Cutoff saw for slab wood?

[StorminN]

Hi guys, I didn't know which board to put this in, so I put it here...

I want to build a cutoff saw for the slab wood from my Mobile Dimension saw.

I currently just stack the slab wood in a 12' wooden sawbuck and after a few logs, buck it into firewood lengths. This works OK, but takes some time.

What I'd like to build is a metal sawbuck... a trough, with a pivoting saw at the end. My current thinking is an electric chain saw, on a pivot. I'm wondering if anyone out there is running a home-built electric chain saw? If so, how big of a bar, how big of a motor, what style chain?

The next step up from this would be to put a large chain at the bottom of the trough, the length of the trough, and have a motor that drives this chain, to feed the wood towards the blade... and a couple of micro switches to control the feed motor and the cycle of the chain bar, much like a simplified firewood processor (minus the splitter part).

Anyone out there built something similar?

Thanks,
-Norm.

[ladylake]

I've been thinking along the same lines, I have a 27hp Kohler off the mill which should be more than enough power. But then buying a chipper and making mulch might be more profitable.   Steve

[shinnlinger]

Norm,

It sounds like you have it all figured out....try to score a cheep harvester bar and some mill chain and see what you can come up with.  Hell a garage door opener might just do it.

I dont know if a hydraulic feed/cut setup would be better or not.  They have hydraulic chain saws or stanley saws and I saw a used one for $500 a while back...I think they are 3 large new.

But an old circular crosscut saw setup like they used to belt drive off tractors can ussually be found in the weeds without to much work and that might be a even slicker deal as they already have a table and the blade drops right on it.  All you would have to do is put one of these at the end of your trough and power it however you see fit.  I have seen ones driven off of PTO's turning a tire that rubbed on the old belt drive pulley.   Stick the cub cadet up there and put it to work using the hystat unit to run the feed chain.

At the end of they day though I say use your current set up and build yourself a vermin free house instead.

[Handy Andy]

  I have an old buzz saw in the weeds that I've been thinkin of usin for cuttin wood to length. Only thing that scares me is it has no guard.  Afraid I'd be distracted by the dog or somethin and cut my arm off.  It would fit on the front of my old IH H which has a belt pully and could use a baler belt to power it, and would be cheap to run compared to a chain saw.  Anybody ever seen a guard built on one, seems like you could make one similar to a skill saw guard. 

[Ron Wenrich]

Why use a chain to drag your wood?  A flat belt would work just as well, and would take a piece of any size.  Put an adjustable micro switch that when the sensor gets tripped, you would stop your belt, and cycle your saw. 

Cornell made a system similar to that a number of years ago.  You might still find some of those systems out there.  They have been absorbed by Pendu Corp. 

To see their system work:  http://www.pendu.com/Pages/Sawmill.htm

[Wallys World]

I built a manual cut off slab saw.


You can see it in the back of the picture. I don't have any close up veiws yet. It is a piece og aluminum roller conveyor, the kind a super market used in the meat department. It has a tall edge on one side where i butt the slab up to. I use a 16 inch electric chain saw attacked by a hinge. It has a stop to not let it pivot so far back towards the operator.  The slab rolls along the conveyor to the desired length and just pull up on the saw. You could easily automate this system by using a down pressure drive cog on top of the slab to pull it thru.

[beenthere]

Handy Andy
A couple pieces of plywood for sides to the guard, screwed/glued to a curved separator the shape of the saw, and hinged to stay put when the saw advances should help. Or rig it to ride on the wood being cut.

[StorminN]

Shinnlinger,

I've got a big enough bar and chain off of my old 041, I was thinking of using that. I was going to go all-electric if I could, since I'm better with electrics than hydraulics, and I have more electric parts... motors, switches, etc... and I was going to save my hydraulics for the bed of my mill.

Not so many old buzzsaws in the weeds out here... it's not like New England. Heck, if I was back there, I bet my uncle still has the firewood saw that he used to drag behind his Farmall. As far as the current setup goes... it IS working OK, it's just time consuming... and the more time I spend cleaning up around the mill, the less time I get to mill, or build, or do other stuff... and BTW, the mice are at my place on the bay, not at the place I'm building... no varmints there yet...

-Norm.

[StorminN]

Why use a chain to drag your wood?  A flat belt would work just as well, and would take a piece of any size.  Put an adjustable micro switch that when the sensor gets tripped, you would stop your belt, and cycle your saw.

Ron,

When I said chain, I meant a larger chain with some ears welded to it, similar to the kind this firewood processor, but on a smaller scale:

Woodbine Firewood Processor


And exactly like you said, I was thinking of a metal plate at the end, with a micro switch under it... the chain would feed, the wood would hit the plate, trip the switch, and the cycle would start... when the bar came back up, the chain would feed again and the cycle would repeat. The plate would be mounted to frame that could be adjusted for firewood length... say 16", 18" etc.

-Norm.

[sparky]

I am thinking of building a cutoff saw as well. I bought a 36" chainsaw bar and chain at a swap meet for $5. I intend to put a hydraulic motor on it as I have hydraulics on the mill already and I have some motors on the shelf. I expect to make it operational for a very small investment.

Sparky

[Handy Andy]

  Stormin, my old buzzsaw is in Kansas.  You see them on sales pretty regular. My dad's generation didn't have chainsaws, they had those old crosscut saws with handles on both ends, and buzzsaws they ran with wc allis's.  Crank start.  Jim

[solidwoods]

Chip it.
Pwr feed it to a burner that makes hot water for heat.
Or sell the chips.

A problem with cutting slabs is they kick back easy.
jim

[Bibbyman]

Here is a link to a chain saw cutoff machine made by Morgan Chops saw.  The page has a you-tube video of it working.

Morgan Chain Bar Cut-off saw

[Wannabee Sawyer]

Really good information for a new member.  Thanks.  I am sure that I will enjoy this forum for ideas as I hope to expand my operation

[mike_van]

I had a buzzsaw & used it for years. To work well, you really, really need 3 people. One sets or hands the piece to the one pushing the table back & forth, the third holds the cut off  piece & throws it on the pile. You can get by with 2, but it's slower.  I've settled on the chainsaw method now, I just have 2 bunks about 28" wide & deep. Slabs off the mill get piled in them, trying to keep one end flush or even. When they're full, I either tie the bundle & move it with the tractor or saw right there. A 28" bar goes right down through the stack, 5 cuts, a load of 10 footers is in pieces. Then you have to pick them all up. This methood always  nets some short ones, as the slabs will overlap, etc.  There's short ones in there too.       Nice link Bibby, thats a slick working cutoff saw in that video.   Pricey though, I imagine? 

[mike_van]

The Morgan Bar - Cutoff  saw is 7900.00   

[thecfarm]

Wannaabee Sawyer,welcome to the forum.What kind of operation do you plan on expanding?How long you been sawing?What kind of mill you have?Do you custom saw?

[hunt_x]

I like the buzz saw the best if you set it up so it swings with a air cylinder and a foot-valve you can feed the slabs of rollers the ones from breweries and soda pop plants are the best if you can find them.
Dave in Vic

[StorminN]

Hey Hunt_x,

I like the buzzsaw idea to, but I don't have one. What I do have and what I scrapped out today is an old Stihl 041 with a 32" bar, I'm going to see if I can make a go of it with that one. I also found a couple of pieces of roller track like you're talking about... still collecting parts...

-Norm.

[hunt_x]

a circular cross cut saw parts wood better than a chain saw with that in mind if you are cutting straight slabs, the slabs off yur 128 cant be thicker than 4" you can get a cross cut blade for a 10" or even a 12" radial arm saw pretty *DanG cheap and cut some reverse thread on say 2 hp electric motor and bolt the blade on the motor direct. build a crude and simple frame hang that  motor from a like 2x2 swing arm from the frame and pull that saw thru the slab on one way push the slab ahead 18" push it back making the next cut. with a bit of cable and some old window weights you could set up a little gravity assist for it this set up is pretty dangerous if unguarded but pretty ergonomic and makes processing slabs into firewood much less of a chore.
Dave in Vic

[Ron Wenrich]

We always called them a swing saw.  The old ones had a handle on the side and you just pulled it to cut slabs or board ends.  Weights would always keep it back out of the way.

You can buy a used newer model for $1-2000 with power.  I saw one that was a little more expensive with live infeed and outfeed.

[bandmiller2]

Have any of you guys built a shear to cut slab ,if you have hydraulics no big deal ,no teeth to sharpen and their quiet.Frank C.

[Sawyerfortyish]

I have a cornell slabsaw that works just like the one in the video link that Ron put on here. All these other saws require an operator. The cornell saw does not. You throw the slab in the trough and walk away. You can run your mill and cut the slabs at the same time. The only drawback is you need 3 phase power to run it. I have not used my slabsaw since I put a mulch grinder inline 5 years ago. I put the slabsaw in a barn and would like to clean the barn out for other uses.  The saw blade on my slabsaw is a carbide blade but I also have an inserted tooth blade that used the same teeth as my headsaw. Before I had the slabsaw we used a set of rollers and a block of wood for a stop and a man with a chainsaw and a rubber belt conveyor to carry away and stack the cut slabs . That worked ok but would never be able to keep up with the volume I saw today. As for the cornell slabsaw I out grew that too. The mulch grinder was the best thing I put in to get rid of all the waste. The problem I had with slab wood was that people would come in pick through the slabs make a mess while there kids ran playing over my log piles. I got rid of that liability when I got rid of the slab wood and now I sell everything instead of having a big pile of junk wood spread all over the place in the spring.

[Tom]

I think that it was in Moultrie that I saw a rig a fellow was trying to sell as a firewood saw.  It was still looking kind of home-made but he was proud of it.   He had a roller table set up with a bit of a frame on one end.  On this frame, he had attached a relatively small chainsaw.  It was hooked on there by the tip of its bar and was eithr spring loaded or cantelevered such that, when he turned it loose, the engine would swing to the top of an arc. 

He would put a slab or small log on the roller bed and feed it off of the end. When it was the right length, he had stops out there, he would reach up and get the handle of the chainsaw, rev it up and pull the engine down through the slab or small log.  Yep, He had invented the "Chop Saw".  :D   But it worked. 

[cheyenne]

 check out baileys they have what they call the smart holder for firewood for $100 bucks and it's the slickest tool i have. load it up with slabs, chop with chain saw. works great and it folds up for storage