馃攳
Successful Sawmilling Series - Quarter-Sawing Made Easy on Your Portable Sawmill - YouTube
Channel: Norwood Portable Sawmills
[9]
Hi, welcome to The Potter Shop Auto Tree Farm
and Sawmill, I'm Dave Boyd and part of what
[14]
I do here is to run a Norwood HD36 Sawmill,
it's a portable band sawmill which is a very
[22]
good tool for converting some of our logs
into lumber and this afternoon I'm going to
[27]
be describing how to do quarter sawing. Alright,
so I've outlined on this log the patterns
[33]
that we're going to use, and I'm going to
use a couple different cutting patterns just
[37]
for demonstration purposes. The first thing
we're going to do is we want to make sure
[42]
the log is oriented so that the split right
here all falls in the same board. That way
[49]
all of the defect will be in one board, and
hopefully we'll get some of the good wood from
[54]
it, but the boards below and above it are
all going to have good lumber in them. So
[59]
the first thing we're going to do is come
down and make a cut right here and remove
[65]
the top of the log and then we're going to
make three slabbing cuts so these are going
[71]
to be our wide quarter sawn boards, those
will be ideal for a tabletop, bar top, something
[76]
heavy. They could be glued together to make
an even wider top. The other thing that's
[83]
going to do is give us natural edges. A lot
of wood workers like natural edges on their
[89]
wood. So what is quarter sawn? Well it's the
orientation of the grain to the board and
[96]
this is a good place to show it here because
on this board right here our growth rings
[102]
are doing this. Of course they're a lot closer
than that but you get the idea and the further
[114]
out towards the centre we go the straighter
they get. So that's why they call it vertical
[120]
grain.With these pulled out we're going to
rotate these two halves 90 degrees and we're
[126]
going to make these cuts. And you'll see we're
still going to get quarter sawn wood here,
[136]
a little bit less so here, and a little bit
less quarter sawn the further out we go. When
[143]
you get out in this region the grain is kind
of at 45 degree angle, and that's what they
[150]
call rift grain and it's kind of a compromise
between quarter sawn and flat and the more
[157]
you get out here the more you're going to
be into the flatter grain. Then we're going
[164]
to take that off and I'll show you another
technique where you actually cut, turn the
[170]
log, cut, and turn the log. It's a lot of
extra work but it gives you just a little
[174]
bit more quarter sawn wood, and of course
you've got some scrap on the edges no matter
[179]
what you do. The other thing this does is
it still gives you your natural edge. So what
[185]
I like to do is have a natural edge on there,
I let the woodworker figure out where the
[191]
hell he wants to trim that up. So quarter
sawing it's a pain in the neck, it's a lot
[196]
of work, and you gotta really be judicious
in selecting your logs for it. Again, larger
[202]
logs are a lot more practical. Logs like cherry
or walnut that don't have the right flex,
[207]
they're not quite as spectacular when quarter
sawn, so you might not want to go to all that
[212]
work for those, or sycamore, white oaks, and
the red oaks have those right flex in them
[219]
that really look nice. This particular mill
has 8 inches from the cut to where it hits
[229]
the frame of the sawmill, so we're going to
measure 8 inches up, and that's where we're
[235]
going to make the slabbing cut, so we're going
to lose, we're really not losing any wood
[240]
here because that's just sapwood and bark
wood, and it's not going to amount to a great
[245]
deal, but once we take that off we should
be able to cut down to our first slab and
[251]
just barely clear the top of the log. So let's
see if that works, we'll get started. Oh I'm
[334]
glad that didn't land on my foot! And there's
our first slab. These slabs are about 26 inches
[377]
wide and seven feet long. Now you can see
the effect of quarter sawn wood. The grain
[420]
runs parallel to the log. One more slabbing
cut, and then we'll turn the two halves on
[451]
end to get more quarter sawn lumber. Okay,
so we've put two remaining pieces back together
[456]
and this has to be perfectly vertical, assuming
that the sawmill is level so that you get
[461]
a square cut. They don't line up like they
did, but that's okay we'll work around that
[466]
and what we'll see is that these pieces here
will be pretty much quarter sawn, these not
[471]
quite so much, and then when we get down into
here we'll take this piece and I'll how you
[477]
a different way to get more quarter sawn pattern
out of it, though it's going to take more
[481]
work to get it. Here again, we're into some
nice quarter sawn wood from those two pieces
[545]
i put back on the mill. The further down I
cut, the wider the boards and the more quarter
[550]
sawn lumber we'll get. Now we're ready to
start our modified cutting pattern and we'll
[565]
turn it this way, then this way, then here,
and then here. by the time we get down to
[572]
here the boards will be so narrow and we're
getting away from the quarter sawn wood anyhow,
[576]
then it gives us a nice piece of firewood.
Another thing I should mention is that you
[581]
have to keep this level so I've got a flat
side cut here so that it stays level on the
[587]
bunks and if I get down to the part on this
side, I have to cut it flat to keep everything
[594]
squared up as we go. Let's see how it works.
So the question is, how do we know we're square?
[618]
We really don't have much of a reference from
the uprights but we can, assuming the sawmill
[623]
is level, put a level on it, and tweak it
a bit if we have to to square it up. There,
[629]
that looks pretty good. Clamp it down, and
we're ready for our next cut. Now to cut the
[670]
next piece square and even, we're going to
have to give it a level surface here and then
[752]
clamp it down. And you should be able to see
that we're still getting some nice ring flex,
[801]
but it's at a bit more of an angle. We're
still getting quarter sawn pieces, but they'll
[807]
be narrow. down to about four inches, but
for table legs, small pieces like boxes, that
[812]
sort of thing, you can get some really nice
projects out of pieces like this. We're pretty
[832]
well down to the bottom of the barrel here,
it'll still lie flat so I'm not worried about
[837]
that. I'll just level it up, clamp it, and
finish cutting. And there's our last piece.
[893]
We're still getting the quarter sawn ring
flex, but the rest is too small to mess with,
[897]
so it goes on the firewood pile. So what I
have here is about 120 board feet of quality
[915]
white oak lumber that's a little shorter than
most mills would cut in fact this had been
[919]
left behind by a logging operation to rot
out in the woods. But by cutting it carefully
[925]
and quarter sawing it, we probably have a
total value once it's ready for the woodworkers
[930]
market, it's going to between 4 and 500 dollars,
so that's not bad for a couple hours work.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage