Old School Sawmill Edger

[Brian Rupnow]

You're making a pulley out of WHAT!!! Hey, it's free stuff. It will work fine in the application it is intended for. I didn't have any 1" aluminum plate. I coated the aluminum pulley with fast dry epoxy, and will finish it off tomorrow morning.

[crueby]

No biggie, wood used to be used for all sorts of pulleys!

[Brian Rupnow]

My original design had the feed rollers turning 8 times slower than the circular saws. This didn't work very well--the rolls would jam the wood into the sawblade so quickly that it would stall the saws. Next effort was to have the feed rollers turning 16 times slower than the sawblades. That worked a lot better, but would still jam the saws about halfway thru the cut and stall them. The wooden pulley I have up on the lathe right now is going to allow the feed rollers to go 32 times slower than the saws. I'll know a lot better tomorrow morning how that is going to work. It's been a fun day.

[crueby]

Brian, do those blades have much set to the teeth? The finer blades without much set are notorious for pulling the wood to one side slightly and jamming the wood against the fence. Proxxon does make coarser blades, I like thier carbide tipped (48 tooth?) one, very clean cut, removes a lot of wood with little effort, and tolerant of alignment.

[Brian Rupnow]

No Chris, they have very little set. The carbide tipped ones are much better because the carbide is actually wider than the body of the saw. Of course, with wider tip comes the issue of needing more power to drive the blades. I think what I have will work once I get the feed roll rpm sorted.

[crueby]

I've found (have done a LOT of fine wood sawing on the ship models over the years) that the carbide ones actually take less effort from the motor and remove more wood quicker since they are not rubbing on the sides of the cut like the thin small-tooth blades do. Seems like it should be the opposite, but its not. Worth a try, I think you will be surprised.
 

[Jasonb]

Yes you will probably need lower gearing than the one I showed as your rollers are large  compared to the blade dia, Scaled down to your 2" blade these rollers look like they would come out at 1/4" dia rather than your 1/2"

[Brian Rupnow]

This morning we have success!!! The wooden pulley that I had up on the lathe yesterday seems to have done the trick. The edger is taking full length boards thru the saws and the feed rolls are gripping as I had intended. I had to make up an outside bearing support on the shaft which is held in my variable speed drill so as not put too much sideload on the drill bearings. This thing is noisier than I would ever have imagined. I am going to make a video now.

[crueby]

Excellent!! Popcorns a poppin...

[Brian Rupnow]

I have been trying unsuccessfully all afternoon to combine two separate videos into one. I can't figure it out, so two videos are going up. I strongly suggest that you watch them in order.---Brian
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Z5FesUQpc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Z5FesUQpc</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj-WsoHQ9SI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj-WsoHQ9SI</a>

[Admiral_dk]

Congratulations on a "runner"    It's not noiseless as you yourself pointed out - but it gets the job done 

[crueby]

Terrific! And it does sound just like the real thing, same whirs/shreaks/whines as a big one. Great!!

[Ye-Ole Steam Dude]

Hello Brian,

Absolutely fantastic    Beautiful engineering and workmanship 

Have a great day,
Thomas

[Brian Rupnow]

Thank you, guys. Before I tear that set-up down I'm going to get my tachometer out and see what rpm the drill motor is turning at. It's horribly noisy, but I don't really think it's turning all that fast. EDIT---If I can trust my laser tachometer, the drill is turning at 1000 rpm, which is close to what I thought. That means the sawblades are turning at 2000 rpm.  The sawblades are 2" diameter. The 1/2" diameter feed rolls are turning at 62.5 rpm.

[Flyboy Jim]

What a great project Brian! Well done. I've enjoyed following along as this project progressed.

I'm betting that you're the first one on your street to have one of these! 

Jim