Is Your Bandsaw Square?
George VondriskaDescription
When you walk up to a tool, you should be able to rely on it doing what you ask it to do. With your bandsaw, you should be confident that the blade is square to the table. Instead of using a square and checking the relationship between the blade and the table you can do this check with nothing more than a piece of scrap.
The benefit of using this approach
When you use this technique you’re doing the test with the saw running, not sitting idle. That means you’re simulating the scenario you’ll be in when you’re making cuts with the bandsaw. That’s the best way to check your setup. When setting up a bandsaw, or any tool, it’s best to get the test environment as close as you can to the real environment.
What you need
This simple test requires nothing but a scrap board. The wider the board, the more accuracy you’ll get from the test. One edge of the board should be straight. It’s best if it’s been jointed. It doesn’t matter what blade you have in the saw for the test.
Use this approach on other tools
Once you understand this approach for setting up a bandsaw, you can apply this concept to other tools. For instance, you can use a very similar technique to make sure your miter saw is cutting square.
When I'm checking tools for square, my preference is not to just set a square on the tool and see what's the relationship between the blade and the table. I wanna know what's happening when the tool is running. So whenever I can, I wanna do that setup under the circumstances under which I'll be using the tool. So in this case, what we wanna do is make sure that band saw blade's perpendicular to the table, and I'm gonna do that by doing a little test cut on this board and I'll show you what it is I'm looking for. The key to this is, the wider the board, the more accurate your test is gonna be. I'm gonna just nibble in from one face. Stop. Now this isn't, the approach here is important. Spin this, don't flip it over. And if everything is right, that blade should go back into the curve that you just created. If it doesn't, like this doesn't, that tells you that you're not square. When everything is right, and I'm just gonna put the table back on its stops, I had intentionally taken it just a little bit outta square to show you. This. Stop it, spin around, goes right back into that curve. That tells us this is perpendicular to the blade and you're ready to do whatever you're doing next, and it's a great way to check this 'cause we're doing it under power, we're doing it under the same circumstances under which you'll be using the band saw so it'll give you the results you need to make sure the saw is working right.
So clever, thanks George!!
Great tip, thank you! Do you have any similar tips for setting the table / fence parallel to the blade?
Thanks for this tip - nice and easy to do