Anthony Bailey gives you the best practice for getting to grips with your bandsaw
1. Go the extra mile
Choose a good-quality machine – even though it will cost more, it will be a sound investment.
2. Sharpen up
Always work with sharp blades – bandsaw blades can go blunt quite quickly, the performance degrades and the resultant cuts are not very good.
3. Blades and bandwheels
Setting up the blade carefully on the bandwheels and correct adjustment of the guides and thrust wheel is essential for accurate cuts.
4. Skip it
Except when cutting plywood or MDF, use ‘skip tooth’ blades. These have a gap between each tooth, which gives vital waste clearance and a faster, better, burn-free cut.
5. Foolproofing fencing
On cheaper machines the straight fence doesn’t work very well as the blade usually has a ‘lead’. That means the blade cuts slightly to one side, so to counter this, either mark a pencil line and follow it freehand or make a ‘point fence’. This is a wooden bar with a rounded tip. Simply set at the correct distance from the blade, level with it and keep the work against the point. Then, simply push the wood through.
6. On tenons
All machines can do short tenon cuts. Clamp a stop to the fence behind the blade at the position you want and then make all the long tenon cuts. Then use the mitre fence to do the shoulder cuts. Again, you can clamp a stop to the table if needed.
7. Keeping clean
Bandwheels get covered in chippings very easily and the case in general can get very full of waste. It is important to have extraction and ensure the bandwheel cleaning brush is correctly positioned.
8. Zero in
Make sure the tilt table is correctly zeroed. You can check this with an engineer’s square. There is always a means of adjusting it.
9. Watch your fingers!
When making a cut, keep your fingers well away from the blade. When a blade completes a cut, it can spring forward suddenly, especially during a forced cut with a blunt blade.
10. Teething
A 9.5mm width blade with 6 or 8tpi (teeth per inch) is a good all-rounder for most purposes, so this is the one to stock mostly, but keep one or two of the widths handy for scroll cutting and deep cutting.