Question
I'm looking into the possibility of resawing heart pine timbers that will come out of a whiskey warehouse. The lumber is 4x4s, which are to be sawn into 1x4s, and about 100 years old. Moisture content is in the twelve percent range. We will be sawing on a horizontal band resaw, the type often used in pallet mills. The saw has hydraulic infeed and return conveyors. The blade is driven by a 30HP electric motor.
My meager understanding is that heart pine is very hard to saw. It is about as hard as red oak, but contains silicates, which are very hard on blades. Does anyone have experience with heart pine? What are good blades to use on this project? Brands? How many board feet might be expected per blade? What are appropriate feed speeds? Any help is appreciated!
Forum Responses
(Solid Wood Machining Forum)
I don't know too much about heart pine, however, I have done a few reclaimed runs. The biggest problem always winds up being foreign objects embedded in the material, even when it's supposedly been gone over with metal detectors. So, whenever you decide the perfect saw blade to use, also take into account it might get damaged.
I went through the same process two years ago. Get yourself a Nyle dry kiln. Lots of denailing, so I don't buy the same blades as if I was doing green timber, plus we sharpen our own in-house with a Wright Grinder and Suffolk setter.
You are correct that heart pine can have areas that are very dense due to heavy concentrations of sap. You may also experience blade float if you are sawing parallel to the grain. We use a Baker resaw with a 1.5 inch blade powered with 40 hp. Since nails damage expensive blades just as easy as cheaper ones, we stopped using the higher quality blades. Our cost per blade is around $15 and we can run 4-5000 feet unless a nail gets us. We have also stopped trying to resharpen blades because of the cost ($10) and over 50% came back with an incorrect set.
