The Wood Slicer Resaw Bandsaw Blade by Highland Woodworking has been the gold standard blade for resawing for many years. Fine Woodworking has even rated the Wood Slicer blade as "Best All-Round Performer" in their independent tests for speed, flatness and smoothness.

If you go to the Wood Slicer Resaw Bandsaw Blade page on the Highland Woodworking website you will see a full description of the blade. I won't repeat that description here but I would like to highlight a few facts that make this blade unique.

The Wood Slicer creates a very smooth cut. This extremely smooth cut is due to what they call their 3-4 tpi variable tooth pitch design.

You can see in the picture above, the uneven spacing between the teeth which nearly eliminates vibration during the cut. The Wood Slicer's tooth pattern dampens the harmonic resonance of the blade which results in both a very smooth cut and a much quieter blade. They claim that the Wood Slicer blade has 1/4 the sound intensity of a more conventional blade. As I've used Wood Slicer blades over the years, I would agree that there is a noticeable difference in the loudness of this blade compared to others.

Another key point is that the blade has a Rockwell hardness rating of Rc65-67. This is a very hard rating and is as hard as the edge of a fine Japanese chisel. They also round and polish the rear edges of the blade. On other blades, you need to round the sharp rear edges with a file or sharpening stone yourself. This helps with blade tracking and reduces the sources of fatigue cracks.

Finally, one of the best features that I like is that the thickness of the blade is only 0.22". It has a minimal amount of set so the blade produces a kerf width of approximately 1/32". This is very nice if you are resawing a highly figured board and want to minimize any waste. I've even used this blade when ripping boards flat if I'm trying to maintain as much width as possible.

My bandsaw has a riser block so I use a 105" blade but they are available in a wide variety of sizes and can be custom-sized as well.

You can see on the sleeve that this is a 105" long blade, 0.22" thick with the 3-4 tpi tooth pattern.

The blade installs very easily and the keys to a good clean resaw are the right amount of tension and a blade that is square to the table. You want to make sure that the blade is both square to the table and to your rip fence if you are using one.

When I set up to resaw a board, I always make sure I have clearance all around the bandsaw table.

For a small block of wood like I'm using here, the cut is pretty straight forward. However, if you are resawing a 10" wide board that is 6' long, you want to make sure you have enough infeed and outfeed room to make the cut. You may also need a helper with an extra set of hands! Please don't get into an unsafe situation where the board is hanging off the end of the small bandsaw table and you can't hold it and make a clean cut at the same time.

I also make a small starter cut to test that I'm at the correct thickness and that the blade is square to the edge of the board. You can see below that I've set the fence to make a 1/16" thick cut and it is square to the edge of this piece of padauk.

The Wood Slicer had no problem cutting through this piece of padauk!

The resulting cut was a uniform 1/16" as shown below.

I also had minimal tool marks from the blade. I took the picture below with extreme side lighting to highlight the tool marks. The faint tool marks that you see can be easily sanded away.

Like any curious woodworker, I had to demonstrate setting the fence as close to the blade that I dare go and try to get a very thin shaving. I was successful at cutting a full size shaving that is 0.021" or just under 1/32".

If you're going to be doing any resawing I highly recommend the Wood Slicer Resaw Bandsaw Blade by Highland Woodworking. The carbon-manganese spring steel bodies provide a high amount of tensile strength to the blade and the Wood Slicer blade is unconditionally guaranteed against breakage at the weld. The small kerf and very smooth cut lets you optimize the number of slices you can get out of your beautifully figured board.

Jeffrey Fleisher has been a woodworker for approximately 20 years and a professional woodworker for the past 6 years. He is the president of his local woodturning club, the Woodturners of the Virginias and past president of the Northern Virginia Carvers. You can see some of the furniture he has made at www.jeffswooddesigns.com. He can be reached by email at furnmkr@gmail.com