Bandsaw Jig Aids in Cutting Log Sections

Seriously, Ken ... an excellent site with many ideas worth stealing .... er, um 'adapting'. Yeah, that's the ticket ... 'adapting'. :-)

No one here would actuallt steal an idea ... would we, guys?

Bill

Cool website. Thanks.

TomNie

Good job on the bandsaw jigs. I've been thinking about how to do just those tasks on my 14" Delta. I have the riser in place and some general use blades but they just didn't work well on logs. I'll try the PS Wood blade you use. I have a circle cutting jig for my bandsaw that I've used a few times to round out a bowl blank and I think it would work pretty good with some fine tuning but I've had trouble with the blades binding and have actually ruined a couple of blades with it. The blades tend to follow the grain or whatever and cut their way out of verticle. When it does work right it makes roughing out a cylinder pretty quick and easy. Do you have any experience with anything along those lines? Thanks.

Get a firm understanding when using the circle jig. Tilting of the piece being cut is what usually causes the track problems. That, and misplacing the forward stop limit. You want it to stop feeding ahead at the bottom of the gullets. That's when you transition to rotation only. Scrub plane followed by a block or jack will get a flat bottom to reference.

Now do yourself and the lathe a favor by tilting the table, moving in to a smaller radius and nibbling off the waste part you won't be using so it doesn't shake the machinery. Blank should end up like \ / more or less when you're done. Remember the difference in mass by keeping that curved useless section along the log in place increases proportionally to the distance from center (leverage), and the energy it creates as it flings past

Some of us don't have umpty pounds of sand to stabilize, because we don't have to.

Thanks George. I know I have a lot to learn about cutting with my bandsaw as well as with my lathe. I knew from experience that the circle jig had to be positioned properly, for and aft of the cutting edge of the blade but I hadn't quite figured out exactly where it should go. I've thought about, and tinkered with, where the centerline of the point of rotation should intersect with the blade. I realized through experimentation that too far ahead of the blade or too far behind the blade caused the blade to cut either into the circle or out away from the circle. But I miss that sweetspot most of the time in my setup. I'm not sure I follow your explanation either since I tend to be a visual learner, seeing is understanding with me. I hate to ask and take up your time but can you go over the part about feeding ahead at the bottom of the gullet? Thanks for helping a newbie.

Institutionalize your sweet spot by putting a bar to limit how far you can advance the jig.

Thanks for posting this worthwhile material!!

Keith P.

Sorry for the delay in my reply. I haven't checked the newsgroup in a couple of days -- I've been busy shoveling snow -- maybe you heard about the storm we had in Denver -- it was only a couple of feet at the airport where the statistics are recorded, but we had around 3 feet at my house.

I think the PS Wood "wet wood" blade I mention on my website would solve most of your problems. It is thicker and has a lot of set and more rake which makes it cut well without binding. I have a circle jig, but for log sections I use a similar jig made from the hold down on a thrift store meat carving tray. Here are a couple of photos showing a conical section being sawn from a Russian Olive tree taken down at my daughter's place. It was softer than I had hoped with large growth rings, but it cut easily. It was very wet when I cut it.