Ripsaw questions

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woodshop said:
Thanks Scottr for chiming in here.

If your cuts are wavy, either you have a dull blade or you don't have enough blade tension. The guide blocks, in my personal opinion, unless they are WAY opened up, are not your problem. I have not reset mine in the entire life of my Ripsaw, many thousands of bd ft of lumber. Yes you will be more apt to run into a little wavy cut when you hit a hard knot, but my experience has been that that only happens when my blade is starting to get dull. A new blade and proper tension will blow through even a hard knot. I have found that it sometimes helps to feed the saw at a slight angle through a knot like you are describing when my blade starts to get dull, and that often helps.

Yes, that guide finger does have to be taken off when milling very wide boards, like 12-14 inches. This is the reason I took it off and use my hand/fingers wrapped around that large black knob for all my milling.

The Ripsaw, like ALL shop type equipment (and I have a shop full so I can speak from experience) takes some tweaking and learning the ropes. Common sense, some trial and error and patience are in order. Tension... as scottr says, use that tension guide on top of the Ripsaw. If you are getting wavy cuts, crank it up half or quarter turn and try again (all other things staying same). It's a mechanical device and does respond in logical manner if you take the time to work through problems step by step. Worse case scenario is either you will break the blade, or I've found more likely you will crank it so hard that you will start to torque the whole Ripsaw frame to the point where the blade won't track correctly. I have done that several times, and that's a definite sign that you have it too tight and need to back off a bit.

Read the manual... then reread the manual and take it a step at a time. You can also call Ripsaw or email them with questions.
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Dave, the guide finger on my Ripsaw is curved so part of it sits inside the frame and allows a 14" width of cut. It is made of metal that is about 3/16" thick. I think your saw is about the same design as mine.
 
Thanks again guys for the help. The last board I did, cut beautiful, until the end of the 12' run, and had one slight wave. I think I may have been pushing too hard on the saw. The blade feels very tight, its a brand new blades so its quite sharp. The tension, I did just until it met the edge of the white mark, should I go more? I'll reset the guide blocks with 1 piece of paper, and make a slower cut next time. Thanks again guys this site is great!!!
 
parrisw said:
Thanks again guys for the help. The last board I did, cut beautiful, until the end of the 12' run, and had one slight wave. I think I may have been pushing too hard on the saw. The blade feels very tight, its a brand new blades so its quite sharp. The tension, I did just until it met the edge of the white mark, should I go more? I'll reset the guide blocks with 1 piece of paper, and make a slower cut next time. Thanks again guys this site is great!!!
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Will, when I first started milling with my Ripsaw and tightened the tension bolt so the indicator lines up with the whiteline the band was so tight that it was almost impossible to pull the band to check alignment. If you have the tension indicator adjusted per the manual then tighten to the white line then back off about one half of a turn. Don't try to tighten more or you'll be breaking bands prematurely. Member FLHT01 has a tension meter and can give you more details if you ask him. What bands are you running?
 
scottr said:
Will, when I first started milling with my Ripsaw and tightened the tension bolt so the indicator lines up with the whiteline the band was so tight that it was almost impossible to pull the band to check alignment. If you have the tension indicator adjusted per the manual then tighten to the white line then back off about one half of a turn. Don't try to tighten more or you'll be breaking bands prematurely. Member FLHT01 has a tension meter and can give you more details if you ask him. What bands are you running?
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I had a couple bands made up at the local saw shop, they look excatly the same, same tooth count, same size blade, and length. They measured one of the old ones, and made new ones to that measurment.
 
scottr said:
Dave, the guide finger on my Ripsaw is curved so part of it sits inside the frame and allows a 14" width of cut. It is made of metal that is about 3/16" thick. I think your saw is about the same design as mine.
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Scottr, I think you are correct and I was wrong about that guide finger. It's been years since I've had it on my saw... I just seem to remember it got in the way when milling the full 14 inch width, but again that was years (and literally thousands of bd ft) ago. I will also say that for smaller logs or cants, and especially short ones under 4 ft with little mass, my method of holding the saw against the guide beam with my hand wrapped around that knob (instead of using that guide finger) is difficult to do. It requires some finesse when initially feeding the Ripsaw into the cant, kinda pushing on the Ripsaw in the right direction to counter the blade pull, while at the same time tweaking the trigger so as not to grab wood too aggressively at first.

Not wanting to monopolize this thread, but hoping maybe other or future Ripsaw owners can benefit from these questions.
 
woodshop said:
Scottr, I think you are correct and I was wrong about that guide finger. It's been years since I've had it on my saw... I just seem to remember it got in the way when milling the full 14 inch width, but again that was years (and literally thousands of bd ft) ago. I will also say that for smaller logs or cants, and especially short ones under 4 ft with little mass, my method of holding the saw against the guide beam with my hand wrapped around that knob (instead of using that guide finger) is difficult to do. It requires some finesse when initially feeding the Ripsaw into the cant, kinda pushing on the Ripsaw in the right direction to counter the blade pull, while at the same time tweaking the trigger so as not to grab wood too aggressively at first.

Not wanting to monopolize this thread, but hoping maybe other or future Ripsaw owners can benefit from these questions.
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I found yesterday, and this may seem obvious, I had a cut in which the left edge of the board had some wane(?) or bark that didn't get stripped off making the cant and so was a little narrower or rounded on the top edge. That guide finger wedged into that slightly narrower top edge of the board and messed up a short section of the cut. I had to start over. It wasn't a big deal but is something I'll watch for next time.
 
woodshop said:
Not wanting to monopolize this thread, but hoping maybe other or future Ripsaw owners can benefit from these questions.
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Yes, I agree, post all you like here, it helps me allot. Let's keep it going. There doesn't seem to be many Ripsaw users on here? Only 3 of us particapating in this thread!!
 
Ripsaw Blades

I've haven't been on the site much lately but happened by and noticed the thread. Looks like your getting advice from some of the most experienced Ripsaw users around. :cheers:

I did try a different blade mfg on my ripsaw and had problems with wavy cuts. I totally agree with Woodshop about oem blades and if it were me, I'd use them to establish a baseline to tune and compare to. I had much better results with the oem blades and considering the amount of work involved with csm style milling, I think they're worth it.

Looking forward to seeing your results.

Kevin

--------
Just went back and reread most of this thread. One more comment I'd like to make about wavy cuts. If you run the ripsaw (or csm) down the top of a cant that has a small wave or dip it will just continue to magnify on each cut regardless how well tuned the saw is. I always cut off the top of a guide beam (every pass) when trying to get straight cuts. I built a few z shaped brackets out of flashing to help keep the beam from sliding off the cant.
 
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parrisw said:
Got all the stuff today. He must of bought extra sections of the guide beam, cause there is 5 of them there. Pics to come later.
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Congrats on the new saws.:clap:

I have absolutely no advise to give, but where are the pics???
 
Ok, guys, sorry it took so long to get back to ya. Ive been away on holidays. Ok about the set. Looks like the old orignal blades go. right left right left raker. The new ones I got go right left raker right left raker. So they are different? Is this maybe part of my problem?
 
Will, I don't think that using a different tooth configuration will cause the third cut to be wavy. If you were cutting dry wood and creating a lot of blade heat in the first two cuts the tension might lessen and cause the third cut to be off. Have you reset the guides per the manual? A question that I have to ask is why did you want to adjust the blade guides before you made a cut with this saw?
 
scottr said:
Will, I don't think that using a different tooth configuration will cause the third cut to be wavy. If you were cutting dry wood and creating a lot of blade heat in the first two cuts the tension might lessen and cause the third cut to be off. Have you reset the guides per the manual? A question that I have to ask is why did you want to adjust the blade guides before you made a cut with this saw?
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Because the blade that was in the saw when I got it was real rusty, and wouldn't run through the guides properly, so I loosened them off, hoping the blade would clean up, but it never did. So I readjusted when installing the new blade. When you adjust yours do you use one piece of paper? Also it doesnt seem to cut as fast as some people say they do? I have no Idea on what else to try if the blade is not the problem?? The last board I did it cut real nice until the end of the board?? Have no Idea on what happened, I tried doing that one a real slow cut.
 
Will, many times when I've changed a band it was necessary to file the mushroom off of the back edge of the band to remove it. A rusty band will still slide through the guides and the carbide will clean off the rust. I have never had to adjust the guides on my Ripsaw. Are you running a .025" thick silicone steel band and are you cutting green wood? Something that I remember from the owners manual was that it's important to find a good feed speed for the particular wood that you are cutting. I often look at the sawdust when sawing to adjust the feed and rpm. I've cut softwood and when I actually lowered rpm and angled the saw there was a noticable increase in feed rate. Sometimes the angle of feed makes a big difference. It does not take a lot of forward pressure on the dimension plate knob to saw. I remember the specs for the 044 Ripsaw to be 12'/min in softwood and 9'/min in hardwood. It was also advertised as a saw that wont slow down. It's going to take some time sawing to get the feel for feed rate.
 
scottr said:
Will, many times when I've changed a band it was necessary to file the mushroom off of the back edge of the band to remove it. A rusty band will still slide through the guides and the carbide will clean off the rust. I have never had to adjust the guides on my Ripsaw. Are you running a .025" thick silicone steel band and are you cutting green wood? Something that I remember from the owners manual was that it's important to find a good feed speed for the particular wood that you are cutting. I often look at the sawdust when sawing to adjust the feed and rpm. I've cut softwood and when I actually lowered rpm and angled the saw there was a noticable increase in feed rate. Sometimes the angle of feed makes a big difference. It does not take a lot of forward pressure on the dimension plate knob to saw. I remember the specs for the 044 Ripsaw to be 12'/min in softwood and 9'/min in hardwood. It was also advertised as a saw that wont slow down. It's going to take some time sawing to get the feel for feed rate.
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Hey, not sure what you mean by the mushroom on the back edge of the band? Is the back edge actually flared out a bit? I think the blade is 025 but not sure. Wood isn't green its dry Cedar. I was cutting full out rpm on the saw. Should I slow it down a bit?

Thanks for your time.

Will
 
scottr said:
Yes, the mushroom or flaring on the back of the band is caused by the roller behind the band. I've never cut any cedar with my ripsaw so I can't advise on the rpm. Can you measure the thickness of your band with a micrometer?
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Yes I can measure it, I'll do it tomorrow.
 

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