Thread: Mounting 2 routers on one table?

When you say "some" how many do you mean?
How wide are the boards?
If they are the same length or close to it the what about stacking a bundle together and putting them through a thicknesser?
Clamping a couple of guide blocks slightly less wide than the boards either side of the feed table to restrict any sideways wobble.
I've done 19mm thick boards in lots of 10 through a 250mm thicky this way

one router will have the timber supported by a fence, whereas the other router will have the timber supported by nothing more than featherboards or similar. This will probably create a bit of chatter and wavy edges unless those featherboards have substantial pressure being applied to the timber. Because of the amount of pressure needed, it will be a very laborious task to push the timber through by hand. A powered feed roller would be great, but not everyone has one of those. But....since you need to send them through a thicknesser anyways......put the routers behind the thicknesser. picking up what I'm putting down?

What exactly are you milling? A presquared bole? The board thickness should be fairly consistent off the mill, but what about the width? Most logs are roundIsh, after all... maybe you'd be better off with a pair of circs or BS's acting as trimmers after the thicky?

How green is the timber? Once it's dried, won't it need dressing again anyway? Or are you after the rough-dried look?

Hi Kuffy, been looking on utube and other places and found the US made Woodmaster that is pretty much what I imagined I would build. That machine has the routers mounted behind a thicknesser which was an Idea I had but was not too confident about it due to the cutting ability of the routers being such an unknown quantity at this stage. Woodmaster use 2 x 3HP Porter-Cable routers, one fixed, the other on a screw-adjustable sliding track. In their videos they have a planer that cuts grooves in the back of the board while one router cuts the tongue and the other cuts the groove.
Provided the speed of the planer was within what the routers could cut I could mount the planer assy. right behind the planer and not have to worry about featherboards and the like. I was thinking of using spring-loaded wheels running on roller bearings (skateboard wheels?) to keep things under control and minimise friction.

yes, infront of the router you need spring loaded rollers pushing the timber onto a fence, you could try with featherboards but I personally wouldn't waste my time given that your material will be all over the place with regards to straight and consistent width. behind the router, you can have a fixed pressure plate because you should now have a accurate set width dimension coming off the board.

I am all for a bit of creativity, but this does sound like the hard/complicated way. If I was without a jointer, I would simply use a router to true up one edge to the thicknessed faces, and then send them through the thicknesser on edge as Bob suggests to clean up the other edge. It is exactly how I dimension rough boards to DAR, surface one face, joint one edge, surface the other edge through thicknesser then surface the other face through thicknesser.

BobL, there would be, perhaps a hundred 100x19x3.0, perhaps more. Then there are the bearers and joists as well. There are enough Ironbarks and Bloodwoods that have to come down for the rebuild to do the volume we need. We are in the process of rebuilding after the bushfires west of Wauchope. We had quite a bit of treated pine around the place that burned quite nicely, didn't even leave any ash behind, just neat lines of screws where the boards were. We will not be using that material ever again!

SkewChi, I will be using a little Lucas mill so dimensions should be close to what we need and there shouldn't be too much for the routers to take off provided I am careful. I bought a lot of GOS (Green Off Saw) decking from local mills years ago and it stayed pretty smooth as it weathered. A run over with a big orbital sander when it finally dries shouldn't be too much of a problem. Might do some 100x100 veranda posts with arrised edges and 100x50 hand rails, just for the fun of it.

Perhaps have a stare at a Logosol. They sell some very cool single pass thickners/planer/joint/mouler in one.

https://logosol.com.au/planers

Perhaps you could make something like this or lease one for a time?

Also, I saw a sanding attachment on for the Lucas mills. The finish off the saw was amazing.

Yes, but they are 415V and way too dear for my liking. If I was doing production work in a small factory setting they would be fine but for a bloke rebuilding after a fire and working off a generator, well, I can dream but then reality bites. Anyway, I like a challenge. I have stolen some of their ideas that may come in handy for another project I am involved with.

I think you should be re-thinking this. Trying to produce a finished dimension 100 x 19 board prior to drying is a mistake.

Dressing the sawn timber before it dries (shrinks and possibly warps) is, IMO, just creating more work for yourself.

I'll let myself to be corrected by one of the saw millers on here, but I think you should be planning to cut 20-30% more wood than you think you will need, to allow for losses during drying. In particular, a 100 x 19 finished board would normally be something like 120 x 25 off the saw.

Then following seasoning, I suggest that the boards go through the thicknesser on edge (twice) to get a consistent width. (Some boards may need to pass through a table saw first.)
Then the boards would go through the thicky twice to get a consistent thickness.
Provided you have an off-sider, and enough power, you can gang the boards as you pass them through the thicky.

Make yourself some width and thickness no/no-go gauges so you can quickly sort the sawn boards so you are not unnecessarily passing boards through the thicky.

Also, I hope, for dust control purposes, your thicky will be in the open or an open sided shed.

Well, the baby Lucas mill will do a 104mm cut and allowing for wastage about 95mm of board, so that is where we start, width-wise. I don't know what, if any, pre-sets there are for thickness but I am guessing that a 25mm cut will give about a 20mm board. Seasoning will probably reduce the width to about 90mm and planing edges takes us down to about 85mm.
I laid a lot of GOS decking years ago, we got the boards from the mill ready planed, took them out of the pack and nailed them down with minimal gaps between them. Seasoning in place left about a 3mm gap between boards and as they were nailed down they didn't move much. It's not what you would do for a place on the North Shore of Sydney but it worked out here in the bush. GOS T&G flooring isn't pretty if you lay it wet though, you can see the ground through the floor when things dry out!
I also helped with a KD Blackbutt T&G secret nailed feature wall that was dried too much. It bowed like the Sydney Harbour Bridge when we got a spell of wet weather. The client was less than happy.
The twin router idea was to try to avoid the multiple passes through the thicknesser. The Woodmaster machine uses 2 big, fixed routers to make T&G boards, admittedly in American timber rather than Australian hardwood but I figure if the feed is slow all should be OK. My production line was going to be from the Lucas mill, on to a rack to air dry for a while, then to the thicknesser to get things even and smooth on one surface, then to a rack for a while while I dock out the defects then through the edger. I still have to think of a way to round off the edges of the boards, perhaps with another router?

I think the industry standard is that a 100 x 25 green sawn board produces a 82 x 19 floor board or a 89 x 19 decking board.

I suggest that your "production line" should be
Lucas mill to stickered and strapped stack for initial air drying 3 - 6 months
from the stack through the thicknesser on edge -- to produce edge 1
through the thicky again to produce edge 2 parallel to edge 1.
back into a stickered and strapped stack for a further few months of air drying

then through the thicky twice to get the top and bottom faces.

then past a router (or spindle molder) to round the long edges.

I think that if you are set on mounting two routers on the outfeed side of the thicky, you definitely will need a power feeder and a rigid jig to hold the thicky, routers and the in-feed chute all in one line.

A couple of days ago I was looking at some used machinery for sale and I saw a Festo twin spindle moulder with a power feed. This looked like exactly the sort of machine to do what you are trying to achieve.

https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/carr...ine/1147259815

You are probably right, Ian. Just looking at options and reduced handling.