Home Built Twin Blade Edger

[zmach]

Check out my youtube video..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeSOsmJaFGo

[Bill Gaiche]

zmach, very nice machine. You should be proud to be able to build a machine like that. and thanks for the video.
When you get a chance tell us a little about yourself and what you do for work and hobbies. bg

[LOGDOG]

Welcome zmach. First post and he includes a video. That's what I call coming in with style. Looking good on the edger. Love to hear the sound of a blade singing through the wood. Makes me want to go saw something. 

[D._Frederick]

Zmach,
Glad to see a new member here, I also built a 2 blade edger about 10 years ago, but did not get all the bugs out of it before my back gave out on me. Have a couple of questions for you.

I see that you have fluted driver rollers, were you lucky enough to find use ones? I costed out machine shop made and they were over $500 + each. I ended up using #40 roller chain sprockets for drive rollers.
On your pressure rolls, do you have springs applying down force or gravity ?

I never got my edge to cut straight, did you have similar problems and how did you handle them?

At the time I built my edger, I had $3K in it, A bought one were running about $10K.

Have you built any other sawmill equipment?

[fishpharmer]

welcome to FF zmach!

Nice machine you built.  Your hydraulic log loader video is also impressive.  Did you build the whole mill?

Hope you hang out here for a while.

[paul case]

welcome. good to have you here. pc

[bandmiller2]

Mr. Z,you done good, very professional looking and welcome.Tell us more ,where are you located??Frank C.

[zmach]

After building my bandmill and sawing up 3000 feet of wood and stacking up to air dry last fall, I started to build an edger.  I think it is a very important machine.  Working with seasoned wood, you need a straight edge.  My edger design came by looking at pictures in magazines and on the internet.  It has 14"diameter blades, and will cut 4" thick with a maximum width of  22".  (Trees in Indiana aren't that big!) The feed rate is adjustable by using hydraulic flow valves.  The top rollers are weighted rollers...about 100 lbs. each.  The bottom roller I machined 42 grooves in each roller around the diameter. The motor powering the edger is a 25HP Kohler.  This weekend I ran 400 feet through the edger.  Now I will have to run it through my planer.  I didn't build that, but I machine all my parts.    On cutting straight, I made sure all feed rollers ran parallel to the blade spindle. On the out feed, I have a straight edge that the wood runs along.

[sgschwend]

Love the video.  You built a great machine there.

Sorry if you answered this before, does the edger cut the second edge or does it cut two new edges?  I can see the scrap coming from the second edge.  So you keep the first sawmill cut edge?  Or is there some other step?

thanks,

great vid,

Steve

[D._Frederick]

Z-,

Do you have any pictures of your arbor? I would like to see your design on the movable saw.

On my edger, I have 12inch split saws that I can un-bolt for sharpening. I used a rack and pinion system for the moveable blade. My design allowed me to saw a maximum of 3 + inches thick.

Are you using the straight edge on the output as a splitter?

Thanks for your reply.

[zmach]

This video of the edger in process should help answer your questions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weoz7zvQYro

[D._Frederick]

Z-,

What are your plans for sharpening your 2 blades, are you going to pull the arbor each time?

What are you using for a bearing on  your saw shifting arm?

Sorry for all the questions.

[zmach]

the bearing is number 6914RS

[sgschwend]

Zmach,
fyi I find that I can use windows movie maker and then overlay an audio track over the video. 

You record the audio while watching the video; you can even set the percent of background sound too.

The nice thing about it is you can redo the audio as many times as you want to without changing the video.

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

And Welcome to the Forum it good to have you here  Zmach  ;) ;D ;D 8) 8) 8) tell us abit about yourself Mate  ???

You have done a Top Job on your edger verry tidy Mate  ;) ;D 8) Id like to see your band mill you built yourself too sometime Mate  ;) ;D

Regards Chris

[sgschwend]

Zmach,
Thanks for showing all your hard work. 

Can't wait to see your next project!!!

[StephenRice]

Awesome work!