Thread: Need someone to cut down/refinish 5 wooden railway sleepers Perth

If they are recovered from railway lines, you could be struggling to find anyone willing to undertake this. Sleepers actually used in railway lines generally do so for a long time, bedded in coarse crushed rock or sand, and with steel wheels and cast iron or asbestos based brake blocks wearing away and dropping filings and shards onto them. In this application, it's not uncommon for chunks of rock, metal splinters, and metal or asbestos dust to be forced into the timber. In addition, when the gangers remove the sleeper to replace it, they sometimes break the railway spikes and leave large chunks of metal in the sleeper.

The potential foreign matter in the sleeper makes them an unattractive and potentially dangerous material to resaw, with the potential to cause permanent damage to saw blades or throw the foreign material, saw blade tips etc around with the potential to injure staff and others. Hence few people are willing to admit to having the capacity to undertake this work, because the believe it to be potentially uneconomic and downright dangerous to undertake the work.

Welcome to the forum.

Agreed with other posts, your best bet will be a hand saw, or if you're brave use a bandsaw, but be prepared to ruin the blade in the process.

I vaguely remember an urban myth about the thousands of discarded Jarrah sleepers that were strewn along the track from Kalgoorlie were salvaged by semi and re sawn to make rustic furniture.
If this is true they must have had decent old Wadkin or similar gear to break it down.
I cut up local 80 year old sleepers here in Sydney from MacDonaltown and they were hard.
Burwood council had accepted them at their tip thinking they could dock them with a chainsaw for firewood to sell to locals.
After injuring a few of the boys they had them for sale for $1 each.
We picked up a Stout ute load and my mate used his for landscaping and I cut mine up for the slow combustion.
As I was working on my own I cut them in half using the PK sliding table and then to minimise risk of de toothing a blade used the DR to cut to length required.
Ripping lengthwise I never considered but the Jarrah would be possible with the right gear although expensive if you hit anything.
H.

If they were part of a passenger line there could also be a certain level of unmentionable material embedded in the wood.

What is the size of your sleepers? I've done them in the past ie 2.1m x 220mm x 120mm dressed down to 200mm x 100mm finished true and square, its gut busting and dirty work and takes a toll on the machinery. I currently have about 8 of em. You could have them for $70 each.

Rod that's about $4 a super.
Your giving it away.
H.