Rikon video says to center the blade on the tire. Others say to center the gullet of the blade which tends to move the blade back and off center. What do you do? Thanks for your input.
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Bandsaw Blade Position
- Thread starter Dave Fritz
- Start date
I have tried the Carter approach of the gullet on the crown of the wheel. I like it and have noticed that the blade wonders less under load.
Gullet.
Center of tire just tuned it up today
I center the band.
Tim
Tim
I found keeping on the gullet works best but I mainly cut green wood and that just gums up everything.
Depends on the blade width and tooth count. Wider blades, lower tooth count = gullet to reduce drift. More narrow blade or higher tooth counts I center simply because I don’t really know where the gullet is, easily.
Tried both ways with different tooth counts, blade widths - gullet almost on center. Utube Alex Snodgrass bandsaw tuning.
My grizzly seems to like center best.
I keep the teeth just past the center/high spot on the wheel. This may be what others are saying is the gullet/gap between the teeth. You do not want the teeth centered on the high point of the wheel.
robo hippy
robo hippy
This discussion is valuable but one basic parameter seems to not be mentioned. Are the wheels crowned or flat? My Rikon 10-347 manual says to center the blade on the wheel and the wheel is flat. Would it be different if the wheels were crowned?
At about 4:15 in the video he explains what he means by the gullet. This is obviously the Carter point of view.
Are you sure the wheel and tire are flat? It could be a subtle crown in the wheel or tire, or the tire could have worn flat.
This article shows the reason for a crown:
I have been told that European band saws have flat wheels while North American wheels are crowned. If your wheels are truly flat, then I'd center the band rather than the gullet.
My MiniMax 16 has flat tires and the teeth are supposed to hang off the front edge of the wheel. I think that is to keep the teeth from chewing up the rubber. Narrow blades (</= 1/4") necessarily run farther back to keep the band on the wheel. With crowned wheels most people seem to locate the center of the band at the center of the tire. That should keep the "drift" consistent so the cut will align with a fence or miter gauge.
I live in the Uk and have a Startrite 401s bandsaw I was told by the suppliers Record and an industrial bandsaw supplier that for my particular model
that
the teeth are supposed to hang off the front edge of the wheel.
So I think the correct answer depends on the Bandsaw,make and wheel design and you need to speak to the supplier/manufactuer
Please note to check and confirm my understanding I have asked both companies the question on a number of occasions
that
the teeth are supposed to hang off the front edge of the wheel.
So I think the correct answer depends on the Bandsaw,make and wheel design and you need to speak to the supplier/manufactuer
Please note to check and confirm my understanding I have asked both companies the question on a number of occasions
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Ditto Kevin above. - John
The wheels on my old Delta 14" bandsaw are crowned, the newish urethane tires are flat. So the combination gives a slight crown.
At one time I had a Powermatic 14" wood/metal bandsaw. That one had blade tracking problems. I don't know whether the wheels were supposed to be crowned or not. I took the upper blade cover off and ran the saw, that gives access to the lower part of the wheel. Using coarse sandpaper I was able to crown the upper tire, that corrected all the tracking problems. I sold that saw after fixing the tracking issue, old Powermatic woodworking machines IMO were awful in comparison to the Delta equivalents.
I have always run my wood cutting bandsaws with the blade centered on the wheel crown. On saws like old Delta and Powermatic with aluminum wheels they had raised flanges on both side of the wheels. I wouldn't want to run the blade off the near edge of the wheel where the blade might contact the raised flange.
I've never seen any Delta rubber or urethane tires suffering from wear because of contact with the blade teeth. The original rubber ones always deteriorated from age, cracking and stretching, etc.
At one time I had a Powermatic 14" wood/metal bandsaw. That one had blade tracking problems. I don't know whether the wheels were supposed to be crowned or not. I took the upper blade cover off and ran the saw, that gives access to the lower part of the wheel. Using coarse sandpaper I was able to crown the upper tire, that corrected all the tracking problems. I sold that saw after fixing the tracking issue, old Powermatic woodworking machines IMO were awful in comparison to the Delta equivalents.
I have always run my wood cutting bandsaws with the blade centered on the wheel crown. On saws like old Delta and Powermatic with aluminum wheels they had raised flanges on both side of the wheels. I wouldn't want to run the blade off the near edge of the wheel where the blade might contact the raised flange.
I've never seen any Delta rubber or urethane tires suffering from wear because of contact with the blade teeth. The original rubber ones always deteriorated from age, cracking and stretching, etc.
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The gullet approach seems to work best for me.
Yeah, on my Rikon 14” if I run a respawn blade centered the cut is wide, rough and tracking is horrible. I set it up per the Alex Snodgras method and it tracks straight, true, with a thin clean cut.
Depends on the tire. I have a Laguna 1412 with urethane tires that are slightly convex. They recommend putting the gullet on the crown.
If you think about what's going on at the surface of the wheel while you're cutting, putting the gullet on the crown of convex tires is the most stable configuration. If the gullet is at the widest point of the tire, then as you feed the wood and the blade is tempted to wander, the active part of the blade has less room to migrate left and right - instead of 2 points of stability (the guides), you have 4 (the guides and the upper and lower wheel crowns).
If you think about what's going on at the surface of the wheel while you're cutting, putting the gullet on the crown of convex tires is the most stable configuration. If the gullet is at the widest point of the tire, then as you feed the wood and the blade is tempted to wander, the active part of the blade has less room to migrate left and right - instead of 2 points of stability (the guides), you have 4 (the guides and the upper and lower wheel crowns).
[QUOTE="Bill Schaller, post: 215356, member: 44003”] instead of 2 points of stability (the guides), you have 4 (the guides and the upper and lower wheel crowns).
[/QUOTE]
On my old Delta, when the gullets are centered on the top wheel, the bottom wheel is centered on the blade. Do I need to make some adjustments? I set the wheels coplanar. Maybe coplaner is not right?
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On my old Delta, when the gullets are centered on the top wheel, the bottom wheel is centered on the blade. Do I need to make some adjustments? I set the wheels coplanar. Maybe coplaner is not right?
Another vote for centered on the gullet and Alex Snodgrass approach in general. There's a useful video out there with Micheal Fortune about aligning the table too.
On my old Delta, when the gullets are centered on the top wheel, the bottom wheel is centered on the blade. Do I need to make some adjustments? I set the wheels coplanar. Maybe coplaner is not right?
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Don't worry about it. Aside from the possibility of slight damage to the rubber when running the teeth on flat tires the issue boils down to keeping the drift angle consistent, and that is mainly of interest when using a rip fence or jigs that engage the miter gauge slot. If you mount your blades in the same relative position every time they should run at the same drift angle - until they dull. You could experiment with whether the gullet or center of band is the correct reference but I doubt it makes a lot of difference.
Running the gullets just ahead of the crown as Alex Snodgrass recommends makes intuitive sense, but he also says that only the top wheel matters. How can that be? As the responses here indicate different methods seem to work for different saws and people. If you are not getting a smooth, consistent cut try adjusting the blade position and tension until you do. If you run the same blade width all the time that will simplify things.
On my old Crescent the relative position of the wheels and blade guides precluded running all blade widths at the same position on the wheels. I got used to adjusting the rip fence (had an easily adjustable shop-built design) and the lack of a table slot was never an issue. For most turning related cuts it's not a big deal as long as the cut is consistent and the blade stays on the wheels..
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I center the gullet on my 14” Rikon (crowned wheels). On my Swiss-made flat-wheeled 10” Inca I put the blade at the front of the wheel with the teeth just hanging over the edge. Both track perfectly as long as the blade is sharp.
I set the wheels coplanar. Maybe coplaner is not right?
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IME, coplanar is the first thing to ensure is right, not just vertically but also horizontally, which of course is what coplanar means.
You can have the rims of the two wheels aligned at the hubs vertically but if they are not also aligned horizontally you will get twist in the blade that can lead to numerous tracking problems.
On the half dozen bandsaws that I have experience with I set the band (the bit without the teeth) centred on whichever wheel is used to adjust the tracking.
I should mention that I'm mostly running 1-1/4" wide blades. On very narrow blades it's unlikely to make a lot of difference which part of the blade is centred on the wheel.
A good easy test to see if you have the tracking right is to back off the rear guides (top and bottom) and rotate the wheel backwards. If the blades moves from where it tracks when you are rotating the wheel in the cutting direction something is not right.