The Thing in the Garage

[Richard T]

I hope to keep a record here of the saw carriage I am building to run past my bandsaw. It's quite an ambitious project so I'm sure there will be lots problems, tweaks, tears, and cries for help along the way.
It is of the sliding "knee" type that was developed in the early USA by German and Dutch settlers. In those days they usually ran past circular saws and looked like this.

As you can see here, the knees slide in flat beds to advance the log sideways for each cut/pass. They are advanced by rack and pinion gears driven by the shaft (running from bottom right) and the whole carriage runs back and forth on rails past the blade.

 

[wizer]

Richard you need to close the IMG tags at the end of each image. like this:

[img]http://i689.photobucket.com/albums/vv257/richardtomes/sawmill20log20carriage.jpg [/IMG]

 

[Richard T]

Hmmm.. I might get the hang of adding images before I finish this..

Anyway, these days you can buy a nice, sparkly new steel one like this:

If you have $18,000. So I thought I'd have a go at my making my own for a fraction of that; hopefully not a fraction like 15/16 say...

 

[wizer]

That's it Richard.

Looks like an interesting project. I take it you have a need to process a large amount of logs?

 

[Richard T]

So far I have a timber framed garage, a bandsaw, a girder cut up into eight pieces for the beds, eight 1 1/8" bearings for the shaft, Wheels for the inside rail (flat), the aquaintence of a big, hairy bloke who can weld and mill and a head full of stuff that looks like a book of Euclid.

 

[Richard T]

I do have a lot of logs, yes; far more since I told my friend Dave about planning to build this. I think he overestimated my speed of construction - the drive is half full big lengths of various stuff. - Mostly white pine and the dreaded conifer (though I will need fence pannels next year) but some really nice stuff too; Elm, Holly, Yew, laburnum .. Yummy.

 

[wizer]

shame you're not local. Watching this with interest.

 

[Richard T]

The next thing is to get enough saved up for the rack and pinions. I've just been on the phone to a local firm who were very good and told me I only need to buy 2 rack lengths of 1m and 1 length of 500mm in order to make up 4 lengths of 60mm.
Aparently if you put the ends that you've cut at each end and the ends they've cut meeting mid length, they line up. That's going to save me about £150.

 

[head clansman]

hi

this i will follow with interest yummy keep it coming .hc

 

[OPJ]

This looks very interesting indeed! Can't see what model your bandsaw is but, is it man enough for that amount of resawing work?

 

[Richard T]

It's a Charnwood 750

It has its standard 3hp motor on at the moment which is pretty good I have to say - powered through some well seasoned ash aprox 8" deep the other day. I have it set on the lower speed and the choice of blade helps (Dakin Flathers 1" Ripper) and it seems to be fine. This is much better than I expected, as those saw-travels-on-rails-log-lies-on-floor types seem to have around 45hp petrol engines.... I'll just have to see how it bears up.
At least the motor is fully external so would be easy(ish) to plumb in a more meaty chap.

 

[wizer]

Well that's peculiar, I've been eyeing that model up.

 

[Jake]

Be better off doing it properly - in for a penny, in for a pound!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/STENNER-36-SAW-CO ... 4cec0a511f

 

[Jake]

Or cut out most of the hassle and just renovate this

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/STENNER-VB42-BAND ... 4cec22e8ca

 

[Mcluma]

I like that set up

nice project for the one who is buying it

 

[Richard T]

Cor! Those are big saws to see first thing in the morning. A chap we know called Mike has a huge one like that - not Stenner I don't think, it is dated 1943 and has wheels that look just like they are traction engine flywheels; they probably are. He runs it with a combine engine and you can hear it long before you get anywhere near it.
Although the track is nice and low to lift logs on to, this is only possible as the bottom wheel is down a 5" deep pit; and so is all the sawdust. He has to keep getting down there to shovel it out.

I wish I had some pictures of it - it has a terrifically long track on which runs a flat carriage with some dodgey simple dogs, and as in the ebay picture, just a short, flat fence. There is no way to accurately cut unless he built himself some huge modifications.
In fact it was Mike's saw and its problems that inspired me to try to find the best way to do it albeit on a smaller scale.

 

[Richard T]

Although not as small as this one.

Check the sawdust extractors...

 

[Richard T]

While saving up for the gears, I've been messing around with the movable dogs.
The two main dogs have to move up and down as well as in and out and must be able to locked in any position. This has been a bit of a tall order for me and my poor brain but I have finally settled on ladder-stepping in both directions. A bit like a Carver clamp but inside out.

This is the first dog I have made. It was a wrought iron round bar that I have drawn out in the forge, bent the hook over to take the dog tool and cold-filed ridges in the top to engage with a steel pin.

Although it looks nice and work blackened here, I have since had to do some filing to get it dead flush with the mechanism it slides through, not as pretty as I would have liked but still has a kind of piebald charm.
This is the bar that moves horizontally. I'll post some pics of what it moves through when the girl with the camera gets home.

 

[Simon]

Seems like we have some serious equipment gloating going on, in the vain of mine is bigger than yours ........

It was a bit of a squeeze to get in the garage and the power does dim in the local town when we start it up! ........ :^o


I thought whilst on the subject you may all appreciate this set of pics. They are from the Hull Oaks Sawmill in Oregon, the last steam-powered mill remaining. The scale of the place and the size of the output is awesome, would love to see it for real.

http://www.garymkatz.com/ontheroad/hulloaks.htm

Great to see a smaller scale project coming together and will be watching with interest

 

[Chris Knight]

Here's mine, being admired by Adam - late of these parts (I wonder where he has got to incidentally?)