Frustrated resawing rough lumber - tips?

It depends on the amount of cupping. You said you jointed one face and edge. Measure the thickness of the jointed edge and divide it by two. Set your bandsaw rip (resaw) fence to split the mark with the jointed face against the fence. I assume you have a sharp resaw blade tensioned properly. After resawing one slab, pass the remainder over the jointer to just barely clean the fresh cut face. without adjusting the bandsaw, resaw the second slab. You should two slabs of the same, maximum thickness, and have only lost about 1/16” from the saw kerfs, You may even have a slight amount of useable wood left on the convex side of the cup (I also assume that you jointed the concave face of the board).

-- Doug, Bakersfield, CA - I measured twice, cut it twice, and it is still too short!

Getting two equal pieces takes some practice, and a good blade. I still get uneven pieces and I’ve done this several times. I’m still getting the hang of how to account for the kerf width of the saw blade. So even without any cupping, the best you could expect from 8/4 would be two pieces slightly under 1” thick. I assume your trying for 3/4”? It’s gonna be real close with any amount of cup in the board.

-- Some problems are best solved with an optimistic approach. Optimism shines a light on alternatives that are otherwise not visible.

thats why I add 20 to 25% of the total board footage as waste when calculating rough lumber estimates

-- "Good artists borrow, great artists steal”…..Picasso

Resawing on the bandsaw requires a wide blade, at least 1/2”, and a fence that has been set to compensate for the drift of the blade. A featherboard, or better yet a stack of them, is also a big help.

The surface of the board riding against the fence has to be flat. Any twist or cup must be removed first. Also, wood with uniform density works best. Hard spots, curl, knots, ect. can force the blade off course.

-- "Heaven is North of the Bridge"

Well, it sounds like the answer to my ultimate question is “Yes”. I would only be able to get 2 usable pieces if everything were perfect, and it isn’t. Sounds like I’m going to get a combination of project pieces and some thinner stuff, maybe for handcut dovetail practice or smaller boxes or something.

-- My broker promised me he would treat my money as if it were his own. Trouble is, he did.

A good friend of mine (radiuswoodguy, look him up) does that a lot, and does it professionally; hence, he has to figure out how to make it work, not whether or not it will. He can slice 1/8” true pieces from 10” walnut, and does so perfectly. But… he also invested in the tools to do so, and takes great care in choosing the right boards to work with. 8/4 is sometimes 8/4, sometimes 7/4. He purchased a nice Grizzly bandsaw, carbide tipped blades that are about $140 each, and a feed speed (cant remember who made it) that will creep or shove the wood thru the blade. Feed speed is critical, it is amazing how well or poorly a cut will be from tweaking that speed knob a bit. I guess it’s like most things, the more money you stuff into it the more you can expect. Best of luck!

-- Power tools put us ahead of the monkeys