A nicely set up bandsaw is a delight to use. But if the saw isn’t tuned well, including having the miter slots parallel to the side of the blade, it’s going to be difficult to get accurate cuts. The Bandsaw Companion from iGaging Tools is simple and effective for this critical adjustment!
#bandsaw #bandsawaccessories #bandsawsetup
Buy your DFJ T-Shirt, Cap, or Coffee Mug at https://www.dirtfarmerjay.com/shop
I really enjoy our bandsaw. It’s an older Grizzly® model, made in 1998. I’ve done some upgrades to it, including putting a stronger spring, better guide blocks, a link drive belt, urethane tires, and a task light. The table has also been polished and waxed. It’s fun to work on a tool that you’ve made even better!
Even with those enhancements, getting a precise setup, where the table miter slots are truly parallel to the side of the blade, has been a hassle though. The solution has been the iGaging Bandsaw Companion.
I have to give credit where credit is due though. I saw the tool reviewed by Roland Johnson in a recent issue of Fine Woodworking. Roland’s review piqued my interest enough to buy one. I’m glad I did. The purchase was a moderate investment - about $30.
The tool is simplicity itself. Made of anodized aluminum, and finished in iGaging’s signature blue, the gauge is essentially a 12” ruler (it’s available in metric as well) with 1” increments etched on the face. In the middle of the bar, there is a recessed area with 4 rare-earth magnets beside the recess. By using a properly installed and tensioned ½” (12 mm) wide blade and affixing the bar with the magnets to the side of the blade (the teeth, with their side-to-side set going in the groove), the plane of the blade’s side is extended 6” (15 cm) in front and back of the blade.
This provides reference points to measure the distance to the edge of the miter slots in the machine’s table. By loosening the adjustment bolts under the table, adjusting the table until the blade and miter gauge sides are parallel, and retightening, you now will get precise cuts at the right angle when using a properly adjusted miter gauge.
This also provides another important reference point to allow you to set your fence parallel to the blade by setting it parallel to the miter gauge slots as well. This greatly reduces and even eliminates blade drift when using the fence for rip cuts.
The Bandsaw Companion comes with an adjustable guide that allows you to create a hook ruler set to the length you desire. There are holes drilled on the main measurement lines, so you can use this as a compass as well. Nice extras!
The iGaging Tool Company began in the machine shop setup tools segment. As interest in woodworking has increased, there have been more calls for preciseness in the wood shop as well. Many of the tools the iGaging offers had their genesis in metalwork. They have now developed a robust line of woodworking tools and have plans to offer more.
iGaging Tools are available at many woodworking retailers and websites including Rockler, Woodcraft, Woodsmith Store, Highland Hardware, and Infinity Tools.
For a complete list of sources, as well as to see the wide range of tools iGaging offers for many trade areas, visit igaging.com.
Buy your DFJ T-Shirt, Cap, or Coffee Mug at https://www.dirtfarmerjay.com/shop
Follow us on Social Media to know when we’re building projects or releasing new episodes!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dirtfarmerj
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dirtfarmerjay
You can help support this channel by buying our merchandise or supporting us on Throne or Patreon
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dirtfarmerjay
Hey Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com. If you depend on your bandsaw as much as I do,
it's got to be set up correctly with the blade parallel to the slots and the table set up
correctly. Well, there's a great new tool out there. It's really simple and effective.
Stick with me and I'll tell you all about it. Hey Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com. Well,
iGaging has done it again. iGaging is a tool company that has created a whole set of
measurement tools. They're originally, after talking to one of their executive team members,
he told me that iGaging has actually done all sorts of tooling for setups and all that sort
of thing in the machinist realm for metalworking, but a lot of their tools are now making their way
into the woodworking realm and one of them is this simple setup bar called the bandsaw companion.
Now this little combo tool, its primary purpose is to check parallel of the blade on your bandsaw
to the miter slots on the table, but it also has a couple of other things and there's instructions
on the back and it's got some different things you can do, but let me just point out a couple
things here. This has a series of holes that are set at half inch increments. You can get this both
an imperial and metric size and it's got this little stop on it you can slide back and forth
which then allows you to set the distance from the edge of this to the end or vice versa and that way
you can hang it over the edge of something and use it as a parallel to mark lines and so forth.
It also can be used as a compass where you put a point in one of the holes here, a pencil point
here, and you can use arcs from this so it's a nice little combo tool. This tool was featured
in the October 2022 edition of Fine Woodworking. If you turn right over here you can see where
Roland Johnson did an easier bandsaw setup using the i-gaging bandsaw companion. Well let's show
you what he discovered and make it available for you. What we're going to do is extend the line or
the plane of the side of this blade. Now this is a half inch blade and that's what you need to
properly use this tool something at least that wide and because the blade has set on the teeth
one is pointing towards you one's pointing away there's a notch on the side of this bar that
allows it to clear where that is and because these rare earth magnets then grab onto the blade
you could see you could be using much larger wider blades as well depending on the capacity of your
saw. Now that's grabbed onto the side of this without interference from the teeth and whatever
the plane is on this blade it is now extended all the way back out here and all the way here. This
now gives us an opportunity to measure the distance from here to here and if it's off to
rotate the table around so we get this parallel and you can do the same thing with the fence and
I would actually use a couple of setup blocks right there so you're not trying to touch the
whole bar and just get this fence parallel to that. When everything's parallel then everything's going
to run better and you're not going to have what's called drift where the blade keeps trying to cut
a different direction than what you would like it to. So now that the bar is in place it's settled
in place you can see right here I could do this a little bit I can raise it just slightly also
and then let it settle. I'm now going to go ahead and measure and I'll just do it in inches
because that's our most common I'm going to go ahead and put this down to the there and let it
settle again let me take that out there we go and we're finding that right there we are right about
3 and 15 16ths just slightly under. Well now I'm going to go to the other side I'm going to go
ahead and lower this down on the table a little bit settle it and I'm going to go down there
remember the other one was 3 and 15 16ths so I'm going to just come right up against there
and notice that I am about an eighth off. To demonstrate this even further let me take a
little combo square I've set it just by putting the edge down along the miter here and just
touching the corner and you can see okay we're clear right there but when I move it down here
and put it here look at how much deflection to get it to fit versus here it is right here meaning
that this blade is running this angle to the table so what we'll need to do is get under to
the trunnion nuts and loosen them and then adjust this around until this slot is parallel to that
bar. So we've loosened the trunnions here and we're simply going to adjust the table now one
thing I left one of the bolts intact to use it as a pivot point so the whole table is not sliding
around we're just going to rotate it back and forth from that pivot point until we get the
miter gauge slot and the blade side parallel three and seven eighths strong still needs to
move back a little bit so here we go all right now we've got it adjusted we're right at three
and three quarters right here let's come on down and measure the other end as well and there we are
three and three quarters so let's go ahead and tighten up the trunnion bolts and now we are ready
to go to work with this saw so you can see this is a great simple and effective tool and that's a
great combination you know another thing that people like are riding lawnmowers but one thing
they don't like is when the grass clippings clog up the chute well check out this video where we
show you how to stop that from happening foolproof and check out this other episode we created for
you that we know you'll be interested in until the next time this is Dirt Farmer Jay from
DirtFarmerJay.com
