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An Efficient Millwork Shop

Started by fencerowphil (Phil L.), November 26, 2006, 08:10:20 PM

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fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Now that I have been sawing a few years,  I find that
I have quite a variety of air-dried lumber.  As confessed
on other threads, I do need a solar kiln, but there is another
need:

I would like to eventually have a set-up to take lumber
off the stickers with all its typical flaws, then efficiently process
it into anything from skip planed boards, to S4S, or  to T&G.
So we are talking rollers, cut-off saws, wide jointing, rough
deep-cut planer,  molder, fine planer, resaw, etc.
???
What layouts have you tried (or dreamed of)?
bike_rider
I want to plan ahead and then carefully shop for my needs over
the next couple of years.  Thanks for your help!

Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Part_Timer

I can take a picture of my shop so you can see how not to do it. :)
Peterson 8" ATS.
The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Now, Part_Timer! >:(

I was excited that I finally got a response, and you
tell me that your tricycle is messed up, too?

Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Radar67

Phil, I can recommend a few things...

1. Table saw - make sure you have an equal amount of space in front of and behind the saw, equal to the length of material you plan to saw on each end. At least 4 foot on each side of the saw if you plan to saw sheet goods.

2. I would place my planer and jointer in line with the table saw and use an assembly line approach. ie, run material through the jointer, temporarily stack it before the planer, run it through the planer, temporarily stack, then run through the table saw for width, or use a gang rip in place of the tablesaw.

3. Have a cart or rail system to stack material on to exit the shop. Doors on both ends are a must.

4. Any other tools you might use could be placed against the wall, ie miter saw or radial arm for cut off.

5. A shaper or molder could be placed at the outfeed of the table or gang saw for tongue and groove.

My idea of an efficient shop is long and narrow if you go from start to finish on a product. The end result of design should be geared toward your final product.

Stew
"A man's time is the most valuable gift he can give another." TOM

If he can cling to his Blackberry, I can cling to my guns... Me

This will kill you, that will kill you, heck...life will kill you, but you got to live it!

"The man who can comprehend the why, can create the how." SFC J

Part_Timer

My trike is so messed up it's a unicycle. :) :) :)

evidently my spellin is messed up too ::)

Peterson 8" ATS.
The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

I couldn't resist that smiley.  Reminded me of how you
can end up bumping into yourself, when you lay out stuff
poorly.

Stew,
I once imagined a shop in a pair of old single-wide mobile
homes, joined end to end. 

I will try to post a sketch I have been working on. 
My *warehouse/shop is in sections - each
is 24ft. by 83 ft., with firewalls between each section.  One of
the sections has a 22 ft. long back-in loading dock, so that
you can back in out of the rain.   The floor is about 36" above
that entry. There is twelve feet of clearance above the warehouse
floor, giving room for hoists/trammel work, etc.  I hope to
equip the place with a 2-ton system to unload and reload via
that dock.

Phil L.                    (*It's an old railroad spur warehouse.)
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Radar67

Phil, I think 16 foot wide would be more than adequate for a shop...as long as it was set up lineal. It sounds like you have a good space to set up your shop. The dock sounds idea. Looking forward to seeing your sketch.

Stew
"A man's time is the most valuable gift he can give another." TOM

If he can cling to his Blackberry, I can cling to my guns... Me

This will kill you, that will kill you, heck...life will kill you, but you got to live it!

"The man who can comprehend the why, can create the how." SFC J

fencerowphil (Phil L.)




A sixteen foot pack comes in the dock and is placed where the shaded area is.
First station is a radial saw or chop saw with dead rolls
Boards can be cut according to need - knots, crook in quartersawn boards, etc.
Next step is rip or edge operation.
   Optional trip to vertical resaw (cutting thick stock into two boards)
Run back thru jointer
Next run either thru hogging planer or molder or fine planer
         (most boards would be sized in the hogging planer, meaning
           a planer capable of taking a heavy cut)
At any point lumber can be diverted to a packing area/cart, or to
          an elevator/lift area to be stored on a shelf system.

The simplest operation might be to skip plane lumber.   That would only involve chop,rip, and the hogging planer.  The lumber would come out of the planer on the transfer runners (gray dotted lines) and be slid down to the blurred block which is supposed to say "elevator area."

The area to the left under the block "Resaw" would be a place to process short stock for orders for Ebay or such as that.

You can see that there a lots of rollers.  The vertical group of four dotted lines is intended to show a set of skid rails or a skate wheel type transfer area.  The idea is to be able to use this area for transfer, or to use it for turn around to run back thru the next machine.  If I use rails, they will probably be made of Pecan.  It tends to polish, rather than roughen as it wears.

A more complex example would be a quartersawn oak board with crook and two knots becoming T&G flooring:
              Chop one knot out of full piece - yeilds two full width pieces
               Run two pieces thru rip - yields four pieces
               Chop next knot out of one of the four resulting pieces
               Joint four pieces
               Hog plane four pieces
               End-mold four pieces (not shown)
               Mold edges of the four pieces
               Send to short stock package area.

Phil L.                                     
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Radar67

That looks like a good setup. I was going to suggest stagering the planers, but I see how you have it set to work now. Will this be a one man operation, or do you have plans for helpers?

Stew
"A man's time is the most valuable gift he can give another." TOM

If he can cling to his Blackberry, I can cling to my guns... Me

This will kill you, that will kill you, heck...life will kill you, but you got to live it!

"The man who can comprehend the why, can create the how." SFC J

trim4u2nv

I would place my ripsaw closer to the center of the dock. This is so falloff could be conveyed to a  dumpster or dump truck.   Otherwise sketch in a scrap grinder or aisle room for a scrap pushcart.  Those rippings pile up fast.  You also must allow some turn around room to "fair end" your moulder blanks.    A tilt hoist, scissor lift or forklift between conveyors is also handy to level your packs with the chopping line prior to ripping.  Also you need to sketch in a cylone and dust collection system with that much planing going on. 

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Guys,

I get back to you tonight to clarify and ask a question or two.
My day hasn't wound down, yet.
Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

trim4u2nv

There is a flooring mill up for auction in LA listed by irsauctions.com   It has many of the machines you're looking for.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Lots of points to explain.

Stew,  at times alone, other times with one helper. (When I get it together, I'll call you.)

trim4u2nv,  Thanks for the mention of the auction!
The little gray block at top right of the sketch is for a dust collection central unit.
I will be running a few boards at the time into this set-up.   Just lift one end of a board, set it over on the pivot rail, then pivot the long board over onto the roller assembly.  The "chop" point might handle six planks at a time to cut to length or square ends, but more commonly it would be cutting out imperfections one board at the time.   I won't have anything in this room to cut an entire stack such as big mills use.

Good point about the "falloff."  At this point, I had planned to drop it down to a shallow buggy contraption, or to slide the slivers down the transfer rails to a simple collector to either be run out the other end of the building or back to the dock area.  The transfer rails or skate rollers (four dotted vertical lines) will be level with the short roller systems and will
allow turn around room for all the machines.  [See the left blow-up] I want to maintain some clear area near the incoming stack, so that I can use that for less common work on big slabs.    The equipment for that will be partly suspended overhead, except when in use.
I like the idea of a tilt hoist.   That could work from overhead and store away overhead, also.  I won't have floor space for a fork lift and don't want a scissor in my way.

I have over three feet of crawlspace under the floor which could provide space for under-the floor transfer of chips and even fall-off, but I would have to run all the stray cats out first.
:D

On the other hand, I may harness the cats and run all the machines on a common shaft.
:D   ;D      :D

Here is a blow up of the left hand portion.  Note the four vertical lines representing
the transfer area -either Pecan rails to slide on, or skate type rollers.


Here is a blow up of the right hand portion.


Keep the comments coming.

Question:
Do some of the fancier molders have extra heads to handle the jointing operation, so that pretty rough and inconsistent stock can be fed right in?

Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

trim4u2nv

If you are working solo you can use lineberry carts for the edging strips and plywood dump carts for the cutoffs.  A 6 inch scrap conveyor  is much easier between your ripsaw and jointer and dump onto the dock to be banded, dumpstered, ect.

A tilt hoist makes it easier to pull boards down via gravity onto your chop line.

I would run the electric, air, hydraulic power under the floor and the dust collection overhead.

You could get a 7 or 8 head molder to clean up rough sawn boards (takes a big electric service to run.)  On the cheap, you could run rough boards thru an older 4 sided moulder with byrd heads to skip plane them.   Then get a better 4 or 5 head to do your finish work. 

There are some fixer upper rough planers up for auction i.e. oliver straight-o-plane, newman, and whitney all with spiral heads.   Bear in mind these are high production machines not really setup for a 1-2 man operation.  If you want a production jointer porter facers are nice and they powerfeed!

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

trim4u2nv,
I can tell you have been in the processing side of wood
for a long time.   Thanks for all the comments.   I will be
researching some of the machine types as I have time.
Chances are that I will only be able to buy a machine at the
time anyway, but that should allow ample shopping time
and money-gathering time, too.

As you can tell, I am on a steep learning curve, getting
into an area which is new to me.   smile_juggle
What little processing of my
lumber that I have been doing has made it clear that planning
is necessary and that manually handling waste is nonsense.
A simple job of making a few hundred stacking sticks for a
sawing job resulted in about two cubic yards of trimmings,
chips and sawdust.  I was amazed at the volume!

I can see by the costs and the electrical service requirements
of the serious machinery that I will be going cheap at first, but
I want to be laid out right from the start.   From what has been
posted so far, it seems that tight layout on the waste removal
from the get-go may be as important as anything else - an effective
duct plan, plus at least allowing proper space for trollies, carts, and
a future conveyor to get rid of the chips, blocks, and fall-off.

Let me know, ANYONE, of any machinery sites which are good at
presenting processes and machine operational details.  I will do the
same.
                           Cuttin' the wood???  Just the beginning: cut_tree
Phil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

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