simple automation to remove labor

[Ron Wenrich]

You guys are looking for robots to replace your help.  Technology isn't to the point where you can get rid of all labor, including your own.  The automatic stackers and unstackers still need some type of sorting before you get to that technology level.  You can automate the sorting by decks, drop tables, rollers, kickers and any assortment you like.  But, that type of investment is well beyond the cost of labor for the type of production most guys are running.

The problem with rollers is that it's a straight line from the saw.  You're putting boards end to end, so there isn't much of a surge deck there.  The more you add, the further you go from the saw.  A green chain puts your production side by side and takes up less room.  

Vertical edgers work on circle mills.  Not so much on thin kerf band mills.  I worked with a vertical edger.  Sometimes you miss, sometimes you need to reedge to upgrade a board, sometimes you need to split boards for an order.  We had a horizontal edger that we also used.  But, it wasn't heavy use.  There is also the problem of handling the edging strips.  

We had a lumber inspector come around who bought a trailerload of lumber each week.  He came from a sawmill background and still did logging on the side.  His dream mill was to have a circle mill with a vertical edger.  He would load up the log deck with logs.  That's usually about 20 logs on a decent deck.  He would then saw everything up and put it on a set of green chains.  Then he would sort and stack everything before the next deck of logs.  No other labor.  I think he was also going to run a chipper.  With a decent conveyor, you wouldn't handle any of the slabs.  I think he was figuring a couple of hours to do a complete circuit.

[YellowHammer]

I'm not looking to eliminate my labor, but certainly trying to reduce it.  I have an unusual situation, I don't have to worry much about production, a couple pallets of extremely high grade lumber sawn a day, but with my artificial hip and other issues, including age, I'm always looking for parallel steps, not sequential.  

If I can separate steps, and address them in a separate batch mode, that works, also.  For example, I hire a guy for a day (or two) to come in and sticker stack all the wood I've sawn during the week.  So I can saw independently of him, dead stack the wood, and not have to spend any time sticking.  So I essentially save a day or two a week, and it only costs me his salary, which isn't much, because his job instructions are pretty easy.  "See those stacks of wood?  Sticker them, and get them all done by the end of the day, the more you do, the more I pay."  So its not true automation, but its independent processing, and saves me a tremendous amount of my time.

So I'm looking at all angles, and are there other steps I can pull off line like that?  I''d like to automate or even eliminate some of those intermediate steps and attack them either by not doing them (like hiring an employee off line to stick wood) or do them in batch mode.

I had not considered the horizontal green chain much, but these posts have got me to thinking, especially about its surge capability.  For example, right now, since I don't have a lumber stacker, I cut a piece of wood, then stack a piece of wood, then cut piece of wood, then stack a piece of wood.  So I'm wasting time between cuts by going back and forth, wasting time between the two processes, stacking wood.  I'm wondering if I couldn't use a long green chain, not just for surge in its conventional use, but instead for intentional staging.  So the chain would be long enough to hold several logs worth of boards, all at one time. So I could saw a few logs, have the boards stay on the green chain, turn the saw off, and walk to the end of the chain, start the green chain rolling, and then stack all the wood in a batch mode.  It would be much more efficient, and would also lend itself to an employee if I hired one for that.  However, it wouldn't require me to have a helper, I would have my choice.

 

[nativewolf]

@YellowHammer   That is what I'm contemplating.  Saw...have slabs roll down and off, have boards get shunted aside to be stacked (again I am not going to sticker most of what we saw-fence boards are more valuable wet and stained than dry and clear), and another pile to be edged.  Edger stuff staying closer to mill . 

Just as @Ron Wenrich described with the gentlemen contemplating sawing a deck full of logs and then moving down to stack a deck full, then edge a deck full, etc.  Lots of thinking to do.  With FAS RO going for $750/MBF ...I'm really not going to spend much time on the side lumber, it might break my heart but a crappy fence board for 1100/mbf or $750 for FAS?  I'm just going to chip a lot of smaller stuff.  

I have picked up 2 used sliding compound miter saws...going to build a version of @Stuart Caruk cutoff table, I'm going to make one fixed and have the other slide on pipes to cutoff different lengths.  I'm going to put a cutoff tub cart that gets dumped in slab pile for chipping. 

[Hilltop366]

With the band saw mill you might have time to turn to do something close by when cutting but will have to rush and worry the mill crashing at the other end so if there was a way to auto stop the mill at the other end of the cut ready for drag back it could free up a little bit of time?

[Percy]

Ive built alot of contraptions that are work savers for me. I improve /upgrade at a snails pace with alot of thought/watching/pondering during work to see how it will improve/hinder things. Alot of times while doing the pondering, the"lights come on" for lack of a better term and I realize that while this improvement Im thinking about will help with this product, it will mess up a different product. It sucks when your upgrade reduces flexibility. For example, here in BC, there are many large lumber mills(spaggetti mills we call them) and they produce an amazing amount of lumber per shift....all very similar in size. If they needed 6x6, theyd come buy it from you as their high zoot mill dont do 6x6. No flexibility. The most flexible mill I can think of is a wide head manual bandsaw with about 40 feet of track. Can cut anything, just slower. 

Right now, Im pondering that carousel thing earlier in this thread posted by Longtime. It might work for what I do......but Id hate to have to tear it down.....