low tech edgers?

[Dan_Shade]

I think it takes me as much time dealing with flitches, as it does working with the whole log.

I keep going through cheap ways to make an edger, i'm thinking a shaft with two circular saw blades, or are they too thin and will break on any bind?  maybe a hand crank feed roller to input and output.  I don't need real high production, my saw is pretty slow as it is, it just kills my time to reload and fiddle with the flitches to make them into boards.

any ideas?  or anybody wanna give me an edger? ;)

[dail_h]

   I have a NORWOOD edgemate,may be more than you want to spendthough.Sawmill exchange has some fairly inexpensive ones listed.I hate edgeing on the mill

[Dan_Shade]

my volume isn't high enough to justify spending too much cash on an edger, but man, it makes me nuts edging on my saw.  i just get tired of handling flitches :(  i'm plain wore out by the time it comes to doing that.  I end up tossing half of them in the slab pile so I do'nt have to mess with them

(of course i'm talking junk wood)

[tnlogger]

 dan check out sawmillexcange.com there are a lot of edgers on the all over the country and cheap too  ;D

[UNCLEBUCK]

I have ripped hayracks full of flitches that were too wide for my old belsaw edger with my little skilsaw with the 7-1/4" thin blade and it cuts them like butter , mostly 1 inch thick boards but it goes as fast as I can walk . I hang a flitch over the side of the hayrack and quick clamp it ,snap a chalk line and cruise . I thought I would have melted that skilsaw but it just keeps on chuggin . I have even mounted it under the hayrack floor and pushed the blade up through the wood flooring so it sticks up as high as it will go and had me a instant table saw but also a portable poor mans edger or sometimes I clamp a vise grip to the skilsaw for ripping narrow boards .

[Rod]

I saw some were here where a guy had a tablesaw and he made a sled were he put the board on it and ran it though the table saw.I'd think if you had 2 able saws you could cut both edges at the same time.

[Bibbyman]

Wood-Mizer at one time made a handy little single blade edger that could loaded into a pu.  It didn't cost much.  But they dropped it.  If a body could find one for sale,  it surely be a bargain.

But if you're sawing alone,  an edger is pretty much a convenience.  They only add to production when there is another person shoving flitchs through it while the sawyer is sawing.

There are a couple of methods of edging that, if you're not using already,  could help. 

One trick is to leave the flitches on the mill and stack in between the cant and back supports (or clamp) when you turn the cant.  Thus, you'd be edging the flitch while you're making the next board.  Get one edge clean, turn and put the other edge up.  Take out when both edges are clean.

We did that sometimes when we had a manual mill and no edger.

We still edge some thick and long stuff on the mill rather than run it though the edger.  We'll push the flitches over onto the loading arms and when the can't is down to less than 6" tall,  we'll slide one or more flitchs at a time against the cant and edge them. 

I've known people to save their flitchs up until they don't have any more room and then edge them.  I never bought into this.  I like to get done with a log and go on to the next one.