The Morning Woodworker

All tuned and ready to go!

On my last post I described how I was having a hard time getting the bandsaw tuned up after installing the 6 in. riser block, to increase the resaw capacity. Marc, at The Wood Whisperer, hinted to me that this was going to be a pain in the arse. Also, Brian, at Brian’s Garage Workshop, was curious as to how things worked out for me as well. Brain had gone through two bandsaws and didn’t get it to come out right.

The problem that I was having was I could not get the blade to be square to the table, front to back. The blade would track about in the middle of the top wheel but would track to the front of the lower wheel, looking like it would come off.

I don’t know if this is the correct method, but after going through all of the traditional tuning methods and still not having any luck with this thing, I was about ready to give up and just remove the riser block. But, as a last ditch effort, I just loosened the bolt that ties the upper and lower halves of the saw together and “twisted” the upper half until the blade was aligned with an engineers square that I had place on the table.
Then I went and adjusted the tracking knob, turned the upper wheel by hand to make sure the blade would track in the middle. After that, I turned on power and ran a couple pieces of wood through it. So far, so good. I’m glad that I didn’t give up now.