Thread: laidlaw bushmill

Welcome to the forums

I'm not familiar with a laidlaw, hopefully another member will have more knowledge, but your timbers are nice so good luck with it

Welcome to the forum.

I too am unable to help with that. Oh; I also love my lucas . Welcome to "the clan of dusters".
Tim

Originally Posted by rabbitoh

hi, i've just bought a laidlaw bushmill and looking for a few tips- which blades would be best for dried out hardwoods-budgeroo, boonaree, beefwood, also any hints on breaking blades in would be appreciated.
thanks a lot,
rabbitoh.

Welcome to the Forums rabbitoh. I think you probably need advice on blades for the type of hardwoods you are cutting more than advice on a Laidlaw mill itself. I would start out with the standard 1 1/4" wide blade with a 3/4" pitch John Laidlaw used a 1" pitch for softwoods. The trick is to work out the hook angle you require for those timbers.

Despite owning a Laidlaw band mill probably similar to yours, I have never cut those types of timber myself. I would comment that while they are sought after timbers, I believe they don't grow to very large diameters and that is in your favour. They are quite tough timbers I believe so use plenty of water dripping onto the blade.

This thread may be of some interest to you for a bit of Laidlaw background material.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/laidlaws-bandsaws-swing-saws-133485

Regards
Paul

thanks paul,
thats a good start-the blades i got with it are about 20mm pitch-one band saw supplier recomended variable 4/6 TPI blades-looks a lot of teeth compared to the old ones-do you have any experience with those smaller pitch blades?hopefully i will have some softer timbers to cut later on.i enjoyed your background piece on the laidlaw-lucky he couldnt find that plywood.thanks for your help,
regards
rabbitoh

Originally Posted by rabbitoh

thanks paul,
thats a good start-the blades i got with it are about 20mm pitch-one band saw supplier recomended variable 4/6 TPI blades-looks a lot of teeth compared to the old ones-do you have any experience with those smaller pitch blades?hopefully i will have some softer timbers to cut later on.i enjoyed your background piece on the laidlaw-lucky he couldnt find that plywood.thanks for your help,
regards
rabbitoh

rabbitoh

You are welcome.

I am surprised your supplier recommended a fine tooth blade and indeed a variable tooth. I see two problems there. Firstly, all your sawing will be ripping (unless you crosscut a burl) and traditionally we use large tooth saws for that whether it is a bandsaw, circular saw or hand saw. Secondly, I don't know what sharpening device you have but I don't think the machines will cope with variable pitch. Also as you have just mentioned, it is a lot of teeth and more to sharpen for no gain.

In fact John laidlaw used to convert the 3/4 pitch teeth to 1 1/2 pitch teeth. The way he did this was to set the shapening machine to take the top off every other tooth. Effectively this lowered tooth and it became a raker. After modifying the tooth in this way, it was sharpened as normal.

Regards
Paul

Going by what I use on my Woodmizer and recommendations, I'd be looking at something around the 1 1/4"/ 1 1/2" pitch with either 4 or 7 degree hook angle, 10 degrees would tend to pull too much for those dense timbers and blunt very quickly.

Did you buy your mill from Joe at Mitchell? I have a homemade mill and Cut Beefwood, Budgeroo, Blue gum and many other Qld hardwoods, I am using standard Lennox Bi metal blades 1 1/4 wide 1" pitch from Henry brothers in NSW.The blades are not cheap, but they seem to be able to handle the hardwoods They can be a bit aggressive when brand new, but settle down after the 1st log. I am in roma at the moment Pm me and I might be able to meet up and give you a few tips. The link below is milling a small beefwood log.
Cheers
Jon.

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

thanks everyone-i'll give a couple of those ideas a go.another question-i'm just using water as lubricant-should i be using something better?
regards,
rabbitoh

Water is all you need, a very fine spray or just a drip. If the the sawdust is clumping on the out feed, too much water.

Agreed, water is all you need, although the Dinasaw people recommended to add a water softener (such as Borax) and a slurp of washing up detergent (help yourself to whatever is in the kitchen when nobody is looking ). It does seem to keep the blade cleaner.

If you are using a profiler to sharpen the blade, clean the blade first to remove sap residue (the above practice virtually removes the need for cleaning) and then spray lightly with WD40 or similar. This assists the passage of the blade through the machine and contributes to even sharpening.

Regards
Paul

Hi fellas , really late here but a word of advice if I may? Don't forget the hook angle. When I had my bandmill using a 3 1/2'' swage tipped resaw blade I had great success cutting softwood ...cedar, camphor and similar with a 16 degree hook angle but it was no use on anything hard. 12 degrees however allowed hardwood and blackwood to be cut well and accurately.

I should show a photo or two of my saw, home made with a Honda Civic car engine, hydraulic rise and fall and feed.

Reply to Acco , Post 8 .

4 to 7 degrees ? Interesting !