BuzzBD
Well-known member
Needed to resaw some koa for some vintage model concerts this morning. Found a good billet measuring 2
I find sanding the base of the billet flat to start with helps cut out vibration and give a smoother cut.Thanks very much Bob. I was aware of the method of resawing off the back side of the billet, but do not do so because of the need to reset the fence for every cut. Maybe as you say there is an easy way to repeat the thickness setting, but I have not found it yet. In fact in this case it took me three cuts to get the fence down to a nominal 2.5 mm. The first try was 3.0 mm, the next was 2.75 mm and the 3rd through the 6th were 2.5 mm. My work around to avoid the increased wavyness in subsequent cuts, is to dress the billet on my 6”x48” belt sander to dead flat after each cut. So just like cutting off the backside, you always have a flat and level surface against the drift bar. So in the end, you can reset the fence in between cuts, or you can dress the billet face in between. My feeling is you are going to have to clean up the faces sometime! As you say, lots of ways to get it done.
Brad
For you guys that are using the Lenox woodmaster carbide tip blades, I just found a way to sharpen them. I spend (at least until recently) about $500 a month on blades, so this is a real money saver. I took a bench mounted chainsaw grinder and mounted a diamond wheel to it. The trickiest part was making an accurate indexing system to allow for precisely grinding just enough tooth to get back to sharp. I'm so happy with the results, so far I've gotten three sharpenings out of one blade, each sharpening cuts good as new.