# DIY swing saw?



## big daddio (Feb 7, 2008)

anybody out there made their own swing saw? recovering from back surgery and getting tired of picking up slabs to convert to firewood. i know how creative home millers are. help.


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 7, 2008)

So, what are you going to do with that big heavy slab that a swing mill leaves behind? (at ground level no less)

Every mill has slabs....unless you leave the bark on the lumber.

My back has issues too, so i saw the 4 slabs that come off the log into 4' lengths "before" i remove them off the mill... They are much lighter, and they stack into a nice 4'x4'x4' stack that i can use later, or sell as 1/2 cord...

Rob


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## ELITER (Feb 8, 2008)

Sawyer Rob said:


> So, what are you going to do with that big heavy slab that a swing mill leaves behind? (at ground level no less)
> 
> Every mill has slabs....unless you leave the bark on the lumber.
> 
> ...



I could be wrong but he is talking about a swing blade mill (see Lucas or Petersen mills) and they don't leave slabs but rather they leave dimensional lumber so all you are handling is a 2x8 or at most an 8x8, with the ability to cut a 8X16 if you need to.

I too would be interested in if anyone has built one.. I would love one but couldn't justify it so I would like to make one if it weren't too far over my head


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## big daddio (Feb 8, 2008)

i may have been misleading. around here some of the larger backyard mills have a roller table for boards and slabs to be offbeared from. some have a circular saw set up to swing by a handle to cut the slabs into short sections. the really trick ones have a conveyor that drops the pieces into a truck.


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 8, 2008)

ELITER said:


> I could be wrong but he is talking about a swing blade mill (see Lucas or Petersen mills) and they don't leave slabs but rather they leave dimensional lumber so all you are handling is a 2x8 or at most an 8x8, with the ability to cut a 8X16 if you need to.
> 
> I too would be interested in if anyone has built one.. I would love one but couldn't justify it so I would like to make one if it weren't too far over my head




Swing mills aren't magic... ALL sawmills produce slabs!!

Here's one of the guys from Lucas, and what do you see in the picts.?








big daddio,

What are you sawing with that you create slabs fast enough that you need a cut off saw??? For everything up to "production", a chainsaw works pretty good... If your back is so bad you can't run a small chainsaw, should you be doing anything around a mill??

I have issues with my back, and when it acts up, i have to look out the window at my mill...  

Like i said before, you can saw the slabs while they lay on the cant, and it goes much faster than you think... I pull them off the end, and saw them right there... No lifting that way, and they aren't on the ground...

I use to use a "buck saw" that runs off my tractor, but it's too much moving of the slabs for one person to end up with firewood...

I have thought of putting rollers off the head end of my mill, to pull the slabs onto before sawing, but i just don't have that much production to need them...

Rob


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## big daddio (Feb 8, 2008)

i'll try that cutting the slabs as soon as they come off Rob. hopefully the back issue will be better by the end of this month [got to go back to the real job] i mostly cut small logs [10 to 20'' and free] and do a lot of edging to get the most out of them. that cut off saw of yours, does it have a stationary blade or does it swing or slide through the wood? thanks oh yeah, went and bought me one of those little husky saws at the hardware store, lot better than the 064 stihl for slab chopping


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 8, 2008)

big daddio said:


> i'll try that cutting the slabs as soon as they come off Rob. hopefully the back issue will be better by the end of this month [got to go back to the real job] i mostly cut small logs [10 to 20'' and free] and do a lot of edging to get the most out of them. that cut off saw of yours, does it have a stationary blade or does it swing or slide through the wood? thanks oh yeah, went and bought me one of those little husky saws at the hardware store, lot better than the 064 stihl for slab chopping




Here it is... You move the wood into the saw blade,







It works pretty good, but you still have to handle those slabs, and in the end, if your by yourself, it ends up being more work...

Rob


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## woodshop (Feb 8, 2008)

Here is another one, same principle, you put the slab or small log/limb on the "deck" of the thing and move the whole thing forward into the saw powered by the tractor... they are a little scary to work. OSHA would have a field day.


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## BobL (Feb 8, 2008)

Sawyer Rob said:


> Swing mills aren't magic... ALL sawmills produce slabs!!



Sorry Rob disagree. A Lucas mill can turn a log into 1 x 1" strips without cutting a single slab first. You can even do the same with a CS on a suitable rig.


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 8, 2008)

BobL said:


> Sorry Rob disagree. A Lucas mill can turn a log into 1 x 1" strips without cutting a single slab first. You can even do the same with a CS on a suitable rig.



So you substitute the word "edgeing" for the word "slab"? Big deal, who wants that?? And what about what's left on the ground when your done sawing??? I guess you can call that a "carcus" instead of a "slab"... No matter, someone has to lift it and deal with it, no matter what you call it...

I don't think any of my customers would be too happy if i sawed all there logs into 1" strips, or left the edges on... For some reason they seem to like bigger dimentions, and every tree i've ever seen needed some bark, or edge sawn off it to get to the "good stuff"...

Rob


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## BobL (Feb 8, 2008)

Sawyer Rob said:


> So you substitute the word "edgeing" for the word "slab"? Big deal, who wants that?? And what about what's left on the ground when your done sawing??? I guess you can call that a "carcus" instead of a "slab"... No matter, someone has to lift it and deal with it, no matter what you call it...
> 
> I don't think any of my customers would be too happy if i sawed all there logs into 1" strips, or left the edges on... For some reason they seem to like bigger dimentions, and every tree i've ever seen needed some bark, or edge sawn off it to get to the "good stuff"...
> 
> Rob


From what you are saying it sounds like you have never seen one working.
With a swing mill there is no need ever have to pick up a "slab" or a large face cut like you do with a BS or CS mill and all the edges are cut of as strips as you go. If you can't work it out I can show you a diagram of a cutting sequence that shows this. I'd much rather be picking pieces of 4 x 2 and 8 x 1 by hand of a log, than handling slabs 12 - 18" x 2 or wider. Same with the edge strips (there are no large face cuts. You can even cut the "remaining carcass" into 2" wide strips when your are done. And as an added bonus is one does not need to turn cants.


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## ELITER (Feb 9, 2008)

BobL said:


> From what you are saying it sounds like you have never seen one working.
> With a swing mill there is no need ever have to pick up a "slab" or a large face cut like you do with a BS or CS mill and all the edges are cut of as strips as you go. If you can't work it out I can show you a diagram of a cutting sequence that shows this. I'd much rather be picking pieces of 4 x 2 and 8 x 1 by hand of a log, than handling slabs 12 - 18" x 2 or wider. Same with the edge strips (there are no large face cuts. You can even cut the "remaining carcass" into 2" wide strips when your are done. And as an added bonus is one does not need to turn cants.



This is exactly what I meant when I posted... I am glad I am not the only one who sees the huge advantages these mills have in dimensional lumber without a lot of heavy lifting and turning!


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 9, 2008)

BobL said:


> From what you are saying it sounds like you have never seen one working.
> With a swing mill there is no need ever have to pick up a "slab" or a large face cut like you do with a BS or CS mill and all the edges are cut of as strips as you go. If you can't work it out I can show you a diagram of a cutting sequence that shows this. I'd much rather be picking pieces of 4 x 2 and 8 x 1 by hand of a log, than handling slabs 12 - 18" x 2 or wider. Same with the edge strips (there are no large face cuts. You can even cut the "remaining carcass" into 2" wide strips when your are done. And as an added bonus is one does not need to turn cants.




If i've never seen one work, who do you think took the above pict??? And why does that Lucas guy have slabs coming off his swingmill??? BTW, the Peterson guy just out of the pict. had slabs coming off his swinger too...

Here's a clue for you... i've seen several sizes, kinds, and brand of swing mills work, even some experimental models that flopped.... And the above guy has slabs coming off his mill, because he trying to saw for "grade"...

Call them what ever you want, (slab, edge or ??) but the outside of the tree will be on some of the boards, you have to deal with it somehow, just like he is in the above pict... Big or small, it will be there and you have to deal with it... Same with what's left of the log on the ground...

Next... If your not turning the cant, your not sawing the "best grade" of lumber possible out of the tree... Now, that's a fact!! You can't saw out what you can't see...

Turning a cant is very easy with my log turner, and it saves my back... It allows me to get those "money boards" out of the log!

Next, a band mill has more recovery... You can't get around that either...

And, how do you saw out 5/4 x 12's 14's or even wider lumber that my customers want out of there logs????? ooohhh, that's right, you have to turn the whole darn sawhead around!! (BTW, i can saw out 24" wide boards in one pass)

The only place a swinger has it over a bandmill on logs in the US, is the really "big" logs.... and 99% of us don't get many of those... When i do, i split it with a chainsaw, and still mill it with my bandmill...

One last point... Those slabs that your worried about? I cut them 4' long, and sell them for firewood, do you think anyone would buy all those skinny endgeings for firewood??? That means i'd loose even more profit out of the logs, and STILL have to deal with all those usless skinny pieces of wood that no one wants... And those slabs that come off a customers logs, they are pure profit!

There's a place for every kind of saw, but a swinger just isn't the right saw for 99% of what customers want here...

Rob


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## Ianab (Feb 9, 2008)

I'm with BobL here.

The thing with a swingblade is you can take of those outside slabs in small dimensioned pieces. It is usually quicker to slice them up into 6x2 type sizes, or whatever you use for firewood in those parts, on the mill and they are much easier to handle. If you are taking off edgings too skinny for firewood, thats because you have recovered more boards from the log, that has to be a good thing. You are left with a full width slab on the bottom of the log, but just slice that up with the chainsaw if it's too big to move easily.

Also you can Q-saw without having to move large quarters of a log.

Now I agree that no one mill suits every task, and swingblades are at their best taking dimension lumber off BIG logs. But they can handle smaller hardwood logs perfectly well, just like any other saw can. 

Personally I think that the lack of log handling puts them above a manual band saw when cutting ANY log, but they are a little more expensive of course. I do admit I am biased too 

But for someone with a bad back the lighter slabs and easy log
handling might be more important than any other factor like board width and kerf etc.

Cheers

Ian


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## BobL (Feb 9, 2008)

Thanks Ian - I was hoping you'd chip in - you put the words together better than I could. I agree that on BIG logs they really shine - the bigger the log the greater proportion of timber they can recover. 

Rob - I think I see the confusion. Slab to me means either a large (as in wide) face cut, or a piece spanning the whole width of a tree - the sorts of things Aggie cuts. That's what I'm talking about lifting, not the edging.


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## Matildasmate (Feb 9, 2008)

Ianab said:


> I'm with BobL here.
> 
> The thing with a swingblade is you can take of those outside slabs in small dimensioned pieces. It is usually quicker to slice them up into 6x2 type sizes, or whatever you use for firewood in those parts, on the mill and they are much easier to handle. If you are taking off edgings too skinny for firewood, thats because you have recovered more boards from the log, that has to be a good thing. You are left with a full width slab on the bottom of the log, but just slice that up with the chainsaw if it's too big to move easily.
> 
> ...





BobL said:


> Thanks Ian - I was hoping you'd chip in - you put the words together better than I could. I agree that on BIG logs they really shine - the bigger the log the greater proportion of timber they can recover.
> 
> Rob - I think I see the confusion. Slab to me means either a large (as in wide) face cut, or a piece spanning the whole width of a tree - the sorts of things Aggie cuts. That's what I'm talking about lifting, not the edging.



I have to agree it's not rocket science . Cheer's MM


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## big daddio (Feb 9, 2008)

i agree that the swing blade mills can make sawing a large log easier, all you got to do is sit the mill over the log, right? but to be frank, my wife and i saw one being demoed at a log show a few years back [peterson, i believe] and when the operator swung that blade up i was looking at how close it was to him. maybe i'm paranoid, i did have kids at home then, but my band mill doesn't look near as scary..........and i do end up with a lot of kindlin' instead of firewood from a lot of extreme edging.


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 9, 2008)

You swingers aren't addressing some important points...

Wide boards! Most customers want wide boards.

The best grade of lumber from the log! This is very important, and you only get it from turning cants!

Multible beams from one log! i've been sawing quite a few 6x10 beams for a customer, out of his big pine logs.

No one here will buy "kindleing" for firewood! I sold (2) 4'x4'x4' stacks (that = one cord) last week to a guy with an outdoor woodstove. That's 80 bucks in MY pocket from a customers logs!!

You can't saw out "true" quartersawn lumber without turning the cant... not even on a swinger!

I'm not picking on swing blades, it's just a fact that they don't do the above well, or not at all. And, those things are what make money here in the US.

Lastly, that running back and forth bending over to pick up lumber is a lot harder on my back than turning a crank to turn logs... and if i get lazy, i can use my cordless drill to turn the winch.. lol

Gotta go now, i have an extra FREE 80 bucks spending money, burning a hole in my pocket.. lol lol


Have fun, with what ever you choose to saw with!!

Rob


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## EPA (Feb 9, 2008)

I think its fair to say ALL mills make slabs// I try not to lift all of anything so I use this little pivot at the mill //I pull one end of slab or board on and pivot it to the ways or forks//





here a hvy 16" board:





here are slabs on the forks:





Then to the slab pile:





And then someone else pays me to come in and cut them and take them away :


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## BobL (Feb 9, 2008)

EPA said:


> I think its fair to say ALL mills make slabs



This depends on the definition of the term "slab".

To my way of thinking this is a slab - ie an incompletely dimensioned piece of timber with original edges on two opposite sides. I may on the odd occasion call a wide and thick face cut a slab but usually only if you can extract more useful timber out of it. 





As you yourself say this is a "board".





And the timber stacked over to the RHS of this picture (can't see it all clearly but it looks like they still have bark edges both sides) are "slabs". 
The ones on the forks are in my book too thin to be called slabs I call these face cuts. 





Slabs with the edges taken off them are in my book dimensioned timber or boards or planks. 

You call this a slab pile - I would call it a pile of offcuts or firewood pile.





With a swing mill one never need to cut (my definition) slabs, it cuts dimensioned timber or (my definition) offcuts.

Just semantics really but I guess we are on the other side of the planet.


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## EPA (Feb 9, 2008)

Well I've been in Northern NE for the last 70 years in and around sawmills and the loging industry- and the slabs in the slab pile are slabs not off cuts. In all those years I never heard that term // EPA


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## Matildasmate (Feb 9, 2008)

I think this thread is turning into one of those splitting hair thread's saddly . The main thing is can the *slabs , offcut's* what ever you want to call them , can be cut up further or handled easier and the short answer is *yes*. Cheer's MM


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## big daddio (Feb 9, 2008)

man, i'll tell you what, like i said, just recuperating after back surgery, feeling like you all know it woud be, not able to get millin' & stuff. this site has helped me get through it...........around here a slab has bark on one side and is of no use unless you use it for rustic furniture [which has me looking for seats for small benches and stools.....another story] or firewood.


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## Ianab (Feb 9, 2008)

The slabs thing has a different meaning in different parts of the world.

In the US it means those first cuts off the log with the bark and all. 
In NZ and Aussie it means BIG live edge boards, that I think you guys would call flitches.

Q-sawn. With a swinger it's true that not all your boards will be perfectly q-sawn. But the best ones will be cut exactly 90 deg and should be perfect. Using any of the common techniques on a bandmill is also only approximate quatersawing. Some (hopefully the widest ones) will be perfect, but the others will drift off toward rift sawn just like the swingblade does. The percentage and size of the 90deg boards may vary, but unless you have a radial sawmill that slices the log into segments like an orange, you cant get all the boards at 90 deg.


You want wide boards/flitches/slabs - we do em 







But you see why they are called slabs 

Cheers

Ian


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## BobL (Feb 10, 2008)

Ianab said:


> The slabs thing has a different meaning in different parts of the world.



The most common use of the term "slab" in my neck of the woods would have to be in relation to a carton of 2 dozen cans or stubbies. The two and half dozen can carton we call "blocks", your terminology may vary.


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## BlueRider (Feb 10, 2008)

Ianab said:


> The slabs thing has a different meaning in different parts of the world.
> 
> In the US it means those first cuts off the log with the bark and all.
> In NZ and Aussie it means BIG live edge boards, that I think you guys would call flitches.
> ...





Being on the west coast (US) the terminology can also be diferent, though in my case it is also probably due to having a furniture backfround rather than a logging background. We call the big boards slabs and the unusable first cut a "cap". A flitch is a bunch of seqencial pieces of veneer, boards, or slabs. 

Having used a swing mill a small bit I can say from experiance that you can saw for grade, it just takes a bit more imagination. The swing mills really excell at cutting diminsional lumber that is far more acurate and consistant than a band mill.


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## BlueRider (Feb 10, 2008)

*swing saws as opposed to a swing blades*

to bring this thread back round to what the original poster was asking about which was a swing saw: 

At one time they were very popular with every manufacturer from Oliver to Craftsman having one in their line. They were the precursor to the radial arm saw. Now days they are considered very unsafe and even in their day were often refered to as widow makers. the danger is their tendency to self feed and to climb up and into the operator.


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## Ianab (Feb 10, 2008)

> The most common use of the term "slab" in my neck of the woods would have to be in relation to a carton of 2 dozen cans or stubbies



24 cans in a slab, 24 hours in a day.. coincidence? I think not ;-)


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## BobL (Feb 10, 2008)

Ianab said:


> 24 cans in a slab, 24 hours in a day.. coincidence? I think not ;-)



This reminds me about these three miners in the 1970s who "worked"on a remote tax dodging gold mine for a friend of BILs. Every friday afternoon, 2 of them would drive the 100 miles into town to buy the beer and one would stay behind. Why do you need 2 guys to go and get some beer ? Well, every week they did buy 21 slabs of beer to bring back (and one to drink on the drive home) and loading and unloading the beer was about the only work these guys did. That's 1 slab per man per day - this was one of the few incentives they had working in the middle of nowhere.


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## Matildasmate (Feb 10, 2008)

BobL said:


> The most common use of the term "slab" in my neck of the woods would have to be in relation to a carton of 2 dozen cans or stubbies. The two and half dozen can carton we call "blocks", your terminology may vary.


 Now that was worth reading , just for the laugh mate :hmm3grin2orange:


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## big daddio (Feb 10, 2008)

i'll make sure to not get my slabpiles mixed up.


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## woodshop (Feb 10, 2008)

BobL said:


> The most common use of the term "slab" in my neck of the woods would have to be in relation to a carton of 2 dozen cans or stubbies. The two and half dozen can carton we call "blocks", your terminology may vary.



Interesting... I've heard of a 24 can carton of beer/soda refered to as a "rack", but never a slab. Guess if I grew up in certain parts of Australia, I would be calling it a slab  


:deadhorse: 
Different parts of the world, different terms for the same thing. What's the big deal? Here in SE Pennsylvania a slab is that first slice off the side of a log, mostly bark, and if you want to buy "slabwood" for your wood stove, that is what you would get, roughly 16" sections of that slab. You can get it cheaper than regular firewood since a lot of it is just bark, some of which falls off as it dries making more of a mess of the firewood pile. Perhaps if I moved to Minnesota or Alaska and asked for slabwood I'd get a blank stare. 

Around here, I have ALSO came across the term "slab" referring to a (generally) thick, meaning 8/4 or thicker, wide (at least 2ft wide), usually live edge board like the stuff Aggie slices with that huge csm he has. 

When I was in the military stationed in Germany early 70's in the barracks with guys from all over the US, a can of Coke was called everything from a can of pop to can of fizz... some actually called it soda, which is what we call it here in PA. 

Swing mill? ...... would love to have one.

Full sized bandmill? ..... would love to have one.

60" csm with an 080 on EACH end and somebody to help me make "slabs"  ? .... would love to have one.


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 10, 2008)

EPA said:


> Well I've been in Northern NE for the last 70 years in and around sawmills and the loging industry- and the slabs in the slab pile are slabs not off cuts. In all those years I never heard that term // EPA



Hey EPA,

You have to excuse those aussie dudes... Heck, when they flush their toilet, even the terd goes the other way around! lol lol

DM


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## Matildasmate (Feb 10, 2008)

woodshop said:


> Interesting... I've heard of a 24 can carton of beer/soda refered to as a "rack", but never a slab. Guess if I grew up in certain parts of Australia, I would be calling it a slab
> 
> 
> :deadhorse:
> ...


Well put Dave .... sadly this thread now look's a bit like one of those chainsaw thread's , it would have been nice , if everyone didnt get hung up on the wording , instead of keeping it simple and trying to help the bloke . I must admit though , I did get a few laugh's out of it though . Cheer's MM


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## BobL (Feb 11, 2008)

Sawyer Rob said:


> Hey EPA,
> 
> You have to excuse those aussie dudes... Heck, when they flush their toilet, even the terd goes the other way around! lol lol
> 
> DM



It's the right way around if you consider, we are standing on the other side of the earth.


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 11, 2008)

BobL said:


> It's the right way around if you consider, we are standing on the other side of the earth.



HA HA HA


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