I am thinking to set up to saw 1 in buy 1in buy 4 foot steaks any ideas on what type of mill to use. I am in the Northeast and have log length fire wood availiable to use
Thomas Bandsaw use to have the moveable bunks. Can saw a piece of wood 2 feet without making a jig.
I thought this was going to be a food thread. ;D
Setup and handling is a time killer. I would much rather saw the stakes 8' and then shorten them to 4'. Depending upon you sharpening method, you could also use that 45° cut as half of your sharpening.
A 4 foot steak would feed a bunch :o I agree with MM on log handling.
I sawed a few tomato stakes this year as salvage for my edgings and some ash logs I did not have a ready market for. I used 10 & 12 ft logs then cut the stakes on a 45 degree angle with my circular saw to yield 5' and 6' stakes. I just left them cut at the 45 rather than the fancy pencil shaped or double cut arrowhead type points.
I'd cut mine into 1"X1" strips then lay them crossways across my utility trailer then cut and bundled into dozens. Pretty labor intensive and not high profit but good use of dead time and salvage lumber/logs/edgings.
When sawing other "target" lumber, I save the off-cuts to make stakes out of. We stack up this lumber on stickers and when we get an order for stakes we take this 1" board and cut them into shorter lengths with a skill saw. Like 3' and 4' and sometimes 5' for tomato stakes.
The we stand a gang of them up on edge and cut them again to 1" thick making squares.
and I have a pencil pointer so we then point and bundle them in lots of 25, for shipping.
My mill has log support rails that are about 30" apart to 3' and 4' lengths stand on edge pretty good.
If the blank has round edges we put in a temporary fence to hold the piece up right and then remove it and flip that piece over putting the newly squared edge down against the rail.
I usually try and gang five or six piece together for speed.
We will be cutting some stakes this week for an upcoming project at the cemetery where we are going to use them to stake out some rectangular hay bales.
Jim Rogers
I have a pencil pointer to do the points with just woundering what is the best way to get the 1 buys
I do have a woodland vertical band mill but wanted to set up something just to do this. I use the 1 in boards off of that mill but it is at a different location than my set up to do the steaks. I wanted to make them out of small logs because they are easer to get.
1x1 stakes need to come from good logs, or you will have a huge amount of rejects. It's a low return activity to begin with, unless you have the proper equipment. I personally feel that without a gang ripper, it isn't worthwhile with my operation.
years and years ago, when I was doing 200+ bundles of stakes per year, I had a part time helper who's job it was to totally make stakes.
I set up a portable table saw and he pushed 3' and 4' pieces through it to make the squares, so that it wouldn't tie up the mill.
Any regular band-saw mill will work.
Jim Rogers