The Forestry Forum

This is kind of a sequel to the planer/moulder post. What basic machines does one need to produce a S4S board? I'm not necessarily looking for manufacturers, just type of equipment.
It was brought up that you can't just put a board through a planer unless you have one flat true face. So how is this face flattened?  Use a jointer, then use a straight line rip saw, then run through planer? How does a SLR saw make a true edge?

You need a straight line rip saw and a 5 head moulder.  The first bottom head on the moulder is a jointing head which gives a flat surface.  You would basically rip your blanks first on a SLR and then run those blanks through a moulder.  If your planning on running alot of S4S you may consider a gang rip..  It saves hours on the rip saw and you can get by with 1/8" oversize compared to 1/4" over on a SLR.

You can make S4S with a planer but it's very labor intensive and doesn't give good results since you basically have to stack several boards up edge ways to plane the sides.  If the board twist any at all, you have a trapazoid.  

If you have any other questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them.  We make alot of s4s.

Steve

The old timers used to call those stickers. usually flat belt driven with babbot bearings. put in a rough 2x4 and out comes a dimentioned s4s 2x4. One of out neighbors had one like this and left it outside to rust tight. never found out who bought it from him.

Jason

I make small amounts of s4s material.  Some for my own use, some for sale to customers on order, and some to use up poor quality boards by ripping and cutting them to clear sections.  If the order is for full boards i leave out the first step.

1. rip and cross cut good sections of board using combination of table saw and circular or radial arm saw

2.lightly plane both sides for uniform thickness.  I will place the flatest surface down on my 12 planer take a light pass. then a medium pass on other.  sometimes a second pass is needed on the first face

3.joint one edge on 8" long table jointer.  This works for  most boards up to 10 foot long.  use roller stands for longer.  Some boars will need to be cross cut if they are too curved.

4.Rip to width using jointed edge against fence

5. joint ripped edge

6. plane to thickness.  try to remove same amount of material from both sides.