Use for circle saw blades

[Bibbyman]

Mary and I hardly ever deliver lumber more than a few miles away from home.  But a couple of weekends ago we made an exception and delivered a load of red cedar and oak to Stan Combs out in Ponca City, Oklahoma.   Stan deals in carriages, carriage parts and harness – plus a hundred other things.  


Here is one of two fancy carriages to ol'boys from Arkansas were picking up the morning we arrived.



The one thing we were interested in was having Stan make us a sign for our sawmill with his programmable plasma cutter. Stan cut out four signs for us.  This one happens to not have the scrap shaken out of it yet.  A few whacks with a hammer and the scrap falls away.  Stan makes a lot of cowboy art and quite a few signs that go over ranch gates.



We took down 1,000 bf of red cedar and about 600 bf of air-dried oak.  It was all dry when we pulled into the lot but got rained on while we were waiting for Stan to help the Arkansas guys load their carriages and assorted other items and cut out our signs.

CombsCarriage

[Tom]

bib,
One of my customer/friends in duval County is a wagon maker.  Not long ago I was visiting him and he had just finished a carriage that was a spittin' image of the white one you posted.  Do you reckon these guys send it around the country and all take credit for it? :D

[Brian_Bailey]

Bibbyman,  

That's a pretty neat sign.  How big in dia.is it?  If you don't mind me asking, how much $$ did he charge to cut your name in? I was thinking of doing the same thing with a 30" buzzsaw blade.

[Kevin_H.]

The carriage and sawblade looks really good but the truck is really what I need, Nice looking rig.

[Bibbyman]

Tom,  I thought I'd had a picture of the black carriage but when I got home I didn't.   It was larger and longer with padded seats facing each other side to side.  8-10 passenger loaded from the back.  I think the guys from Arkansas ran a dude ranch and probably were also going to use the carriages in weddings and funerals.  In any case, both carriages were manufactured in Canada.  

Brian,  When I first approached Stan on cutting out this sign I think he quoted $30 if I provided the blade.  He made a gift of cutting out this 30" blade (that we provided) in appreciation of us delivering the lumber to him.  Maybe you've noticed I attached Stan's web site link to the bottom of my first post.  Stan travels the mid-west with that large box van you see to the right of our truck.  He sets up at horse shows and horse auctions.  He'll bring hundreds of pieces of western metal artwork and he also brings his vinyl sign machine and custom make signs.  Maybe you can find him at a location near you.

Stan is always building something and his house is full of furniture he has made.  

Stan's son uses the oak to build treadmills for dogs.  Apparently there is a growing sport of taking large dogs and having them compete in sled pulls like we've seen trucks, tractor and horses.  People use his treadmills to build up the dogs pulling strength.  

[Brian_Bailey]

Bibbyman,  

Thanks for the info. I have a shop near me that has one of those cutters. Just curious on the price, just so I don't get hosed too bad.  
I enjoy watching horse and pony pulls. My uncle used to have several teams he competed with. I don't think I could get into dog pulls though.

[Ron Wenrich]

Usually you can find some wrecked saws around most circle mills.  I've seen signs painted on the 54" jobs, and they can be pretty nice.  Going price is about $25/blade.

I've also heard that saw blades make a high quality knife.  

[Gordon]

Nice truck Bib. Does the Mrs let ya drive it? 8) 8)

Gordon

[Brian_Bailey]

Thanks Ron,  That's a lot of steel for the $$.  My dad makes some of his wood carving knives out of thick power hacksaw blades. He claims they'll hold an edge better than most knives you can buy.

[Bibbyman]

Nope. Mary drove every inch of the way out and back.  I only turned it in the drive so Stan could unload it.  She said she probably wouldn't do it right.

She drives it 95% of the time. It's a 99 model and has only 18,000 miles on it. Rule is, it only goes some place if it's loaded one way or both.  ;)

[Jeff]

You got those plugs beat out of that saw yet so we can see what it looks like?

[Bibbyman]

Here you go!!





I don't think I'll paint it.  But I plan to drill a couple of holes in it and bolt it on straight.

[Tom]

How about putting that rust inhibitor/transformer on it that turns the rust into a stable compound.  It'll make it black but it should stop the rust.

[Brian_Bailey]

Your sign is really  8) !  I wonder how much one of those  plasma cutters cost?  Making those signs could be a nice little side line business.

[Kevin_H.]

Hey Bibby,
I think you need to fix it up so it spins, slow enough so that people can still read it of course. ;D

[ADfields]

Brian
When I looked into them it was about 15 grand for the ploter that reads the patern and runs the cuter head, thats for the 4 foot x 8 foot cutting table I looked at.   You also need a computed to drive the thing but not a very big one unless you want to run CAD on it and a good dry place to set it up out of the sun.   The plasma cutters themself cost is $1000 and way up there for a good one and you need a AC welder to drive some of them.   It was about 1988 that I was looking and that was BIG BUCKS to me back then and I could not see how it could ever make money but looking back I bet it would.   If you want to know more you should call Bibby's guy up and talk with him about it, I bet he would fix you right up and I think his # is at the top of this post.
Andy

[Bibbyman]

I think Stan bought his system used.  Said a new 48"x48" X-Y bed and controller would cost $10,000.  Then add plasma cutter.  Then you add PC - said just any ol' junker would do as it didn't take much to run the cutter software.  He has a better and faster PC in the house he could use to make and just copy the cut program onto a floppy and bring it to the PC hooked to the cutter.

Stan says he has over 9,000 patterns in his collection.  He can make the patterns bigger or smaller or add them .ie coach w/horses or coach with mules, etc.  When he made our sign we picked a font and he just drug and dropped the letter onto his sketch and arranged them in an arc and sized them, etc.  Once he had the pattern, he could size it for a different size blade.

Stan not only makes signs with his cutter but can also make parts for stuff.  This one will cut metal up to 3/8" thick.

Tom,  I like the rust inhibitor idea.  Thought about having it sand blasted and painted some bright color like orange.  How about having it chromed?  Son said to mount a light behind it.  Could mount multiple colored lights and have the blade rotate one way and the colored lights the other.  Probably 5 years from now it will be hanging where it is the way it it.

[Brian_Bailey]

Andy, Bibbyman - Thanks for the info. $10/15k wouldn't be too bad of an investment into a venture like that. I bet it wouldn't take long to recoop and show a profit. Yup, I think I'll have to push the pencil around some this winter. Only thing is, my SO say's to pay off the AutoCrane and Hardy forwarding trailer INVESTMENT before I get involved in any other so called money making scheme.  Wives, don't ya just love em  :.

[Don P]

Brian,
One shop I worked at traded for time on a machine and we rigged it with a router to do Chip and Dale gingerbread out of mahoghany. We cranked out 100 fancy mirrors and marketed all of them before Christmas one year. Look around at all the fancy gingerbread on them old houses.

[Brian_Bailey]

Don P,     Opportunities certainly abound. All one has to do is recognize and go after them.  You bring up a good point about time sharing, it definitely would be the smart thing to do before spending a lot of $$ on machinery.

[Frank_Pender]

Brian-Bailey,  I believed in that idea too when I purchased my firstMobile Dimension Sawmill.  I bought new at $15,000 and in 3 years I had all of my money back plus all of my expenses covered during that time.  The wife was the pessimist.  I sure changed her mind. 8)    And, that was all done while teaching full time and moving 100 cords of firewood a year.   ;D

[Brian_Bailey]

Frank,  I usually defer to my wife's intuition because I tend to shoot from the hip, where as she'll take dead aim. But, when it comes to toys, er, I mean machinery she'll usually defer to me  ;D.

[Buzz-sawyer]

hey bibster..........
Is this sign still up ???

[brdmkr]

That is cool sign.  I'll have to be on the lookout for my own blade!

[Bibbyman]

hey bibster..........
Is this sign still up ???

Yep,  right where it's been. 



I've got a couple and plan to put one up at the north end of the new shed extension.  I wanted to put a cool neon light behind it but Mary said no.