I have a question?

[macurtis]

Has anyone built a home made edger? I think with a little
planning, head scratching and a little --s scratching it
could be done.  What do you think?

[Ron Wenrich]

I think you would have a lot less grief if you went out and bought a decent, used edger.  

At the sawmill exchange, they have edgers as cheap as $2K and go all the way to $12K for a big gang edger.  There's a nice portable Marathon with power for $4K with only 20 hrs on it.   http://www.sawmillexchange.com/commerc.htm

You can run into several engineering problems when building your own.  We're having problems with our vertical edger, and it is taking some re-engineering to get the problems solved.  Factory built, but poorly designed.

If you have to have any machine work done, it'll blow your costs out of the water.  You also have to know what safety equipment to put on.  Anti-kickback fingers are a must.

[Texas Ranger]

A retired mill wright here in Texas built an edger to go with his wood mizer, trailed it like the wood mizer, and spent a good deal of time on it.  Worked fine, but took all his skill to build it and make it work.  I think he used an old wore out edger from one of the local mills, rebuilt it, and made the trailer.

[D._Frederick]

I designed and build an edger from scratch. It has two blades, one moveable and one fixed and has 10 hp motor. I have a veriable speed drive. I have over a 1000 in machining cost, with a total of about 3500. I am still working on a few bugs in my design. If I had to do it again, I would by used and rework it. Would have less headaches.

[Bud Man]

Macurtis   Take "Elvis" To see one  , give him the parts, an hourly $pay raise  , get out of his way for 1 or 2 days, and give him a bonus for building it.  I bet he'll build It, off-load everything you can cut, edge It, sticker, stack, tally bd.ft, re-attach the mill, and be sitting in the truck  waiting for you to collect your Greenbacks from the customer for your day's effort.        "Elvis is alive and well and works for Macurtis, has an above average IQ and a work effort rating off the charts   !!