Thread: Iron bark & Saws?

What sorts of saws?

Table saw with 80T blade

Originally Posted by RSD

Table saw with 80T blade

Thanks, It's definitely harder than a lot of Aussie timbers but mot outrageously so. Bark makes it harder on saws because the bark can be sticky and holds all manner of gunk in it.
Souldn't be that bad with a new blade.

Originally Posted by BobL

Thanks, It's definitely harder than a lot of Aussie timbers but mot outrageously so. Bark makes it harder on saws because the bark can be sticky and holds all manner of gunk in it.
Souldn't be that bad with a new blade.

Cheers Bob - will give some a go as it is getting damn hard to get much of a variety of timber in Melbourne at the moment.

What Bob says. The bark of an ironbark tree is hard by bark standards, but the wood is significantly harder.

In the days when we felled & bucked-up logs (for fenceposts) with a crosscut saw, we always removed the bark from any tree anywhere the saw had to cut. The reason was two-fold, bark can & does carry a lot of grit, which will dull a saw, but even worse, it closes on a saw as you go & increases friction enormously - it's many times the effort to saw through a log with the bark on with a crosscut saw!

Modern carbide-tipped saws handle any ironbark I've met pretty well. I'm as guilty as the next man in pushing saws beyond the point they should have gone out for sharpening, and also being lazy & not switching to a more appropriate blade when in the middle of either crosscutting or ripping a pile & I just want to make a few cuts the other way. These factors contribute far more to poor cutting, scorching, etc, than the actual species of Eucalypt, they are nearly all up there for hardness & saw-blunting ability....

Cheers,

I did a large project with several thousand l/m of KD grey Ironbark and it is harder on your blades than other timbers but not to the point that I would avoid using it.

RSD

Everything is relative.

If you frequently work with the more dense timbers (> 1000Kg/M³) you will not notice any difference. If however you generally work with softer timbers such as the pines your eyebrows will raise. The saw will need to be pushed at a slower rate and it will not last as long as in the softer timbers, but it is very doable. Tungsten carbide tips are a blessing for the harder timbers.

Regards
Paul

Bushmiller puts it well.

A couple of other things can also kick in.
One is resin, some (even dry) logs will exude (even a little) resin and if this builds up on chains or teeth can affect cutting. The worst one I have see for this is Tuart (not that you will any of that on the east coast) but I have see it on the odd Iron bark.
The other is if the tree has suffered severe lack of water which can result in silica being drawn up and deposited in the wood. Two tree I have found this noticeable in are QLD box and Tuart. Both are also pretty hard to begin with.

cutting iron bark with a

Originally Posted by RSD

Table saw with 80T blade

so are you ripping or cross cutting the iron bark?

If you're ripping, you will find an 80T blade will burn badly and be very hard on the saw -- in your place I'd be looking at a 30T rip blade.
if you are cross cutting, I suggest that you might be better off with a 50 or 60 tooth cross-cut blade