It is always a pleasure to watch intelligent work performed by a Master. Thank you, Professor. You've explained several times why other sawyers refuse to perform excellent work as this. I still have difficulty accepting that people prefer mediocrity.
You and me both, I agree 100%.. I get comments all the time from other sawyers, even local mills to me, such as "People buy my wood all the time, why should I try to make it better?" or "Who has the time to cut the lumber properly?" These statements are amazing to me especially since cutting lumber correctly doesn't take any more time than cutting crap wood. Oh well, that's fine, everybody does what they do, but I figure if I'm going to expend my time doing something, I owe it to myself as well as the customer to do the best job possible.
That's proper quarter saw. I just watched a video where the gentleman sawed his log in half and still layed the log flat and milled it and called that quarter sawn. Good job sir
Just got through installing a power log dog, turner and vertical stops on my mill. Thanks for a great video on this cutting method. I am looking forward to doing it.
Again I must say thank you did you have a mentor that taught you these tricks to the trade love to hear some history on your sawyer education thanks brother for this video going þo triple my production at least
I was taught by the school of hard knocks, and have friends who are all experts in their sawing fields. I have an open mind and we all learn for each other. Many of these techniques, including this one was developed by me as a growth of things I've picked up from buddies or other pros and improved it to its current state. Of course my biddies will run with it, and improve it once again. In addition, losing money is a hard teacher, especially if it's my own, so if I buy a half a million bucks of logs, and I can increase yield by 20%, then I am making money for free. Of if I screw things up and lose 10% using poor sawing technique, then that's $50K I lose for being "sloppy".
Although quartersawing has been around for centuries, trying to do it with modern bandmills has always been a challenge due to several reasons. Typically, a log is quartered, turning one log into 4 cants, each needing to be sawn separately, so makes it 4 times slower. This technique overcomes that by sawing full half logs, not quarters, which doubles the speed of the process. It also allows sawing logs larger than the throat of the mill, which is also unusual. Most modern bandmill mechanisms turn logs counter clockwise, and this technique will allow the user to rotate and saw clockwise which is where it derived its name Reverse Roll Quartersawing. Up until last year, I taught this band mill specific technique at sawmill gatherings,' and one production quartersawing mill later adopted the technique and reported an increase on production speed of 15% and increase yield of 7%. I have not had anybody say they have used this technique before, however, if they have, that's great. Thanks for the comment.
I can't say I came up with a method I figured out because I'm sure someone else has done it long before me. I simply look at the end grain and cut off as close to where the grain starts to turn. Then I can practically flat saw all of the remaining cant that's left and true quarter sawn or not every board has it's Ray's proudly on display. The tops and bottoms to the log I end up squaring one of the narrow edges and gang them up to saw as many as I can at once. They to will have their Ray's showing. Some will inevitably have some rift sawn but the majority of the log is the end result I'm after regardless how I ended up cutting it. Not to mention more wider boards in the net..
Love it, I'll test this technique on some pine soon! We're socked in with snow now so I'm stuck in the shop sharpening band-saw blades :) PS. It would be nice to get some solid views of the sawn wood. Stop the camera movement so its not blurry. Thanks!
That was a funny looking log. Must be a southern oak. Like oak on a half shell. But it was worthy of the quarter cut. Nice stick. So how much waste on the quarter vs flat sawn. Are you familiar with sawing on the rift?
Yes, vey familiar with rift sawing, I will do a video on it in the future. You are close on the log ID, it is a Chestnut White Oak, I prefer them for quarters sawing because the medullary rays are more prevalent. It is one of several native true white oak species in this area. Thanks for watching!
The short answer is yes, always remove the pith from the boards, but when I do depends on whether I cut it out when sawing, or the green edger, or later edge it as kiln dried. When I cut it out depends when it is the most efficient. Thanks for watching!
Loving your videos. I have just bought a LT35 and trying to learn the proper techniques of sawing lumber. I have a couple of decent sized red oaks that was blown down by Zeda last year and want to try the quarter sawn process on them but not sure what thickness to cut Can you tell me what is the normal rough cut thickness of the quarter sawn lumber? Thanks!!!
Quartersawn lumber, due to its grain orientation, will shrink more in its face plane direction when it dries, so its best to cut it 1/16" thicker than usual to get to the proper dried target thickness. With 4/4 quartersawn wood, I will mill to 1-3/16" thick to get to a kiln dried and skip planed board at 15/16".
Doyle scale it should have been about 165 board feet in the log. I didn't tally the yield, but it was pretty high. A professional quartersawing mill adopted my technique a few years ago after a demonstration I gave at a sawmiiling convention. They have a standard 30% loss using traditional quartersawing techniques, and now see only an 18% loss, an improvement of 12%. Also, they see an almost 100% fleck hit rate, and about 10% increase in log processing speed. My RRQS technique is a significant improvement over conventional techniques.
I typically only use diesel on the very hard wood, or very pitchy wood, like hickory, pecan, pine, and maybe white oak. I do however, always use some sort of oil based band cleaner, and my favorite is an agricultural product called Cotton Picker Spindle oil. It's a biodegradable, water and oil emulsion used to clean and lubricate cutters and spindles on expensive harvesting equipment, such as cotton pickers. It's odorless, less expensive to mix than conventional soap products, and works almost as good as diesel. Almost. However, it will freeze, so in winter I switch over to diesel, and in the spring go back the the oil/water emulsion. I will do a video on it, but I'm not sure how readily available it is outside of the North America. although all the major agricultural companies, such as John Deere, make a similar product. By the way, I found out about it decades ago by a Woodmizer Competition Sawyer, who came to our place to tune up my mill and give me some pointers. We got on the subject of "speed sawing" and he went into the back corner of his Woodmizer van and pulled out a jug of this, and poured it in my mill. It was night and day. I have been using some type of oil since, and although I will try the latest fad in blade cleaners, nothing beats an oil. Great question, and thanks for watching!
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Hi thanks so much for answering my questions I have found some online not sure if it is the right product it's spindle cleaner which can be diluted
Your explanation was so much easier to understand than a guy on another channel that claimed he came up with this method. PS you're really going to have to get a better camera. I was waiting to see that wood and barely sa it.
Looks like a great method. But you did a lot of prep work before you started milling for Q-Sawn. That should be included in on the time also. Thanks though.
The initial faceting of the log, or gun barreling, is standard practice for every quarter sawing technique, so I didn't include it in this video. I started at the point of departure where the RRQS technique diverges from the standard technique. However, it's a good idea, and the gun barreling and log prep can make or break any good technique. I will make a video of it in the future.
Actually, it is done to drive the grain in as much as a perpendicular orientation as possible, ideally 90 degrees, and along the axis of the log. This orients the fiber stress in the slip plane of the boards and will prevent bow and cup and provide more predictable drying and shrinking stresses. Bow, although allowable and typically preferred in dimensional framing lumber, is intolerable in high grade furniture lumber, even though it is allowed by the NHLA and isn't considered a defect. Since the board will always have internal stress, proper quartersawing will orient the fiber stress in such a way to intentionally result in crook but no bow, warp or cup and will result in a very flat, but intentionally curved board. The curve is then simply edged off after drying, and will result in a perfectly flat, straight edged board that will expand and contract like an accordion, with no out of plane expansion and contraction. If done correctly, quartersawn boards will have zero twist or and zero bow after drying. Extremely flat and straight boards are the goal of quartersawing, and this method, although unconventional, achieves this.
Actually it is, the goal is to get 100% quartersawn fleck on at least one face, with the widest boards having the most fleck. The technique has been adopted by professional quarter sawing mills and produces higher grade fleck on a higher percentage of boards with less time. It's been proven in production and real life to beat conventional quartersawing techniques on both speed and quality..
