Resawing

[Wayne Lomman]

I have finally figured out what everyone means by resawing.

Here in Australia ( and I have plied my trade in most of the states) what you guys call resawing, I call ripsawing or just ripping. To me a resaw is a high production bandsaw toothed both sides of the usually 4" blade. It was power fed and had 2 machinists feeding the timber back and forth instead of 1 machinist and a tailer-out. I did wonder how everyone could afford one...

FYI, there are a few other differences in nomenclature as well such as your shaper is my spindle moulder and your planer is my thicknesser. And as for converting feet/inches to my far simpler metric, well, the brain exercise had better keep Alzheimer's away a bit longer.

Do you have an equivalent term for a flitch? That is heavy section timber (lumber - there's another one) usually 4" thick and any width, green and straight from the mill. Cheers.

[lowell holmes]

I try to avoid re-sawing as much as possible, it is a lot of work.

If I do, it will be on a power tool like a band saw, or sometimes a table saw.

[Prashun Patel]

If Horizon Wood's website is accurate: a flitch is long-ways slice of a log. A slab is the thick flitch. All the flitches from the same log reconstructed into the original log is a boule. I think flitches should be called 'slices', slabs = 'thick slices', boules = 'sliced logs'.

I think of 'resawing' as taking an already milled piece of lumber, and sawing it to thickness it into 2 or more slices. I think it should be called 'slicing'.

Other terms that annoyed me: rabbet, rebate, dado, fillister: They're all 'grooves' and 'notches', yo.

I find the European terms, "planing" and "thicknessing" way more intuitive. Where the heck did 'jointing' come from? How'd 'joint' become verbified? (Oops, I did it again!)

[rudy de haas]

One of your comments here - the bit about converting imperial to metric - raises an interesting question. People assume metric is better because it seems simpler, but I've recently become less sure of that.

The key driver for this came from a mistake: I bought what seemed to be a high quality caliper on for ten cents on the dollar at Princess Auto (a liguidation reseller) and thought I had a bargain until I discovered it uses tenths of inches. It's the worst of both worlds and got me thinking about how arbitrary the metric system is.

The imperial system evolved to fit what people do - anyone can see and feel the difference between a 1/8th and 3/16 thickness etc. Metric, however, originated from a mis-estimate of the earth's diameter and the idea that powers of ten are easy to work with - but I need a machine to reliably differentiate 18mm baltic birch from 19mm stuff.

Bottom line: imperial measure seems to fit how ordinary people work and measure, while metric looks like some arts graduate's idea of how science should work.

[John TenEyck]

Rudy, the imperial system fits you and all of us who grew up with it. Period. For most people around the world, however, it makes no sense at all. You can feel the difference between 3 and 5 mm just as easily as you can 1/8 and 3/16", and when you want to multiply them by 3 or 11 or whatever it's a whole lot easier. I still use imperial rulers, etc. for woodworking because I can visualize it better than metric and that's what nearly everyone else uses who supplies to the US market. But I make a lot more mistakes with the math than I ever did with metric, which I used for 30+ years in my corporate days.

John

[Erik Loza]

I always preferred the term "ripping" to describe that task on a bandsaw. It's the identical procedure to what you would do on a table saw, but on a bandsaw, so why call it something different? I guess it is like calling an internal combustion engine a motor. Not necessarily correct but it's accepted, understood, and we all do it.

During the trade show days, old timers would come into the Minimax booth, stare incredulously at the MM16 (I guess it looks huge if you're not used to seeing them but it actually looks somewhat small to me...), then pluck on the blade (a Tri-master) as if it were a guitar string, and proclaim, "Now THAT'S a re-saw!". As if it were a noun and as if the blade were that noun. Always found that humorous.

Erik

[Jim Dwight]

I mostly agree that metric versus imperial is what you have the most experience with. I understand how to convert but I cannot visualize metric diensions. at work, we use imperial (nuclear industry) but we put metric on a lot of drawings for international customers. The drafting program does it. But imperial is the official dimension. I do not agree that metric helps avoid mistakes. Using what you understand best helps avoid mistakes. I don't think either system is better or more scientific, the choice is arbitrary and driven by what you are most comfortable with.

[John Vernier]

I don't know if "flitch" is used in America to describe a heavy timber right off the sawmill, but it may be. I'm not a sawyer. Where I have encountered it regularly is in buying or sawing veneer, a set of veneers sawn from a single log and kept in sequence is called a flitch. So it starts as the solid flitch as you describe it, and is sawn up into thin slices but keeps the same name while the pieces are kept together.

[Art Mann]

The two terms convey two different meanings and I think the distinction is important. In almost all the literature, sawing to reduce the thickness of a board or produce two equally wide boards is referred to as resawing. It doesn't matter whether it is done on a band saw or table saw. Cutting a board lengthwise in order to reduce its width is referred to as ripping. once again, this operation can be accomplished with either a table saw or band saw. If you are trying to explain to someone how to do something with only words, the vocabulary is vital. Consider the terms "dado and groove". A dado cuts across grain or along the narrow width of a surface. whereas a groove is cut in the direction of the grain or along the widest width of the material. Both cuts are square shouldered and flat on the bottom but they are used for very different purposes. I can't begin to count the number of times a neophyte woodworker has come to this or some other woodworking forum to seek advice but is unable to explain what he is talking about because he misuses the terminology. I remember a thread not long ago in which a guy used the word "resaw" when he meant "rip". It took a dozen or more exchanges with different people before the group finally figured out what he wanted. Usually, somebody will guess what he is trying to say and politely explain the word definitions so that the poster can explain himself. The more technical you talk, the more specific and definitive the vocabulary must be.

By the way, I spent a career in automotive engineering and nobody in that line of work would call an engine a motor more than once.

I always preferred the term "ripping" to describe that task on a bandsaw. It's the identical procedure to what you would do on a table saw, but on a bandsaw, so why call it something different? I guess it is like calling an internal combustion engine a motor. Not necessarily correct but it's accepted, understood, and we all do it.

During the trade show days, old timers would come into the Minimax booth, stare incredulously at the MM16 (I guess it looks huge if you're not used to seeing them but it actually looks somewhat small to me...), then pluck on the blade (a Tri-master) as if it were a guitar string, and proclaim, "Now THAT'S a re-saw!". As if it were a noun and as if the blade were that noun. Always found that humorous.

Erik

[rudy de haas]

. I don't think either system is better or more scientific, the choice is arbitrary and driven by what you are most comfortable with.

I do - because metric claims to be scientific, but is actually totally arbitrary; while imperial is usually described as nutty and arbitrary but actually evolved through use to fit what we do and how we work.

A month or so ago I would have agreed that metric is better, however that was before I really thought about it and discovered how hopelessly out of sync with my own thought and work patterns tenths of inches is. Now I'm more inclined than not to argue that imperial is better because it fits with (and evolved to support) human work and perceptional patterning. Notice, please, that I give no credence to the easier arithmetic argument: fractions are not significantly harder to work with then powers of ten (i,.e. there is a difference, but it is not material).

[Scott DelPorte]

Hi Erik,
In some circles, resaw is used as a noun. Meaning there is a piece of equipment at sawmills that they referred to as a resaw. Basically a big bandsaw used for sawing logs into lumber. Heres a link to a company that makes them. I wonder if the old timers might have been referring to machines like these.

http://mcdonough-mfg.com/products.aspx?q=17

Scott

[Erik Loza]

Scott, you could be right. I always found it funny but that makes sense. Minimax did shows in some pretty rural areas back in the day and this was before the interwebz, so...

Erik

[Jim Finn]

One of your comments here - the bit about converting imperial to metric - raises an interesting question. People assume metric is better because it seems simpler, but I've recently become less sure of that.

The key driver for this came from a mistake: I bought what seemed to be a high quality caliper on for ten cents on the dollar at Princess Auto (a liguidation reseller) and thought I had a bargain until I discovered it uses tenths of inches. It's the worst of both worlds and got me thinking about how arbitrary the metric system is.

The imperial system evolved to fit what people do - anyone can see and feel the difference between a 1/8th and 3/16 thickness etc. Metric, however, originated from a mis-estimate of the earth's diameter and the idea that powers of ten are easy to work with - but I need a machine to reliably differentiate 18mm baltic birch from 19mm stuff.

Bottom line: imperial measure seems to fit how ordinary people work and measure, while metric looks like some arts graduate's idea of how science should work.

My sentiments exactly! Metric is for great folks that cannot learn multiplication
facts up to 12.

[glenn bradley]

For me, imperial in the shop amplifies my escape and sense of refuge. At work I think in binary, octal, decimal and actually catch myself dreaming in hex. When I go to the shop and shift to imperial, everything slows down and gets comfy. It must use some other part of the brain

[Wayne Lomman]

I find interesting the general comments about imperial vs metric. For me the conversions are simple arithmetic that gives my brain some exercise. I was at school when Australia changed from pounds to dollars as well as changing from imperial to metric. As a consequence I am conversant with both systems. The system of measurement is not ideology for me. It is just another tool for life - you work with what you have. In passing, the tendency for thou to be called mils has caused many Australian machinists and painters a fair bit of head scratching at first. Cheers