Straight Line Rip saws?

[J.R. Rutter]

I'm considering a SLR saw for the coming year for my cabinet door section. I've never used one, and am wondering about a few things.

First, how is the cut quality, both in terms of straightness and tooth marks? Can you get away without edge jointing if there is an edge shape and/or sand process further down the line?

How do they do on parallelism - for consistent width strips for door frames? Is the fence anything more than a guide to line up the cut?

Would you crosscut to rough length first, or rip whole boards before crosscutting? Or does it depend on the stock quality?

Any other questions or reasons to/not to go for a SLR?

[Perry Holbrook]

It's been a bunch of years since my time as a manager in a furniture plant, but maybe it'll help some. We brought in the rough stock, cut to rough length, fed these shorter lengths thru a rough planer and then sent the stock to the SLR's all lined up in a row.

At the SLR, the stock was ripped to exact width with the fence or fed thru by the operator by sight if the stock was for a glue up. The helper received the stock, putting the good stock on a cart and sliding the off fall back to the operator for another pass.

Cut was glue line quality. I can't speak for the exactness of the fence, my memory is that it was very good, but a lot of the stock went thru other operations before it was ready for assembly.

Hope this helps some.

Perry

[Rick Lizek]

You need to visit a shop or dealer in your area that has one to really see what they are about. Not something you buy used and restore easily. Usually when they get that worn the machine is pretty well gone when you consider what the guide chains and ways cost you are looking at a new machine. You have two flat guide chains that grab the board and pull it past the blade. We use a laser on our Diehl to position the board so it pulls it where we want it to go. If the board has a big crook in it the fence isn't going to help straighten it out hence the laser to sight along the edge of the board. The whole point of the SLR is to go right from the saw to panel glue ups with a good jointer saw blade. Once you have the board edged you run it by the fence to cut parallel boards. Obviously tension can be released when you split a board so it takes a bit of learning to get the best results but it's pretty much as fast as you can feed once you figure out the sequence of events.
The newer inport SLR's have flat rubber tracks instead of the chains found on the heavier machines like the Diehls. Worked in one shop with an import SLR...it was just ok so can't comment on the other imports.

[J.R. Rutter]

Thanks guys,

I've been mostly looking at new imports. Extrema has a compact saw with guaranteed 8' glue line for about $10K with laser. Grizzly, which is local for me, has one for about $8500 with laser (though I don't like the laser mount setup). Sunhill is just down the road, and they have their version and the imported Oliver for similar price to the Grizzly. All are 15HP.

If I could just leave my jointer set up for facing, and use the SLR for edges, then it would be a big help in terms of time and space...

[Dino Makropoulos]

I'm considering a SLR saw for the coming year for my cabinet door section. I've never used one, and am wondering about a few things.

First, how is the cut quality, both in terms of straightness and tooth marks? Can you get away without edge jointing if there is an edge shape and/or sand process further down the line?

The king of the door cabinet shop and millwork operations.
For your glue-ups, no need for additional sanding or jointing.

How do they do on parallelism - for consistent width strips for door frames? Is the fence anything more than a guide to line up the cut?

If you feed the machine wrong, it comes out that way.
Use a magnetic or mechanical spring loaded device to apply side pressure against the fence. Special for the long narrow strips.

Would you crosscut to rough length first, or rip whole boards before crosscutting? Or does it depend on the stock quality?

Stock quality 100%. Removing the defects twist and bow before the SLR works much better. A good operator uses a drop saw right before the SLR.

Any other questions or reasons to/not to go for a SLR?

For a door cabinet shop, the SLR is the tool to have.

Good luck and visit another shop with SLR.
Ask for advice and I'm sure they can show you
what to/not to do.

And get the one with the best antikick protection.:cool:

YCF Dino

[Dev Emch]

The ones I have seen are the Diel and the Matthison (202 and 404 as I recall). These are very heavy saws with massive motors on them. Today, 202s with bad paint are bringing less than $3000 grand and often less than half that.

Some of these have whats known as a glue line option which puts a jointed edge on a board. I was very impressed for sure. Many SLRs are used to feed moulders which have 4 to 5 heads so an exact glue line surface was not needed.... you left that task to the moulder. Moulders are a waste of time and money unless you have an SLR running overtime to feed the moulder.

The downside to some of these is the chain feed. When it works, its dead on accurate and quicker than the dickens. But if you have to have the chain worked on, then your in for some bucks. And by chain, I dont mean something that looks like an anchor chain or a motorcycle drive chain. These are s series of steel plates that run as a chain under the blade and in the top table surface of the saw. Matthison used this technology on both their SLR saws as well as their heavy duty massive moulders.

Given my choice, if I needed the production capacity and speed of an SLR, I would clearly be looking for a matthison 202, mattison 404 or one of the diels. These are solid cast iron machines that once dialed in can run for the rest of your days on this orb. They just may need a bit of chain work.

Good Luck...

[Dino Makropoulos]

Some of these have whats known as a glue line option which puts a jointed edge on a board. I was very impressed for sure.

Good Luck...

Hi Dev.
I never use or even saw one of this "Straight line rip's" with the glue line "option".:confused:
Some of them cut so good, that they guarantee a Glue Line "Accuracy".:cool:
Yours

[Jay T. Marlin]

SLRs are awesome. They pretty much eliminate edge jointing.

Take a look at gang rip saws if you want to double your speed. Good ones like those from extrema use a chain drive and a PLC controlled 2nd arbor. A return conveyor allows for 1-man operation.

As for your cutting procedure, cross cut to rough length first (if you have something like 12' board and want three 4' pieces out of it). Then do a final cross cut to exact length after everything else is done. You can't ensure square ends if you crosscut to length first, and without a rough crosscut, you're going to waste a lot of wood when jointing/planing.

In the case of door rails/stiles, I wouldn't hesitate to rough cut your pieces to 6-8' in length and then xcut them later.

[tod evans]

i`ll go with jay on this one, a gang-rip is the production saw of choice. if you`re prepping enough lumber to justify a straight-line just skip the intermediate step and go with a gang-rip. stackable arbors will come in price wise not much higher than a straight-line and the quantity out the back side will amaze you. i don`t know what your needs are but i`ve been drooling over scmi`s package deal for a couple of years, it`s a gang-rip, knife grinder and moulder for a substantial savings over the singles....nowhere near 10k though. but if you`re eyeing straight-line saws your production is creeping up to the big boy level and you should at least look at your options........02 tod

[J.R. Rutter]

I do so many different frame widths that i would want remote controlled blade spacing on a gang rip! I'm not running a moulder, just milling stock for cabinet doors - both panels and frames, drawer faces, face frames, etc...

Many times, my stock is such that I straight rip first by eye on the TS, using the fenceonly on high points of the edge. Then finish rip after crosscutting, facing, thicknessing, and edge jointing. A SLR would be faster and safer for roughing, and if it eliminated the jointer for edges, so much the better!