untrue cants

tbook · April 07, 2007, 10:21:11 PM

I have a hudson manual mill and am having trouble cutting square cants. I put a square on the log dogs and measured the head from the tracks. Please help.

Radar67 · April 07, 2007, 10:37:02 PM

Have you adjusted the blade guides? Made sure the blade is running parallel to the bed? Are you flipping the log 180 degrees after the first cut, or 90 degrees? I had a little trouble when I first started cutting on my Hudson, but a good tuning solved it.

Stew

Brad_S. · April 07, 2007, 10:40:33 PM

When you rotate a cant 180° after making a cut, is your blade still parallel to the top of the cant? If so, it is likely a post problem. If not, then your guide arm probably isn't parallel to the bed and needs adjusting.
I see Radar67 beat me to the post button., so I'll expand a little. :D

You mentioned you measured the head from the tracks, did you measure blade from a log bunk? I use a rigid metal ruler, the kind that comes in those adjustable angle squares, and arbitrarily picked the 3" mark to do my calibrating. Open the guide arm as far as it will go and measure just inside the guides at the extreme left and extreme right. The numbers should be the same. If not, adjusting the one of the guides to bring it in line will fix it. Before you do that though, close the guide and repeat the measurement. If what you measure now is the same as when it was open, then at least you know the guide arm is aligned and the problem can be fixed by adjusting one of the guide blocks or rollers. If the numbers are altogether different, then the arm is suspect and you'll need to refer to your manufacturers literature for help. When tweaking in your guides, make sure you measure the leading edge and the trailing edge of the blade (in other words, the front and back) so that the entire body of the blade is running parallel to the bed, not just the leading edge. Adjusting guides can be a real test of patience, one little tweak here throws off what you just did there. :-\

tbook · April 07, 2007, 10:54:32 PM

Thanks for the replys. I have been flipping 90 degrees and kinda ruled out guide problems b/c I have measured from the log bed to the blade. If I'am missing something I'am all ears

Radar67 · April 07, 2007, 11:13:52 PM

You should flip 180 after your opening cut. It is easier to snug the flat face up to the dogs when you make your third turn (90). If the blade is running true to the bed, your cant should be equal if you flip 180 for your second cut. Then flip 90 and make sure the log is flush with the dogs. On the fourth cut, flip 180 again and you should have a square cant.

I also found the relying just on the bed stops will allow the cant to rise up a little on the blade entrance side when you get boards coming off and the cant starts to get lighter. I use the dogs regardless. I will admit that the Hudson dogs leave a little to be desired and will be a future mod on my mill, just haven't figured out how I want to do it. Hope this helps. By the way, where are you from?

Stew

Brian_Rhoad · April 07, 2007, 11:49:37 PM

Make sure your cants are flat, not crowned. Use a straight edge across the log to check for flatness. If the log is crowned it can roll when you dog it causing an out of square cut. Too much hook angle on hardwoods causes the blade to rise and give a crowned face on the log

Cedarman · April 08, 2007, 08:00:48 AM

One day my sawyer came to me and said, he could not get the WM to saw square. He had been working on it for an hour. I checked his cant and sure enough it was out of square. Being a former math teacher, I knew that if 3 angles of the cant were 90 degrees, then the 4 th had to be 90. It wasn't. We checked the square. It wasn't 90 degrees. With a new square, wasn't long before we made square cants.

It's Sunday morning and I have a good bit of time.

Could have just said make sure your square is square.

tbook · April 08, 2007, 10:45:38 AM

Been hauling logs today haven't been able to try out my new advice. Hopefuly this evening I can.Rader67 I'am in the northeast corner of Nebraska.

Tom · April 08, 2007, 12:56:52 PM

An overlooked problem with unsquare cants is having unsquare squaring-dogs. A syptom can be induced by clamping too hard and moving the squareness of the dogs or lifting the cant off of the bed.

customsawyer · April 08, 2007, 09:23:08 PM

When measuring your blade to the bunks make sure you measure from a tooth that is set in the down position as you are looking at the blade.

arj · April 08, 2007, 09:55:51 PM

I have had that problem on my oscar 36 also. Did two things to fix it. The problem was the
stops were not square to the bed after turning a few 3000 lb logs. Not the strongest stops
but adequate. Cut some small wedges to put between the cant and the stop, used a small
level verticaly to check square. If the bed is level horizonatly then when the flat side is level
veritcaly it should come out square. The second thing I did was to make my own stops out
of pipe, short so you could put a larger taller pipe over it to turn large logs. Made short pipes
with a nut welded to the top, and a T handeled theaded rod so I could adjust by turning the
handle and not need to play with wedges.

Don`t have a good picture of the adjuster, will try to get better pics if any one would like
to see them

arj

Brad_S. · April 08, 2007, 10:51:45 PM

Quote from: customsawyer on April 08, 2007, 09:23:08 PM
When measuring your blade to the bunks make sure you measure from a tooth that is set in the down position as you are looking at the blade.

My personal opinion is to set the ruler in the gullet, then you can use the body of the blade as a plane to site down to observe the mark, but the important thing is to use a method that is consistent and that you feel comfortable with.