Resawing is a pain. Either with power or hand tools. It is easy for the blade to drift, easy to not pay attention and have it drift on the other side. Bandsaws can do a good job, but the setup and calibration need to be perfect and even then the grain can force a drift. Bob Easton has written a great article discussing the subject. Even better, he has done it with hand tools.
Turning thick wood into two boards half as thick, or three a third as thick, is a wonderful bit of magic. It gives you two boards for the price of one. Often those boards are worth more to you than the thicker one would have been.
Bob
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Hi Bob,
Resawing can be a pain but usually is a pleasure for me.
I find the keys to success are tool preparation and, most important, anticipating what the wood will do when it is resawn. This latter factor includes issues of moisture content and especially internal stresses in the board.
I think these stresses are the main cause of disappointments in resawing, but they can be predicted and managed. Also, some boards are just not good candidates for resawing.
I have three posts that may be helpful:
http://www.rpwoodwork.com/blog/2008/11/05/resawing/
http://www.rpwoodwork.com/blog/2008/11/07/more-on-resawing/
http://www.rpwoodwork.com/blog/2009/01/09/resaw-rethink/
If you get a minute, let me know what you think. In any case, good luck and happy woodworking.
Rob Porcaro
These are great posts, Thank you for sharing.
The middle one shows how to test to see if a hunk of wood is a good candidate for resawing. This advice has already saved me a few raw boards from becoming worthless from warp.
I will try harder to find joy in resawing, thus far, that element in the process, has mostly eluded me.
Well seasoned cedar can be joy. It cuts easily, and the scent is delightful. Most other woods give me a bit more battle. A few of them even end up with cuts that could only be explained as the result of a battlefield.
I do like the results of resawing quite a bit however.
Bob
Three excellent articles Rob! Very well explained and shown.
Uh.. Bob, so that cedar stock I’m about to mangle in more ways than one; I could resaw some of the bigger scrap peices for thinner stock for other projects…. interesting!
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