Edging against a cant - modified the process

[Crossroads]

Something that helps me get a better clamp especially on 1x flitches is, after all flitches have one square edge down. Raise the side supports all the way, then clamp them below 1". Then I can lower the side supports as needed and the flitches stay straight and solid. 

[TimW]

Salt is seasoning...  :D

So now I am salt(y)? :D  Y'all are gonna have to quit helping Howard dig his own grave. ;D
hugs,  Brandi

[WV Sawmiller]

   With friends like these guys who needs enemies? :

[TimW]

  With friends like these guys who needs enemies? :

Obviously, you need all the friends you can get.
                    hugs,  Brandi

[WV Sawmiller]

  I trust I can include you in the august group. ;)

[tawilson]

 Since we are still talking edging here I will cover a topic/trick I learned years ago and posted somewhere but probably no pictures.

When you are edging a bunch of flitches and need to remove a single flitch to edge the opposite side or because it is finished I find a flitch/board in the middle often binds from pressure of the other flitches being edged. I can lift one end (the one next to me) but the other is held tightly. What I found on a job up in Bolt WV (Little Jimmy Dicken's home town) when edging lots of 4/4 boards was to use a "pivot stick"  which was basically a short sticker. I'd lift one end of the board/flitch to be removed and put the pivot stick under the flitch/board to be removed and across to the other flitches to be edged. Press down on the end of the board/flitch and the other end pops free and you can turn it over or slide it to the side to ne stacked.


I was edging against a stack of board per my now standard practice, I lifted this finished flitch out of the middle of the stack but the opposite end was binding and put the pivot stick under it. In this case I left it to take this picture. Next I just pushed down and the far end popped free. The closer to the center you place your pivot stick the less pressure it takes to free the opposite end. Its a handy trick when sawing alone and edging and removing flitches/boards one at a time. Not a high production technique, more of a high quality, "save every board possible" technique.

@GAB ,

Earlier in this you mentioned sawing for maximum width and that set me to thinking. Does that mean you are doing simple through and through sawing and not squaring 4 sides? When I want maximum width that is what I do. I saw the first face of the cant down to the side supports, rotate the cant 180 degrees and clamp low down and continue sawing to the rails. In this case every cut makes a flitch that has to be edged. I then stand the flitches up, clamp them and start edging in 1" drops. Every time I get a clean face, I unclamp and remove the flitch/board as described above. When I have both faces clean I remove the board for stacking.

This is not my normal practice. I normally saw first face and remove the slab and a flitch or two, flip the cat 180 degrees and repeat down to the width of my desired finished boards. I then flip the cant 90 degrees, remove the slab and a flitch or two till I hit clean wood on both sides then start removing finished boards. This means less edging for me. When I get to the side supports I make my final turn, start on a mark to end on a finished board, remove the slab and a flitch or two till I hit clean wood on both sides and saw to the rails then go back and edge my flitches per this thread. This does not produce maximum width boards but it does reduce edging.

Please clarify what you meant earlier when you commented about "sawing for maximum width boards" or something to that effect. Thanks.

BTW: I normally don't saw over 12" widths unless the customer is there or askes me to do so because most of my customers don't have a planer that will plane over 12" wide.

I knew I had read a post about removing the middle flitch trick but couldn't find it. That was it. Thanks.

[SawyerTed]

 :D :D 

[Digger Don]

Good point.  Sometimes It takes both, depending on the flitches. The cant is already against the bacstops, so it's easierto leave it there. Sometimes I throw a handy 2x4 on the clamp side. Just depends on how the flitches behave. Like a lot of things, best to adjust for actual conditions during the battle.

No doubt it would be easier to leave the cant next to the back stops. The times I have edged flitches, without a cant between them and the clamp, they bend into the shape of a ). Perhaps that is not an issue, because the saw pulls them over into the cant?

[WV Sawmiller]

Dan,

   I'm not sure I am following you. If I do not use a cant or stack of boards for a backbone I get the ( shape in the stack from the pressure of the clamp in the middle allowing the ends to pull away from the side supports. With the cant/stack of boards the stack of flitches stays straight. It does not matter which side of the side support the cant/stack of board is/are placed on but since the stack is already there when I finished saw the cant to the rails, I avoid double handling by leaving them in place and just standing the flitches up beside them. The cant/stack of board provides just as square a support as the side supports if sawed properly and I find this is faster, easier and less time and effort expended. As I edge lower on the stack of flitches I can just remove the top board or two if I need to cut a narrower board of of a flitch and they get in the way. 

   If the flitches already have one squared side you could probably get by with just one 4" wide 1X4 laid flat on the bed and clamped tightly against the stack of flitches as I described earlier when edging a single 4/4 board to thin to hold tightly in between the clamp and the side supports as it hold steady pressure the whole length of the stack of flitches being edged.

[Digger Don]

WV,
You are correct. The flitches would be more of a ( shape, than a ). 

I was just thinking that the cant, next to the clamp, would hold them straighter, because they would be supported on both sides. (Keep in mind, I only learned what a flitch, or a cant, was, a few weeks ago.) I'll have to try that, next time I'm at the mill. No doubt, it will be easier than trying to wedge them in between the clamp and the side supports.
Don

[WV Sawmiller]

Dan,

   Actually I was very impressed with your use of the ( or ) whatever to show the shape as that was a very good representation of what mine do when I put them against the side supports without the cant. Please forgive me if you though I was nit-picking about the direction. :D I happened to hit the sign facing backwards to the one you used.

   I guess if we really wanted maximum support we'd put the flitches between 2 stacks of board or 2 cants but that would really get to be a lot of work. ;) Actually yesterday when I'd finish edging both sides of a couple of flitches and still had more to do I'd sometimes, if I was not ready to stack them, I'd just lay down the finished boards, flip the flitches to be edged over, clamp and edge them so this way they did have maximum support from both sides. 

[Digger Don]

WV,
I did not find it nit picking at all. No worries there. But, speaking of nits, It's Don, not Dan. No offense taken on that, either. Perhaps Dan is more knowledgeable than I!

Another thing I noticed. I sure wish you were in Hinton, VA., instead of Hinton, WV. I'd be at your place every other day!  ;D Many thanks to you, and all the other wise folks here at FF.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sorry Don, my fat fingers sometimes type faster than my eyes read what I am punching. 

    I never even knew there was a Hinton VA but I checked and it is 178 miles from here and looks to be about half way on the way to Washing ton DC but why would anyone want to be going to DC? :D

   If you're ever in this area look me up.

[Digger Don]

WV,
Trust me, I have no desire to go to DC. Any place with a beltway is too big for me. 

I'm only 15 miles from the other Hinton, so the offer to stop in goes both ways. 

I've heard there is no good way across WV, except airplane. And, the only guy I know with a plane, died a few years ago. Just #$%&.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Well we are supposed to be famous for all our interstates per the Robert C. Byrd days. I live about 10-12 miles from either I-64 or I-77 just south of where they merge/diverge in Beckley WV so I am not that far away from people traveling either direction.

[SawyerTed]

I used to hunt in Virginia on a mountain just off the last exit on 77 before you get to the tunnel at the state line.  That was a cold place!

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sounds like Big Walker Mountain. Enter in Va and exit in WV on I-77.

    There is a reconstructed Wolf Creek Indian Village 8 miles from there at Exit 58 at Bastion Va. It is right behind the Loves truck stop. It is a very interesting place to stop if you are in the area with an hour or so to kill. They found an old palisaded Indian village when they widened I-77, had the archeologists map out the layout and went over about 1/4 mile and reconstructed it with the exact layout of every pole, hut poles, graves, etc. Interesting for the kids and educational for the adults. The guide will stop in each hut and talk about the way of life including pottery used and process, crops grown and harvested from the forest, fur tanning, flint knapping, fire starting, etc.

[terrifictimbersllc]

TT,

 How does it do that? ??? Do you mean because the board holds them in place?

Sorry WV missed your question here.  I posted that edging against a cant solves the problem of edgings falling off of the sawmill.

What I meant that when edging against a cant, where the cant is against the stops and the boards are to the right of the cant, then the edgings fall on the cant, rather than off the left side of the mill.  

This saves time not having to go clear the edgings out of the path of the head where they can cause it to jam going forward, or worse, when returning if dragging an edging along the main rail, --on my mill anyway--an edging can pull a manual backstop up and cause it to be in the path of the blade.  Also I get real nervous dragging an edging back on the rail because it seems like it could turn into a flying spear heading in my direction. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   BTW - the wood will determine whether sawing against a solid cant or a stack of boards works better. Last week I sawed a bunch of softwood (Hemlock and white pine) that was very stable/had little if any tension and when sawing it I'd edge the flitches against a solid cant. When I got to the red oak and poplar where there was a higher incidence of stress/tension I left the cant clamped and sawed till I reached the rails then sawed against the stack of boards.