It's been a long time since I've posted. For those of you who don't know me or remember, I moved to Uruguay about 18 months ago. I've been too busy fixing up the farm and building a house to do any woodworking. I brought my entire shop with me, but it's been in boxes in a garage since we arrived. Once the house is done next month, I'll be able to convert the old house (where we're living now) into a wood shop. But that's not why I decided to post.
Today, I visited a sawmill. It was a small operation behind somoene's house. But it's the machinery that made it interesting. Power tools are expensive and hard to get here. So it's actually easier to get a huge bandsaw (think snowflake) for example rather than a 14" Jet. The shop I visited had two huge bandsaws. One had (about) 28" wheels. It was about 10 feet tall, with a small hole in the floor, and the lower wheel dropped about 8" into the floor. This was the main saw for the saw mill. They had roller infeed and outfeed tables. And the saw blade was about 1.5", and 16" logs outside.
They had another bandsaw also. This one had about 36" wheels, but was a little shorter. It had shop-made covers for the wheels and an enormous cast iron table. The owner cut up some 2x2s for me to make a whelping box for our lab that's about to deliver.
They also had a planer and jointer. They're models that I've never seen in the US. The planer's about 24" wide. And the jointer is a more european type with a 12" table that's maybe only 36" long.
No table saws. Everything's done with bandsaws.
But the really weird thing that caught my attention was the blade sharpening machine. He had a large blade from one of the big saws mounted horizontal with the teeth facing up, and a grinder that ground the teeth and advanced the blade automatically. I can see similar machines on the internet. But the one I saw today must have been nearly 100 years old. He had to stand over the machind and tighten and loosen bolts constantly as the machine ran in order to make it sound right and keep it grinding the blade correctly.
Once I get the shop setup, I'll definitely head back there for more wood. But we'll have to see how the quality goes. All the wood is air dried. And if it's anything like the firewood here, almost certainly still too wet. I have plans for some friends to bring me a moisture meter. That would be even more useful here than it would be in the US since quality is all over the place. And bringing it with me to buy firewood should be entertaining. "Our wood is dry" is uruguayan for "the check's in the mail." It should be great fun showing them just how "dry" their wood actually is. :-)
Edit: I had a long coversation with the owner after loading up the car. He pointed me to a motor shop in Montevideo who can fix and rewind a (marathon) motor for my compressor that decided it didn't like the power here. Interesting guy.
brian
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