A Dog Eared Question

[catfish]

I had an inquiry for continous orders for dog eared cedar boards. I have the lumber but don't know diddly about dog earing.  Does anyone know of a machine that would dog ear the board in hi producton. ???

[Tom]

I've heard of it being done with a shear or a machine like a stake pointer.   The only way I've ever seen it done was with a table saw and a jig.  A miter saw would probably work as good.

It's laborious, but one dedicated person, all day long, one at a time, is all I've ever known.

[Radar67]

You could line them up, standing on edge and use a radial arm saw set to cut a 45. Depending on what length your saw could handle would determine how many boards you could do at once. Of course you would have to turn them over to cut the other side.

Stew

[Don P]

Can you stand that row on end in a jig and saw them with a skillsaw set at a 45?

[submarinesailor]

Ok, I'll ask the question.  What's a "dog eared cedar board"?

Bruce

[Don P]

You know those fence boards with the clipped corners on the tops? Shingle siding uses them too.

[catfish]

http://www.mill-mac.com/gallery/gallery-Used_Seed_Cleaning_Equipment-view-20.htm    Found this, maybe I know how to post this link :

[Radar67]

Don P,
   You could do that with a skill saw, but I wouldn't want to do too much cutting with a box store type saw. I use a worm drive Skill Model 77.

Stew

[jkj]

If you use a bandsaw mill, seems like you could make a fixture to clamp 20 or more boards at a 45deg angle (with one end low, the other in the air) and cut a bunch of corners at once.

JKJ

[beenthere]

Seems I recall members Larry and Kevin_H both have good methods to make pointy ends on stakes, and twould think they'd work here.
Isn't it Larry that stacks them on a band mill, and Kevin_H (actually his wife is the designated pointer) uses a shop band saw.  Going by memory which is a bit of a gamble.

What angle is used?  Seems it is other than a 45°

[catfish]

From what I have read, looks like 45 degrees is the standard angle.

[ellmoe]

   I've used and seen several ways to "dog-ear". All have been at 45 degrees . What I do now, cheap and quick after some practice, is to cut them on an inexpensive table saw. I remove the throat plate so the corners will fall through, set the fence about a 1/2" from the blade (I think, never measured) and push the board thru at a 45 degree angle, then flip it over to the other side and repeat.. As a guide I will scratch a 45 degree line on the table, more as a reference point really. I can knock a bundle out in a hurry, but we usually dog ear a 1" board immediately before feeding  into the band resaw for splitting into to 1/2" boards. The advantage to doing this on the table saw is that it's cheap and  variations in board width will not effect the size of the dog ear. I have a machine that has two arbor motors set at 45 degrees, one above the other, at one end of a sliding table. The boards are stacked on their edges, maybe 20 or more and the tray is slide past the stationary saws, dog earing both edges at the same time. If the widths vary the top side dog ear will vary. This is fairly quick, but I prefer the table saw. I once made an A-frame with lugs that would lift the pickets past two arbor saws and then drop of the back onto a stacking chain. This worked well, but again the width of the board needs to be consistent. A customer had a table set up where he would stack about 50 pickets on edge. He had a track set up where a heavy worm drive skill saw would pass with the blade set at a 45 , clipping the corners. I've also used a radial arm saw and a miter saw to chop the corners. However, with our wood and set-up , I prefer the simple table saw.

Mark

[urbanlumberinc]

If you want to get serious production why not saw cants, then dog ear the cants and resaw the fence pickets from the dog eared cants.  Thats how they do it at the local fencing yard.

[twoodward15]

can someone post a picture?  I think I'm missing something here.  Is it to make a point on the top on all 4 sides or just two? 

[Radar67]

The dogear is only on the top. Basically, take a 1x6, measure 1 inch or so down the edge, draw a line 45 degrees to the top of the board and lop it off. Repeat on the other side . You should end up with something like this:

   ___
/       \

Any width board can be used, 1x6 was just for example.

Stew

[Tom]

[catfish]

Urban, that's a good idea but I will use only the side boards for this. With eastern red cedar the most value in the log is the center such as solid red wood and veneer cants. Thanks for all the replys.

[twoodward15]

I got it now.  thanks!

[ARKANSAWYER]

   I looked for a large photo but could not find one for large boards but found this one.




  I saw the cants and then square the ends on a 12 inch chop saw and chop them to length then put 3 or 4 cants back on the mill and saw out the boards.   Faster cutting the cants then the boards.

[Kevin_H.]

Ok lets see if I can do this...

below should be the link to the thread showing the jig and bandsaw that we used in the past.


we out grew the bandsaw method and now use a chop saw and pencil pointer...

I dont know why this would not work for the dog ear boards, but it would be slow.

pointing stakes