I’m looking to buy a woodmizer sawmill and am thinking the way to go would be with a double sided planer. I’ve looked at two models the General 16″ and the Woodtek 16″ which appear the same, but the woodtek has a 3 Hp upper and 2 HP lower motor while the Gen has two 2 HP motors. Does anyone out there have any suggestions as to double sided planers? I am working by myself so limiting the handeling of the wood is ideal. My current wiring in the shop is kind of limited to 3HP machines but i’m willing to change that if i really need to. Any ideas? Does anyone know the name of that website dedicated to sawmilling? I can’t find it anywhere on the web. Thanks
Kelvin
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Replies
can't help on the planer, but here's a forum about sawyering - go from there to the home page and there are related resources - - http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/forums/sawdry.pl
Try http://www.sawmillmag.com A magazine for sawmill and woodlot owners that has many good articles.
Try Sunhill Machinery for your double-sided planer. They have several models. This link goes to one on special right now, though it exceeds the power capabilities you mentioned:
http://www.sunhillmachinery.com/products/doublesideplaners/gt400b.asp
Only $15,950. But they do have others.
Lee in Cave Junction, Oregon
Gateway to the Oregon Caves
The real double sides planers like an Oliver Straightoplane are huge, expensive machines that are great for high production and are capable of taking rough twisted lumber in one end and spitting out reasonably straight, dressed lumber on the other.
The smaller taiwanese units don't appear to be able to straighten lumber, just face both sides, so they are kind of redundant. You may as well go with a larger single surface planer. Used 24" planers can be bought cheap, and they will plane more lumber faster, with less sharpenings. With the kind of volume you'll probably be planing I don't think a small machine is up to it. Plus it will take forever, and remember, time is money.
hope this helps
Andrew
another option would be two planers. outfeed from one would go into the second. It's a rather simple matter to get the conveyor to flip the board, call up anyone selling material handling equipment.
another option could be to use conveyor to feed the board back into the planer upside down, I suspect that might be evan more cost effective..
If you find someone who handles second hand equipment (in most major cities) your cost could be pretty nominal.
I think it is Northstate who also has a two sided planer. IIRC, it's 15". I see their ad in Woodshop News.
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