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CNC Flattening

Started by Stephen1, January 11, 2022, 10:55:31 AM

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Stephen1

I am looking at the next step in my Custom Sawing and Kiln Drying buisness. My carpenter friend see the potential in my buisness. He has the chance to rent a industrial unit in the same building I'm in, making it a potentially nice co-existance. Right now  I send all my purchasers to neighbouring carpenters, for flattening, building, sanding and finnishing of the material. 
I am thinking along the lines of a CNC flattner. Reasonable cost, I can use a CNC to value add to my slabs by pre flattning for my in house sales. The carpenter can use to flatten tables, cnc cabinet parts for custom work. 
Lumber I can send down the road to be finnished S4S. 
What are the different CNC flatners out there?
What are the different Wide planers out there?
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boonesyard

 popcorn_smiley Looking forward to responses. We are are currently looking at adding something to flatten slabs as well.

I've looked at the Wood-Wiz, Woodmizer Slabmizer, the Black Horse Designs flattener, and a number of different CNC machines. New CNCs large enough to do the job can get real pricey real fast. I don't know enough about the used CNC market to know what I don't know.  
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Larry

Locally we have one guy with the Slabmizer and another with the Wood-Wizz.  I've watched both run and can't see much difference.  Both require an operator.  The owners seemed happy.

At one time we had a guy running a Komo cnc with a table about as big as a football field $$$$'s.  He could do a lot more besides flatten.  He could turn a square edge into a convincing live edge.  Cut miters and sink cutouts on counter tops.  Machine the key shaped slots for counter top bolts.  Machine the top to accept a field installed backsplash.  Probably more I'm forgetting.  And the machine worked while he was busy doing something else. 
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.

JoshNZ

A CNC table big enough for the slabs you intend to flatten will be an ultimate machine for you. You could have a folder full of gcode files named with the approximate area they cover and choose the one slightly larger than the slab you throw on the bed. Or you can take a photo of awkward shaped slabs and trace around it roughly in your cad program and make that the tool path boundary. Either way you can set it up pretty efficiently to skim slabs without you even needing to watch it.

Equally as easy to drive it manually, you can get remote controllers with a joystick or just drive it with the arrow keys on a keyboard.

I was going to build a slab flattening machine and I eventually realised what id be building is just a low quality CNC table lol though I wouldve made it more oriented towards flattening, less precise in positioning and lower speed higher torque spindle etc. What stopped me buying a CNC for that job was I'd want to do slabs longer than a full sheet CNC table (2.4m) which is where the price really starts hiking. So we got a smaller 600x900mm which suits our little projects and the flattening machine will come later.

A drum sander would be the other thing you could consider. I've not seen many planers around wider than 20". It is a bit of work with a planer to get a slab with no flat sides to reference, flat on one side too, you need a sled and shims etc etc..

If you have the opportunity to get your hands on a CNC table and the numbers work for you, it'll be a great tool

metalspinner

Just flattening and thicknessing?? Wouldn't a swing mill do that? Build a base, cut the base dead level with the mill, then load slabs and start flattening. 
 The quality of surface finish would be a big decision factor.
I do what the little voices in my wife's head tell me to do.

rusticretreater

Wouldn't a spiral head planer do the job as well?  Many older ones hit the market regularly.  It all depends on what size slabs you will be handling.  Even the big ones would be less expensive than the CNC table. Yeah, I know, it lacks the cool factor.
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JoshNZ

The only trouble with a planer is you need to stop a slab with a non-flat base from rocking around as it moves through the pressure rollers. It needs to be secured to a sled that is flat bottomed, and shimmed at its high places so it won't move. Once one side is flat you flip it and use it as per normal

boonesyard

We have a 22" Powermatic planer, and have flattened many slabs using a planer sled. If you're just doing a few, it works OK if they fit. The problem is heavy slabs are a real pain to deal with moving them back and forth, and anything over 8' long and more than 2" thick is just too heavy to handle. For any kind of production for large slabs, a single head planer is not the answer.  
LT50 wide
Riehl Steel Edger
iDRY Standard kiln
BMS 250/BMT 250
JD 4520 w/FEL
Cat TH255 Telehandler
lots of support equipment and not enough time

"I ain't here for a long time, I'm here for a good time"

Hilltop366

The trick would be to put the planer head on rails and handle the slab once per side, now you can plane wider too by making the planer move sideways as long as you can remove everything on the planer head that hangs down below the cutters.

escott58

New here and learning already. Never heard of CNC Flattening but can now see what it's related to (I think).

I was just wondering what MC% you all dry to before doing a major machining operation like planing or flattening?

Crusarius

I love the idea of CNC flattening. However, nothing against any of the companies making them but they all seem to have forgotten the number one most important part of CNC. It stands for COMPUTER numeric control. 

So when I see slab flattening CNC with a joystick and no way of programming it, I think that is an NC and something is missing here. so basically you have a router sled that is limited in size and you still have to manually operate it making it no better than a router sled but costing a considerable amount more and taking up a very large valuable area of the shop.

If you are going to spend money on CNC slab flattening. You should get a programmable CNC and as mentioned above you can have generic files setup for slab sizes. Unfortunately, this is not the perfect setup but it sure beats manually running the head using a joystick.

A CNC can be used for alot of things. One of the best and most valuable time saving could be machining bowties and bowtie pockets. There are many CAD softwares available that are pretty easy to learn and use. Especially if you are just doing basic line drawings. Some software even lets you scan images then assign toolpaths.

Crusarius

I had delusions of grandeur after I built my sawmill. I figured I would be making and selling slabs. Of course, things change as time goes on.

Since I was planning on surfacing alot of slabs I decided to build my own CNC. I had zero experience with anything other than operating a CNC. But hey, my sawmill was the same way except I had even less experience with that. Now I have a sawmill and a CNC.

I used v1engineerings plans for a CNC machine. It is a very basic machine that uses 3/4" EMT conduit for the rails and 3dprinted parts. Very simple and effective. I quickly learned it was not nearly rigid enough and it was set aside for future tinkering since I was to busy.

I 3d printed the parts at work and ordered most of the hardware from V1engineering. here is how it came out.

Here is the picture of the full CNC as it sat during testing.


 

this is just a closeup of some of the parts and the test


 

Overall, it was a fun project that was quite a bit easier than I expected.

rusticretreater

I have a home built cnc machine too.  They are amazingly accurate even when they are cobbled together machines.

Viewing the slab miser and the wood wizz online, I am of the opinion that they are way overpriced for what they are.  You can build a similar machine for much less or buy one.  

As for large planers, powermatic and grizzly are prevalent.  There is always old iron for sale and some are huge.  

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Crusarius

When I was testing my CNC it was just set on the bench. That picture shows 2 passes with the marker. I was very impressed at the repeatability. And it was totally cobbed together :)

wkf94025

Quote from: metalspinner on January 12, 2022, 10:26:40 PM
Just flattening and thicknessing?? Wouldn't a swing mill do that? Build a base, cut the base dead level with the mill, then load slabs and start flattening.  The quality of surface finish would be a big decision factor.

My Lucas 7-23 has a planing head and sanding head, which I have yet to use.  With the extended rails (20'+6') and about 60" cutting width, I can theoretically plane and/or sand some pretty big slabs.  Of course CNC can do far more than just flat surfaces, but if the goal is simply flattening large pieces of wood, doesn't the Lucas approach or the DIY equivalent accomplish the task?

I have a 15" and 20" helical planer, but for the slabs I've already cut, and those ahead, even a 20" width is too small.

Quote from: escott58 on January 13, 2022, 12:41:17 PM
I was just wondering what MC% you all dry to before doing a major machining operation like planing or flattening?
Anyone?
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JoshNZ

Depends on the purpose of the slab. If it's a rustic type outdoor bar leaner then probably pretty high. Vanities with epoxy finish then lower, whatever inside humidity is. I skimmed and finished a 100mm thick slab only 3 months after milling it, figured it'd end up as firewood it was just for a bbq we were having but it has been used time and time again, on trestles, neat piece of party furniture.

I didn't know any of the cncs weren't programmable, I think it's just easier to drive it than spend the time producing a toolpaths sometimes but of course you can always plot a path within boundaries and leave it to it. I'd certainly do that with the bigger slabs.

Yeah I think a swing mill with a flattening head on it would be awesome as well.

Ianab

Basically I see 4 levels of "slab flattening"

1 - is a fully manual router bridge, using a handheld router on some sort of sled. I works, but you have 2 or 3 hp, so a limited cut, and it's all manual. It's cheap, and it works. 

2 - is a planer blade on a swing mill. Same idea. It's still manual, but you have 13+hp to drive a bigger cutter, so you can work faster.

3 -  is a motorised version. Probably has a simple computer to drive it, but you can't program it to do anything clever, as no "z axis" and fancy stuff to do lettering and patterns. 

4 - a full CNC machine. You can fit that with a fly cutter, and program it to simpy skim a slab, That's only suing a fraction of it's capabilities, but it can do that job, and also carve a logo and lettering into the piece, along with all sorts of clever stuff. 

I guess the difference in cost between option 3 and 4 isn't huge. All the heavy engineering has been done for option 3. A couple of thousand more and you have a smarter computer and a cutter with  Z axis control. I can see the logic there. But if all you are ever going to do with it is flatten slabs? Option 4 has more business  options of course.

Of course there is also going the other option that you could buy whole Swigr mill, with a chain slabber and a planer blade for about the same $ as a dedicated planer. 

Right machine for YOUR business....
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Don P

I've used the planer head on the Lucas swing mill a fair amount. It can flatten quite well, it is not a finish but it is dead flat. We first skip plane the tops of the well bedded heavy bunks. Then put the slab or beams or whatever on the bunks and shim any twist till it is stable. For beams I'll start crown up with 5 or 6, clamped together on the ends. If its light screw some low "dogs" of scrap to the bunks.

We can do about 3" wide x up to 1/4" deep per pass. It is basically end milling and depending on how well you're dialed in there are lap marks so it would still need a wide belt, drum or stroke sander behind it. Not having those we make do with hand sanders but that is not high end.

With your setup I would try to keep dry milled beams in the potential mix if you are catering to carpenters. We have done as many timbers as slabs on the Lucas, but I'm a carpenter so there's bias in that advice.

Crusarius

so after responding to this thread, I got back into my want to build a good slab flattening CNC. In the process of designing, it I found a free open-source online software called Kiri moto.

If anybody is thinking about CNC and want to know how easy it can be to use I highly recommend checking out Kiri moto. I did not know it existed until today.

metalspinner

I've been thinking...
CNC plasma cutters are much more readily available especially on the used market. 
If one were to build their own CNC router, using the plasma as a base would get you 90% the way down the path?? 
They are heavily built. I think fabricating and switching out to a cutting spindle or router would be a simple task. 
Looking at local used sources here there are three units 4x8 under 10k and one 4x4 under 3k. 
Did I just talk my way into another project??
I do what the little voices in my wife's head tell me to do.

Crusarius

metalspinner. the only difference between a CNC router and plasma is most of the plasma tables have a manual Z height adjust. other than that you are correct its the same CNC technology and parts.

customsawyer

I have 3 different machines I use for slab flatting. My go to for 95% of what I do is a 30" Cantek double surfacer. It doesn't use feed rollers but rather a carpet type of feed system that is almost the full length of the machine. There is also almost 4' from the bottom head to the top head. This gives the piece lots of room to get stable. It does have trouble with a piece if it is twisted. When this happens I run the piece across the 20" jointer to get a small flat reference face and then take it to the Cantek. Third I have the WM Slabmizer. This is used if the piece is over 30" wide. The biggest draw back to the Slabmizer is that it is slow. I can run 75-80 slabs twice through the Cantek in the time it takes to plane 2 boards on the Slabmizer. The Cantek was about 10 grand more than the Slabmizer.
How wide of slabs are you looking to flatten?
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Crusarius

customsawyer, if you were to be able to just set it up and walk away would that make the slabmizer a better option for flattening? Or would the slow speed still be an issue and not get used?

customsawyer

I think that is actually a option on them now. I think it would slow the process down some but it would free you up to do something else. Keep in mind that on the wider slabs any cup is magnified by the extra width. So your first few passes are normally on just a couple of corners or in the middle due to cup. So I'm able to just skip around hitting the high points. Once you get to where you are almost cleaning up the entire slab then the auto feature would be nice. Trouble is by then you are enjoying seeing the grain in the board and couldn't walk away anyhow. ;D
Some slabs will start to lift a corner as you are planing on such a small section at any given moment. I like to be right there to keep a eye on things.
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

Walnut Beast

Is that Cantek three phase 

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