Cutting up a billet of ribbon sapele for resawing

[Kevin in California]

I've got my fences made, my 1/2" woodslicer blade installed and ready and I'll be resawing this Sapele tomorrow into hopefully 5 back and side sets. I could probably get 6 sets if this was not my first time, but I don't want to push my luck. I'll cut the sides first where I have a little more I can loose and see how consistent the cuts are.
With that said, wish me luck. I'll post pictures of the finished sets when I'm done.

Also, I decided to cut my neck stock up so I can do scarf joint headstocks, but I will be able to use two 1 3/4" blocks glued at the heel to get my height there. I cut one blank 24" long into two .0840 thick blanks and the cut came out really smooth, only needed to remove about .005" on the drum sander to clean up the saw marks. Nice blade!

Kevin

[Kevin in California]

Today was the day.
This my was first attempt at resawing back and sides. As I said before, I got this beautiful billet of ribbon Sapele last January from a local store called The Wood Shed. I love that place. Anyway, this billet was 62" long, 11.5" wide, and 1.75" thick, beautifully squared, and almost perfectly quartersawn. I just could not pass it up. I know Sapele is not thought of as a necessarily special wood for guitars, but it is becoming more common, and it has the beauty of mahogany, with a little bit more density and weight. This wood is similar to the Santos Mahogany I have, and the guitar I made with it is great sounding. So I just know I'm going to like the outcome. I've made necks with Sapele and it is a dream to work with. This Sapele has medular rays all over the surface, a tribute to how nicely quartersawn it is.
So, I figured out how to cut this billet up, and the result was a 24" x 8.5" section for backs, a 34" x 5" section for sides, and enough 3" wide sections to make 5 scarf joint stacked heel necks. That is about $375 dollars worth of stuff, and I paid $141 for the billet. And since I like the wood, it makes it even better.
My first thoughts were to give myself plenty of thickness to margin on the side of error, and only get 4 guitar sets. But then I figured I had more room to allow for some inconsistent cuts with the sides since ultimately they will be thinner, so I calculated out how thick I could cut my slices to get 5 back and side sets, and I started with the sides. The blade I'm using is a Woodslicer, 1/2" x 3 tooth, 105" long. The blade is only .022" thick and cuts a .032" kerf. So I figured I could cut .145" thick slices and end up with 10. I was going to use two fences, and push the billet between them into the blade. I did my first two slices this way, and then got rid of the second fence. I could work pretty well, but what I had set up wasn't. I found that I could control what I was doing with the single fence.

The set up was tedious as I really tried to get it right. As I started cutting slices I realized the blade could be and needed have more tension. The consistency of each sliced improved as I went along and by the last cut on the side billet, I was around .142", with about a .005" variance top to bottom. I took the billet to the drum sander and cleaned up the cut face after each slice before cutting the next slice. This also helped me to see how much off the blade was cutting.
I thought I had the fence parallel to the blade, but it was still off. All the side slices are way thicker than needed so they will size down just fine. Success.
I fine tuned the tension on the blade, and reset the fence for 90 degrees to the blade, and for drift. My cuts were much better on the backs billet. I had less room for error here as my finished back thickness is usually around .115" and I figured I will need at least a .005" clean up of both sides of each slice and possibly a bit more. One of the slices is down to about .120" on one end; not sure what happened there, but most of them are right around .140" thick +- .005" and the cuts were very clean and won't take much clean up, so I am really happy how they turned out. I'm so glad I went for 5 sets instead of 4. I suppose someone who really had experience and knows what they are doing might get 6 sets of backs from a 1.75" billet, and the sides would be easy to get.

So I made a big mess, but I'm pretty happy with my first resawing experience. I would feel reasonably comfortable resawing some real expensive exotic woods, but since I can't afford them, I'll have to wait until someone donates some to me.
Here are a few pictures of how it went.

Kevin

[Herman]

Wow Kevin, that is a great outcome. Congrats. You have an impressive bandsaw for a guy without bucks. So much better than the hobbyish garbage I got here. For resawing you need something like yours indeed.
Herman

[ken cierp]

Way to go -- seems that billet did not cup as you removed slices. How many teeth per inch is your blade and where did you get it?

[Kevin in California]

That is a Woodslicer blade from Highland Woodworking. It is 1/2", 3 tooth.
I think by the time I was done I might have had the blade tensioned enough.
There was little bit of immediate cupping on the sides as they came off but after a couple of hours acclimating stacked up, they started to flatten out easily. The backs didn't cup at all. This is good, I need them flat so I can further dimension them on my drum sander.

Kevin

[Mark from Ashland]

Good job, Kevin. We've enjoyed the wood slicer blades for resawing. None of the other blades we have tried even come close to leaving such a smooth surface, so less thickness is lost to sanding. They don't last a long time, but the results are worthwhile.

By the way, I am very jealous of people who live near good wood re-sellers. I was in Santa Rosa this week... was I anywhere near your neighborhood?

[Kevin in California]

I am interested in sharing 2 or 3 of these sets if anyone is interested, you can PM me.

Kevin