Breaking down timber into lumber

[phillamb168]

Sawn dimensional lumber is pretty hard to find around here, unless you want douglas fir. I have had luck with finding through-and-through whole trees (no quartersawn in Europe it seems?), and putting aside the question of how to get them into my shop, I am wondering what the best tools and techniques are for breaking down those big tree bits into something more resembling a 1x10 or 2x6. Is this (large) band saw territory? I'm guessing that if you have a through-and-through board of say 20'x3"x15" that you would first crosscut into two 10' sections, then feed it through a band saw? What about stresses in the wood, closing off the kerf etc? Not a problem in a band saw?

Thanks!

BTW yes it's been a while since I've been on - two small kids will do that. But we are moving along on our kitchen project, and are pretty much decided on the xcalibur 12" saw for finalizing our shop's equipment. Best part is we apparently already have a 16amp plug in the shop so no rewiring is necessary (praise the lord for 230V).

 

[longinthetooth]

If you can't outsource the ripping of the thicker stuff especially (80mm, 10mm) then you really need either at least a 5hp circular saw-bench (you'd be slogging with anything less) or a wide-ish bandsaw. No a bandsaw shouldn't bind, but when ripping on a circular you keep some wood wedges & a hammer to hand.

It is possible to use a portable circular, not even a huge one, deepening the cut in increments & cutting from both sides, but obviously not on a production basis.

Once the material's getting rendered into smaller sections then a 3hp sawbench with a 300mm blade will do great stuff.

ps 'lumber' like 'table saw' is an American term.

 

[phillamb168]

The HW110SE-50 from Xcalibur is 4HP, I'm guessing that'll do in that case... Could you clarify on what you mean by a wide-ish bandsaw? Anything axminster-ish that you'd recommend?

 

[marcros]

I would find a sawmill to do it. 15 x 3 is going to take some lifing and maneuvering, let alone feeding it through a bandsaw. It is going to have to be a huge bandsaw to do that depth anyway. Beyond what is commonly available, huge.

what about importing from the UK- may be an option if you can combine it with a trip there anyway.

 

[longinthetooth]

Wide bandsaw say 100mm ... large material can be handled by one person w/o lifting gear - you just lift one end at a time. Wide b/s's often have a roller bed so even w/o a power feed you only have to push & steer the work to get the first straight cut - that then becomes a reference for further ripping.

Machines like that don't run off a 16A socket though! Seriously I'd look into jobbing at least the initial cuts out.

Sorry can't comment much on specific machines - had never heard of excalibur! Also I can remember certain sellers of circular saws esp of the 'site saw' type that seemed to inflate their hp ratings by using a non-industry standard way of measuring them - ie translating from kW drawn at PEAK load rather than normal running ... thus a saw rated at 3hp would bog down in a 50mm cut in softwood - ridiculous!

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Back in the day, that would have been done by setting the timber on two trestles, marking out with a chalk line, and going at it with a 30" 2tpi rip saw.

These days, such activity would probably be banned under the Geneva Convention as a Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

(Ripping 1" boards with a good, sharp hand rip saw is not too bad, but you'd have to be fairly masochistic to tackle much hand-ripping of 3" stuff.)

 

[phillamb168]

Turns out I was just googling incorrectly, I've found a few places that have 4/4 and 8/4 rough-sawn boards, which is really all I'll ever need. I think the real problem was that my knowledge of how to go from rough cut to ready-for-assembly was lacking. Thanks everybody.

 

[n0legs]

:arrow:

 

[phillamb168]

Back in the day, that would have been done by setting the timber on two trestles, marking out with a chalk line, and going at it with a 30" 2tpi rip saw.

These days, such activity would probably be banned under the Geneva Convention as a Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

(Ripping 1" boards with a good, sharp hand rip saw is not too bad, but you'd have to be fairly masochistic to tackle much hand-ripping of 3" stuff.)

Just a quick one,
Some of my ancestors were pit sawyers who came over to sunny South Wales with the Somerset miners. My late grandfather still had some of the old saws in his workshop. Huge things that must have took some real effort to use, glad it wasn't me.

They featured pit sawyers in an episode of Edwardian Farm. Looked like an insane amount of work.

 

[wcndave]

I am doing the same thing now. Have boards like this:

They are 60mm thick, and I have one 80mm (not pictured).

I started with chalkline to mark them out, first time I've got really good use out of my chalkline, it's excellent.

Then I went at it with a jigsaw. It was not too bad, but hard work, so I decided to use my Festool TS55 track saw to get 90% of the way through first.

Completely not thinking, as of course I can't use the jigsaw after using the tracksaw (here's where getting the TS75 would have come in really handy!)

So then I got out my handsaw, which lasted a minute.

Now I need to turn the board over to basically use the track saw from the other side.

It's a lot of work, with a lot of waste, but I think I am getting there.

I once tried on a roller stand / bandsaw setup, going really slowly, however it just did not work...

BTW: did you ever get the Xcalibur saw? mine is on it's way, although they stopped doing the 12" 3hp version.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

I would find a sawmill to do it. 15 x 3 is going to take some lifing and maneuvering, let alone feeding it through a bandsaw. It is going to have to be a huge bandsaw to do that depth anyway. Beyond what is commonly available, huge.

I tend to agree. There may be no kickback on a bandsaw, but getting a blade stuck because you've wandered off line is no fun when you are dealing with large lumps of wood. You might consider an Alaskan chain mill to reduce the size a bit, bringing the saw to the timber, but you lose a lot of waste in sawdust and need a powerful chainsaw (which guzzles petrol).

 

[RobinBHM]

Although it is possible to deep large boards with a re-saw, it isnt good practice, all timber to some extrnt has a moisture gradient through it and deeping boards will release stresses often resulting in bad bowing or cupping. Thats apart from the fact thicker timbers are more expensive by volume due to the increased drying time.

I glad you have sourced the required timber thicknesses

 

[Giff]

If money / budget isn't an major issue and you want the best, a Felder / Hammer bandsaw and a Planer / Thicknesser will do everything you need…..and they are easy to maintain and service.

 

[wcndave]

Building a house I think I have to stick with what I have for now, but I always like the look of them in BW.

I take the point about resawing boards. The thinnest I could get though was 34 and I need 12.

Precious wood as its called here is by the cubic metre so all the same price by volume. 900 pqm, for maple, but as we can see, quite a bit of waste!

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