Gang Rip Add-on?

[Brodie Brickey]

I bought some rough lumber from a cabinet show and the owner was nice enough to rip a straight edge onto one side for me. He used what I think is called a Gang Rip saw. It basically auto fed the board through the saw and kept it steady.

Like many I don't have space for an additional saw in my shop. I'm wondering if the addition of a power feeder to my cabinet saw would let me accomplish the same thing or if I should continue my practice of clamping the board to another and feeding them through together.

Or am I missing a better way? I don't do this for a living, but would like to do more woodworking with rough stock.

[mickey cassiba]

Hi Brodie,
I don't know about any add-ons, but at the molding shop I used to work at, we had two "gang rip" machines, and the arbor on 1 was 1 1/2", and the other was about 2" (100mm) I'd be a little worried about the standard 5/8" arbor being up to the task.
Just my two cents...

[Peter Quinn]

Brodie, you cannot rip crooked boards off the fence on a traditional table saw even with a power feeder. It can wreck the blade, arbor and or bearings. You need at least one straight edge to proceed. A straight line rip saw has a tractor feed BELOW the wood, hold down wheels above the wood, and the blade is generally either hung off an arm from above almost like a large stout radial arm saw or hung of a massive horizontal arbor like a through molder. Often a laser line calibrated to be in line with the blade will allow the operator to position the board for optimal cutting, and the tractor feed pulls the wood through in a straight line. You cannot simulate this on a table was without a jig.

PS, a "Gang Rip" is a specialized type of "straight line rip" saw that will produce multiple strips of wood from a wider board in a single pass. It involves multiple blades with spacers on a single large arbor. Some straight line saws can be set up for gang rip, others are single blade only and require multi passes to make one edge straight and the other parallel, some have "hoggers" on the outside of the main ripping blades that turn the waste into chips for easier disposal. These are big machines in the 40HP range.

[J.R. Rutter]

What Peter said.

I used to have a table saw set up with a feeder for rough ripping, but it only approximates a straight line. Cut off the crown first, eyeballing it so that the highest part of the hump rode the fence. I have heard of people clamping 20' long sections of angle iron to the table saw fence and feeding boards with the crown out towards the blade with the ends riding the long fence. Unless you are in a barn, sounds like a serious space issue though!