Sawing Desert Iron Wood?

Merle

Merle

Well-Known Member
Hey folks,

I've never worked with DIW but finally picked up a pair of scales to use on my latest knife project. The scales are .50" thick which is much thicker than I need, so I had the brilliant idea of re-sawing one scale into two ~1/4" scales which would be sufficient for the smaller knife I'm making.

Got the band saw (Grizzly 14") all set up with the fence set and a feather board to keep the stock tight to the fence. My BS blade is one I use for ripping and re-sawing, I think it's 3/4" wide and 4 TPI. Made it about 1/32" into the wood and BAM... locked up the saw. Now I see why it's called iron wood :)

Can this rock-hard hardwood even be sawed traditionally? Or does it have to be machined? I have a portaband set up for metal work, I wonder if I could set up a block for a fence and chug through it with that.

Any thoughts?

thanks, andy
 
Merle said:
Hey folks,

I've never worked with DIW but finally picked up a pair of scales to use on my latest knife project. The scales are .50" thick which is much thicker than I need, so I had the brilliant idea of re-sawing one scale into two ~1/4" scales which would be sufficient for the smaller knife I'm making.

Got the band saw (Grizzly 14") all set up with the fence set and a feather board to keep the stock tight to the fence. My BS blade is one I use for ripping and re-sawing, I think it's 3/4" wide and 4 TPI. Made it about 1/32" into the wood and BAM... locked up the saw. Now I see why it's called iron wood :)

Can this rock-hard hardwood even be sawed traditionally? Or does it have to be machined? I have a portaband set up for metal work, I wonder if I could set up a block for a fence and chug through it with that.

Any thoughts?

thanks, andy
Click to expand...
I use my Portaband for Ironwood. It works OK. Though I don't have a fence so I always saw oversize and then sand it down on my 2x72.
 
I use my 14" wood cutting bandsaw with a wide 3 TPI blade for resawing ironwood all the time. And I haven't changed the blade in at least two years.......and maybe 3.

Your blade should be fine. I resaw 3/8" scales into folder scales with zero issues all the time.

Something else is going on. I'd start by ditching the fence....especially if it's a fence like on a table saw. That's the wrong kind of fence for a bandsaw.

And most of the time a bandsaw works a LOT better with no fence.
 
Thanks Sean and John. I'm not sure what went wrong, but I'll take another look at the set up. I'm wondering if something went haywire with the insert in the table (the round disc that surrounds the blade) such that the work piece dropped / tilted down causing the tooth at the top of the work piece to try to take too big a "bite" jamming things up. I might need to fab a true zero clearance insert like on a well set up table saw.

-andy
 
I have a feeling that it has something to do with the bandsaw setup (blade alignment on the tire, tension, etc). I've been cutting desert ironwood logs into blocks on a 14" bandsaw with a 3/4", 3TPI Timber Wolf blade with no issue at all.

Something that helped when I was on a lower powered saw and thin blade was to make a single point fence out of a piece of scrap half-round.

isAGD7Z.jpg


IkQyhk8.jpg
 
Fixall said:
I have a feeling that it has something to do with the bandsaw setup (blade alignment on the tire, tension, etc). I've been cutting desert ironwood logs into blocks on a 14" bandsaw with a 3/4", 3TPI Timber Wolf blade with no issue at all.

Something that helped when I was on a lower powered saw and thin blade was to make a single point fence out of a piece of scrap half-round.

isAGD7Z.jpg


IkQyhk8.jpg
Click to expand...
Nice. Do you sell any of that.
 
Well this is a bit embarrassing, but I finally took a closer look at my bandsaw and was shocked when I pulled out the insert. I was just going to measure it's diameter and thickness in hopes of fabbing or buying a replacement and couldn't believe how bent up and distorted this one already was. i think it's a safe bet that my iron wood tilted down into the concave insert and that's what seized the blade.
 

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Merle said:
Well this is a bit embarrassing, but I finally took a closer look at my bandsaw and was shocked when I pulled out the insert. I was just going to measure it's diameter and thickness in hopes of fabbing or buying a replacement and couldn't believe how bent up and distorted this one already was. i think it's a safe bet that my iron wood tilted down into the concave insert and that's what seized the blade.
Click to expand...
When I first got my saw, the insert sucked. I made one out of g-10. Still going strong over 8 years later.
 
Fixall said:
Nah, not really. A few times a year I’ll sell a bit of extra on BladeForums, but mostly I just store it for future use. I give more of it away than anything, lol.

I’d be happy to send ya a block the next time I’m cutting it.
Click to expand...
Beautiful wood one of my favorites
 
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