Rikon 14" 10-326 Tips ?

[Rick Herrick]

Just finished setting up and tested this bandsaw.  A couple of tests resawing 3/4" hard maple, about 7" wide.  I really like what I am seeing so far.  I saw a video by Alex Snodgrass and he said the stock 5/8" blade is pretty good but not for much over 6".  I will keep playing with it but I have a Timber Wolf 3/8" blade to start with.  Alex used his Carter brand 3/8" on 13" of cherry and it did fine.  I bought this mainly for resawing but seeing how cool this thing is, want to find a 'combination' blade size that might work for both resaw and some curves.

After those first few cuts on the maple, I had a lot of dust all over the machine.  I am using no DC at this time.  I had been planning to get a 4" DC like Rockler or the Jet DC1100 VX.  Does anyone have experience with DC on this Rikon saw?  I watched a number of videos and one person kind of intimated and nothing really works well on this machine for DC ?

As mentioned, I main reason was to resaw so I don't have to waste so much wood using my thickness planar.  And now I can see that resawing can give me a lot of 1/8"-3/8" thick stock that I can play with on the Shaper Origin.  All positives so far.

Hoping to hear any tips for using this machine.  So far it really looks like a keeper.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Not specific to that saw, but dust collection really needs to be a primary focus when you are planning to resaw.
Even with the thin kerf of a bandsaw, there will be a lot of dust generated because of the thickness of the cut.
Many guys who intend to do a lot of resawing will end up with 2 bandsaws, if they have the space.
The "main" big saw gets the wider blade and they tune it and leave it alone. Then they get a smaller cheap saw for curved work.
That's what I did, because I find that cutting curves with your "resaw blade", no matter it's width, affects the set of the teeth. This can cause your blade that "cut so straight" to lose it's ability to do that.
A good 5/8" or 3/4"  3TPI skip-tooth will do you right for resawing, but it won't do well with the curves anyway.
Backing down to a 3/8" blade as a compromise, will be more of a hassle to resaw with and still won't do tight curves. Too many teeth in the cut puts extra load on the saw (and the blade)