Resawing Advice

Hi All,

New owner of a Rikon 10-326, (with a Laguna Resaw King blade).

I'm getting ready to run some stock in a what I'd call a worst case scenario for resawing and just wanted to see if anyone had some advice/tips. Ending goal here is to out together a 12' long trestle table for my wife;

So heres the situation. I was able to score some really gnarly barn beams (about 18 feet long) and they're about 10"x6" pieces of oak, each. I have three of these beasts. No metal hardware that I can find; and the beams all seemed to be relatively twist/warp free.

I want to resaw each one down to about 2 inches thick for the table top; then move onto the planer and jointer to make the table top...

Any input on the resawing would be appreciated. Thanks.

Personally, I would find someone with a portable sawmill to come to me and cut them. Otherwise, you'll need to come up with some way to support them on both sides of the cut and a couple of buddies to help move them (+/- 350 lbs ea. if my math is correct) As for the resaw king, I think using it is going to lead to heartbreak and despair, between the likelihood of hidden metal and the outside chance that you'll kink it if something goes awry.

Cut to length plus a couple of inches, joint face, joint perpendicular face, use indeed and outfeed supports, resaw away ;-)

My tips are good out feed support obviously.The other thing that come to mind is be prepared when you get to the end of the cut.The beam might separate itself watch the size of the kerf behind the blade.If starts growing.The woods need to be very dry or the RK blade will not be happy.
Good luck

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Originally Posted by glenn bradley

Cut to length plus a couple of inches, joint face, joint perpendicular face, use indeed and outfeed supports, resaw away ;-)

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+1 on the cutting to length, you just about have to, you could easily tip that saw with those beams. I would probably joint them first as well. It would be nice to have a helper to catch the boards coming out, you could do it with supports but that is a lot of wood to work with on that saw alone and that is just the kind of board that could catch and twist or tip and outfeed support.

Should mention that outfeed support wont be an issue. I've got the bandsaw set up in line w/ a 24 foot long miter bench that will provide plenty of support . The wood should be pretty darned dry, although I admit, I have no real way of knowing w/o a meter... Definitely free of metal; dad has a metal detector.

Beams are often cut with the pith centered in the beam, it's a strong orientation for a big block of wood, but cutting them and revealing the pith may prove a poor choice for table tops.

Have you looked at this stock for pith?

That's an awful lot of wood for that little saw - I've got the same saw, and have sawn some big pieces, but only rarely more than 6' long and 8" kerf.

So, first, I'd look for someone with a bandsaw mill who knows how to use it. If that fails, as others have said, cut them to length plus 8" or so first, and if you can with equipment you've got, joint a face and an edge. But to do that right requires a 10" or larger jointer with a minimum 4' outfeed.

The reason jointing is important is that you're going to need to wrestle 250 lbs or so through your little saw in a perfectly straight line. With a roller bed and long fence, that's not impossible, but it's still difficult. Twist the plank a degree or two as you feed it and you will at best stall that little motor, and at worst, ruin the blade.

If you can't joint it, build yourself a square and dead straight "L" cross section sled and secure the plank in that with just enough hanging over to permit your 2" cut. Screw it down so it can't move. The roller bed and dead straight fence are still required, of course.

One last thing - old, dry oak is HARD. Your saw is not designed for continuous duty in 10" of that stuff. Give it a rest from time to time, or you may find yourself with a brand new saw, sans functional motor.

Gents,

I'm wondering if it makes more sense for me to take the 10" pieces and halve them on my table saw. Since I do have a 6 inch jointer, by halving them, I'd be able to ensure flat faces and square edges, plus, it'd make resawing that much easier w/ a 5 inches of height rather than 10....

Downside is there will be that much more glue up/biscuits used to build the table top...

Yes that's a good idea.
Also don't forget to leave the pieces long so you can line up the cathedral grain.When you glue them back together.
What do you need biscuits for?

I would be careful splitting a wide board down the middle on the table saw, especially if you think that there may be movement issues inside. A long board like those, if ripped down the middle on the TS, wouldn't need to move much before it started having a big risk of kickback, etc.

Honestly, if you were going to rip it down the middle, do that on the bandsaw (in that dimension, you only have a 6" kerf, so it'd be much easier to draw through the saw, assuming you've got the indeed and outfeed support taken care of). Way safer.

Then joint a face and edge and see if you can resaw along the 10" dimension. Of course, as has been said a lot, crosscut to approximately length before doing any of this.

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Originally Posted by lawrence vezzetti

Gents,

I'm wondering if it makes more sense for me to take the 10" pieces and halve them on my table saw. Since I do have a 6 inch jointer, by halving them, I'd be able to ensure flat faces and square edges, plus, it'd make resawing that much easier w/ a 5 inches of height rather than 10....

Downside is there will be that much more glue up/biscuits used to build the table top...

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I think that keeping the boards 10" wide would make a much nicer looking tabletop. How about jointing both 6" wide surfaces to get a good flat surface. Rip 3" deep into both 6" wide surfaces on your tablesaw, possibly in stages, starting 2" deep then the full 3" depth. This leaves a 4" cut to complete on your bandsaw which should be slightly easier than your method with a 5" deep cut.

Steve

Laurence,

What kind of table saw do you have that is going to allow you to rip to a 6" depth? That sounds like a job for a bandsaw to me. Particularly since wood movement from released tension creates a lot more dangerous situation on the table saw.

Also, if you're comfortable with using narrow boards, why not resaw in the 6" dimension in the first place?

Anyway, if you really want to do this, and can't (and I suspect you can't) joint these big planks, I'd go with the sled as I suggested above. I've used this technique on some pretty gnarly big pieces with my little bandsaw. It's slow going, but as long as you've got the roller table, a straight fence of sufficient length, and a straight sled, it's doable. The trick is making it easy to control the big chunk so you can saw straight and at a speed the saw can handle.

One other thing - if you do it that way on a bandsaw, you've still got to be ready for wood movement as you saw. There are people who will cringe at this, but I have on occasion wedged and clamped the kerf on a particularly gnarly piece as I saw. Basically, I saw an initial 12" or so of kerf, stick in a kerf-keeper just over the cut width of the bandsaw blade and then clamp that tight, then repeat every 2-3 ft down the length of the cut. Probably not necessary on old beams which have had a long time to relax, but not impossible.

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Originally Posted by Brian Holcombe

Beams are often cut with the pith centered in the beam, it's a strong orientation for a big block of wood, but cutting them and revealing the pith may prove a poor choice for table tops.

Have you looked at this stock for pith?

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Yup, boxed hearts is what they are called.

An 18 foot long, 10" x 6" oak beam, particularly if it can be described as "barn" salvage, is worth much more than the 3 x 12' x 2" x 10" boards you want to cut out of them. Have you considered selling the beams and buying the boards? On kijiji here in sunny Lethbridge (where it's - 21 right now; was -28 yesterday AM) they'd be gone in a week and I'd make a nice profit on just getting new boards in.