Logosol PH260 question

[WLC]

OK, I admit I'm in over my head sometimes, but I was always told the only dumb question is the one not asked.  I rewatched Teed's video on his new molder: https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,93062.0.html .  This led down a potentially dangerous (well, expensive :D) rabbit hole of youtube videos.   My question is with this machine, or another similar machine, are you able to take a roughsawn dry board and stick it in one end and have a finished product come out the other?  Or, would the boards have to already be run s4s on a joiner and planer?  Seems like that thing would be the cat's meow if you can go from roughsawn to finished board, flooring, trim, etc in one swipe.   

[JustinW_NZ]

in simple terms - yes
a 4 sider is for just that, taking rough lumber and profiling all 4 sides..

And as usual there is a lot of options and price scale accordingly!

Cheers
Justin

[jdtuttle]

I have a PH260 and have found the closer to the finish size before you run it the better it works. You can run roughsawn through with good results but they should all be close to the same width & thickness or they jamb. I skip plane everything on a planer then rip it to within 1/4" of finished width before running through the PH260.

[Darrel]

I have a PH260 and have found the closer to the finish size before you run it the better it works. You can run roughsawn through with good results but they should all be close to the same width & thickness or they jamb. I skip plane everything on a planer then rip it to within 1/4" of finished width before running through the PH260.

And that is exactly how the big mounding mills do it. The cost of "pre-processing" more then pays for itself in headache reduction later.

[thechknhwk]

If I am going for .75 finished lumber, I skip plane it down to .9.  And you need to have good straight uniform edges if you expect to get a good finished product out the other end.  With soft stuff like white pine or cedar it is a bit more forgiving and will eat more wood, but blank preparation is definitely key to stress free operation.

[longtime lurker]

Fundamentally there are two types of moulders: short bed sawmill type moulders, and long bed production moulders. The Logosol machines are all very small short bed machines.

Rule of thumb with a short bed machine is that you will get out a workpiece exactly as straight as the wood you fed in. They will straighten to a degree, but if you feed in boomerangs they cant do much except snip the corners off.

Also being way small those machines will struggle if theres too much material to remove, and if they bog down that results in a flat spot in the finished article.  A lot will depend on how accurate your rough sawn material is. If its accurate and straight you'll do okay, if its not  then you'll find life easier if you do a DAR pass and then a moulding pass.

[shakebone]

We run a 360 we pre plane and strait line rip and u can run beautiful trouble free product quickly ! Well worth extra effort