Cutting a thicker board, into a thinner board...

[kalium]

Hi,

I hope this isn't too naive a question, but what is the best approach to cut down a board of say, 240x45 into 240x19.
I guess this is normally what a thicknesser is used for right? I was actually hoping to create two boards from the one,
rather than just cutting off the excess as waste.

It's too wide to do on my table saw, so is my best bet to take it to a timber yard to see if they would do it for me?
is this something that people do?

Cheers

[Sebastiaan76]

I think what you are referring to is typically called 'Resawing', and for a board that size, a bandsaw would be great for that. A thicknesser would be a big waste of wood!

You can also re-saw by hand, but from the videos on youtube i've seen of that. It looks pretty tiring and time consuming ( but you don't need much to do it other than a good handsaw, and a steady hand ).

cheers

Seb

[kalium]

Ahh, 'resawing', glad I know the term.

I potentially have a lot to do, so a handsaw is out of the equation. Looks like I might have to make friends with a band saw owner.

[Enfield Guy]

Knowing where you are would be helpful. Someone might put their hand up if the knew where you are.

Cheers

[crow400]

By setting table saw to just over half the depth required and VERY carefully setting fence to exactly half the width, make a cut the length of the board. Keeping the same side to the fence, end for end the board, and complete the cut. Results are governed by the accuracy of the fence setting.
Bruce

[elanjacobs]

That's how we do it at work.

[Arron]

By setting table saw to just over half the depth required and VERY carefully setting fence to exactly half the width, make a cut the length of the board. Keeping the same side to the fence, end for end the board, and complete the cut. Results are governed by the accuracy of the fence setting.
Bruce

My understanding is that the preferred way is to set the blade to just UNDER half the width of the stock. That way the stock behaves itself as it passes the sawblade, with less risk of one side or the other falling against the sawblade and jamming or marring the surface.

The two pieces are finally separated using a handsaw or a sharp knife.

Cheers
Arron

[GraemeCook]

Good Morning Kalium

As the Enfield Guy intimated, ask on this Forum and someone may be able to help you with the resawing.

Failing that, if the timber is new and clean, a local joinery shop may be able to resawing it for a quite modest fee. Note that I said joinery shop, and not kitchen fabricator. If its salvaged timber they will not allow it near their machinery.



Fair Winds

Graeme

[Wrongwayfirst]

I have lopped off 25mm thickness out of a 400mm x 400mm square post with a handsaw. It takes a bit (10 mins maybe), if I had a bandsaw I would use that but the handsaw works well. 240mm you don't say how long but I reckon 5 minutes per metre by hand.
cheers

[ian]

Ahh, 'resawing', glad I know the term.

I potentially have a lot to do, so a handsaw is out of the equation. Looks like I might have to make friends with a band saw owner.

if your table saw will cut 90mm deep, sawing along both long edges will leave a 50mm web to be removed by hand.

with a 24" or longer rip saw, removing the 50mm web won't take long at all -- and the slots cut with the table saw will guide the hand saw.

[Evanism]

I do lots and lots and lots of this to make boxes. A bandsaw is best. I used to use the table saw and cut just under half way on both sides, as suggested by Aaron, and finish with an easy small cut in the middle... but this is pretty hairy.

If its a long board, do a shout-out with your suburb and someone is certain to know someone with a BS, or will offer.

Its an excellent way to meet people who can help each other out.

[kalium]

Thanks for all the helpful responses guys.

The timber is used, so I'm sure most places will steer clear of it.

I've done resawing with my TS on 75x40 pieces, but it was not really critical, and was quite easily done to the specs I required.
I initially thought that resawing a piece as wide as 240 on the TS would be completely off the cards (i.e cutting halfway through one side, flipping it, cutting the other half).
However, judging from the responses here and from looking around at other articles on the subject (thanks to my newly acquired term 'resawing') it seems do be
reasonably doable.

I know that my saw is currently out of alignment (including my fence being of very poor quality) and it's something I've been needing to address for a little while. Thankfully
I'm in no rush to get the timber resawed, so I'll have the time to fix up the TS first (as I can understand it is absolutely critical to the success of the operation).

I'll be sure to raise the white flag here if it all goes south

[Kuffy]

if your fence is all messed up, u can fix it. or just get it out of the way and clamp a piece of 90x90 or anything else square and chunky as a fence. just make sure the fence is parallel to the saw. not knowing the capacity of your tablesaw, but i doubt you r able to cut 123mm high (half of the 240 plus some), so just run it twice flipping it end over end keeping the same face of timber against the fence, then just run thru the web left over with a handsaw (u can be rough as guts here, just use the saw cuts as a guide). then send the bad resawn faces thru the thicknessor to make them nice. you have plenty of meat to play with 45mm - 3mm saw = 42/2 = 21mm = a nice easy 2mm pass thru the thicknessor to finish.