The Forestry Forum

My current customer had a couple of nice White Spruce logs in their pile of White Pine.

One was a 16 footer, 17 inches on the small end, and the other was an 8 footer, 19 inches on the small end.

I was using Wood-Mizer 10° 1¼inch blades, set at .025.

I guess the secret was using the blades with more set and lots of soapy water and a feed speed about 2/3 the normal "pine" speed.

As soon as the blade entered the log, I'd open the water almost wide open.

It worked.   8)

I wouldn't know a spruce log,if it was laying in my living room. But if you had to run the water full blast, then it sounds alot like that rich heart pine I had a fit with yesterday.

Spruce generates a lot of heat on the blade.

The knots are really hard in spruce.

I still think I'll get about 4 of either 4° or 7° blades to have on hand the next time I go to Hannibal.

Chuck,
had modest success with WM 7* 1-1/4 .055 blades in my 20" plus Norway Spruce logs.
Still had some duck and dive but not too bad.
have some more 9 to 16 " logs on my deck now and will report as I saw them.
pete

For knotty wood like spruce and pine I set my bands up around 0.030". I also use a lot of lube, but only when the wood is really sappy. If the wood is dry such as when it's felled in late summer it doesn't require anywhere near as much lube. The lube doesn't do any cooling. It's only there to keep pitch from building up on the band and in the gullet. My mix is 2 gallons of water, 10tbsp of PineSol and 3tbsp of water soluble machining oil. In the winter I mix the water 1/2 and 1/2 with WW fluid. My bands come off spotlessly clean.

cheers

John