The New Complete Guide to the Band Saw: Everything You Need to Know about the Most Important Saw in the Shop

Mark Duginske's New Guide concerning band saws is a must have for anyone considering buying or using a band saw. There are other guides out there authored by some very able woodworkers, but IMHO, Duginske's is the best. One tip not covered in the guide: where to obtain the stoning tool that Mark describes. I contacted him and learned that Woodcraft has them; at a very nominal price.

In the last 45 years, I've worked on equipment from oil rigs, precision approach radars used in air traffic control, CT scanners, MR scanners etc. dealing with the mechanical, electro-mechanical and electronic aspects of their function. I first bought this book when it initially came out. I had it for sometime, loaned it out and it didn't come home due to some understandable circumstances. I bought this again as it is one of my "go to" references. It is in my humble opinion, well written and well illustrated. For the first time user or buyer of a bandsaw or more experienced user/owner, this book should be in their reference library.

I just bought my first band saw, though I have been a woodworker for a long time now. This is an excellent book. It seems to cover everything you need to know about band saw operation, tuning, blade choice and more. The chapter on setup and tuning seems to be particularly thorough. As another reviewer stated, the chapter on jigs is a little thin, but helpful and useful, too. I keep most of my woodworking books on a shelf in my bedroom, but this one is going to live in the shop as I'll be referring to it frequently as I learn the ins and outs of band saw use. I'm not so easily impressed by woodworking books, but this one is definitely a keeper.

I recently purchased a new 12" band saw and found this book very helpful. The questions on my mind were what blades should I buy, how tight should the blade tension be, and how much can I push my band saw for resawing wood logs. All of these questions and more were answered in this guide. Now that I've had the band saw for about a month, I've looked for other sources to make some resaw jigs. I've always enjoyed wood working but lost a finger to a table saw in my youth. Now I read first and operate second to prevent that from happening again. I read some of the other reviews and disagree - this book was excellent for someone who wants to know what size band saw to buy or how to get the most out of the band saw. I've already resawed many firewood logs that proved to much better on the inside than I imagined. I'm almost hesitate to use our wood stove as the band clearly illustrates how great the grain truly is in any wood log. Once you get a band saw there are too many questions that come up - blade metallurgy, number of teeth, hardwood vs. softwood, cutting metal, size of logs to resaw, blade selection for various cuts, adjusting or resetting saw blade guides, minimizing saw dust (and there's a lot), etc. This book answered just about all of my questions and I highly recommend it to any one who wants to get the most out their equipment.

This is an update from his previous publication and well worth the money. The one chapter on band saw blades is by itself worth the price of the book. Chapter 3 is 32 pages on everything you would ever want to know about band saw blades. Great information. The rest of the book is good too.