Edger setup in circle mill

[StoddardLumber]

How does everyone have there edger setup? How many people do you saw with? 

I am thinking about setting up my edger as a totally separate operation in a different building. And I Am thinking about making some sort of return system so that it is a 1 man operation. Something that will kick or dump the board and the edgings to one side and a powered belt to return them.

As a side note I am thinking of putting my planer beside the edger and using the same return belt for planing lumber

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

Welcome.  Can you tell us if this is for hardwoods or softwoods?  The answer will be somewhat different, but in either case, there are several answers that could be good answers. 

Having said that, edging with one person is very hard, because sometimes the out feed will drop a piece or the piece will skew and then the operator has to crawl over to the backside to unscramble.  Also, having someone on the out feed side allows the pieces to be quickly inspected to make sure the edger is operating correctly and the feeding is being well done.

[StoddardLumber]

Hi

It's for both hard and soft. Now I know 1 person is not optimal however it's my only choice for the short term and I think a lot of others are in the same boat.

The other reason for being a 1 man operation is for edging hardwood. The edger man can make or break you by upgrading the 1 or 2 common board to select and better by trimming off defects and upgrading the board.

My idea is to have a 20 foot tip table with a few air cylinders so that when the boards come out they run to the end hit a stop and are dumped onto the belt that should eliminate most hang ups and I will have access to the other side if nessary for any hang ups that do occure

[beenthere]

Stoddard
Have you read member lyle niemi threads, where he shows how he set up a semi-automatic off-bearer so he could circle saw alone? That might be an initial step just ahead of the edger so boards and bark slabs can be separated out and accumulated for edging later.
Then a similar sort coming out of the edger with a merrygoround to bring some pieces back for more sawing might be incorporated.

Lyle Niemi
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=19162

[Ron Wenrich]

I wouldn't put it in another building.  I worked with an Amish mill that had the edger in another building and it caused quite a bit of extra handling of the lumber.  He did that so the kids had something to do after school.  It hurt his bottom line. 

You could put in a set of green chains.  That would act as your surge deck, and you could saw quite a bit of lumber to fill it up.  Run it with an electric motor you can start and stop from the sawyer area.  After that's full, then you can go down and sort, edge and stack. 

I'm thinking you don't have a chipper, so all your slabs could go off the end of the chains.  You could put your edger at the end, so edging strips could be put into pile at the same time.   I have seen a return system on an older Frick edger where they put a set of spiral rolls on the table.  All the material then went onto a return belt and brought the edging and board back to the edger man.  The belt wasn't very wide, and was more like a trough. 

You could use the same trough for the planer as long as you have an outfeed table with spiral rolls that rotate in the opposite direction.  Do you plane most of your lumber right off the saw?

I have also seen mills that have live rolls off the head saw and used kickers to sort lumber out the mill.  A simple one would kick right, left and a gate for straight.  They kicked blocking to the right, lumber to the left, and heavy timbers or slabs straight ahead.  A lot depends on your cutting patterns, markets, and mill layout.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

You might want to consider a two saw edger, so that the piece needing to be edged would only require one pass.  This would eliminate the need for a return system.  WM does have a two saw machine.  Often one saw is fixed and the other is movable.  Because you will be doing both hard and soft, make sure that the width (with a two saw edger) is completely adjustable.

As mentioned above, having an accumulation area for the pieces needing to be edged is a good idea.  In fact, if you were sawing softwoods, you might want to have all the pieces that will potentially make 2x4s in one pile and 2x6s in another, etc.  In this way, you would not have to be continually adjusting the saws or the fence for different widths, but could edge a bunch of pieces of the same size at once.  I agree with Ron that the accumulation area should be close to the headrig rather than in another building.

In your design, remember that you will get one piece of lumber, and small edging strips.  Obviously, the strips need to be separated from the lumber and accumulated so that they can eventually be disposed of.

[lyle niemi]

Everything looks good on paper, just remember you are only one man. To bad you cant come and see me, it would answer alot of your questions. I do saw by myself but sawing is only one part of it, someone still has to buck the logs, get rid of the slabs, pile the lumber, deal with phone calls and costomers. It's very seldom I get a full day of sawing in :new_year:

[StoddardLumber]

Thanks for the replies

Doc not sure what you are talking about. I have a 2 saw edger ( 2 of them actually) wouldn't a single saw be a straight line rip? Anyways the goal of the return system would be to return the board and the edgings back to the operator for him to process thus saving an edger tail man.

Ron

I thought about putting in a kicker system with a small transfer chain just for the round edge coming off the saw. Right now I have a belt conveyer right off the saw it about 24 feet long everything off the saw goes down this and is fed onto a set of spiral rolls these rolls move the material to the left and it slides down a ramp to a "pit"( it's not really a put but it's about a 6 foot drop from the off error belt to the sorting level) everything goes down this belt slabs lumber and cants/timbers then I have a green chain that I can move from the saw area to advance the pile.

So I saw a bunch and load up the chain then got sort it all out. This works good for when I saw alone 90% of the time and for the 10% when I have a helper since the helper can just sort while I saw.  So I have been sorting my round edge out for years this way and bringing it back around to edge when I had a helper. I originally did this because I was driving the mill with a diesel power unit and that restricted the edger location to where I could run belts. I have converted to electric motor and Genest so I am unrestricted on edger location now. Hence the idea to use a separate building and smaller Genest to power the planer and or edger with a dual use return sues making it 1 man operation.

What hurt the bottom line having the edger separate? The kids edging or the extra handling ?