Thread: Wanted - thickness rail sleepers

People aren't going to be to happy with used. A lot of asbestos and metal got into them.
Unless you scrub them with a wire brush and get all the muck, dust and gunk out you may find it hard to find someone unless your prepared to buy them new blades for their thicknesser after your timber ruins theirs.
They may be prepared to put them thru a bandsaw to reduce them.

Happy to be wrong though.
Peter

Ill buy new blades for them. If it helps I will run over them with a floor sander to clean up the timber first

What size are the sleepers now and what do you want to end up with?

Might be cheaper to cut close to size with a sawmill first then thickness. I might be able to do it for you, but would depend on sizes.

I'd take DJ's offer (acco above).
Having milled first to something close to size will expose clean timber for a thicknesser.
I may have a mate in oakleigh that would put clean faces thru his 20" thicknesser.

if dj doesn't want the job i'll do it on my slabmaster as long as they aren't treated with creosote

Must be a better class of sleepers around these days. When I was young I helped a friend to first cut a bit off with a cross cut saw then split in half with a wedge some used sleepers. His father worked for SA Railways and wanted the result as posts for horse yards. He trained Trotters / Pacers.

These sleepers were full of chunks of ballast. A right PIA to cut.

Dean

the AAA grade ones are ok but yes,they do have some crap in them but with a gerni and a hit with a sledge hammer will dislodge a lot of the crap out of them.i wouldn't put them through the thicknesser but other machines can handle them ok.and the end results are worth it

For me it's a case of once bitten, twice shy. I was cross cutting some sleepers for firewood for a friend. The chain saw stopped cutting. Nothing.

Investigation showed I had cut 10mm into a rock.I threw the chain away.

A few years later I was persuaded by a local school to cut some sleepers for some landscaping. I think I sharpened the chain about five times to every tank of fuel!

That was it for me. Never again.

Regards
Paul