horizontal bandsaw for resawing

[Dominique Meuris]

Is their anyone who has experience with building a horizontal bandsaw for resawing oak timber?

In general we have 27mm and 38mm oak timber, but from the 27mm we take out 20mm shelves, vertical walls, ...

At this moment we use the 38mm to make 30mm toppplates.
but we also use it to make 2 pieces from 10mm, which is a huge waste. With a bandsaw I should be able to take it out from the 27mm.
I take out 25mm pieces for topplates of lower parts. = huge waste, with a bandsaw I should be able to take out 25mm & 9-10mm

bottomline, It would save a lot of material for me.
but how should it be build? and what is the thickness of a good bandsaw for oak?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qQPlPbGATs
this is the idea of how it should work. only it needs to be with a longer table

or another way of thinking is to use a standard but very strong vertical bandsaw. and to mount a table in front and at the back. + automatic rollers that pushes it onto a fence.

what would be the easiest to construct, and give the best quality with the smallest cutline?

[Peter Kelly]

Matthias Wandel made a wooden one.



That Grizzly is a knock off of a Baker Model A btw.

[Loren Woirhaye]

I have considered it.

At one point I had a 20" Delta band saw and, having removed the table and trunnion for painting I noticed how much larger the capacity became and it occurred to me that I could turn it into a sawmill.

One difference between shop band saws and band mills is that band mills often have wider wheels to take carbon steel blades in the 2" wide range. That Delta could take a 1" blade but not much more.

[Andrew Hughes]

I would try to make a robot to serve me hot coffee before I would try to make a bandsaw.Just seems safer.

[Jim Andrew]

I have a small bandmill. It is a real resaw machine. you have to put a board under the piece you are going to resaw because it won't go closer than about 1" to the bed of the machine.

[Dominique Meuris]

Something else I once saw is a standard vertical bandsaw, and they placed a feeder on it.
is this a possiblity? because I also hear people saying that it doesn't work well.

[Jim Matthews]

How wide is the log?

It seems to me that you could experiment with a plain-Jane
Delta 14 to see if the concept works for you.

There are plenty of hardpoints on the cast iron frame
to mount the works to a trolley.

I've seen very good results with homebrewed (DIY)
bandsaw mills using truck tires and lawnmower engines.

Those have large capacity, limited only by welding skills
and the length of the blade you can purchase.

bike wheel bandsaw.jpg

[Dominique Meuris]

Well, it aren't logs that I have to saw, just planks that need to be sawn into smaller pieces without losing to many mm's during the sawing process.
the planks have a width between 60-80cm, but all the time we recut them in piece of maximum 15 cm's.
So heigth isn't the most important factor.

I think that rebuilding a vertical bandsaw into a resaw will be the easiest way.
but how can I install a feeder onto it? because I have to resaw around 1-2 m2 daily.

How wide is the log?

It seems to me that you could experiment with a plain-Jane
Delta 14 to see if the concept works for you.

There are plenty of hardpoints on the cast iron frame
to mount the works to a trolley.

I've seen very good results with homebrewed (DIY)
bandsaw mills using truck tires and lawnmower engines.

Those have large capacity, limited only by welding skills
and the length of the blade you can purchase.

bike wheel bandsaw.jpg

[Rod Sheridan]

Something else I once saw is a standard vertical bandsaw, and they placed a feeder on it.
is this a possiblity? because I also hear people saying that it doesn't work well.

Many larger saws have built in feeders.

Feeders work very well on band saws.............Rod.

[Rod Sheridan]

Well, it aren't logs that I have to saw, just planks that need to be sawn into smaller pieces without losing to many mm's during the sawing process.
the planks have a width between 60-80cm, but all the time we recut them in piece of maximum 15 cm's.
So heigth isn't the most important factor.

I think that rebuilding a vertical bandsaw into a resaw will be the easiest way.
but how can I install a feeder onto it? because I have to resaw around 1-2 m2 daily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SksCR69lhuQ

Watch the above video for some ideas............Rod.

[Dominique Meuris]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SksCR69lhuQ

Watch the above video for some ideas............Rod.

Well that's the system I have been thinking of to buy, but one from stenner then.
But the problem is that I juist build a 80m3 drying kiln, and funds are quite low right now.

That's why I was thinking to make a system like this out of a standard band saw and then install a feeder onto it.
I'm just wondering how I can do this, because I have heard people trying a feeder that they used on a spindle shaper. but that didn't work out well ...

Is their another way, or a place to buy the feeder?

[Jim Matthews]

1-2 square meters per day isn't high production.

I would build a proper resaw fence, and buy the stoutest bandsaw available.
This is something you should be able to do upright, without further construction.

You will need to get one face and adjacent edge of each board flat and square, first.

The real advantage of the vertical mills is that the logs don't move.
The disadvantage is the carriage must be fabricated, and still may not work well.

The bandsaw mills I have seen that cut well produce a great deal of sawdust,
and that's waste.

[Peter Kelly]

Can also set up an ordinary stock feeder with most larger saws.

[Loren Woirhaye]

The problem with standard stock feeders is they may run too fast, depending on what you're cutting. You can get lightweight ones with variable DC motors... and another option is to try a 3-phase feeder with a VFD.

[Dominique Meuris]

Sorry, that's a typing mistake.
i'm not talking about 1-2 square meters per day, because well that's nothing ...
I'm talking about 1-2 cubic meters per day. I have 8 assembling teams of 2 persons that need to have all the items prepaired in time.
at this moment it's looking that I need some more teams to keep up with production, but I do not wan't to increase the prepairing teams to much anymore...

Currently we are resawing everything with a panel saw. but the problem is that we lose 3mm of the circular saw everytime. which makes it impossible to take the required dimension out of our beams. with a result that we have a bigger waste. with a bandsaw I could cut with a 1-1,5mm blade, and then it's a complete difference.
+ i'm also looking to save some time.

1-2 square meters per day isn't high production.

I would build a proper resaw fence, and buy the stoutest bandsaw available.
This is something you should be able to do upright, without further construction.

You will need to get one face and adjacent edge of each board flat and square, first.

The real advantage of the vertical mills is that the logs don't move.
The disadvantage is the carriage must be fabricated, and still may not work well.

The bandsaw mills I have seen that cut well produce a great deal of sawdust,
and that's waste.