Odin's Toy Factory

  Band Saw Resawing Small Toy Parts With A Small Blade and a Carter Stabilizer I have two Shopsmith bandsaws, One iron table, and one with aluminum tables. I don't experience drift on either. When I first got my bandsaw in the early 80's I had some issues with drift. This was fixed by switching to a high-quality blade and carefully aligning my saw.  Many things can cause a saw to drift. Dull or damaged blade. I once had a blade just lightly touch a staple and it immediately started to turn to that side and was useless.   The blade must match the thickness and material you are cutting. Small thinner pieces an be cut with narrower blades and more teeth. Poor quality blades. I only use Wolf blades. Saw misalignment. The table must be aligned square to the blade. Feeding the wood so fast that it can't clear the sawdust. Let the saw do the cutting. Don't force it Teeth that are too fine for the material you are cutting. Using a saw blade for resawing that has previously been...

  I cut most of my toy parts from 3/4-inch or thicker stock and then resaw them to the desired thickness. When I resaw the parts after I cut them saves me a lot of time and material. In some cases where the parts are thin, I can get three or more parts from a single piece. Think about resawing a board to 1/8-inch thick to cut two 1/2-inch long parts. You now have a 1/8-inch board that you may never use again. If you resaw from a 3/4-inch board, you will have a 1/8-inch thick board and a 1/2-inch thick board minus the saw kerf that you may not need. I am resawing the legs for a toy dragon from some hardwood cutoffs that are random thicknesses in this video. I am using a Shopsmith bandsaw equipped with a Carter Stabilizer and a 1/8-inch 14 TPI Timber Wolf bandsaw blade. I need the fine tooth blade to get as smooth a cut as possible and to be able to cut tiny parts. I can resaw parts as small as 1/4-inch long and 1/8-inch thick using this method.

  Shopsmith Bandsaw With A Carter Stabilizer Test Cut Using A 1/8-inch 14 TPI Blade Shopsmith Bandsaw With A Carter Stabilizer Test Cut Using A 1/8-inch 14 TPI Blade Shopsmith bandsaws are different than most bandsaws. They do not have crowned wheels, and they do not have a tracking adjustment. The setup instructions that are shown in the Carter Products demo will not work on a Shopsmith bandsaw. Preloading the blade by pushing it forward 1/8-inch and adjusting the tracking can't be done. You can push the blade forward 1/8-inch, but there is no tracking adjustment. All it accomplishes is to move the blade out of position and make it for it to run off the wheel. A Shopsmith bandsaw has an automatic tracking system pushing it forward disables the auto track. My solution (so far) is this. Fully retract the Carter Stabilizer and allow the bandsaw blade to track where it should, then adjust the Carter Stabilizer forward until the blade touches the bearing inside the grove. In the test ...

  Toymakers Shop Handmade Wood Toy Dragons Resawing Ears You must use push sticks or other methods to keep your fingers away from the blade. I cut two eight-inch strips to do this with You must use a zero clearance insert, or the small parts will fall through the hole. I set up the bandsaw for the cut, pushed a board partway through the blade, and clamped it to the fence. You must use a narrow blade with lots of teeth. I use 1/8-inch This method is much easier than resawing an entire board to 1/8-inch.and cutting out the small parts. It's faster, and it wastes less wood.            

Installing Blue Max Urethane Tires on a Shopsmith Bandsaw   Installing Blue Max Urethane Tires on a Shopsmith Bandsaw My first set of tires were the orange ones. They stretched and came off. I bought a pair of blue tires, and those worked well for a while and then came off and got chewed up by the blade—my fault. Putting these on was a struggle. Both times it took a couple of hours to get them on, finally. I purchased another set of the Blue Max belts. I changed the tires on my bandsaw yesterday for the third time. I finally figured out how to do it. I did not heat the tire or any of that nonsense. I discovered that you have to keep the wheel from moving and hold the belt in place. I have tried every sort of clamp you can imagine, only to have the clamp pop off and go flying across the shop. It finally dawned on me to try hand screw clamps. Hand screws are made of wood, so no worries about damaging the wheel. You can apply a lot of pressure with these clamps. Not only did they hold...

The rooster fresh off the saw. The rooster after a little sanding.   I have a Shopsmith bandsaw with Carter Guide (Shopsmith-SHS1) installed. I have had the Carter Guide installed for a while. I Played with it a lot to see what it could do and made a few somewhat simple projects. I have a project planned where I will be cutting some complex reindeer from a 4x4, and I wanted to see just how hard this would be before I decided to accept the commission. I wanted to see how complicated a cut I could make with this guide and a 1/8-inch blade. I hunted for the most complex 3D pattern I could find and came up with this chicken. The chicken is cut from a piece of construction-grade 2x4. Not once did I back up or cut any clearance to turn the blade. Cutting the chicken's wide side was slow, partly due to the fine blade and my inexperience with this sort of cut. It worked quite well. Now I have to glue up some 4x4 blocks and try a reindeer.

Installing Bandsaw Tires On A Shopsmith Bandsaw   Installing Bandsaw Tires On A Shopsmith Bandsaw   My first set of tires were the orange ones. They stretched and came off. I bought a pair of blue tires, and those worked well for a while and then came off and got chewed up by the blade—my fault. Putting these on was a struggle. Both times it took a couple of hours to get them on, finally. I purchased another set of the Blue Max belts. I changed the tires on my bandsaw yesterday for the third time. I finally figured out how to do it. I did not heat the tire or any of that nonsense. I discovered that you have to keep the wheel from moving and hold the belt in place. I have tried every sort of clamp you can imagine, only to have them pop off and go flying across the shop. It finally dawned on me to try hand screw clamps. Hand screws are made of wood, so no worries about damaging the wheel. You can apply a lot of pressure with these clamps. Not only did they hold the belt very wel...

Handmade Wooden Toy Car - Bad Bobs Custom Motors Coupe Handmade Wooden Toy Car - Bad Bobs Custom Motors Sedan I started making these before the "official plans were released. I only had drawings and no final dimensions. I made some assumptions and one of them turned out to be wrong. I made the fenders to thick.  Now I had a pile of fenders the wrong size. I needed to remove 1/2 inch or make new fenders. I could sand them to size on a belt sander but the weather is miserable and I sure don't want to do that kind of sanding in my garage. Scrollsaw? No way I could hold it straight enough and they would likely break. Use the table saw. Forget it. I could have nightmares from thinking about it. I tried every hand saw I have that I thought had a chance of working. I have a Dozuki saw that would have done it if it had bee just a bit wider. The back kept the saw from cutting all the way through. I have a Shopsmith bandsaw with a Carter guide and a 1/8 inch blade...