Resawing?

Mike Turner

Member
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361
Location
Laurinburg NC
I tried resawing a piece of 2" x 2"x 36" long curly maple today. It cut beautifully butttttt I dont know if I cut it the wrong way or what.I have ripped stuff on the tablesaw but never tried resawing or ripping on my bandsaw.Anyway when it got to the last inch or 2 it sort of popped and then both boards had a bow or cup. What did I do wrong? This wood was purchased from Bell Wood products and had about 9% moisture......Hmmm I could cut some nice pin blanks from it if someone would be interested.......just avoid the cupped area.
 
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Mike,
It's not unusual for resawn wood to behave strangely. Sometimes there are internal stresses that are released when the board is resawn, perhaps the board is not uniformly dry....lots of reasons. You might try weighting down the boards and letting them sit for a few days or weeks and see what happens. They might straighten out. I'm sure others will chime in.
 
Pretty much what Ted said. Those thin offcuts sometimes just turn into giant potato chips.:D Sometimes weighting helps. Sometimes steaming them, then weighting them works. I've had limited success with saving them, though.
 
What odd timing. I was resawing some maple the other day and had the same exact thing happen.

Was resawing some 8/4 rough lumber. I'm trying to get 2 3/4 boards out of it, but we'll see. One is slightly thicker, so I might be able to joint that one flat.

Otherwise I'm thinking I might just have to take another go at it.
 
yeah you just "distressed" it. Ive had that happen with mahoganys and sapele. nice seemingly flat board that turned into cork screws coming out the other side of the saw.
 
Pretty typical from what I have seen.

I picked up a lot of kiln dried Padauk a few years ago and it has been sitting in my conditioned shop since then. The shop normally stays between 30-40% RH and 60-65 degrees year round. Most of the wood comes in around 5% on the moisture meter. So it is definite dry.

I just re-sawed a 4/4 x 12.5" wide x 30" long scrap piece into two equal pieces and it bowed a good 1/8" over the entire length immediately. I have always just restacked the boards together and weighed them down for a few weeks (or longer.)
 
Gee, I had the most beautiful piece of red wood (No not redwood). I purchased it to make some trinkets. It developed a crack while residing in my shop. When the saw hit it, it thought it was New Year's already---strings of wood went every place. I mean it was like the potato coming out of the gizmo that cuts a potato into French Frys --- except all of the fries were going different directions.

And, boy, did it stink. Even with the garage doors open it drove Glenn and me out of the shop. Even with the stink I sure hated to lose that piece of wood, it was truly gorgeous.

The wood had internal stress and then I had internal stress.

Enjoy, and be glad you could not smell it being cut.
JimB
 
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Here's an example. Just resawed the piece on the right. The pieces on the left I did the other day, and jointed one side of them today. Not sure I'll be able to use these for what I wan to use them for at this point.

Not the greatest resaw job either, as the blade kept wanting to to wander in this maple.

20141230_114433.jpg
 
I resawed a piece of 5/4 maple to 3/8. It turned into a poorly designed coffee cup overnight. Very irritating. Wish I could recignize or know what causes it sometimes and not others.
 
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