Best bands for old, dry western red cedar?

[StorminN]

A friend of mine recently bought a used manual band mill made by Western Sawyer Sawmills.

He milled some fir logs with it and it worked fine, but now he's trying to mill old, dry, salvaged cedar logs... these are mostly old growth, some are very dry and were felled in the 1930's and 1940's, but never milled. He's having problems with the blades dulling quickly on the cedar logs. He's heard about carbide tipped band blades and was wondering about those. I don't know anything about band mills, so I told him I would ask on here about what you guys recommend for hook angle and set for this sort of milling... Thanks in advance for any advice...

-Norm.

[deeker]

Even fresh live cut cedar will dull the blades fast.  Sand in the bark, and old dead stuff has sand in the wood.  As well as "crystilized" cells in the wood. 

I use cooks, exclusivily.  Very impressed with them and their service.

Post pics!!!

Good luck

Kevin

[logwalker]

I have cut a fair amount of Western Red and I don't find that problem. It sure cuts easier than dry fir. But as it dulls I pull the blade and sharpen. Maybe he is running too long. I stared out with a Western Sawyer. My friend down the road has it now. I am running Woodmiser's and they do a good job. Ask him how long he is cutting to cause them to dull.  Joe

[mike_van]

I don't know about carbide Norm, never used one. Years ago I did buy a bi-metal blade, it was kind of pricey, about 70.00, but, it cut off some 50+ nails before it was dull.  Something like that might help? You can sharpen them with the same wheel, where as carbide you should have a diamond  stone.  I use 10D hook for everything, softwoods need .025 set.   He could always buy just one blade & try it -

[backwoods sawyer]

I cut quite a bit of western red cedar, some that had been dead for 50 years. I like the woodmizer double hard 1 ½", .055, 13* hook, with a minimum set of .023 for small logs and as much as .027 for larger logs.
I turn the feed speeds up considerably more then when cutting Doug-fir witch I use a 10* hook to cut.

I have also used Timber wolf bands 13* and Western red cedar green or dry is about the only wood that I will use them on. They loose there set when cutting Doug-fir.

I would much rather cut a deck of dry western red cedar then a dry deck of Doug-fir.

[Meadows Miller]

I would much rather cut a deck of dry western red cedar then a dry deck of Doug-fir.

[/quote].

Gday

Backwoods You hit the nail on the head again  :D mate
I got  500 ton of D/Fir about 9 years ago It was cut 4 years before and stacked in a log yard with no water they where A's worth $120 a ton green on the landing. I got them for $45 a ton del  80 miles to my mill (I thought BARGAN) I am going to make a killing on this  :D It knocked 2/3ds of my band life Lennox bands and was verry hard cutting timber .
I still made some bloody good money out of that job even at 45% recovery after allowing for the degade in the logs eg splits rot ect ect

Ive seen stellite tipd narrow bands but the price allways put me off buying one to try

Reguards Chris

[Mo]

Fell free to give me a call or e-mail me, I'll try to help you out. 

[StorminN]

Thanks guys,

I printed out this info and gave it to my friend... I stopped over there the other day to see the mill and help them try to get it going.

It seemed to me that they were trying to run it with not nearly enough tension on the blade. The alignment of the band wheels looked all out of whack, too. We messed with the wheel alignment a bit, (not easy or intuitive on this Western Sawyer mill) got the blades to track ok, then adjusted the guides, and tensioned the blade to where it "felt" OK to me (waay tighter)...

We made a couple of test cuts on a small fir log, then made the important cut... a flat cut on a 17' Doug fir log... it came out great, at most 1/16" off on one end. They're building a custom timber log home and they had just spent two days cutting the joints on that 17' log, so we were all happy to not mess it up!

P.S. He had been dulling new blades in just a log or two on that dry cedar...

Thanks again,
-Norm.