening saw blades.

There was a thread a yr or 2 ago (or was it Raffan's books??) which I frankly didn't understand to sharpen the band saw blade. So whatever I am doing may not be "right" but seems to impove sharpness. I use a dremel with a cylindical gray stone block. Mark the blade where I start( to know when you have made full circle). Hold the dremel perpendicular to the saw blade and resting on the table. With the left hand, hand feed the blade downward while barely touching the saw tips with the dremel in the right hand. When 3-4 inches are stripped downward and regrasping proximally necessary, , I gently pull back pressure touching the tips. I reapply slight pressure when the next few inches are stripped. Takes about 5 min for the 93 inches.
There is am obvious improvement in cutting-not as good as a new blade. I can do this 3-4 times on that blade. Saves me from the 15 min+ time to change the blade (Rigid-HD brand). If there is a better way out there, let me know, Gretch
 
Sharpening band saw blades

Ziffy (Brian) and Gretch,

I'll try to post my technique for sharpening blades in the "How-To's" forum tomorrow evening. I need to take a few pictures and right now my camera's batteries are dead. 🙁
 
Blade woes

Just had to share this:

I purchased three of the 3/8 x 2AS Timber Wolf blades from Suffolk. My, what big teeth they have 🙂 And man are they aggressive. No problem cutting the full 8" depth that my Bridgewood 14" bandsaw allows in sloppy green wood. Thanks for the tip guys.

But, as my luck usually goes, after I cut about 6 rounds suddenly the blade would not track well and started pulling to the right... like blade drift on regular resawing but worse. I know what that means. Stopped the saw and sure enough all the teeth on the left side of the band were dull and some even seem like they lost their set as well. Argghhh! 🙁

Must have been a nail or staple or chunk of rock in one of those pieces of walnut.
 
pencheff said:
Just had to share this:

I purchased three of the 3/8 x 2AS Timber Wolf blades from Suffolk. My, what big teeth they have 🙂 And man are they aggressive. No problem cutting the full 8" depth that my Bridgewood 14" bandsaw allows in sloppy green wood. Thanks for the tip guys.

But, as my luck usually goes, after I cut about 6 rounds suddenly the blade would not track well and started pulling to the right... like blade drift on regular resawing but worse. I know what that means. Stopped the saw and sure enough all the teeth on the left side of the band were dull and some even seem like they lost their set as well. Argghhh! 🙁

Must have been a nail or staple or chunk of rock in one of those pieces of walnut.
Click to expand...

If you did not take to brake in the blade, the result can be broken teeth or cracks and premature dulling. There is a lot of info online about the brake in period- its kind of like a new car where you don't push it to top speed feed rate....

Good luck.
Liz
 
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