sawing hickory

nakedcreek · December 19, 2012, 01:31:45 PM

I have a circular 48" sawmill which I assembled from the remains of 3 sawmills from the early 1900s, including a Frick and Corley. I don't know what model. My sons and I have sawed successfully for several years sawing pine, poplar, and oak. It's powered by a Ford 5000 farm tractor (65hp). It's run by a right angle gear box with a 1:1 ratio. However, when trying to saw a large hickory log, we experienced a lot of resistance and blade wobble. This occurs even after sharpening the blade. Has anyone any tips or advice about sawing hickory and locust other than "don't saw hickory and locust"?

Magicman · December 19, 2012, 01:37:26 PM

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, nakedcreek.

My advice has already been eliminated, but then again, I have a bandmill. ;D

customsawyer · December 19, 2012, 01:39:47 PM

I don't have a circle mill but I have cut lots of hickory on a band mill. It is the devil to cut.

york · December 19, 2012, 02:08:23 PM

Locust saws good, have swan lots of it but like you say Hickory is another story-the one and only Hickory that i did try to saw,heated the saw and it did bang and wobble,no more Hickory for me.....albert

Chuck White · December 19, 2012, 02:16:57 PM

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, Nakedcreek.

My best advise for sawing Hickory or Locust would be to saw it when it's fresh cut!

They both become different kind of critters once they have dried out!

thecfarm · December 19, 2012, 02:56:40 PM

nakedcreek,welcome to the forum.Keep those old saws into wood. How much do you use your mill? making a living with it?

beenthere · December 19, 2012, 04:10:02 PM

Welcome to the Forestry Forum :snowball1: :snowfight1: (just noticed the "new smiley" s )

Here is a good booklet in .pdf form that may help you sort through this.
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/circsaw.pdf

Have you been the only sawyer recently, and know something else didn't occur that could cause the blade to heat up? like if some wood caught against the blade.

nakedcreek · December 19, 2012, 05:47:31 PM

Thanks for all the input. No, thank God, I do not make my living from sawing. I do favors for friends and saw lumber for my boys and myself. We've sawed and built barns, sheds, fences and some furniture wood. We all love it. I did own a woodmizer at one time and it's a great machine. This is strictly low cost and for old times sake. I have a photo of my grandfather working at a steam powered sawmill in the early 1900's. They have always fascinated me.

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · December 19, 2012, 07:48:01 PM

A large log means you will have a lot of sawdust in the gullets. Hickory is so dense that you will need over 150 HP motor and even then you might have to slow down and this means finer sawdust. So, the sawdust will spill out of the gullets, rub on the saw heat it, and then wobble develops as the metal expands or tries to expand. You also may have too many teeth in your saw...ok for pine, but not hickory.

Do you use inserted teeth? Go with a Standall bit.

Split the log in the middle so that subsequent cuts are not so thick.

5quarter · December 19, 2012, 08:45:50 PM

In the beginning, I would often make the mistake of slowing way down in big wood. Though I run a band mill, I would encounter similar problems to what doc Gene describes. I would get sawdust spilling from the gullet, rubbing the band body and causing it to heat up and loose tension >:(. Is the saw pulling your rpms down? Depending on the # of teeth, you may not have enough HP to pull through big hickory. I don't know if i'd change bits straight off. perhaps you're loosing some hp somewhere in the power transfer from tractor to saw? Wish I could offer more help...big hickory is tough to saw. hope you find the source of the trouble.

nakedcreek · December 19, 2012, 09:12:56 PM

That helps a lot. Probably too much hickory, not enough hp. It did load up the power unit and it was loading up with sawdust in the gullet. I'm curious about the Standall bit. My blade has 44 teeth. I have been using Simons blue tip teeth which I can sharpen with a file. Who makes the Standall bit?

dgdrls · December 19, 2012, 09:56:24 PM

I suspect they could help you with this :D

I think their card rocks it!

:christmas:

DGDrls

5quarter · December 20, 2012, 12:22:47 AM

You're probably underpowered. Figuring 2-3hp per tooth, you should probably have something north of 90hp to get max performance from that blade. perhaps one of our veteran circ sawyers could suggest something other than more hp or fewer teeth. Glad to have you on the forum...btw.

ALWOL · December 20, 2012, 09:51:35 AM

Glad to have another circle sawer on here!
Simonds makes the Standall bits also. Don't even try them if you are already low on power, as they take much more power than standard Blue-Tips. There is really no substitute for horsepower, but to better use what you have, you may try removing every other tooth and installing a used-up nub in its place, and slow the carriage feed down enough that each tooth gets a proper bite.
I have sawed lots of hickory on each of my pre-1900 mills, and it seems to saw quite well as long as the bits are sharp.

Alan

CCC4 · December 20, 2012, 06:45:03 PM

What kind of teeth are you sawing with? I always used Si-Chrome or Dominators. What shape are your teeth in? If your teeth are sharpened too flat,(rocked back you know) it will wobble the saw upon entry as you seem to describe. If you have to saw alot of hickory, maybe you should change your teeth. If you are sawing with Dominators...forget everything I just said and check your guides, harder woods will bring out any type of flaw in guide set where as some woods will let you slide. Just my opinion obviously. ;D

CCC4 · December 20, 2012, 06:52:26 PM

Quote from: ALWOL on December 20, 2012, 09:51:35 AM
Glad to have another circle sawer on here!
Simonds makes the Standall bits also. Don't even try them if you are already low on power, as they take much more power than standard Blue-Tips. There is really no substitute for horsepower, but to better use what you have, you may try removing every other tooth and installing a used-up nub in its place, and slow the carriage feed down enough that each tooth gets a proper bite.
I have sawed lots of hickory on each of my pre-1900 mills, and it seems to saw quite well as long as the bits are sharp.

Alan

Hey, you are the nearest person on this forum to me yet! I'm south of Mtn. Home Ar. I bet you might have heard of the mill i sawed for, Everrett's Sawmill? I worked there since the last 18 years, I was solo head sawyer for the last nine years. Oh well just a shout out.

nakedcreek · December 20, 2012, 09:47:42 PM

I failed to mention that this hickory was not green. It blew over in a storm and bugs had worked quite a bit under the bark. I'm sure the lack of hp is a problem but I was doing it for a friend. We sawed two big pine logs and two big oak logs without a hitch and turned out some beautiful lumber until we hit this hickory. I'm sure the lack of hp is a problem but it works so well with everything else and the power unit was given to me because it wasn't much value as a farm tractor. The engine and drive train are in good shape and it serves me well. I am concerned that if I put too big a unit to it my old mill might suffer the consequences. I am using Simonds blue tip bits and this is the only blade I have. Do they make a 48 inch blade with half the teeth, around 25 teeth? This is new to me. Replacement blades and bits are a subject for another post. This is a hobby mill and if I have to skip the dead hickory it won't be the end of my world.

Okrafarmer · December 20, 2012, 10:38:46 PM

Quote from: 5quarter on December 20, 2012, 12:22:47 AM
You're probably underpowered. Figuring 2-3hp per tooth, you should probably have something north of 90hp to get max performance from that blade.

Better borrow a Ford 9000 when you are milling hickory. ;D
More to the point, and if you are afraid your mill may not take the power, put the dead, dried hickory on your firewood pile, and only mill green hickory, or none at all.
On most diesel engines, especially if you are not too afraid of busting something, it is possible to "turn up" the fuel pump and provide more power than originally set at the factory. I do not know whether the Ford components would take an extra 20-30% power or not, but a lot of people do it with certain models of tractor. Of course, you use up more fuel. :

But best is as I said before, mill your hickory green, or not at all!

Welcome to the Forum, I hope you stick around and become a familiar site here. Once you learn how to post pictures, you can show us your "Franken-mill." We'd love to see it!

5quarter · December 20, 2012, 11:02:47 PM

naked creek...Big, dry hickory can be one bad mama jama. I don't care what saw you're putting it through. ;)
I was going to suggest pulling every other tooth to give each tooth more power, but I felt it best to wait until someone who's actually qualified to give advice came along. :D If its just a one-off log, and you don't saw much hickory anyway, I'd just let it go with a clearer understanding of the saws limitations, esp. if you're sawing everything else fast and clean.

CCC4 · December 21, 2012, 02:55:51 AM

Was the oak log green or dry? If dry, then I still say it is the degree of pitch to your teeth.

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · December 22, 2012, 12:28:50 AM

The idea of having only every other tooth do the work is a good idea indeed for under powered mills. it works. The non-working tooth is one that has been ground or resharpened in an inserted tooth saw...save your old, short teeth for this.

The optimum cutting speed is 0.11" per tooth or 9 teeth marks per inch. This gives a desirable size chip. As you would run out of power with dry hickory at that speed in many mills, we can do better with every other tooth removed. This applies to both band and circle saws.

A Standal bit has a bump in the gullet to keep the sawdust moving within the gullet. It was developed for frozen wood, but many folks use it all the time. It should not require more power, as almost all power goes into cutting and the tooth end is the same...only the inside of the gullet changes.

If you are new to circular sawing, a few items. First the shank always goes back into the same hole that it came from. Second, use a Jockey grinder for sharpening, touching up lightly every couple of hours. Third, you use more power if the teeth are not perfectly aligned, so work on getting the side projection of each tooth the same, within a few 1/1000". Fourth, the teeth out of the box may not be sharp. Fifth, Check the width of the tip of the new teeth as that can vary, but we do not want that. Sixth, have someone show you how to swage a tooth. Seventh, a large circular saw is dished (or tensioned) for a specific rpm. Retension a saw if your rpms are different. Eighth, study Stan Lunstrum's book on Circular sawmills (out of print, but easy to find copies on the Internet for downloading. Take the site address to a copy store and they can download right to the copy machine and even bind it.

As mentioned, dry wood is twice as strong as green, so it is essentially going to take twice as much power.

Ok?

Okrafarmer · December 22, 2012, 12:33:16 AM

So the 15-inch black locust log I been saving for 2 years-- is going to be interesting to saw on the LT-40, eh, Doc?

beenthere · December 22, 2012, 01:03:22 AM

Lunstrum available here on .pdf

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/circsaw.pdf

nakedcreek · December 22, 2012, 07:25:12 AM

Well, this really is continuing education!

It's great to have a forum where I can ask "dumb" questions without feeling so dumb. I'm familiar with the process of swaging, but I'm assuming each swage has to match the tooth style. Where would I get this tool? Also I would need somebody to show me how to use it. Otherwise I would just be beating on the blade with a big hammer which is not good. ;D Anyone coming thru central Virginia soon? Or I could go somewhere but it would have to be with my blade or my wife not both :laugh:

Also, you mentioned the jockey grinder. Where can I get that?

thanks for the tip on Lundstrom's book.

CCC4 · December 22, 2012, 08:25:13 AM

You can usually get a saw jockey from any of your companies that bring around your sawmill supplies. If you are in a sawmill populated area, one of these trucks won't be hard to find. The last one we bought was around $400 bucks

! Swaging (swedging) works well but I just always bought a wider tooth. This same principle, the wider the tooth...less friction and heat transfer to the "eye" of the saw. If you are running "blue points" and are going to stay with them, I would get a swage (swedge).