Jason W

I have about 4500 ln of heart B redwood that needs to be made into ship lap siding. The rough sawn material measures 6" in width and about 1 3/4" in thickness. Lengths vary from 8' to 20'.

What I'd like to do is take about 1/2" of the top and save it for future projects rather than turn it into dust. I thought my 14" Jet ban saw would do the trick, but after pushing a few 12' pieces through the motor got hot. My only other alternative is to put it through the 10" cabinet saw but this would require flipping the boards and cutting from both sides to divide them.

Aside from taking the materials to a sawyer, what other equipment is available for handling this task now and in the future? I've seen a few small, portable mills out there but really don't want to over do it. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jason

TexasTimbers

I'd take 5/8" to 3/4" off so you'd have a good 1/2" to 5/8" left. You'd still have 4/4 to 5/4 left for the siding. Plenty.

Resawing 12' boards on a smallish shop bandsaw will not be fun as you found out, and could burn your motor up. A local sawyer who's a decent enough fellow wouldn't charge you much to resaw it. Especially if you find the guy who's retired and only uses his saw for his own devices.

Forget resawing it with your table saw. You could do it but man what a headache. Even if the boards are all perfectly flat you'll never feed 12' boards straight in and then flip them to get the kerf to line up exactly from the other side. Then you have the issue of to much heat building up ripping long wide baords like that, especially in a thin kerf blade.

My vote is find a sawyer, or a someone who has an industrial size bandsaw. If you can't find a ripping solution you can live with, just keep the boards thick. Better to have thick siding than turn a third of it into dust.

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dirtclod

A lap siding/shingle making kit is an option on several of the bandmills. Many owners have made their own. But I suspect the % who have such an attachment is small. Here's a video of a power resaw attachment from Wood Mizer that doubles as a lap siding saw:

http://www.woodmizer.com/us/sawmills/options/resaw.aspx

Daren

I run a T.A. Schmid and that is one of their options too, one I never saw myself using so I never bought it. It is not a saw deck jig add on thing, it is a design feature in that particular model saw head. http://www.taschmid.com/portable-mill/maximizer-s.html

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http://nelsonwoodworks.biz/ ...Urban logging/tool sharpening

Jason W

Hey, thanks for the links

I should point out that this is going to be 5/4 x 5" shiplap siding with the finished thickness to be 7/8" to match existing so I think I should leave 1 1/8" for the siding. I might be able to get a finished 3/8" beaded or V groove panel out of the rest. I also over ordered an extra 500 lf for myself since supplies seemed short at the time.

I might look into hiring someone with a portable mill to come over to the shop and do it if I can't find an economical solution to do it myself. I think the value of the redwood makes it a worth while venture.