Kinda kicking around picking one of these up from woodmizer, wondering if anyone has used one and what ya think of it?
gonna mainly use it for some siding on a few buildings we are thinking of putting up
Let me know.
I haven't used one, but ...
Back in '04 before I bought my own mill, I ran Louis' LT40 for a season. He had the Wood-Mizer lapsiding rig and told me he'd only used it once. He said it did the job, after quite a bit of experimenting to figure out the cant size and thickness settings. His biggest complaint was that it didn't put enough bevel on the siding. Second complaint was the amount of material handling -- cut the cants, mount the fixture, load and clamp the cants (two person job), and then get around to sawing.
I fixed the bevel issue for him just before I finished the season -- epoxied a couple of pieces of 1/8" flatbar under the cams that tilt the cant. But he never did use it again.
The owner of the local pole mill has an LT40SHE25 to turn the offcut tops and butts of his poles in cedar lumber. He's got the lapsiding fixture as well, but when I asked him about it this spring, he said he'd only used it once. Too much material handling.
Notice the pattern? :) :)
Actually, Louis had a good product line -- flat cedar siding. He simply milled lumber 5/8" thick by 8" wide. People would nail a 2" wide starter strip on the bottom of the wall, then simply nail on successive rows of flat siding with a 1-1/2 to 2" lap. There's a lot of house around here with that type of siding. Looks good and seems to stand up well.
I have used our lap siding maker a bunch. This is the one where you feed the board in one end and the saw will make 2 pieces of beveled sideing. We make the 3 sided cants first and feed through the resaw to make boards of the thickness that we need. Then put shims under the resaw to tilt it relative to the blade. We can make any desired amount of bevel on boards up to 12" wide. Widest we have done is 8". Last siding was 1/4" one edge and 1/2" other edge x 8" wide. I love ours. Takes only a few minutes to set jig on mill, align, hook up feed motor with quick coupler and a few test boards and away we go.
Kevin, you are welcome to come over for a visit and see for yourself how we do it.
"Petefrombearswamp" has one!
He cut the lap siding for his house with it!
Really a nice looking job!
It wasn't for sale when I bought my mill from him in May of '08!
I built a resaw for my woodmizer w/ a 10" flat belt conveyor, I put a dc motor on it that I run off the speed control on mill. Added a fence on the near side and set conveyor on bunks and lock head in place over center of conveyor. for siding I tilt conveyor with shims on near side and split 4 Qtr.X 7" boards into two pieces of siding. Works great with one person feeding boards and one taking siding off. I sided a small shed last summer with butternut, 4.5" exposure.
Jim
Thanks for the info guys, we too have thought about just milling flat boards and using a starter strip, but the video of the lap siding maker looks really slick and you can make wedges with it too.
Cedarman are you using the WM resaw attachment to resaw the siding on the WM?, that could be another way to go also, we just might take you up on the invitation to see it in action.
Wouldn't mind selling a little siding too if we get a chance.
The one mill where I work has one, and they did the entire horse barn there, a pretty big building. Looks great. The other mill came with a resaw attachment, in fact it never saw a log until we got it. I want to try it to split 1x8 into bevel siding. They warn that it isn't for commercial applications, however. ???
Kevin, yes, ours is the WM resaw. We use the WM 2head industrial resaw for cants and slabs and the one that sets on the LT30 for making the board into lapsiding.
Come on over.
I have one and only use it for shingles now. The problem with siding was it was to much work and we found a better way.
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This is the ARKY resaw. It is a 2x10x12 clamped to the bed. It has a 1x4 on the blade side with a groove cut out for the blade to drop down into. I have a piece of bevel siding screwed down to it for making siding or remove it for resawing. We just shove the boards through nose to tail to feed them. Can split 60 to 90 boards an hour. I chain the head to the axle. We saw the boards 1 1/8 the sticker them. When dry we run them through the logosol and notch the corners. Then we split them on the ARKY resaw.
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I think there is a difference between the shingle maker and resaw. With our resaw shimmed to make bevel siding we can run 200 to 300 boards per hour. It has 2 power feed rollers. The saw head remains stationary. We love beveled siding orders.
Arky, if you had shown me your set up 20 years ago, I would probably still be using it. It might be slower, but I wouldn't still be paying for it.
I have been thinking of adding some power feed rollers to my set up. If I had more building I would set up my Baker resaw and make it on there.
The WM lap siding/shingle jig works and I use it for shingles. Problem with siding is the last board and handeling the cants. Also this way I can dry the boards before making the siding and it stays alot straighter.
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Quote from: ARKANSAWYER on August 28, 2009, 06:57:29 PM
Problem with siding is the last board and handeling the cants.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10186/DSC03985f.JPG)
Maybe if the sawyer does his figuring correctly, he/she could have the sawing end up where he had a 1X or 2X left at the bottom of the cant! You know from when you are tilting the lapsider or leveling it back out again!
A couple of years ago I did the lap siding for my house using 1/2" x 6" cedar without any bevel. The siding doesn't look any different than beveled and I got a little more wood on the house. I too tried the woodmizer lap siding maker and found I did way more movements to get a board. I ended up straight from the tree cutting the siding, stickering it and after it was dry I put it back on the mill to true up the edge that would show.
Well it kinda sounds like we might just try using 5/8ths boards instead of messing with the siding maker. gives me money to spend on something else. :D
Kevin, you've seen my the cabin out back. That's all we did. just keep dropping 3/4 on the scale.
You can also make a wedge with a stop on the end.
Clamp a stop block to the bed so that vibration won't allow the wedges to move.
Make a cut with the wedge then remove the wedge and make a cut, repeat.
jim
https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=10520&pos=0
Hey jeff I forgot all about you doing your cabin that way, yep I think we are gonna just try that.
Hey solidwoods I have used a wedge like that to make a few mobile home wedge's, kinda slow but it will work.
Now I see they have the resaw on sale.
I have a WM lap siding attachment. I generally mill 8x8 or 8x12 timbers for vertical grain and make the bevel siding from those. From a nice, 12' log, I get about 300 square feet of coverage (6" reveal of an 8" siding). It takes about four hours to do that, on average.
I've been happy with the default bevel, and my thicknesses are 3/16" on the tapered edge and 11/16 on the thick edge. Laid along with commercial siding, it matches fairly well. Most persons can't tell it apart until I point out the difference in the edge texture (mine is has un-planed edges). Everything else is the same.
The lap sider leaves a 2x8 uncut for each cant because the clamps are holding onto the cant there. It is a useful dimension. On stringy wood, such as spruce, I put the siding back onto the mill, vertically in a bunch, and gang-trim the strings off the edges for a more finished look. Cedar doesn't need that treatment.
The shingles are fine also, just like the sawn shingles available commercially.
The lap siding has been a pretty good money maker.
I thank all for the info. I plan on getting one in the spring, I think the price is fair and payback should be short. There is alot of barn restoration going on so I think there is a market for lap siding
thanks Sam
Just thought I'd add my simplistic way of making 8" beveled siding. My friend has a lumbermate 2000, and I'm fairly competent at using the thing (I've probably sawn 10 logs solo.) Anyway, we first saw an 8" wide x 12" high (or higher) piece of SYP. We tilt the beam up just enough to wedge a couple of 3/8" spacers under the beam's bottom right side on the sawmill base supports, placing the beam on a slight angle. The left side rests on the support beams, thus creating the correct angle for a bevel. The spacers are probably 1.5" x 1.5" x 3/8" think set under the beam on the right side (the same side that we walk along as we push the saw through the beam.) The first cut is made resulting in a 5/8" down to 1/8" x 8" wide piece of siding. Before making the next cut, simply remove the spacers, and voila! The next piece is at the same angle. Then repeat putting the spacers under the same side and repeat the process. I'm currently building a barn using this stuff inside and out! Good luck. It's actually a fairly quick way of making siding.
Welcome to the FF planman, is that a G-8 you're playing in the avatar pic?
That's me playing my Technics keyboard on a Friday night for Celebrate Recovery. I've played professionally on the side all my life, and now do it to help people make it to the next one! Also have a hammond hooked up to my 45 year old lestie 122.
After reading through this topic, I gotta admit I learned alot about making siding. Thanks.
Planman, welcome to forestry forum! We look forward
to hearing about your mill buying experience and building projects.
QuoteAfter reading through this topic, I gotta admit I learned alot about making siding
Me too. I have a good friend that bought his LT30 in 1984. He also bought the lap sider but never uses it. Sold it to me for 500. Brought it home last night 8) cleaned it up and made 60 sq ft of beveled siding in an hour. I like the accuracy and ease. It is heavy to put on alone though. Can't wait to make some shingles. Anyone know how to price sawing lap siding for customers? By the hour maybe?
jim