At the Alaska State Fair, 18 year old Levi Espelin, who has been running his dad's LT40 Super hydraulic was trying to out do the local Wood-Mizer guy by cutting thin, smooth boards.
The WM guy was on an LTY35. Levi was using an LT28. Both are the 'monorail' torsion tube mill design.
I took a photo of Levi's winning board. it was full length of the cant and only .032 thick.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29548/Parker_and_Levi_Espelin_AK_St_Fair_2011_WEB%7E0.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/29548/Levis_Board_WEB.JPG)
You can do that easy ,try it so you can see through the wood well all most :D :D Good job
So how exactly should you sticker a piece that thin? :D
You have to sticker them with strips cut from business cards :D
I was going to say that you had to sticker lumber like that VERY CAREFULLY!
Pretty cool! Sometimes need to trim a cant to get back onto the quarter scale after turning a cant and get a thin piece (but not that thin!). Clients get a kick out of it. ;D
Cool! :)
The thinnest "board", I've ever cut was by accident. I had repositioned a cant and changed my cutting pattern. I took a shim to get back on pattern and took a cut that was about that thin. I think I've mentioned it on the Forum years ago. It was .03X" thick. I don't remember exactly, might have been .030" or .035", somewhere in there.
I've done it, and I've seen it done on a Norwood (I challenged the owner to try -- he didn't think he could). I'd expect most of the brand name mills to be capable of doing it.
The mill has to aligned perfectly and you need a decent log and a sharp blade -- anything that could make the blade wander even 1/64 of an inch can do you in.
I claim bragging rights on the thinnest piece, though. I have a piece of 0.020" thick birch veneer in the basement that I sawed with a chainsaw mill many years ago ;D.
I like doing a thin bit like that at shows and curl them into a circle, really impresses people.
pity they dry out fast and go brittle :-\
Cheers
Justin
I used to make my business cards out of thin pieces, but I never tried to get one that thin.
I know I expecty my mill to do that any day of the week and it is 14 years old with over 9,000 hrs. If a saw gives a wave it comes off and the first cut with a fresh saw is a clean up cut as thin as I can get.
Good to see the friendly compeditision, it shows that these mills are precision machines that are enjoyed by the young and old, non spring chickens, young at hart alike ::)
I don't recomend it for veneer unless you are using it as filler, thats where peeled is better then sawn. (grain orentation)
but toss it out in the hot sun and it will curle right up and make some fine art work ;D
Well, the 20 thou Birch was an accident. And I cut it of the bottom of the cant ;D.
I had squared up the cant and was going to cut some 2x8" lumber out of it, when I realized I had the cant oriented the wrong way. So I had to reduce the thickness of the cant to 8" before turning it. Turns out I was sawing off .020" over one kerf width.
That was one of the nice things about the Alaskan mill. You used the top face as a guide for the bottom face so the thickness was uniform now matter how much the wood moved.
A good mill will do that be it circular or band. It requires everything to be right. Frank C.
Carbide band saw blades with 3-TPI .045. can slice thin like that even with knots.
My 55 7° WM blades can cut thinner than that ;D