Anyone built a resaw from scratch??

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Got an idear   Need input

[trim4u2nv]

Been stacking some parts up in the corner with the same idea.  An old treadmill for the feed.  An old dc motor gear reducer for the feed drive.  Need to find some 6-10 inch conveyor rolls for the fence.  Some handtruck tires for the holddown.  Trying to model it after the grizzly but without the return conveyor.  The whole thing would fit onto the crossrails of the mill.  Would have to install under the carriage with the carriage locked.  Still at the idea stage at this point.  Would probably need some forklift slots or lift hooks to lift the beast on and off the mill.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/item.cfm?itemnumber=G0504

[woodbowl]

Harold,
   Tim Cook down the road from me sells a resaw conveyor that you can dog down to your own bandmill. It also has a board return conveyor that brings the cant back to bed level for another run through. Round and round it goes untill your cants are gone. I suppose you can run as many cants as your man enough and fast enough to reposition. It can't be that hard to make a homemade outfit.---Oh yea, we're back. Thanks for the hospitality. I really enjoyed the tour.

[Brad_S.]

A friend built one using a Jonsered bandsaw mill that he decided wasn't very good as a sawmill but would work great as a resaw. He added a moving conveyor and switched to an electric motor. I'll get some photos Monday.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  We built a rig like Arkansawyer has. It works OK. We need a gang saw, maybe. Tryin to cut cants without having the sawmill handy.

  Ain't trained Homey to unnerstand Espanol, yet.

[Rockn H]

This probably won't help, but I've been thinking of building a gangsaw using cold roll and pillar block bearings.  Something like this old foley.  By the way if anyone has one of these they want to haul off, give me a holler.

[trim4u2nv]

Put together my resaw this weekend.  Used a nordic track treadmill for the conveyor.  Used a gear reducer motor from a garage door opener to power the belt.  Bought 2 wheel barrow tires for holddowns with (2) 5/8 axles.  Used bungee cords to apply tension to holddown tires.  Used 4:1 reduction on the drive belts to get a decent feed speed.  One c-clamp holds the conveyor to the bunks log stop.   Works pretty good so far with a hardwood fence.  Need to get some ball bearings for the fence.   Pictures are kind of dark as they were taken indoors.  Will update when I move the mill outside.  Cut some 1/16 veneer cuts to check accuracy so far so good.

Total cost less than $100 so far

$10 nordic trac (goodwill)
$5 gear reducer motor (flea market find)
$45 tires and axles (home depot)
$18 drive belts and pulleys

[Swede]

Ì´m thinking about it every day, have some rollers behind my work shop, 30"x Ø5" with 1/2" rubber on their surfaces, no bearings in them but long Ø1" shafts for driving and bearings.

Two circular blades on the same shaft, moveable by levels. 
Also want to use it for small logs but how to hold them?  I don´t want them turn around while sawing 

Swede.

PS. NO Harold, my rollers are NOT for sale!  

[shopteacher]

PS. NO Harold, my rollers are NOT for sale!

 Sounds to me like he wants to give them to you FDH.

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Swede will hafta pay the S&H too. 

  Ackshally, I'm thinkin about a Rig to break down cants, without using the Bandmill. Maybe the correct thing is a Scragg Mill

[trim4u2nv]

Was at an auction today and saw a cornell gang saw like this.  Think it went for $3500 w/ big motors.  Had tandem (top/bottom saws) 

http://www.greatlakescompanies.net/

The custom lumber products auction.

[Arthur]

Fla._Deadheader

give arthur at Narapea Wei a call.  They are converting the EcoSaw power unit to run a resaw.  Using the same blades they get 200mm depth cut.  PNG innovations, use what is available to make what you need.

arthur

[DragonsBane]

Fla. Deadheader,

 A scragg mill would work great for breaking down cants. The big problem would be the kerf depending on how big your cant faces are. On the scragg mills the blades are adjusted hydraulically to the desired width of cut.  You could set it up to take a stick off of each side to break the cants down even faster. I have some info on a scragg mill here somewhere I'll see if I can find it for you. One note to a scragg mill though is if you really want to use a scragg mill to its full potential you'll need at least three guys with one of the running a loader of some type since a scragg mill will cut alot of lumber real fast.

later all...

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Thanks, DB. I would appreciate the info.. 

[DragonsBane]

Just had a thought. One easy way to build a resaw would be to mount multiple bandmill heads to a fixed carriage, provide for vertical adjustment, and feed with a chain conveyer with sharpened teeth attached. On a 12" x 12" cant you should be able to get some very respectable feed rates with minimal deflection in the cuts.

later all.....

[beenthere]

Dragonsbane
Along your line of thinking, I often (well, occasionally  ) think about such a 'system' of sequential band set-ups, but with a tilted feed table that would let the cant slide by gravity against the bandsaw blades. Thinking that an easy cut, the piece would slide faster than it would with a hard cut (dull blades, tougher wood, etc), but would be self-feeding. It may not work at all, but keep thinking it just might. It would take the mechanical feed out of the equation, as that would have to be monitored and adjusted all the time.

Friend of mine built a panel sander that way. Rather than have feed rollers, he put the bed on a slope, and if very little was sanded off, the panel would drop through rather quickly. If there were heavy thickness to be sanded down, the piece would only go as fast as needed to remove wood down to the set thickness.

[DragonsBane]

 Another idea would be to build a modified version of a scragg mill with mutiple blades. You could decide what you want to cut most often, like 1x lumber or 2x lumber. Mount mutpile circular blades to an arbor shaft at the correct spacing and cut til your ears bleed. For instance if you had a 12" x 12" cant and mounted 10 blades on a shaft you could cut 1728 board feet in one pass. If you used a bandmill or a cuircular mill to cut just cants and fed them through a modified scragg mill you could produce an obscene amount of lumber in a very short time. If you really wanted to you could build multiple arbor assemblies to cut many different thicknesses.  Could you imagine cutting 2x lumber this way.

On another note, I do believe you can set up circular blade mills to help pull the stock through the mill. Maybe this mechanical engineering degree might pay off  after all.

later all....

[Fla._Deadheader]

 For the most part, we will be breaking down 12" or under Teak cants. There is not much for growth rings in Teak, but, on the outside trees (outside edges of the stand), I imagine there will be tension.

  How to keep everything feeding, without thick-thin boards, might be an issue???

  I am contemplating a series of Swinger blades mounted on 1 shaft, to feed 8 X 8's through, and saw the boards off the larger logs, until an 8 X 8 will be obtained ?? Might take a lot of HP.

[karl]

FD

Worked with some teak over the years-seems like it has lots of minerals in the wood that dulls the heck out of sharp tools- maybe it cuts better green???

A bunch of blades the size of a swinger IS going to take HP for sure- the problem I ran into in a similar situation was getting a mandrel that could take the accumulative torque of multable blades   in a dia that would fit my blade holes.

Maybe upper and lower shafts with smaller dia blades= less power needed for each blade and less torque?

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Afraid you might be right, Karl.  Maybe I just need to saw the boards as I go.  I will wear out them Swinger Boys at the Shootout, with questions.