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Need production ideas

Started by 4x4American, April 23, 2017, 09:04:47 PM

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4x4American

I want to get into some sort of roll case/conveyor off feed belt to tail the sawmill, and have maybe pneumatic arms pick up and dump ties down a timber slide, cants would go straight back, and slabs get sent to the edger.  I got some prices from wood mizer for the conveyor and the transfer table, and they were astronomical if you ask me.  My biggest bottlenecks are that 1, can't clear the stuff coming off the mill fast enough, 2, my lower back is going bad on me it seems..now I know why they call those things lumbar support braces, because they're meant for people who are making lumber lol. 


So pretty much I needa make something on the cheap that will automate my system a bit more and make it so I don't have to sling ties cants and slabs around so much.  I have a chop saw that needs to be put in the lineup too and a resaw soon for pumping out pallet parts.  I can stack a pack of ties with my loader and get it darn near perfect pretty easily, so I'm thinking if I build a slide and then a tie stacking jig, it'll be even quicker, and I won't have to touch a tie at all.


On a side note, the poor sawmill lol I've been making ties with 4-8 cuts, so I'm taking some monster slabs off, no thicker than 4" thick but I'm also just running it at log length 9-16' hardwood... there's been a few times I wasn't sure the ole 40 was gonna be able to drag some pieces back.  But she's been doing it, been taking a heck of a beating lately...I'm testing out cutting the slabs a bit thinner too, which means more handling later, but at least it's lighter.  I am constantly experimenting with new ideas, and would like to hear what kinda ideas you fellers might have.


Currently I have a dead roller table on the back of the mill, about 4' long, and then a 10' long one.  Next to it on the left is a slab rack and on the right are sawhorses that accumulate materials being fed to the edger.  Straight back off the roller table shoot the ties on the right and boards on the left.  I drag a tie back, double end trim it with a chainsaw, then get a running start and sling it off the roller table, then sort it with a cant hook.  It's not bad at first, but doing that, and all the other necessary things to make pallet cutstock and ties is just beating me up over time.  I see some guys setup online in vidjas and they look great, the guy sawing can concentrate on sawing.  Anyways...what have ya got for me?  I'm gonna look at online auctions and stuff.  I have single phase power coming in on a 200amp service btw
Boy, back in my day..

barbender

Dug, I don't have any ideas for you, but you lumbar belt made me lol! :D :D :D
Too many irons in the fire

Kbeitz

You could make a waking table fairly cheap.
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

4x4American

Quote from: Kbeitz on April 23, 2017, 09:59:45 PM
You could make a waking table fairly cheap.


Walking is too slow I need it to run! lol  Wadaya got fer an idear?
Boy, back in my day..

Percy

I've been trying to do exactly what you are hoping to do 4X4. I have, over the last couple, years built a sawdust conveyor under my LT70 sawmill to speed cleanup. I have elevated the mill around 5 feet to use gravity for many functions I have a 60 foot rollcase taking slabs and cants, flitches, and boards off the mill and with air activated "wipers" as I call them, distribute the products to where they need to be via a few switches located at my control panel. Like you, I priced out the manufactured stuff and it wasnt in the cards or my wallet. I will take a bunch of pics and vids tommorow and post them for you so you can see what Ive done. Its mostly made from stuff Ive scrounged and alot of wood...heh...but it works well and saves me lots of time working alone... Here is some of the stuff during construction/testing/cursing/etc. I will get you a more updated version of whats going on. Its basically homeebuilt junk in action ;D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEc7EGkAEto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYbp_O1cnsg

GOLDEN RULE : The guy with the gold, makes the rules.

Kbeitz

Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

red

Put your money into quality logs . Find your sweet spot maybe 18-22 in by 10 ft long . Have a large supply and saw enough so a monkey can run your sawmill. Then upgrade in time to a larger mill maybe even stationary designed for production. Be careful what you ask for . 
Honor the Fallen Thank the Living

Peter Drouin

I'm trying to do it here too 4x4. Every time you touch the lumber the price goes up on production.
And the prices on WM belts and tables is stupid.
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

longtime lurker

You've got electricity which is always a good thing so far as opening up options. And I bet you've got a compressor. Hydraulics are good but for materials handling pneumatics are better. (you said you wanted fast).

This is a quick and dirty 3 way draft - left, right and straight ahead. Depending on material flow mostly hydraulics are too slow for this kind of thing and you need air rams. Think truck maxi brakes... not too expensive, easy to source and eminently rebuildable enough that you can strip them out of a wreckers yard.
If you want 5 ways you need big bore air rams so you got more control then just on and off and that gets expensive.

The idea of using two narrow conveyors is that when you open one side stuff will mostly overbalance that way. With both rollers flat you have enough support to carry wide material straight ahead. With narrower material you need to steer it a little to the side you intend it to go. Depending on material/conveyor roller length you might need multiple sets of rams each side.

From there the timber slides down the ramp to a flat holding area. A couple scissors lift tables out there would be nice but if you got your heights right its mostly downhill stacking to ground level anyway.

Air controls get situated with the mill controls so you can basicly guide the board left or right as its coming off and pull the lever at the oportune moment... or let them keep going straight ahead to either another slide or another draft.

It works. Maxi's are perfect for this kinda thing.
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

4x4American

Percy, I love your setup and can't wait to see more of it!


Kbeitz, not a bad idea but I just think it would be too slow for my application.


Red I would love to buy quality logs like that but the competition for logs in my area is cutthroat which is why i've found myself picking up the scraps.  Should see some of the logs I'm sawing.


LL- on the maxi idea, I've never heard if maxis here in america, I looked them up and see they are like brake cans, which you can get at any parts store off the shelf around here.  What has me confused is how the stroke would be long enough to effectively do anything.  I reckon I could make an elaborate hinge system but I don't really have that kinda time.  Or am I looking at this all wrong?  Thanks for the diagram, makes it look easy lol




I appreciate all your guys inputs!



Boy, back in my day..

Kbeitz

Quote from: 4x4American on April 24, 2017, 09:56:23 PM
Percy, I love your setup and can't wait to see more of it!


Kbeitz, not a bad idea but I just think it would be too slow for my application.


Red I would love to buy quality logs like that but the competition for logs in my area is cutthroat which is why i've found myself picking up the scraps.  Should see some of the logs I'm sawing.


LL- on the maxi idea, I've never heard if maxis here in america, I looked them up and see they are like brake cans, which you can get at any parts store off the shelf around here.  What has me confused is how the stroke would be long enough to effectively do anything.  I reckon I could make an elaborate hinge system but I don't really have that kinda time.  Or am I looking at this all wrong?  Thanks for the diagram, makes it look easy lol




I appreciate all your guys inputs!

The tables I have seen had two cams to run the motion. A larger cam that
pushes to the side moved the product faster. Also the RPM of the cams makes
a difference. Variable speed can also be added. The video I posted was the only
one I could find and it was a poor example.
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

Ron Wenrich

I ran a circle mill for years.  When we started, we had everything coming off in a straight line.  Gravity helped with slabs and boards falling onto our rolls.  From there, it was pushed by hand.

The disadvantage of cutting from the top is that you have to pull everything off the top of your cut.  You also can't see your face very well, and there seems to be a problem with dust on the board.  As long as you're pulling off the top, that will continue to be a bottleneck.  The pullback that the more automatic models have will help you from a physical standpoint, but you're still losing time removing that cut piece.  Figure out how to get the cut piece off quicker, then you're production will increase.

Our first step in automation was to get an offbearer.  What that does is takes cut material away from the saw.  On the circle mills, as soon as the board is cut, it falls onto the offbearer and is pulled away from the saw.  From there we started to add powered rolls, similar to Percy's.

We eventually went to having a set of green chains.  It is simply a surge deck where things are sorted out.  We put our sawn material onto carts.  The heavy ties went off the end.  We chipped our slabs, which involved having a slab dump off the rolls.  But, you could pull everything onto a set of green chains for your separation.  Seems that if you pull everything back, you should be able to go from a short conveyor onto a green chain.

Air vs hydraulic vs electric.  We ran our rolls with hydraulics.  We had no air for the simple reason of air line freeze in the winter.  It was more of a maintenance thing.  We had a gen set for electric, and still ran our rolls with hydraulics.  We could control the flow and the speed of the rolls.  We sawed 23' switch ties, and bridge timbers.  You didn't want something weighing half a ton going the same speed as a 1x6 board. 
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

paul case

I am not sure what you have now, but we have a similiar mill and do a few things that seem to speed things up.

1. We cut our tie logs to the right length to tie when possible. That takes a lot less time at the mill when no end trimming needs done there.

2. We have a set of rollers to catch boards off the mill dragback. Most of our stuff is 10' or 8'8'' so we put a 7' section of rollers bolted to the angled table already on the mill.

3.We stack the boards off the side of the table. They slide off real nice and almost never does it take a few seconds to stack them. 4'' cants on the ground. 2 piles of boards, 1 good to go and the other needs edged.

4. Straight behind the mill we have short rollers to catch ties and from there we use a cant hook to roll them off the side into a stack. just to the left is the steel slab rack. It is heavy enough tomove the whole rack full of slabs if we need to move a bundle of ties. On the other side of the ties we stack cants if we have any while making ties.

5. We keep the saw in the wood. Start it to saw the next cut and then take care of the slab. This may work better with the command control station but it will work with walk along mill too. Very seldom does it take more than 1/2 the cut to clean up what ever is on the table.

6. Remain  calm and SAW on.

PC
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

4x4American

Took this vidja today at lunch to show yawl my situation. 


Paul, I agree, I don't do no lumber/slab handling until my saw is in the wood.  for awhile the problem was when I dragged back it would get hung up on stuff.  Pretty well fixed that today, will put some pics up later I got a few more things to saw here but I figured its easy enough to post the vidja I took earlier


https://youtu.be/U4YQmWWuLtM
Boy, back in my day..

paul case

Your set up looks about like ours but we have all those stacks much closer to the mill.

If I were you I would consider a different building for the new resaw, cutoff saw and maybe even the edger. If you could fix up a good place to discard cuttoffs and another rack for the leftovers from the resaw and sticks from the edger you may be able to save room that way.

I bought drobertson's cutoff saw and resaw here a while back and we really like them for running stringers. We can cut from log to stringer time by 2/3  with the resaw over sawing them and edging them then cutting to length. My only advice there is dont push a cant back against the back if it is under the hold down wheel. Doing so may wad the conveyor belt up and cut a big chunk out of it. My new one cost $175 and 4 days.

Sorting logs helps us not have a bottle neck of too many piles of different lumber sitting near the mill. Tie logs for us only produce ties and lumber for the edger. Pallet logs only produce boards for the edger and cants. Grade logs may produce grade lumber, ties, and pallet cants, taking up all the room we have to spare. Oh and slabs, all and I do mean ALL logs make slabs.

What is the most you have cut in a day on your arrangement?

Scott has several times cut 28 ties and the side lumber in about 6 1/2 hours.

PC

life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

moodnacreek

About 100 foot of spiral roll case with stop flags every 20 foot. All run with one hydrolic motor run off a small hydrolic power unit. If I had to start over on a flat piece of land this is what I would do. If you cut and weld steel you can build it yourself like I did. If you had this set up you would nevercut another board with out it.  Doug

4x4American

Paul that's awesome what kinda resaw and chocktaw did you get?  I have a Baker A Model coming with the lazy susan merry go rounds.  Should be able to have just one man running it efficiently.  I am excited to see how my new layout will work I've been playing with different layouts quite a bit and I think I finally have something where I can actually drag back without so much hesitation about hitting stuff and breaking stuff.  When I sawed by myself only, the piles were alot closer.  But now, with having help around most days, they like to have a walkway to get around and that's whats happened.  In my latest try to get the cants and all closer, the help would rather me put the stump there to act as a pivot over having to walk around the pile.  But what's been happening is I'm helping the help too much.  And blah blah blah, anyways, that's that.


On the logs, I get some really crappy logs in, I found I can get cull logs delivered from local sawmills for the cost of trucking, and so pretty much in turn for taking in the worst of the worst logs, I'm paying jack diddely for them so my production might decrease but for the price, oh well.  On the latest load I got in there was a bunch of what used to be nice beech logs but they had been sitting around for so long that it made them slow to cut and the dust was awful.  I would love to sort them but I just don't really have the patience to do that I have found I'm very impatient with some things and moving logs around the yard don't rate up there for me.  If I was on somebody else's time and wasn't in a huge rush it'd be one thing but...and here I go off again.
[size=78%]The best I've done so far by myself has been 21 without edging the side lumber just stacking it up.  But that's also double end trimming with a chainsaw and then I had four different sorts: 9' mix, 9' select, 8.5' mix and 8.5' select.  Now I just do 8.5' mix hrdwd and select (oak/hard maple).  I know I can do more but I'm a very distracted person and need to get better organized and situated.  Being right next to the rd I always have ppl stopping in to bug me, and then all the other stuff like handling sawdust and edging and banding stuff and blah blah blah.    I only just started sawing for the resaw last week.  Kinda wanted to figure it out before it got here plus have stock ready to go.  [/size][/size]Once I get this new sawing method dialed in, if I got into some good logs I don't see why I couldn't do more.[/size] [/size][size=78%]  Still pumping out stringers.  The guy I'm selling cutstock to has been busy as a one legged goat trying to escape isis.  I know for a few weeks they were working double shifts 6 days/wk to fill a 4,000 pallet order to the pulp mill down the rd from us.   Just the new workflow is going to be so much better I'll be able to just drag back without stopping, or without having to put my hand in harms way.  Alot of times when the board was coming back I would reach down like a ninja and get the board and pick it up onto the roller table so it didn't knock it down.  Really needa put a lip on the roller table but so much other stuff going on hard to find the time.[/size]
[/size]
[/size][size=78%]A problem I have with cutting stringers on the resaw is that he needs the 3.5" dimension to be dead nuts.  The way I would do that on the small logs is two face it and half it.  But there is too much stress being relieved doing it that way and I can't get it dead nuts at 3.5" without taking too much time.  So I'm planning to just get the 5-1/2" and 4" deck boards that way, and then get the 3.5" dimension with the edger cause there's no better way I know of to get a dead nuts measurement than two circle blades spinning next to each other cutting at the same time.[/size]




Moodnacreek, I like your idea alot.  I grew up near orange county and would love to stop in and check your place out, next time I'm in the area I will give a holler for sure.  I like your idea alot about the roll case with the stops.  It seems very simple.  And at the end of it maybe have a green chain.  I love it, I bet I could buy a spiral roll case at an auction pretty cheap.  I know I could build one my problem with fabricating is I take too long and yes it comes out how I want it to but I am just slower than molasses in January and thats been my biggest downfall at any job I worked at as a welder.  It came out good, but I was doing stuff for the most part that didn't need to be very good it just needed to be done and on to the next one.  My boss Tony would tell me: "It ain't about the outcome, it's about the income" lol another boss John would always ask me when the wedding was.  I was like what wedding and he'd say well it looks like your getting married to that (insert whatever I was working on here) lol...see some people get offended about being picked on me, I love it, lets hear what you got but you better be able to take it back lol.













Boy, back in my day..

paul case

21 ties in a day is nothing is not too shabby.

You are right though, if you are to do any better it will be because of being better organized. When Scott cuts that many usually they are all already trimmed to the right length. A real time saver. I usually help him band slabs and haul out or move ties or logs for him. But I am not there all the time. If you have help you could do this easily. The only thing you really should have to do is saw. Scott has learned a trick or 2 that helps him be faster, like a thin slab may break or fall off when dragging it back so cut the board under it and bring both back together. We also ran a wire through our energy chain to run the hydraulics no matter where the saw head is. That makes dragging a tie with a board on it way faster.

PC
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

4x4American

I need to do that for my hydraulics bad.  I don't usually get 21 ties in a day, that was just my record.  My back hurts enough after getting 10 ties anymore lol.  If I could just saw and not handle anything, I'd be able to kick butt!  If you go to the project ask Jake what his record ties cut in a day is.  Then ask him how many ties hes sawin out of one log.  The people I sell to ask for a boxed heart so only one tie per log.  I rarely get a log big enough to get two anyways, I'm lucky if I can get one out of a log lol alot of the time they bring me 11" logs to make ties with and I ask for 12"...as long as there is a minimum of 8" wane free sureface in the rail bearing areas I'm good
Boy, back in my day..

paul case

Same here as we can only sell heart ties. I am pretty happy to still be able to sell them btw.

I would be doing some training on my help if I had to handle any wood and had an offbearer. If I can handle most of the off bearing while sawing and still had to do it with a helper, What is he doing to slow me down?

We have figured out that production really slows down after 7 hours of sawing. So we hang it up at 6 to 6 1/2 hours every day.

PC
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

moodnacreek

4x4: 100 foot would be a lot to do all at once. I actually only did 20 foot and then 20 foot of belt feeding a 3 way separator because I ran out of land. If your in it for the long run you will have to have something like this and the long roll case is the simplest I have seen. Years ago I saw this set up at a mill on 22 down over a bank in Petersburg. It might still be there. I think it was Paulson wood products.     I go up the northway  several times a year. Are you on 4 off exit 20?  I'm on n.y. 32 just below Vails Gate.  Doug 

4x4American

Paulson wood products is under new ownership I believe, I just spoke with the new owner not long ago and the old owner was here at my sawmill with his millright picking up some doug fir lumber not long ago.  Small world.  I'm 4 miles off rt 4 at the intersection of 149 and 4 in fort ann.  Turn left at battle hill brewery by the old fire house and drive for 4 miles.  Once you see a big ugly yellow barn I'm about 2000' on the right.


Directions on my website:
www.KnightSawmilling.com
Boy, back in my day..

4x4American

And yes sorry forgot to answer that, adirondack northway exit 20 follow 149 east towards fort ann, make a left on catherine st just before the light that is a cut through to county rt 16 then hit rt 16 for 4 miles and look for the sawmill.
Boy, back in my day..

4x4American

Well my offbearer is 62 years old and has alot of stories to tell bout his younger wilder days down south.  He aint the fastest but he's a good guy far as I can tell and wants to see this sawmill grow up.  So in an effort not to kill him, I try to be easy on him.  So that kinda slows me down.  Last week my cousin was in town visitng and he made us both look like were moving in slow motion.  I wish I could afford him full time.
Boy, back in my day..

Peter Drouin

Quote from: paul case on April 26, 2017, 08:52:48 AM
Same here as we can only sell heart ties. I am pretty happy to still be able to sell them btw.


We have figured out that production really slows down after 7 hours of sawing. So we hang it up at 6 to 6 1/2 hours every day.

PC

Good you can make a living working ½ a day. I can't.  :D :D :D :D :D :D ;)
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

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