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9cVIDEO Cutting Curves in Thin Wood
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Jan 24, 2024
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View Video Transcript
0:00
In this video, I want to talk to you about one of the four main operations you can do with
0:06
the bandsaw. And those four would be cutting curves in thin stock, which is what I'm going to show you here
0:12
Cutting curves in thicker stock. So if you want to make, say, duck decoys or molds for something that you want to carve later
0:20
the bandsaw can save you a lot of time by roughing off a lot of that wood. There's also re-sawing thicker lumber into thinner pieces
0:28
those are that's always done with a straight cut and then there's also milling small
0:35
lumber boards from actual logs so in a sense turning the bands on into a kind of a sawmill
0:40
but for now I'm just going to focus on the one operation and that's the the cutting curves so
0:46
I've I've drawn a curve here on this sample piece of cherry and the first thing I want you to
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notice is how crisp it is there's no ambiguity to that line
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there's not sort of two lines in one place or it doesn't get faint or anything like that
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because you need to be able to see what you want to achieve. It's as simple as that. Now I happen to
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draw this curve with this tool. It's called a French curve. You can kind of adjust it
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You can trace something around or something curved, whatever you want. But the bottom line
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is that you want a nice dark line like that. Now I'm going to actually do some cutting
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and explain what I'm doing as I'm doing it. But before I do that, I just want to point out a couple of things
1:35
a couple of main points, I guess, that affect how this comes out
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So step number one is that you have to have in your own mind
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an idea of the waist side of the line. And by waist side of the line
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I mean the side of the line that doesn't matter. So for this purpose, let's just say that
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this part of the curve so this side of the line is our is our good piece and that side of the
2:05
line is going to be our waist so when you're cutting precisely cutting curves precisely on
2:14
on the bandsaw you don't want to follow along the line you actually don't want the line to
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completely disappear ideally what you like is for half the line to disappear half the pencil thickness So and that would be the waist side half Whether we actually achieve that or not that what the skill of cutting curves with a bandsaw is all about
2:37
It's how well you can do that. And there's two things that you need to keep in mind as you do this
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It's a kind of a balancing act because there's really two movements involved here
2:51
There's pushing the workpiece through the blade, past the blade. But then there's also the rotation of the workpiece as you're pushing the thing through
3:04
And depending on the sharpness of the curve you're cutting, there's more or less turning or pushing in relation to each other
3:15
So, for instance, as you'll see in a moment, this is a pretty straight section here
3:19
There's not a lot of curve there. So most of my motion here will be pushing forward
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But when I get here, for instance, I still have to push forward. But I'm also going to have to be prepared to rotate the wood quite a bit, actually
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in order to stay in line with things. Now, the bandsaw has a quarter inch wide blade in it, which is perfect for this application
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The height of this part of the saw has been a joint. so that the workpiece fits underneath, but the bearings here are close enough to the workpiece that it's going to support the blade in a meaningful way
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So I told you two things right now. It's two movements you have to keep in mind. There's the forward through the wood movement and then there's the rotation of the workpiece movement. There is another movement. It's kind of a minor movement and it's something that you can use to kind of save your movement
4:21
yourself a little bit if you go if you start going off the line one side of the other and that's
4:27
that you can actually move the wood sideways a little bit in relation to the blade as you're cutting
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to help you get back on track that's actually often a better way than than backing up and starting
4:40
again which some people do if they go off the line they're going to back up and and kind of try
4:46
to get the line again the real trick in this it hand eye coordination And you have to watch very closely because you want to make you want to take corrective action before you taken things too
5:00
far. So that's essentially what it comes down to and it's practice too. Practice. So smooth
5:05
movements, practice, let me get my safety glasses on and I'll show you how this cut
5:12
actually happens. Later in the course I'm going to be going into minute detail about
5:18
how to make all the adjustments on a bandsaw like this. But for now, I just want you to listen to it
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This is the sound of a well-tuned band-saw. You'll notice there's no buzzing or squeaking or anything that shouldn't be there
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It's just the sound of the thing running. So I can tell, my ear tells me this saw is probably ready to go
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I know it is, but my ear tells me it sounds good. So let's get right into the cutting now, and I'm going to give you kind of a blow-by-blow account of how you make an accurate cut in a curved situation with relatively thin wood like this
5:57
Well, I'm just starting the cut right now, and basically the section I'm cutting is fairly straight, and not a lot of curve has kicked in
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When viewed from my eye, I essentially lined up the straight pencil line with the blade, and very shortly after
6:15
after I started cutting, I was paying attention to whether I had aligned the line properly with the blade
6:39
whether the cut is actually following that fairly straight non-curved line. And it was. That's a fairly easy thing to do. And so essentially I'm just going to continue. Now, right now, I am on the waist side of the line. That's very important because, as I said before, I want the pencil line, at least half the pencil line to remain
6:45
after the cut and you can see if you look closely I am cutting on the waist side of the line
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not going very fast this isn't a race you can get faster in time I'm I'm going
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slow now to give me time to explain to you what's going on and also to make sure I
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don't I don't go off off the beaten path here but but so far so good now at this
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stage the curve is starting to intensify So I dialing in some rotation of the workpiece as well as pushing it forward You can really see too much of that rotation happening now but it is happening
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And you need to use your eyes and your hands to match the rotation and the forward movement
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So it keeps you exactly where you want to be. And that's what's continuing to unfold here now
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So this is about as tight a part of the curve as I'm going to encounter
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And notice I've moved my hands so that I'm in a position to rotate
7:55
You can see a lot more of the rotation now happening. You'll also notice that my hands are very far away from the blade
8:04
The band saw can be an extremely safe power tool, even though it has the potential to hurt you pretty badly
8:13
But it's also easy to be safe with it. There's no kickback hazard with the bandsaw, as there is with a table saw
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Now, I'm into a section now again where there's really not much curve
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The direction of the curve is changing in this example. That's why I laid it out, so I get curves in two directions
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But now I'm pretty well still in the straight mode, although there's kind of going to be an inflection here
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I'm going to start changing direction and start rotating the workpiece in the other direction
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in order to keep on the waist side of the line. Can you see the curve, the rotation happening there
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This is the curviest part of the cut, so I have to dial in a fair amount of rotation
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You know, when you miscalculate that, when you misjudge the amount of curve in relation
9:12
to the amount of push forward. And you notice it very early on
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you can just kind of push the workpiece to the left or the right to kind of get it on track
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as you take the appropriate action, curving or rotating the workpiece either more or less
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And once again, you see my fingers are not in line with the blade whatsoever. I'm very safe here
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Everything's working fine. And there we're going. go. We come to the end of the cut
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