Resawing: A Complete Guide for Woodworkers

Resawing is one of those techniques that opens up what you can do with lumber in a way that’s hard to overstate. I got into resawing out of necessity — had a beautiful 8/4 walnut slab that was far too thick for the drawer sides I needed and far too expensive to waste. Splitting it on the band saw gave me two pieces with matching grain, perfect for bookmatched panels. That was the project that made resawing a regular part of how I work with wood.

What Resawing Actually Is

Resawing means cutting a board along its thickness to produce thinner boards. A 2-inch thick board becomes two 7/8-inch boards. A 4/4 board can yield veneers. The technique maximizes yield from valuable material and enables effects — like bookmatching — that require matched grain from the same board. The band saw is the right tool for resawing; the table saw can handle it but wastes more material to kerf and requires more setup.

Tools for Resawing

• Band Saw: Preferred tool. Narrow kerf, lower forces on the wood, and the vertical blade orientation handles tall boards well.
• Resawing Blade: Wide (1/2 to 3/4 inch for most band saws), few teeth per inch (3-4 TPI), with a hook tooth profile for aggressive material removal.
• Fence or Resaw Guide: Essential for straight cuts. A tall fence that supports the full height of the board prevents the board from tipping during the cut.
• Push Sticks or Push Blocks: Keep hands away from the blade on shorter boards.
• Calipers: For checking thickness uniformity after the cut and before planing.

The Resawing Blade

The blade is where most band saw resawing problems originate. A fine-tooth blade appropriate for furniture work will bog down and deflect in resawing. You need a wide blade — at minimum 1/2 inch, preferably 3/4 inch on a saw large enough to handle it — with 3-4 TPI and a hook tooth angle that pulls chips out of the cut aggressively. A dull blade produces wavy cuts, excessive heat, and blade drift that no amount of fence adjustment will fix. Replace or sharpen blades before they cause problems rather than after.

Step-by-Step Resawing Process

Prepare the Board

The board must be flat and square before resawing. Joint one face flat and one edge square to that face. Any warp or twist in the board will translate into a wavy cut — the band saw cuts what it’s fed. Take the time to get the stock right before it hits the blade.

Set Up the Band Saw

Tension the blade properly — a properly tensioned resawing blade barely deflects when pushed sideways. Set blade drift before adjusting the fence: feed a scrap board freehand at a steady pace, mark the natural angle the blade tracks, and set the fence to match that angle. The fence should be set parallel to the blade’s natural line, not necessarily parallel to the miter slot. Set the guides close to the blade with minimal drag and adjust the upper guide to just above the board height.

Make the Cut

Place the jointed edge against the fence with the jointed face against the table. Feed the board steadily into the blade at a rate the saw can handle without laboring. Too fast produces deflection and rough cuts; too slow produces heat and burning. A consistent, medium-pace feed that lets the blade do the work without straining is what you’re after. For long boards, use a roller stand behind the saw or have help supporting the outfeed end.

Post-Cut Steps

After the cut, measure both pieces for thickness uniformity. Band-sawn surfaces are rarely glass-smooth — they need cleanup. Run the pieces through the planer to reach final thickness and produce a flat, smooth face. Add at least 1/8 inch of cleanup allowance to your target finished thickness before resawing.

Advanced Techniques

Very Thick Boards

For boards thicker than your band saw can handle in a single pass, cut part way through, remove the board, and repeat from the other face. For very tall resaw cuts, consider a two-stage approach: resaw to slightly thicker than needed, then plane to final dimension. This produces more consistent results than pushing the machine to its absolute limit.

Using a Table Saw for Resawing

Table saw resawing works for boards that don’t exceed blade height. For a 6-inch board on a standard contractor saw, make one pass, flip the board end-for-end, and make a second pass — meeting in the middle. Use a thin-kerf blade to minimize material loss. The kerf on a standard table saw blade is roughly double a band saw blade, so you lose more material per cut.

Bookmatching

Bookmatching opens the two resawn halves like pages of a book, creating mirror-image grain patterns. The technique works best on figured wood — flame maple, crotch pieces, heavily figured walnut — where the grain pattern is the visual focus. Keep the pieces in order as they come off the saw and mark the inside faces before separating them.

Creating Veneers

Thin veneers for panel construction can be resawn on the band saw from solid stock. This is how expensive species get used economically — one board of figured maple might yield eight or ten veneer slices. Veneer work requires a well-tuned saw, a sharp blade, and consistent feed to produce uniform thickness across the length of the piece.

Common Problems and Solutions

Blade Drift

If the cut curves away from the fence, the blade is drifting. Most common causes: dull blade, insufficient tension, or the fence angle not matching the blade’s natural tracking direction. Fix the blade and re-establish drift angle before adjusting the fence.

Wavy Cuts

Wavy surfaces come from inconsistent feed rate, a dull blade, or blade flutter from insufficient tension. Slow down the feed, check blade tension, and replace the blade if it’s past its useful life.

Safety

Keep push sticks in hand for the last foot of the cut when fingers would otherwise come close to the blade. Never stand directly behind the board — band saw kickback is less dramatic than table saw kickback but it happens. Eye protection catches the fine sawdust that resawing produces in volume.

Resawing is a technique that pays dividends across many types of projects — not just veneers and bookmatching, but any time you need thinner stock than what’s available at the lumber yard, or when you want to use a single board’s consistent figure across multiple parts of a piece. The setup time on the band saw is real, but the capability it adds is worth building into your regular workflow.