slab saw question

[Quebecnewf]

has anyone out there designed a system (home built) to cut up slabs for firewood. I saw one system but it used a chainsaw Is there anything else around

[tnlogger]

Quebecnewf i have used a 12" sliding miter saw set up worked pretty good for me.

[Quebecnewf]

I have a 12" miter saw but this is a woodworking tool I cannot bring myself to use it to butcher green softwood slabs. I keep the unit in fine tune for woodworking and I know if i start smacking slabs accross it it will not be the same. You don't use a chainsaw to carve a turkey  so therefore......

[WH_Conley]

I just bundle my slabs and put a steel band around them, whatever my loader will lift, and go after em with the chain saw, takes about five minutes to cut a pickup load, the band keept them from moving so much. When you cut the band just make the next bundle a little smaller, recycle the band.

I have used a cut off saw on a tractor but I think the chain saw is faster.

This is just my opinion, not worth hardly 2 cents. ;D

[Ernie]

Years ago, my neighbour and I got a guy with a twin saw in to mill some pine and redwoods for us.  That's when I first got the sawing bug.  He had a conveyor stuck up in the air with a heavy rotating blade at the top geared to the conveyor speed.  He just threw the trimmings and other unwanted bits on the conveyor, you parked your trailer under the end and voila, a trailer load of cut firewood.  He had the feed end right by the mill and it took no extra time at all.

I can see it in my mind but on reading this description, I doubt if anyone else can. :(

Ernie

[redpowerd]

how did it cut? was the blade perpendicular to the belt? did it move in and out of the slab or did the slab pass right thru it, seems kinda handy.

[Ernie]

As I recall, he had a steel plate at the top of the conveyoy with a blade-width gap, the blade was perpendicular to the end of the conveyor and just swing around in a circle passing through the gap and slicing it way through the wood.  The blade was naturallly very heavy but I never noticed it struggle with stuff up to 4" X 8".  He could set it for length but it was a bit of a pain so we were happy with the pieces about 14 to 16 inches long.

I have no idea what he powered it with, and neither has the neighbour, all we remember well is the 16 year old girl he had tailing out.  She could lift more than either one of us and was nicely packaged.

[redpowerd]

i see, so it pretty much ran around in a circle like a rotor?
if the blade spun on a spinning arm, how was the blade powerd?

or was it like a big machette? :D

[footer]

You don't use a chainsaw to carve a turkey  so therefore......

Actually, I use a chainsaw to cut frozen turkeys in half so I only have to thaw out one half at a time. :D

[Ron Wenrich]

I worked in one mill that had a swing saw.  It is similar to a buck saw on the back of a tractor.  The blade is a circle that has offset teeth and does not have replaceable teeth.

The swing saw is supported on a 2 point pivot.  It has a counterweight to keep it back.  It is usally used with a set of dead conveyor rolls.  Cut pieces fall into a conveyor and taken to a pile.  The conveyor is usually a small flat belt with paddles put on it to pull the cut slabs away. 

To cut, the slab is put in place, and the saw is manually pulled through the piece.   It is also used to trim board in a some small mills. 

[Ernie]

Redpowered

I'll get in touch with my neighbour and between us and our aging minds, we will try to remember 19 years ago when we had the milling done and see what we can come up with.

Ernie

[Sawyerfortyish]

I have a two slab saws the first is like Ron described. I also have a cornell slabsaw I'm going to take out of my mill soon as I don't use it anymore. I bought a mulch grinder. The cornell runs off of three phase electric. It has a 15hp moter on the saw and two smaller ones.  One for the conveyor that takes away the cut slabs and one runs a oil pump that makes a cylinder push the saw across the end of the belt conveyor. When the slab is cut it falls and the belt advances the slab and hits a trigger and stops. Then the saw cuts it and the process starts again.
   Used a chainsaw for 18yrs to cut slabs it's way to slow. The Cornell is much faster and will run by itself. The manuel slabsaw I have I heard stories about guys getting hurt so I never installed it.

[woodhick]

I"m not sure what volume your talking about but heres an idea I have used before.   Build a sled with bolsters and uprights like a logging truck.  Keep the inside width around 40" to 48" depending on thebar length  of your  chainsaw .   stack slabs into sled and when its full cut down each side with a chainsaw at the lengths you want. ;).  Hopw you can picture the idea as I don't currently have one to take a picture of.  This still uses a chainsaw but much quicker than cutting each slab individually.

[Frank_Pender]

Woodhick, mine is very similar.   I built a unit that has recievers for the forks with pin hinges at the other end and dumps.   The volume is equal to 1/4 cord.   The contain is two feet wide, 2 1/2' deep and 8' long. I use two sets of chains; one for keeping the forks in the 2 x 6 tubing and one set for keeping the container from rakiing over too far.   For the raking chains, they are also attatched to two 2 1/2" x 18" springs to absorb the shock when dumping.

[redpowerd]

like a set of sawbucks? pic is cut in half but you get the idear. keep a few scatterd around the woods. one or two by the mill. sometimes we put it in the dump wagon to save a step.

[Ernie]

RedPowered

Neither my neighbour nor I could remember exactly how the chopper worked.  A sign of very old age :( :( :(  But I finally found the sawyer who did our milling 18 years ago and asked him.  So here goes, I hope that you can get the picture from this description.

The system was run by a 3 cylinder Lister diesel engine although it could have been run from a tractor PTO shaft. It had two conveyors, an in feed and an out feed.  The out feed was positioned just under the chopper which was at the end of the realtively short infeed conveyor.  At the end of the infeed was a chopper made from an old haybaler. If you are familiar with a baler used for the old conventional bales you will probably be able to picture the setup used.  A clamp came up and held the wood while the chopper attached to the arm of the baler hooked onto the heavy flywheel swung aruond and smashed the wood off at the clamp, the clamp released and the cut off piece dropped onto the outfeed conveyor which was adjustable for height of discharge and  was carried to the end and dropped into a truck/trailer or pile.  The whole thing was coordinated to the speed of the chopper and worked a treat.

I just read this through and can picture it better than I can describe it.

If you have any questions, I will try my best to get the answers for you.

The company that manufactured the beast went out of business years ago and I have been unable to track down the chap that ran it.

Good luck

Ernie

[Sawyerfortyish]

Boy it's no wonder they went out of bussiness. That sounds like safty nightmare and a lawsiut waiting to happen. OSHA just loves that type of machinery  :

[Ed_K]

 I use a 2'x2'x12' sawbuck on legs so I don't have to bend over. I have a set of rolls coming off the end of the mill one set goes to the sawbuck the other goes to a hay wagon with bunks across the frame. The slabs slide into the sawbuck, when it full I cut to 4' lengths with the chainsaw. I then pile on to a pallet crossing the rows to 4' high. Then it goes to the sugar house. Boards slide onto the wagon  ;).

[Ron Wenrich]

Ernie

That process sure does away with the sawdust problem.   :D

[RacinRex]

We have a "buzz-saw". It goes on the three point hitch of my 275 and runs off the PTO. 32" circular saw blade with a table that you can stack 4-10 slabs on (depending on thickness) push the table forward with slabs hanging off the end. Cuts them off and they drop onto an elevator and into a dump trailer. For our size it works great if you have two people, but it is laborious.