Edger or cants?

[Satamax]

Hi everybody. 

Well, i was just wondering. 

What is the fastest. To make  cants and cut planks and beams from that? 

Or to have a big edger, either bandsaw type, or circular saw. 

There a bandsaw mill, not far from me, with a free chariot. That you hand feed. 

My main saw is this. 

VID 20170814 110822 - YouTube

Thanks guys. 

[LeeB]

I don't have an edger and edge on the mill. Sawing boards from a cant is fast but if you only make a cant you will throw away good boards that could be taken until you reach the cant size you are after. It's those boards that I edge on the mill. If you are suggesting to take all available cuts with a live edge and then edge those with a dedicated edger I think it would easier to still take jacket boards until you square off a cant and edge only what you have to. I'm sure others that do have an edger can give you better advice.

[Stuart Caruk]

I have and prefer both. Let's say you need a whack of 1" x 12" boards, and you have logs bucked to length. With 17" or 18" logs you make an opening cut about 2 1'2" under the bark, throw away the opening bark cut,  flip 90 degrees, repeat, another 90 and bring it to 12" wide, repeat, stand it up and figure 1" plus kerf cuts to the bed. With accuset pattern mode is your selection of choice. Make the opening cut, and after that you can saw to the deck or dragback (my choice) and stack while sawing the next board.

With bigger logs, say a 30" log, this doesn't work. You make the opening cut, then 2 0r 3 1" live edge flitches that you can run through the edger to finish. Eventually the boards are too wide to go through the edger, so you repeat the process until you saw the can't. Run what you can through the edger, as it's faster, then drag the rest back on the mill to trim up.

Interestingly Lately I am getting a ton of requests for hundreds of 2" or 2.5" wide 1" thick boards. They take forever to saw on an edger so I price them at $1.95 BF. When making beams, I just make a bunch of 1" thick slabs. When I take the beam off, I drag these slabs back on 4 at a time and saw down in pattern mode taking 4 batts off each time. Turns out that this PITA job pays about $400 / hr... something I used to swear I would never do is now a simple task. On an edger this would take forever...

[Satamax]

Stuart. That would be a job for a multi blade. In France, we have the brand "Costa" 

Guys in big sawmill here,; produce a lot of  4x8 cm. (3" 1/8 x 1" 5/8) to nail the roofig steel!   350€ for a cubic meter. 

[longtime lurker]

Everything depends on volume, sizes and setup.

I've got a multirip....circular saws, 110mm/4½" capacity. For things like 75 x 38 batten it's pretty hard to beat.... cut a cant 75mm/3" deep and send it through and watch the magic happen: it effectively triples production when its running

I've run the numbers a lot on a sash gang resaw:  Logosol make a little one but I think the Drozdowski WRP-58 is the pick of them, unless you can justify a big EWD/Esterer or Linkbelt or similar.

A lot depends on whether you want grade or just tonnage: I think with grade you're still better with a single hob feed resaw complete with linebar & roundabout.  The thing with any multisaw - and it doesnt matter if it's a sash saw, thin kerf circular multirip, or a 12 inch bull edger, is they sure punch tons but you can blow a lot of grade timber into pallet along the way. But if you can make enough wood fast enough thats not necessarily a problem.

I really like that WRP-58.... one of those behind your bandmill is a huge production boost.

[nativewolf]

@longtime lurker Out of curiousity, what do you like so much about the WRP 58?

[longtime lurker]

I think its the right size, which is more a default and I dont know much about what else is out there.

The Logosol/Laks framesaw is i think too light for what we do here. The Australian Logosol rep has been playing with one for quite a few years and his numbers are.... everything they should be in pine and the low and mid density hardwoods, but underwhelming in the harder eucalypt species. And it's just light, as in mostly I think I want to see more steel in production equipment. But bang for buck its just like the logosol planer/moulders.... yeah its not a weinig but theres a lot of capacity for what you pay, and if I was cutting a different species mix I'd be looking at one hard.

A big old Esterer, or Linkbelt, or Marathon etc.... is way overkill for me. Great saws for sure and even though they're mostly long in the tooth they can still punch tons and are well nigh indestructible. But I suspect if I cut cants from Monday to Friday lunchtime I might almost keep one fed from Friday lunchtime to beer o'clock, and we quit at 3 on Fridays. :D Just too much saw for my operation, and I never want to be that big that its not.

That kind of leaves the Drozdowski in the middle.... more capacity and more robust than the Logosol, doesnt need 80 ton of foundation and MMBF's of wood like the big girls. I'd really like to be able to access one for a play.

[Satamax]

We see esterer's gang saws quite often on leboncoin in france. 

I dont think i would buy one. 

Here's the one i was talking about. 

https://www.leboncoin.fr/equipements_industriels/1625939473.htm/

[longtime lurker]

To me that looks like a vertical band resaw. The one I'm talking about is the sash gang/ gatter type saw with a whole lot of vertical saws held in a frame, like this:

Esterer saw video - YouTube

It's old old technology, but very accurate and minimal kerf loss. Slow feed but many cuts so production is deceptively high. One of the reasons they appeal to me is that if it could be set up right you could run it simultaneous with the headsaw... saw a flitch, start it in the framesaw, be sawing the next flitch or stacking while the framesaw does it's thing. I've only ever seen one and it was a lot bigger than the video in a large softwood mill but I think they would be a very efficient and effective producer in a one or two man operation.

[Satamax]

Longtime Lurker. 

I know what you're talking about.  But wanted to get back on track!  ;D

Basically, the vertical band resaw is often used as an edger round my neck of the woods. 

I should admit, i didn't pay attention, this one is powered. While the usual type has roller tracks, and twin chariot. Where the chariot is two parts, and these run each side of the blade, in synchronicity, due to the rollers underneath.  Which have four conical wheels ( the contrary of a trapezoidal belt pulley) 

Well, this one is not too far. Cheap'ish.  But i don't need it that much, and may be i don't have enough space. I was just wondering if it could be a sensible addition to what i have.

Thanks a lot to all of youses guys.