# reciprocating saw



## zogger (Mar 23, 2011)

I was just thinking about something, which is always either dangerous, entertaining or downright retarded..... I know back when I was doing things by hand, firewood and crosscut roundish slab tables, my saw cuts always came out near finished looking. Sooooo, I was wondering if anyone here had ever tried using something like one of those big wright reciprocating saws for milling?


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## john taliaferro (Mar 23, 2011)

SLOW , and it wont clear the chips .


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## Brmorgan (Mar 24, 2011)

^^ What he said. As soon as the width of the piece being cut exceeds the length of the blade's stroke on a reciprocal saw, you run into issues with chips/dust not being cleared from the cut, which slows things down immensely. And a lot of energy is wasted on the return stroke since the blade isn't cutting, whereas a saw chain is always flying along in the same direction. +1 for thinking outside the box! But I don't see it being practical.

Also, with a well-sharpened chain and well-adjusted mill and good technique, it's possible to get a VERY smooth surface with a chainsaw mill. Smoother than circular mills and many bandmills as well, really.


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## Old Hilly (Mar 25, 2011)

May I sugest that you do some research on the old "frame" saws or "sash" saws? You will find that your idea is sound but the blade design is completely wrong. The teeth on these small reciprocating saws are way too small for what you want to do and the blade is much too flexible. I also suspect that the speed is way too high for the stule of cutting you want to do also.
I have seen one of these saws at work, using multiple saw blades, (called a "gang saw" down here in OZ) to produce a number of boards in one pass but the "stroke" of the saw was something like 18" and the rate of blade travel was pretty slow. I think the saw was able to cut on the up and down strokes, I could be wrong but that's the way it seemed at the time.
Your idea is good but the technology is too modern. You need to go back about 100 years and pinch some of their ideas. Think about a power hacksaw as the main power source and a monster blade held in tension in a steel frame that rides on rails.
Good luck!!!!:msp_smile:


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## Sawyer Rob (Mar 25, 2011)

You can get blades for a sawzall that will work, it's just very sloooow and not to easy to keep the cut straight.

Here's the gangsaw i "saw" at the last sawmill EXPO i attended,

















SO, they are still makeing them!

Rob


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## Old Hilly (Mar 26, 2011)

Dash-it-all, they stole my idea!!!!! Looks like a good bit of gear. How fast did it cut and how fast did the blades travel?
Thanks for the pictures.


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## Erik Johansson (Apr 5, 2011)

It looks like the Logosol Låks frame saw.

Industrial Machines | Logosol-Laks Frame Saw | LOGOSOL

Here in Sweden horisontal reciprocating mills were often used to saw lumber used for boatbuilding. The blades used were often designed to cut both ways. Here is a picture of the type of mill I´m talking about.

http://eddy.dawa.de/vogel-pb-2007/horizontalgatter.jpg

/Erik


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## Erik Johansson (Apr 5, 2011)

Double post


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## KiwiBro (Jan 4, 2014)

Bumping this thread because I was going to post about these 'Laks' brand frame saws but thought I'd search AS first. Obviously old news to many but news to me. Looks like about .5m / second feed rates which seem very slow but the bigger one is cutting up to about 460mm wide x about 260mm high, so if feeding it two 6" high cants stacked on top of one another at, say, around 16" wide, and cutting 1" boards, it would produce about 15 lineal metres of 1x6 per minute, or about 300 lineal feet of 1 x 6 per hour. It also looks like it's an incredibly cheap machine to run with minimal sawdust and because of the low feed speeds, one person can be cutting cants on a bandsaw and feeding and clearing the machine, so it's an efficient use of labour too.

Seems like a great machine for dimensional lumber.


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## Fundyheather (Jan 4, 2014)




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## KiwiBro (Jan 5, 2014)

Here's a wee bit more of a real-world application of the laks frame saw:


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## KiwiBro (Jan 12, 2014)

Log deck feeding a frame saw set up to cut cants. Infeed modified to handle logs. Outfeed modified to turn the cants then feed the second frame saw. Could one person run the whole operation? Wouldn't take much to make the whole show easily transportable. Move it into temporary buildings near suitable small-timber forests, or even right into the forests. Instead of logs rolling out the forest gates, stacked lumber can, going straight to the treatment or kiln crowds.

We can but dream.


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## hamish (Jan 12, 2014)

Would love to own one but when the smaller Laks will cost me $40,000, let alone the cost of the electrical requirements..........I shall buy beer instead.


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## KiwiBro (Jan 13, 2014)

It would take another 20 years of saving for me to be able to afford it, which is perfect, because by that stage of life I'll be keen on machinery that works at the same pace as me - slowly.


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## Jim Timber (Jan 13, 2014)

The automation/lazy freak in me likes that gang saw. But with oak and maple being it's diet on my place I don't think building one would ever amount to saving me much time.


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