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Started by YellowHammer, November 22, 2017, 09:48:09 PM

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YellowHammer

With the longer bed of this jointer, I can now flatten out almost 1/4" bow on a rough sawn 4/4 over 8 feet and then plane down to 3/4".  if the boards are worse, then I do as WDH and bring them to 7/8".  Either way, straight as an arrow. 

On boards that were skip planed to 15/16" I don't have a lot of meat to play with anymore, so I typically cut them in half and plane.  That's why wanted to play with these rough sawn walnut boards, I could experiment with the jointer and still end up with a pile of straight 8 foot walnut.  Kill two boards with one stone.

Speaking of jointing long boards, I seem to get a much better result with the middle of the bow down to the bed as opposed to what I thought was the more conventional crown up technique.
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

PA_Walnut

It makes a difference to savvy buyers. Time and again I see larger lumber butchers jamming twisted/warped material through a big industrial planer, only to get thinner twisted/warped material out the other end.

Double-jeopardy since not only does it fail to remedy the issue, but now you have that much less to work with when attempting to fix it.   :-X

Yellow, something struck me curious yesterday when I was reading this thread. You mentioned that you have a line-up at your planer the other day. Isn't your material all planed already, prior to buyers making selections? Or, is this to plane it to final thickness?  Also, do you offer SLR of your material? As a lumber USER also, I'd always pay the extra to have my material straight-lined or even better yet, edged both sides. Even though I have the equipment to do it, it sure is a savings in the shop.

Again, it's back to the material handling issue. The Amish outfit I use is really setup for it. They can do it in 1/4 the time, they deal with the waste, and I can focus on higher-value ops. Win:win!

I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

WDH

I believe that it is the same case for Yellowhammer, but for me, I plane to 15/16" so that the customer can get a good look at the features of the board, i.e. grain, color, etc.  Usually, both sides are cleaned up, but sometimes one side has some skips.  If they do not have a planer and want the board finished planed to 3/4, 7/8, etc., or if they want one edge jointed, or both, I charge for that.  The initial planing is on me, the final planing is on them.  For each valued added step, planing, jointing, ripping, I add 50 cents per BF. 

At the sawmill and wood room, I do not have the ability to rip boards to finished width.  I have to take them to my shop which is over 1/2 mile away.  That is a real pain in the butt log.  With the new lumber room, I plan to put a tablesaw in there so that I can plane, joint, and rip all at the same location.

One thing that I have learned.  Short boards sell.  The 3' stuff can sell as fast as the 8' or 10' stuff.  5' is a very good seller.  Almost every customer that is buying a board first picks it up and sights down the board to see if it is straight.  Of course, I also do the very same thing  :).   
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

customsawyer

Thanks for the replies gents
Two LT70s, Nyle L200 kiln, 4 head Pinheiro planer, 30" double surface Cantek planer, Lucas dedicated slabber, Slabmizer, and enough rolling stock and chainsaws to keep it all running.
www.thecustomsawyer.com

YellowHammer

We don't sell rough sawn, all our 4/4 lumber is initially skip planed to 5/16" and our 8/4 gets brought down to 2" using one of three places that each have industrial planers or molders.  We produce way too much for us to do ourselves, along with all the other stuff we have to do, and I typically carry a trailer load to get planed on Friday while I return with the load I carried up last week.  So about every week we have a 25 foot trailer load of fresh lumber to work with, and I get a real good idea as to the limitations of these machines, when we handle and sort the boards when we stock the shelves.  Boards that are aren't right, have wane, bow, curve or other defects get pulled and put on "work" pallets for us to clean up later.  These boards are the ones we hand work, and which we try to minimize.  So we use our SLR, planer, jointer, and chop saw to get them right and back win the rack at at full price.  Here's the weekly quantity, more or less, that we plane and get back every week or so.  Even a relatively small percentage of these boards being culls adds up quick in lost profit.

 

Since we have the tools, and are in pretty good practice, we offer any and all of the the services to further dress and clean up the skip planed boards as the customer wants for a fee.  For example, if a customers wants to pay for it, we can produce them final, flat, edged 4S boards they can take home and use when they pull into their shop.  Its up to them.  The most common request is to use the SLR to put a joint quality edge on the boards or use the planer to bring the 15/16" down to 3/4".  One comment I get all the time is that our tools, since they are dialed in and typically higher quality, can produce much better surfaces and edges than the homeowner tools that many of our customers have.  So even if they have the tools they still want us to do it.  Snipe is a common problem with homeowner planers, and some customers (I had one this weekend) want us to finish plane their wood just because our planer doesn't waste wood by sniping.

PA, you mention value added services, and thats exactly what we try to provide to separate us from "everyone" else.  Imagine you were a novice woodworker, and the owner of the business (me) asks you what you were going to use the wood for, and you said a nice table for your family but were nervous about getting a flat surface and good joints, and I said, for a small fee, I'd face your boards on the jointer to make them cast iron flat, plane them all to the same thickness, then joint the edges so they will fit together perfect?  And do it while you watch in about 10 minutes?  Happens to us all the time, and when when the customer sees the results they always break into a big smile and become regular customers. 
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

woodworker9

I love the discussion of this thread, and also love seeing you guys talk about doing it the right way.

The largest supplier of hardwood lumber in the Chicagoland area sells millions of board feet of hardwoods, softwoods, plywood, and moldings.  You can't mention wood around here without hearing about a story from this place.

They do NOT own a jointer, and you can literally stand at the doorway to the mill shop, and watch in horror as a guys with lumber carts filled with rough sawn lumber stand and feed their lumber through a planer without ever flattening it. 

Half their boards on the showroom are warped and twisted, and all planed to 13/16" (4/4) so there's nothing left to fix it.

I only buy my plywood there.

Most novice woodworkers around here can't understand why their joinery and glue-ups all stink.  They think it's something they are doing wrong, when in reality, trying to do good work with poorly milled lumber is almost impossible.

Great thread.
03' LT40HD25 Kohler hydraulic w/ accuset
MS 441, MS 290, New Holland L185

YellowHammer

So here is why we bought this machine.  We pulled the nastiest, crookedest warped live edge slabs of concrete hard, hard rock maple out of the kiln this week.  We knew these were terrible, so we've been avoiding having to deal with them.  You can tell from my wife's expression during the deadstacking how we felt about these uglies.  A couple times I threatened to throw a match to them.



Well, we fired up the big boy and stated facing.  It goes fairly easy, with 8 footers, once the slab gets on the deck, it never has to come off until its done.  Set the cutters, slide the slab forward, drop the cutters, slide it back and repeat until its done.  The SCMi really shines at this with the quick change depth of cut mechanism.
I did a half dozen reasonably quick, taking lots of meat off some.  One 19" slab in particular was three passes at 3/16".  The motor never had a problem, and hardly grunted.  I on the other hand, was having to push pretty hard as I was taking off nearly 1/4" per pass, and wasn't in the best of moods dealing with this load.  However, the results speak for themselves, the boards coming out flat as a pancake. Here's one with the flat side up, ready to run through the planer.  At least I won't have to burn them now.

YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Kbeitz

Love the idea of the power adjustable table ....
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

Larry

Still no guard?  Easy to catch a sleeve or something important.  Two or three slabs you can get away with it, a big stack.........

A decent fabricator could make a workable bridge guard in under four hours.

Thinking of your safety, I apologize if out of line.
Larry, making useful and beautiful things out of the most environmental friendly material on the planet.

We need to insure our customers understand the importance of our craft.

tule peak timber

Larry , you are 100% correct.
       My guard has been hanging on the wall for 10 years :-X :-X :-X :-X
persistence personified - never let up , never let down

YellowHammer

Yes, it is something I need to do.  I need to look at the parts list and see if I can make one.  Time to do a little research.  However, since the fence is so easy and quick to adjust, I move it until the wood covers the cutters with almost no exposure. 
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

SlowJoeCrow

Is that a blast gate sticking out of the front of the machine, right below where the guard should be?  Do you ever catch your pants on it, it seems like it would be in the way.

PA_Walnut

Whoa! That is some gnarly hard maple, for sure!  :o

I noticed it has a lot of heartwood in it. Do buyers care much? How do you deal with it vs. all sap?
Curious, as any maple with heart AT ALL here, might as well be flooring.  >:(
I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

YellowHammer

Yes for sure, this is garbage wood.  This mess has way too much heartwood, too much wave, too much pith, too much knots, and too much everything else.  It's value will be only be what I can clean up and make of it, since it is 8/4+ it will have value.  If it was 4/4, I couldn't sell it for firewood.  This is one of the lessons I've learned along the way, and one of the important aspects of some of the discussions on how to mill crack free, stress free, quality boards instead of junk.  Every now and then there is a discussion of sawing technique and quality of boards, and this is an excellent example of how important proper milling technique is, and what happens when a mill incorrectly, but with production speed, slicing a log like cheese with improper technique, and ruining the wood.  I would never have sawn it this way.  I bought this from a guy, who bought it from an Amish circle mill, for a very low price.  In our constant quest for log and lumber sources, this was a test run and they got an F, and I got a D for paying for it.  I thought I knew how bad it was when I bought the slabs, but it was worse.  That's why I considered torching it.  Done and gone.  Can't do that, though, there is some good wood in there, somewhere.

Customers will buy nice slabs, with sapwood and heartwood in the same piece, if it looks good.  If it looks bad, it is unsellable, so we straightline rip the good white wood and sell it as edged 8/4 which sells very well.  A case of a better, smaller, more presentable cut from a nasty piece will bring significantly more money than the entire piece if left to look like junk.  Of course, the increased price and must cover the extra cost of labor, as well as the verbal pain caused by my wife, Martha, the CFO, asking if I had gotten the stupid out of my system that I must have had when I bought this.  ::) Slabs are hard work, and dressing them is even harder.  First step, cry.  Next step flatten, next step, plane, next step, salvage the good out of them, next step put on the price and sell them. 

The little metal thing is not a blast gate, it's a hoist or lifting bumper.  When the machine was shipped, its purpose was to keep the lifting straps away from the paint job, and was supposed to be removed.  However, since I will run my legs into it, as you observed, (good catch) I have left it in there a safety piece so that it will force me to stand a suitable distance away from the table and will also be more aware of the cutter and my distance to it.  A useful reminder. 
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

PA_Walnut

Don't be too hard on yourself. The lure of low/easy money appeals to us all. Amish circle mills are a great example of this...plenty of them around here. They BLAZE out the material, with little thought to quality or end-product. Been there, done that.  :-\

Hard maple also a SOB to dry properly--keeping it white and straight is daunting, even for the best kiln ops. I handle a fair amount of maple (high grade, figured) so have also been there done that. Always on fluted sticks, try to saw on dry days and get a fan on it asap. Want that surface dry--like yesterday. Still, not always successful.

I have some very high grade hard maple I just sawed 8/4. Was even thinking 12/4, but my nerves wouldn't endure.  :D Have some really awesome WIDE 8/4 curly/blistered hard maple, sawed over the summer, which is on sticks, awaiting kiln. Pretty stuff...I actually did an Asian drying trick of standing on end for a couple weeks before getting it onto sticks!!  :D
I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

Ed_K

 Yellow Hammer, can you explain how the maple should have been sawed. So I can learn, I'm cutting maple to thin the orchard and would like to saw some of it. I'm thinking of keeping the butt logs as they have been tapped. Most trees taken down are 12" to 16" dbh. Mill will only pay pallet on these but sell as character wood.
Ed K

Bruno of NH

Ed
When ever I get tap hole maple it sells the day I mill it
Lt 40 wide with 38hp gas and command controls , F350 4x4 dump and lot of contracting tools

YellowHammer

Quote from: Ed_K on January 31, 2018, 08:34:27 AM
Yellow Hammer, can you explain how the maple should have been sawed. So I can learn, I'm cutting maple to thin the orchard and would like to saw some of it. I'm thinking of keeping the butt logs as they have been tapped. Most trees taken down are 12" to 16" dbh. Mill will only pay pallet on these but sell as character wood.

A good way to get a mix of high quality live edge 8/4 and 4/4 wood from maple is to cut light to get into the sapwood with about a 6 inch clear face, then drop to mill a 4/4  (1 1/8") board to edge later.  Then take two 1 1/8" drops (2 3/8" including blade kerf when using Accuset) to get an 8/4 double live edge slab.  Depending on the log size, take a second.  Stay well away from the heartwood on maple.  Then rotate 180. Then another 4/4 board and then take an 8/4 live edge slab or two again.  The 4/4 boards will be the highest quality in the log because they are shallow sidewood, and the thicker slabs will be stable because they are taken from the prime part of the log, far enough from the heart to be stable, but wide enough to be high value.  Then rotate the remaining fully edged recangular cant 90° to its narrow edge, and take 4/4 or 8/4 edged boards down to the pith and do it again from the other side.  Try to get pure sapwood boards or pure heartwood boards.

The nice thing about this pattern is there are usually only two 4/4 boards to edge per log, the first two ones before the live edge 8/4 slabs, and each log will provide 2 to 4 very high quality, relatively wide, but stable 8/4 live edge slabs.  The remainder of the log will provide stable 8/4 or 4/4 (whatever is your preference) edged boards.  So you may only get 2 to 4 of the 8/4 live edge slabs from each log, but they will be the best the log can offer.  If you saw up several logs, they add up real fast.  This pattern generates very little waste and utilizes almost the whole log.  This wouldn't be the sawing pattern I would use for low value sapwood species such as cherry.  However, it works great with hard or soft maple, mineralized poplar, box elder, etc.

With smaller logs, it be best to forgo the initial 4/4 side wood boards and get the 8/4 live edge slabs with a 6" or so clear face, if thats not too narrow for your use.  Just don't get greedy and try to get too many and stray into the heartwood or pith, or they will behave like the boards you see in my photos.   

Most people try to totally through saw live edge slabs, and cross from sapwood to heartwood to the pith and back out.  This sawing gives the widest boards but they will dry like potato chips. 

Here is another discussion on sawing technique to get high quality boards.

http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,90483.msg1392800.html#msg1392800

YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

PA_Walnut

Nice instructional...may I add: Assuming you are going for higher-grade and best material, get it on sticks--like yesterday. If the temps are over about 50 that stuff, 12 hours after sawing is about too long. Fluted sticks (minimal surface contact) is best. Not wide sticks and not green ones either...dry.

If not, unstack your pile and resticker it with new dry sticks and new locations, after 10-20% moisture loss.

When going for the sapwood like Yellow's indicating, it's the white wood that is desirable and the more white it is, the better. My snowy white curly maple is a labor of love.  ;D smiley_love
I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

Ed_K

 Thanks, I book marked this thd and the drying/sawing dilemma thd. On the 8/4 do I saw thick enough to be able to resaw to 4/4 later if someone wanted 4/4?
Sorry for hijacking this thd. One more question, how long to air dry before sending to a friend to dry kiln.
Ed K

PA_Walnut

If you want nice white maple AND your friend is an experience kiln op, get it in there ASAP. It's the best way to preserve the color. If white isn't your priority and/or you friends kiln experiences aren't up to it (especially with 8/4), air dry it down to a safer level of about 25-30% or so.
I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
LT40HD Wide 35HP Diesel
Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber
Kubota M62 Tractor/Backhoe
WoodMizer KD250 Kiln
Northland 800 Kiln

Brad_bb

This is a good post.  rjwoelk and I have been re-reading and talking about this.  Yellowhammer needed this tool for slabs and raised issues with doing 4/4 boards.  Although I do not sell wood, I have a lot of 4/4 boards(about 9 stickered pallets right now) for my own use that I would like to have the ability to flatten.  They are milled to 1-1/16 inch.   I have a decent number of boards that are 12-14" wide.  So the question is what jointer is best for me?

For most projects a little bit of bow in a board does not matter if the bow can be taken out during assembly with fasteners or tongue and groove type connections.  Only certain situations require a totally flat board.  So I'm thinking a jointer is the solution for me.  I looked up the SCMI jointers like Yellowhammer bought, and even the 16" long bed jointer is $10K.  I like the features Yellowhammer highlighted - long bed, grooved bed to reduce friction.  

Are there any other brand of jointers that offer the long bed and grooved surface?  Of course a spiral cut is a requirement.  A power feeder would be nice as well.
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

tule peak timber

A placard from when I tested the Comatic jointer feeder machine. The few spiral cutterheads I own I don't care for. Tersa straight knife heads work great and are very fast to change. Just my opinion.......

 
persistence personified - never let up , never let down

Brad_bb

Hmm, I have a Byrd shelix on my little planer and it was a big improvement over the straight knives in cut and less sound.  I'm not familiar with the Tersa.  Do you have good info on this?  Why do you have a comatic ad in a picture frame?  Must have been at the equipment dealer I assume?  What was the dealer you used? 
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

tule peak timber

Yes my info is generated here at my business.The ad is about me . I don't use a dealer.
persistence personified - never let up , never let down

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