Help building a horizontal resaw jig for my bandmill

[Wrangler55]

On a regular basis I resaw 4/4 lumber into thinner sections on a vertical bandsaw. My portable sawmill does a much better job of sawing thin sections, so I'm interested in building a jig to lay on the mill with a weighted roller to press the board down just before the saw blade.  I plan to use the saw head in a fixed position and slide the boards through the blade.  I've done a search here and haven't found anything. Has anyone else built a horizontal resaw jig? And if so, do you have pictures. I might not be too bright, but I can copy anything.

I make laminated gunstocks from blanks I make myself so this jig will be used frequently. Also I see it could be used with 5/4 boards to tilt up the bed on one side and split them into lap siding. My home and shop is in an old 2 story farm house and I've got to replace the siding this year. When they built the house, insulation wasn't a priority. Every room has a fireplace that we no longer use. Any help or ideas will be appreciated.

Hal

[5quarter]

Hal,

   It seems to me that there is no practical way to do it safely . Pushing a board through a sawmill at full throttle might earn someone the Darwin award, though others (smarter and/or braver than I) may have already designed something that is both safe and efficient. Personally I treat my saw like a loaded weapon...rule #1 is never get in front of a running sawmill

Chet[/i][/i]

[logwalker]

Have you had an opportunity to check out the resaw that Woodmizer sells? I have and older one that works well but I don't need because I have a 36" vertical resaw that does most of what I need done.

Joe

[Larry]

Here

Since building the jig I've traded mills.  The jig still works well but I'm going to build a new one to utilize all 34 hp on the new mill.  It will use corrugated feed rollers and be able to slice 16" wide.  Hoping to achieve a feed of 60 fpm for beveled siding.  All shop drawings complete and I got all the material down to the last bolt.  For power I'm using a 3-phase 1 1/2 hp gear motor.  Thinking about powering the motor with a VFD to give me variable speed.

Just need a bit of time, which is in short supply to put it all together.

[Wrangler55]

Larry, I found the pictures of your jig in your gallery.  That's what I had in mind. I'll see what I can come up with.

Chet, And, I'm not pushing the board through with my hands.  Gee, give me more credit than that.  I'll have a roller to press the board down and another roller to act as a power feeder. It should work like any horizontal resaw that's made for cutting cants into pallet boards.

Hal

[Larry]

Sorry, click HERE in my first post...its a link to the original thread.

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

Arkansawyer made a pretty good rig for resawing on sawmill. His was specifically intended to make beveled siding but should be adaptable to non-beveled applications...

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,38180.0.html

Herb

[Wrangler55]

It WORKS! Best, most uniform 4/4 boards I've ever split. I'll plane them after dinner and glue up another couple of gunstock blanks tonight. From now on when I saw logs, I'm going to cut some 1/2" and 1/4" boards to use without having to resaw. If I sticker the thin boards on the bottom of the stack, they shouldn't curl like potato chips.  At least the sample, cherry walnut and maple boards I cut 1/4" thick last year dried straight.  Only one problem, I didn't cut but two boards of each species last year. I left some white oak 1/4" boards laying flat without any weight on them and they dried flat without any curl.

I used the crate material my Timberking 1220 came in to build my prototype horizontal resaw.  It's a box 8" wide & 6" tall.  It's got 2X4 spacers on top to hold the sides parallel and to provide a place to attach a 1X6" board with a hinge on one end and a skateboard truck on the other.  Two springs from a trampoline put enough pressure on the wheels to keep the board I'm resawing flat. (I'll have to buy two springs before someone tries to use the trampoline...) When I get time, I'll buy a sheet of MDF and build one that I won't be ashamed to show photos of. 

Hal

[5quarter]

Hi Hal,

  sorry...no offense meant. I understand what you're wanting to do, its just that the more I thought about it, the more dangerous it seemed. now that I've seen Arkys and Larrys setup, It seems much simpler than I first imagined. Occasionally, I like to demonstrate my ignorance...just in case anyone begins to think I'm smart... ;)

[woodZwayz]

Like that Arky rig. Think I'll build one and use melamine for the bed.

A quickie way to resaw is to simply screw the board to a cant. Clamp the cant as normal. Cut cant a little narrower than the board your trying to resaw and screw up into bottom of resaw board. Just be sure of screw depth. Can also screw a wider board straight down on top of cant and then screw back up through the overhang into the bottom of the board to be resawn. You can put the screws in at the ends of the board to be resawn so as not to wreck much good wood. Skim the top to true it up and make sure it's parallel to the bed, then cut as usual. Of course this may not work with very thin boards and would be impractical for doing a lot of resawing, but fine for the occasional one off cut.