Automated milling and joinery

[BobL]

I've been traveling around Italy with SWMBO and the other day we visited a small business called RC Legno that operates out of a valley in the northern Italian Alps.

I don't know how they get any work done because the view from their front gate is this.

The company is owned by two of my cousins and they build structures in wood ranging from small mountain huts like the one shown below, to whole houses or even a 500,000 sq ft warehouses mostly in wood. They even built their own factory - check out the size of the laminated beams.

The small mountain huts are taken by truck as close as they can get to the location and then helicoptered into the final location. When their business was smaller and they could not afford the helicopters they would mountain climd to the location and set up a steel cable lift system to lift the timber packs to the location.

Their main business is laminated beams and house and larger building roof replacements. In this area many building walls are built from stone or rock up to 2ft mm thick and last for hundreds of years. However the rooves need to be replaced every 100 years or so.

The heart of the business is the office where the designs are drawn up in a special CAD program at the level of every joint and bolt hole.

This is the design for a whole house in wood

 

[BobL]

Automated milling and joinery part 2

The designs are then sent down to the half million dollar milling and joinery machine shown here.

This machine can handle billets of wood with a cross section up to 2ft x 2ft mm, and 40 ft long and mill and resaw and create the beams and cladding, complete with joints and major bolt holes as required, for a complete cabin or roof or whatever. They have a huge warehouse full of timber in another location.

The machine can automatically tongue and groove all the cladding as required. However, since the milling and finishing planing is relatively slow, they usually feed the machine with preplaned 40 ft lengths of laminated lengths with the required cross sectional dimensions and it does the rest. It also optimizes the lengths it needs to cut from the remaining lengths to minimize waste.

The heart of the machine is a circular saw that rises from underneath the beam(s) to make up to a 12" deep cut. Because the timber billets can be automatically rolled over by the machine and accurately repositioned at the previous cut it can make a 24" deep cut if it needs to. Alongside the saw is a double sided 3D robotic cutting wheel up to 12" in diameter and 6" wide that can plane or rout various profiles, alongside that is a set of drills that can make holes up to 2" diam at any angle through the wood. It is absolutely fascinating to watch

Here is half a pack for a house roof.

Here is some details showing the angled blind dovetails it can cut.

Sometimes the roof sections are preassembled on the ground so onsite assembly is very quick and a team of 4 people with a crane can replace the roof on a house in about 2 days.

Other machines of interest on site are a bandsaw that can resaw to 24" wide, several very large thicknessers including one that will plane all 4 sides at once, several large sanders and an interesting machine to distress timber to give it a rustic look. They also use lots of small chainsaws to precut large beams and do a bit of chainsaw carving as well.

 

[BobL]

Part III

Here is their latest project.

It's an 85 ft long single span covered wooden bridge.

The main support is provided by the 2 full length curved (85 ft long) laminated side members which are 12" thick and 3 ft high.

Here is the setting for the bridge.

And some detail.

 

[BobL]

Along the sides of the bridge will be suspended these wooden flower boxes - these were also carved automatically by the machine and then assembled by hand.

When they replace old rooves they usually keep some of the oldest dates carved on the previous roof to see if their roof outlasts the previous one.

All of sawdust generated by the machines are fed into a hopper like this.

And fed to a furnace which they use to heat the factory in winter.

Waste wood and old rooves and wood are chipped and recycled through the furnace and the heat also supplies other factory units shown in the background here - they also built all the rooves of those factories.

It was a fascinating visit and I wish I had taken more and clearer photos of the machine itself operating although much of its operation is hidden. I have taken a small not very clear movie which I will post on you tube.

 

[Cowboy Billy]

Wow awesome Bob

I love the bridge!!!! I could use a 24 foot one at my place!!!

Billy

 

[mtngun]

Impressive technology.

 

[RPM]

Where are they importing their wood from? Some of those beams looked like Douglas-fir?

Nice work .. nice views ... nice trip!

 

[smokinj]

Very slick op.

 

[deeker]

I am VERY impressed!!!!

 

[demographic]

Great stuff, thanks for posting it,

 

[huskyhank]

WOW!

Thanks for showing this!

 

[stipes]

Nice Bob!!!

Thanks for the pics!!! Looks like they have a great setup there....

 

[mtngun]

Where are they importing their wood from? Some of those beams looked like Douglas-fir?

The same thought crossed my mind.

Well, we know a lot of the PNW's doug goes to Asia. It's hard to believe that it would be cost effective to ship it all the way to Italy,though.

Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway ?

It might even be local. There are forests at the base of those Alps.

 

[RPM]

I'd guess the white wood is likely Scandhovian ... our mill used to (shut down now) mill doug-fir diminsional stock (metric) bound for Europe.

As far as cost effectiveness ... all of our hardwood floor stock goes to China to get finished and then shipped back here for less than $5/sqft (red oak / maple).

I guess if all you pay your labor is rice and noodles ...

 

[Mike Van]

Great pics Bob -

 

[mikeb1079]

great stuff bob. thanks for taking the time to post those photos and give us a description of what's going on. what a cool business. i too am interested in where they get their wood from.

 

[jimdad07]

Incredible pictures Bob, someday I would love to sit and pick your brain, you get to see some impressive stuff.

 

[HUCKLEBERRY]

Awesome

I do alot of timber frame and log work and the pictures of that bridge almost brought tears to my eyes. I am pleased to see that they have found a way to blend technology and woodcraft. Do they want to expand to Colorado, USA?

 

[Brmorgan]

I'd guess the white wood is likely Scandhovian ... our mill used to (shut down now) mill doug-fir diminsional stock (metric) bound for Europe.

As far as cost effectiveness ... all of our hardwood floor stock goes to China to get finished and then shipped back here for less than $5/sqft (red oak / maple).

I guess if all you pay your labor is rice and noodles ...

I used to pile some of that stuff when I was in high school. LITERAL 3" X 8", rough sawn and green to boot, called them "Belgian Export". Those suckers were heavy as lead and were a nightmare to pile because they wouldn't slide on each other worth stink. The leftover ones made great yard skids though.

Bob, that looks like it would be about the best job I could dream of having...

That bridge looks a bit like the one they built down in Golden, here in BC. It'll be right on your route if you do come west from Calgary this summer - it's only about 3 hours' drive west of there. I had totally forgotten about it, but come to think of it now you'd probably like to stop and see it. I never have, but I saw a TV show about its construction a while ago and it was amazing. No half-million-dollar equipment budget there though - everything was done by hand, with chainsaws, or with WoodMizer mills. WM has some info on it HERE, I think I might have posted it a long time ago, but I can't remember.

 

[820wards]

Great pics Bob -

Very Nice Bob. Thanks for sharing!

Hey guys, do you think Bob is going to go home and figure out how he can run his mill with a computer? I can hear his brain cells working right now. "If I just......"


jerry-