As a workshop staple, the band saw pulls its weight cutting any type of wood, both straight and — its particular specialty — curved cuts in just about any shape imaginable. It’s also one of the easier and safer machines for working wood when used properly; unlike a table saw, kickback isn’t an issue.
If you did nothing more than simple cutting, a band saw would still earn its keep, but there are more ways to use one than just basic cutting. Here are four techniques you definitely want to try.
Resawing
To get workpieces of a particular thickness, you could just run them through a planer. That’s fine if you only need to go slightly thinner, but for halving stock or even cutting multiple thinner workpieces from a single thicker piece, a planer is just wasteful because most of the wood goes into your dust collector.
Instead, resawing the stock lengthwise with it standing on-edge can create new workpieces of whatever thickness you want. (Resawing denotes that the stock was cut once to create the original workpiece, and you’re sawing it
