Resaw help in S.E. Pennsylvania
 

This past Sunday I attended the 2017 Old Fiddlers' Picnic @ Hibernia County Park. Roped in to a few minutes on stage, I was running through scales on a worn Collings mandolin when I ran into Glenn McNemar of Kennett Square, a builder of a few dozen instruments. He's a little short on supplies and has to swap tailpieces among mandolin builds to test them out. I'm going to give him the stamped tailpiece off the 2003 Collings MT2 I'm still saving, after I went to a cast tailpiece.

His last two mandolins have cedar tops - he used cedar siding. They are thick tops, the tone had less of the sharper attack I hear from spruce. He's shown interest in my slab of Adirondack but has no resaw capability, and the cash outlay to have it sawn is not in the budget.

The slab is 2.75" x 22" x 44", and has a crack up the middle. Plenty of wood for the 5" boards he needs; there may even be some wood which will give him a single piece for a top.

If there is someone with a wood shop near Philadelphia who can help get this cut, I'd be happy to share the wood.

He uses guitar frets. Will this cause intonation issues as the frets wear? I've noticed mandolins tend to use narrower frets.

Here's a couple pictures of the mandolin I played Sunday. No truss rod, plenty flat. I commented that a pair of strings lower than the "G" would have been handy; Glenn remarked that the neck wasn't even moving with the current tension ... Thanks

https://americantoolbox.files.wordpr...stage-pass.jpg

https://americantoolbox.files.wordpr...n-mandolin.jpg

As long as the tops are going to be two-piece bookmatched, all the resawing on a slab that size can be done on a tablesaw with a narrow-kerf blade .... it wouldn't require using a heavy-duty bandsaw (which would be required to get one- piece tops without unnecessary wastage).

I can't help you with the resaw unless you want to travel all the way to Virginia but... Just built my first mandolin last month and used standard narrow guitar fret wire and I like it enough. You can always file them down low if they feel too tall but I like to have plenty of fret height.

I'm a little west of Baltimore if you can't find anyone closer. PM me if you're interested.

Resawing 5 inch boards on a table saw...?!?!?!

I live in PA 19608.

Have a 16" Walker-Turner bandsaw with 11"+ vertical capacity, Kreg Precision Bandsaw Guide, a Wood Slicer Resaw Blade, but only a 6" jointer so would have to saw a flat face to start if it doesn't have one already. Also have a 16" drum thickness sander. I'd consider giving it try.

PM if interested.

That's two cuts from opposite sides, each 2 1/2" deep, or a really big table saw. I've done it before, with about a 50% success rate.

Jon has a much better resaw setup than I do, 14" Rigid saw w/riser block (about 10" depth of cut), homemade fence, and Timberwolf blade. I also have a 6" jointer and 16" drum sander.

a PITA, but certainly doable as I do it all the time as required in the field...

set fence where desired, raise blade to about 3/4", run it through, flip it over and do the opposite side, raise blade another 3/4" and repeat until completed...yep, one must be rather in control of their body and aware of if you tilt the board you will bind up the blade etc. issues arise if the board starts to cup during the process of course...

as noted, a PITA...

with a 10" blade just under 6" is possible

Hence my 50% success rate.

Exactly the reason the 2003 Collings is hard to play. The fret leveling I did 18 months ago has left her with low frets. An identical 2012 model I've played a dozen times plays so much easier!

What I meant was, the frets being wider, will there be an intonation issue as they wear and become flat? Are narrow frets used because of the shorter scale length and potential intonation issues?

Looks like the resaw is going to happen. Exciting, and another article for the USA-products blog. The band saw is certainly not a Chinese import. :D

Oh... Yes. I think so. That's probably a valid point on such a short scaled instrument. You would need to be vigilant about keeping the crowns nice and sharp. I use .053 wide crown wire from Stew Mac that they sell as vintage guitar or modern mandolin and banjo.

Just to clarify, when you resaw a 5" board on a tablesaw with a 10" blade, you set the fence so that the bulk of the board is against the fence ... you do not set the fence so that the desired thickness is between the blade and the fence. The thin piece which you are trying to obtain falls off to the right of the sawblade.

You then reposition the fence, so that the next off-cut will be the same thickness as the first, and repeat the dose as necessary. You always have the same face against the fence. If the board itself starts to cup , then you can pass the concave side over the jointer, and register that face against the fence. It also helps to have an auxiliary higher shopmade fence attached to your Biesemeyer fence.

The cupping problem can be virtually eliminated by doing this, and also by having a riving knife set correctly, along with using scrap softwood spacers the same thickness as the saw kerf, which you tap into the previous kerf (assuming the tendency of the "off-cut" is to bind on the sawblade). If the tendency of the off-cut is to curl away from the blade, then such a procedure is not required.

I have been cutting thick veneers by this method for almost forty years ...if you use a narrow- kerf 3/32" blade, which is sharp, and set dead square to the table, you will have no problem. When you come to the last few cuts, it helps if you use magnetic featherboards to hold the now thin board against the fence.

Finally, 3/4" blade height is too low IMO for a 5" board ...*four* passes with a 1 1/4" height is what you want (at least on a 3 1/2 HP cabinet saw .... if you are using a contractor saw, the lower height might be beneficial).

EDIT: obviously you do *two* passes with a 1 1/4" blade height, and two passes with a 2 1/2" blade height

As an additional point, I've done several re-saws using a table saw for a fairly deep kerf on both sides and completing the remaining couple inches by using a sharp rip saw (the old fashioned hand version!) to finish the cut. You can pretty much go as wide as you like using that method, and it's much safer than completing the entire cut on a table saw.

Good point.

If I am resawing an 8" batten (which is as deep as I will ever go) , I take the partly kerfed workpiece to the bandsaw to part off the center spine.

My Delta 14" saw will track no problem with the kerfs as guides, and cut through 2", but wouldn't look at a full 8" cut.

first: I made specific reference to in the field...and for me that typically means using my older DeWalt jobsite saw (the version with a 24" rip capacity), though there are times when I'm with the full crew and a contractor's saw is available for use. point being, it will kill said saw (slowly, over time) going too deep on a resaw cut.

second: skipping power of saw and taking into account the issue of cupping, I have found it far safer (for both me and the wood) to make shallow cuts as this allows possible internal stress in the wood to be relieved at a slower rate

third: being that I refer to field work, I keep the wood intended for use against the fence since my results are most likely intended to be the finished product and not something that is going to be run through a planer or jointer (now that would be "fun" with a 1/4" thick piece of wood)

finally: again, I (with over 30 years of in the field carpentry under my belt) prefer the shallower cuts as this also helps mitigate the tendency of a thinner blade (I use Freud Fusions) from flexing because of either trying to follow the grain or operator error (I try, but in the end I'm human and make mistakes) of not keeping things perfectly under control and in line. too boot, this IS a kind of dangerous operation prone the binding and kicking back, so again the shallow cuts are safer from my experience

nope, not trying to kill your thoughts, in fact I found the description of your method to be quite enlightening for a person having a decently, but not fully, equipped shop.