timber planer

[Jim_Mc_Dade]

Hi, does any one have info on a timber planer that would rides on a band mill track to clean up a cut from a band mill.  I once saw a home made version that rode on a carriage that worked like a band mill.  Any leads would be helpful. thanks

[Tom]

I heard of a fellow, locally, that attached a heavy duty router to a Wood Mizer head to groove logs for his log cabin.  But, I've not heard of a planer.

[Jim_Rogers]

When I was at the logging equipment show in Bangor Maine a year ago May, we saw a fellow walk up to the Woodmizer tent with this beam planer.
He asked Dave to cut out a 12" wide beam so he could demonstrate his planer.
Dave did and I took these photos:




Above is the planer traveling down the beam by itself.
Below is a closer view:



Here is a shot of his patented beam rollers:



This machine isn't cheap and it's well made.
He said, the inventor and owner of the patent, he uses his every day. He mills and cuts timbers for timber frame houses.
He said he planes just enough timbers for what joinery he's going to cut that day.
His web site has a video of the planer planing a beam in his shop. It's only a few seconds long but you can see it in action.
The cost for this machine is around $1800.
If you're interested I can send you his web page address.
Jim Rogers

[Jim_Rogers]

If your beams don't have faces that are truly 90° to each other you can adjust this planer to cut deeper on one side the the other and this will help you to "true up" your beam.

If you are timber framing and using square rule joinery you really don't need all faces to be truly 90° to each other as this type of joinery allows you to compensate for timbers that aren't true. Only one face and one arris have to be very straight and true. And there are ways to compensate for these two not being straight and true, also.

Most of the time, planing timbers for timber framing is for "looks", that is to make the timbers in a house frame look nice.

We were told at the timber framing school in Maine about the previous women customers coming back to the school owner and complaining about not being able to keep their house clean, the timbers clean that is. As the dust would settle into the rough pores of the rough sawn timbers and no matter how hard they tried to "clean" these overhead beams they always seemed to appear dirty or dusty.
After having heard this complaint many times he changed his business so that when constructing houses he would only use planed timbers. Once stained and finished these frames were easy to keep clean, by the women of the house.
Since that time I have advised all who are interested in constructing timber frame homes to suggest to the client to go with planed timbers.

Jim Rogers

[logman]

Jim, I'd like that web address too if you don't mind sending
it.  Thanks

[Jim_Mc_Dade]

Thanks for the photos Jim R.  Its looks like it works well, but what I had in mind was using the planer on a carriage so you would not have lift it on or off the timber.  It would function more like a jointer-planer.  If I recall the fellow used a salvaged planer head(holds the knives) set up with bearings on the ends and driven with a motor(engine).  I had his website on my old pc and it was lost in the conversion to the new.  Thanks for the replies, I will keep looking Jim Mc Dade

[WyMan]

I am thinking of having my sawyer do what you first said and put a head on his mill.  I got the idea from the Cutting Edge sawmill guys in British Columbia.  They offer an option of a planer head to run on their sawmill track.  I don't know if their unit would fit on a different brand or not.

Since I am now the proud papa of 9 semi loads of fairly large dead standing doug fir, I intend to cut it to beams and want the capability to plane the large beams for timber framing.

I would appreciate the web site for the hand planer shown above and the one you mentioned you lost.

[BrianSimmons]

Have you seen this one?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67229&item=3841650362&rd=1
You could buy a phase converter and put it to work. It is not mine and I know nothing about it. Just thought I would share since I ran across it.

[Jeff]

Jim, Please post the link here if you would. I would like to take a look.

[Engineer]

http://www.huntertimberframe.com/planer/default.htm

Jim sent me this link a couple months ago.

FWIW, Makita also makes a 12-1/2" beam planer that sells for about the same.  Both the Hunter model and the Makita use standard off-the-shelf planer blades.

Here's a link to the Makita: http://www.timberwolftools.com/tools/makita/M-KP312.html