Thread: cutting hardwood sleepers

G'day Richard and welcome to the show!!

Where abouts in Qld?? There are some handy fellas around Qld with Chainsaws.

See if there is a timber mill or someone who has a decent band resaw will do the job or even just a large band saw, chainsaw will create a fair amount of waste and a pretty rough surface to clean up

when I did my yard the first time or was it the second time.I used a guide attached to my large circlar saw and did 2 cuts one from one side of the sleeper the second one I flipped the sleeper over & did the second cup from the other side. I did buy a quality blade and went slow, It did last about 15 sleeprs to my memory
regards Michael

Originally Posted by coffenup

when I did my yard the first time or was it the second time.I used a guide attached to my large circlar saw and did 2 cuts one from one side of the sleeper the second one I flipped the sleeper over & did the second cup from the other side. I did buy a quality blade and went slow, It did last about 15 sleeprs to my memory
regards Michael

That's might be possible for splitting them as in B
But it sounds like richard wants then split as in A

I'd use a big bandsaw.

What sort of wood are we looking at?

I did it both ways when I did mine as I had angled areas and I used them both full ,half
I didn't say it was easy but i did what I hat to to make SWMBO happy.
I am now on another design with different materials in this version
regrads Michael

Originally Posted by coffenup

I did it both ways when I did mine as I had angled areas and I used them both full ,half

I can't see how you made the A cut on full size (300 mm wide) sleepers. A normal hand held CS can only cut about 75 mm deep. Cutting from both sides gives you 150 mm so there is 150 mm still to cut.

finished with a hand saw just asked the wife I forgot that part as I am getting old

I gave a friend over the road a Silky Oak log as he was after one. He showed me his one handeld cross cut saw that he was going to rip it with. I had lent my mill to a friend at the time so I offered him a 8' peg tooth and raker rip saw. He and his sons could do a full length cut in only 8 hours. So you could give this a try.