I have been operating a manual bandsaw mill, sawing a variety of woods in varied diameters and lengths. Regardless of the wood I'm sawing I find that the blade tends to dip on the first 12 inches of the cant before it levels off. This makes for curved ends of boards which I have to cut off. I have tried moving the logs further down the mill and the cuts are the same. The dogs are doing their job and the logs don't lift off the bed while sawing. Does anyone have tips on how to avoid this?

Sounds like dull blade(s)...Also Cooks sawmill website has a great info section on setting up a band correctly......it done wonders for my saw....I highly reccomend doing this to ANY brand bandmill.

Which saw do you have??? what is the cutting width between guides??

Check the alignment of your blabe in relation to the bed of the mill. Sounds like your blade may actually be pointing domnward to begin with. Look at the boards you cut. If they have rob marks on them then the blade is not traveling straight.in your case there would be rub marks on the bottom face of the board as it comes off the mill.

here is how i check to see if the blade is running level with the bed. i use a 2 foot level placed on the blade,then i measure each end of the level to the bed to see if the measument is the same. if not then i adjust till they are the same distance. on my bandsaw mill i adjust the band wheels to get the blade to run level with the bed.

I have leveled everything several times, but I will check this again. I can't see why it would only dip at the beginning of the cut and then level off...and that is regardless of which bunk I start the cut on. No rob marks that I have noticed. But it does make sense that the blade might be tilting down somehow, at least at the start.

How fast are you feeding the saw at the start of the cut? And what is the thickness of your bandsaw blades?

I get this kind of behavior when my blades are dull and I feed the saw too fast. It's worst at the start of the cut, when the blade isn't "in" the wood yet.

If you are not using a heavy gauge thickness on your blades, or if they are not very sharp, you can get this behavior.

A sharp blade will not rise or dive in a cut at almost any feed rate, so check that first.

Nope, it's not the blade. Brand new blades and re-sharpened blades behave exactly the same. I try and start the cut really slowly, but this is tricky to do isn't it? Sometimes I cut about an inch and then back off and start again and this seems to help a little.
I'm fairly new to bandsaw milling. I used to use a chainsaw which cut just fine amidst the noise fumes and dust. I much prefer the bandsaw, but I do find that it doesn't like knots in softwood. Aside from my problem with the first foot, the cut gets wavy when I am cutting in soft woods with knots. Dryer hard woods seem to cut smoothest.

could be your blades guides. i set my guides so there is no play in them. if the blade is sharp,running level with the bed and the blade guides are doing there job,band wheels don't have any play and the blade is tracking right it should cut without any waves.

Rod, No play? Does that mean that they are up against the blade and spinning all the time?

yes

Assar,
If your blade is level and sharp, watch the RPMs closely to see if they vary in correlation with your cut changing. Also check your belt tension.

I have had to get my blade guides squared up on a lathe and a bit taken off the front as they wear. This keeps the blade supported an d running true. Also if you are cutting softwood you might need a little more set in your blades, as you come to a large knot , I will reduce the feed speed as you go from soft to harder wood this will reduce some dip. Sounds to me that you have adjustments or corrections to make on your guides or guide bearings. Milling is a long learning experience, have fun.

I have had this happen to me with frozen pine logs with heavy knot sections. Also if its a butt log the first few feet from the bottom up are considerably harder wood. That density along with variable other issues like under tensioned blade, wrong set ,feed to fast,,blah blah...Has always seemed more of a problem to me in the winter months.