Band saw setup

[J Phillips]

Thanks Robert. i agree that it is more than likely the operator coupled with blade tension. I'm a little leary of adding too much tension. The reason i was able to get the Rikon (well it was the excuse to the wife LOL) was the axel on my Craftsman saw snapped while in use. Pretty scary moment when the blade laid over my arm. Good thing the axel that snapped was on the drive wheel. When the malfunction occured the blade jammed up in the table and the slack slid out from behind the blade guard, fed out and ribboned up on top of my forearm. Even though I had not fully compressed the tension spring i feel that the failure was caused by more blade tension than the axel could take. It was a 12 inch craftsman with a riser installed. It was not a "vintage" saw but i had been using it for over 12 years.

The feed rate, which of course is controlled by me, has been variable on the taller pieces trying to find the sweet spot. But I guess I have not slowed down enough. It probably would not have mattered since my blade tension has been set by the directions on the owners manual with the stock balde tension needle. And we know that those are not very accurate. I guess I'll have to pull out the man card and apply some more tension to it. In the back of my mind i knew this was part of the bad cuts but the resaw king is a nasty looking blade and i wanted to keep it in the saw. the Rikon is a bigger saw and will probably stand up to more than i will even throw at it.

yes Ken the rikon has the thrust bearings, and the system looks similar to the carter ststem. It was the winning part that pulled me to the Rikon over the grizzly.