Ripping (resawing) long boards

[bitingmidge]

Question:

What is the best guide/support system for resawing long boards with the bandsaw?

I'm talking six metre oregon here, and I'm ripping some smaller sections.
All my jobs to date have been much smaller lengths, which I've happily kept straight by eye, and balanced on a series of contraptions.

I'm thinking it's a two man job, and a serious fence will be needed, as well as a means of supporting the stuff ( a total of twelve metres of in and outfeed!):eek:

Currently the planks are 200 x 50, and I'm going to end up with some 12 x 20's I hope!

Cheers,

P;)

[echnidna]

It might be a lot easier and very much faster to break them down with a hand cs at least until the size is more manageable.

Otherwise you need a long table in and out (which you could knock up outa coupla the 8 x 2's

[ozwinner]

Otherwise you need a long table in and out (which you could knock up outa coupla the 8 x 2's

Which he just cut up into 6x10's.

Al :eek: :D

[MajorPanic]

I've seen a guide & fence arrangement that used skateboard wheels instead of the usual toothed anti-slip cog guide powerfeed. It was home made & seemed to work well.
It consisted of a false table that the single point fence sat upon. The 'roller guide' was just a long cuphead bolt with 2 or 3 skateboard wheels attached.
The infeed & outfeed tables were 2 sets of roller stands.

If all else fales give the timber to ME!

[Auld Bassoon]

Hi BitingMidge!

Several questions present themselves:
1: Do you absolutely need to retain a board length of 12m (really? - where'd that come from?) - or can you reduce that to a much more manageable 3m or so?
2: Even with a 3m board you'll need either in- and out-feed tables or multiple rollers - preferably with vertical guides as well to stop the out-feed end of the stock "flapping in the breeze" so to speak.
3: I presume you have either a) a 14" bandsaw with a riser kit, or a 17" / 18" B/S that can take 200mm in stock height.
4: You'll likely need to make a supplementary fence, clamped to the original, that is about 3/4 of the height (e.g. c 150mm) of the board starting size.
5: You'll need to adjust the fence such that it accommodates the natural blade deflection (see Rogowski, et al)
6: You'll also need to make sbsolutely sure that your B/S blade is perpendicular to the table, and absolutely parallel to the fence - or you'll end up with some nice wedges:eek:
7: Best to start with a freshly sharpened (or new) blade - and with that much resawing, you'll likely need a few:rolleyes:
8: I do a fair bit of resawing, but not that much at a session. Rather you than me:p
9: Have you checked out the cost of a professional mill resawing your stock?

Cheers - and good luck!

[bitingmidge]

Bugger.

How come you blokes are giving me hints I'm trying to avoid doing??

Major, maybe I could be persuaded to SWAP some of my ratty old oregon for say, a few cube of silver ash???

Thanks all, I'll keep pondering!!

cheers,

P

[Greg Q]

Could you use a similar board on trestles as in/out feed? You'd only need 3 1/2-4 meters on each side. Anything to make it slippery, even stapled on plastic drop sheet would work. A helper, yes indeed. And those fence ideas
already mentioned. That's going to be a pretty fragile 6m plank.

Greg

[MajorPanic]

Bugger.

How come you blokes are giving me hints I'm trying to avoid doing??

Major, maybe I could be persuaded to SWAP some of my ratty old oregon for say, a few cube of silver ash???

Thanks all, I'll keep pondering!!

cheers,

P
No problem @ all Biting!!!!!!!!!

Bring that stack of $100 bills you keep in your hip pocket & we'll talk turkey ;) :cool:

Silver Ash..........................mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!

[craigb]

What are you going to makle out of the timber Midge?

Boat decking or something else boaty?

[bitingmidge]

1: Do you absolutely need to retain a board length of 12m (really? - where'd that come from?) - or can you reduce that to a much more manageable 3m or so?
It's preferable,the bits are going to be the Gunwhales and Inwhales of the canoe, but they are actually just on 5m long, so 5outfeed, 5 infeede =10 space required.. I can scarf them, and may have to, but I'll give the long lengths a crack first, if I can pluck up the courage.


2: Even with a 3m board you'll need either in- and out-feed tables or multiple rollers - preferably with vertical guides as well to stop the out-feed end of the stock "flapping in the breeze" so to speak.
It's the table bit I haven't done before, I've used trestles and rollers and all manner of other things, but have been "building up to the need for a table!


3: I presume you have either a) a 14" bandsaw with a riser kit, or a 17" / 18" B/S that can take 200mm in stock height.
Just a standard 14", but that's ok, I'll rip them on the flat, in 30mm or so bits.

4: You'll likely need to make a supplementary fence, clamped to the original, that is about 3/4 of the height (e.g. c 150mm) of the board starting size.
Yep, maybe longer is better too.

5: You'll need to adjust the fence such that it accommodates the natural blade deflection (see Rogowski, et al) That'll be part of the trick I think.

6: You'll also need to make sbsolutely sure that your B/S blade is perpendicular to the table, and absolutely parallel to the fence - or you'll end up with some nice wedges:eek: Great point!

7: Best to start with a freshly sharpened (or new) blade - and with that much resawing, you'll likely need a few:rolleyes: Bummer.... maybe it'd be cheaper to buy a few lengths! ??

8: I do a fair bit of resawing, but not that much at a session. Rather you than me:p Now you've made me scared!! Or I should say more scared than I already am/was!!

9: Have you checked out the cost of a professional mill resawing your stock?
No, didn't give that a thought, but will do if it doesn't work out!

Thanks for all of the above, we'd better report back on how it all went I think!

Regards,

P

[barnsey]

G'day Midge,

If I was resawing that sort of stock to your kind of sizes I'd be doing it on the table saw. Why the band saw? OK - wastage but 12mm out of 200mm :confused:

You'll still need infeed & outfeed support or maybe Andrew ;) after all it is his home type timber:D

FWIW

Regards

Jamie

[journeyman Mick]

Midge,
even though I currently have a mother of a table saw with a 3m sliding table, faced with this job I'd set the planks up outside on a couple of saw stools and go for it with a 9" saw fitted with a thin kerf blade. Alternatively you could toss them on your BMW's roof racks:eek: and bring them here to swap for some silver ash. Then I'll rip them up for my boat's spars.;)

Mick

[bitingmidge]

Funny you say that Mick, I've just borrowed a 9incher from a mate, but with my skinny little biceps, who knows what sort of trouble I'll end up in!

Whatever I do, I've put off the decision another week, and when I set up I WILL be ripping the staves for the new hollow mast for Gruff at the same time!

cheers,

P:D

[Wongo]

What Al said or send them to brother Termite. He’ll take anything. :D

[bitingmidge]

Here am I tripping over these lengths of oregon, running out of things to do before I need that timber, and almost ALMOST convinced I'm going to cut it in half and rip three metre lengths, when I decided I do one last trawl through the internet to see what I can find.

The very first post I find is my first post above!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

So now it seems I'm asking myself for advice as well!!!

P
:D

[echnidna]

So do you believe what you say?:D

[Wongo]

and did you give yourself a greenie?:p

[echnidna]

or a reddie?

[Bodgy]

Midge

Before I flung myself headlong into the 'lets buy some expensive tools' tango, I used the handsaw for lots of jobs - about all I had.

I'd think that if you bodgy up a long fence, buy a new, thin blade for it and have good support for the work, you won't have a problem with a grunty 9" saw. Very tedious OK, but neither that difficult nor energetic.

If you wander off line occasionally, theres always the jointer.

Good luck

[bitingmidge]

So do you believe what you say?:D

There's the trouble, if I'd been talking to myself I would have had doubts, but it' s on the interent so it must be true!
:eek:

I couldn't give myself a greenie, because I have to spread some love around first apparently. ;)

Bodgy,

I know where you're coming from, only because of my very skinny arms, I would have used a 7" saw in two cuts!

I particularly want to give the bandsaw a go, because of all the stuff I've read (on the internet!!) about how terrific they are for this sort of work, but if it doesn't work out, I'll go the table saw and 3m lengths I think.

I have a couple of strip boats to do in the future and will have to get used to the idea of ripping long lengths eventually.

I'm not sure about feeding a 6m or even a 3m length of 10 x 25 across the jointer.... that will take some careful support as well I think. I'm more inclined to take the time to get the cut right, then use the thicknesser... any twist will clamp/glue out anyway.

I'll report back whatever.

Who knows, I may end up having something clever to say to myself!

cheers,

P
:D :D

[MikeW]

Midge...not that you probably haven't thought of this, and not knowing if this is a possibility for you, but I have taken large timbers in the past to a local sawmill and had them process them for me.

It was much less stress on me and the machines I own and they are set up for it.

Take care, Mike

[bitingmidge]

Well I piked.

I took Barnsey's advice and did it the way I always have: on the TS.

Which begs the question: why did I ask the question? Well it's just that I read too much, and there are lots of articles out there which allude to the fact that the bandsaw is the best tool for the job. NONSENSE!!

I bought a new Freud thin kerf ripping blade ($60) and since I planned the workshop round doing exactly this sort of stuff, had no problem at all.

I simply clamped "guides" on my workbench and router table which are built at table saw height, chucked the cars out, and went for it. No fuss, no drama.

The additional guides were definitely worth doing - I haven't done that before, and it made handling a breeze, and I hate to be so repetitive about a product I don't have shares in, but the Grrr-rippers also were worth their weight in Ggggold once the size of the plank got down a bit.

The deepest cut yesterday was 75 mm in Surian Cedar, and that was no problem, the oregon ended up at 4m lengths and 50mm cuts were like a hot knife through butter.

As I said, I wonder why I even contemplated using the bandsaw, I won't do it again unless I have more than 80mm deep cuts!

The pic shows a smaller plank posing (about 3m long) but it's easy to see how a 6 works. Oh I also popped a roller just before the edge of the router (outfeed) table to make sure nothing caught on the way through.

cheers, and thanks for all the input,

P:D

[Exador]

Well I piked.

I took Barnsey's advice and did it the way I always have: on the TS.

Which begs the question: why did I ask the question? Well it's just that I read too much, and there are lots of articles out there which allude to the fact that the bandsaw is the best tool for the job. NONSENSE!!

I bought a new Freud thin kerf ripping blade ($60) and since I planned the workshop round doing exactly this sort of stuff, had no problem at all.



I didn't get involved in this one, but I have to agree with the use of the TS. It's a straight-forward exercise, especially with decent in-feed/out-feed tables. I routinely rip up to 100mm thick with the 12" blade.

[Wongo]

Hey sunshine,

I like your workshop (a lot of JETs), maybe I should check it out one day.:cool:

So now you can cut the wood to length a bit easier.:p