On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 09:36:16 -0700, "Bob La Londe" wrote:

Dang. I started reading and thought, "Gee this is something I can help
with," but by the time I got to the end I realized you had already covered
all my immediate ideas.

One of the nicest compliments I have ever received! Guess lurking here off and
on for the past ten years has influenced my thinking.

Ok... think guitar fret cutting saw. Or similar type gizmo. A rod with
lots of saw blades and spacers mounted on pillow blocks... Make your own
feed and outfeed tables to match, and put a pulley and motor on one end.
You can probably get away with a lighter motor than you might think. You
will only be cutting with the tips (fastest moving part) of the blades and
taking a shallow cut. I suspect a 3/4 - 1 HP motor might allow you to make
up to a 4' cut at a time depending on your spacing, and the surface layer
wood of your ply.

Have already had thoughts along these lines for a possible future full
production machine. 7 1/4 blades are plenty cheap enough to gang up a bunch
(even carbide tipped) on a single shaft. Worried that 5/8" is too thin and that
enlarging the mounting hole in the blades will be very expensive and or a peck
of trouble.

I would make this with a big table with roller conveyors leading off the
table. Add a pair of spring loaded overhead rollers to keep the ply flat as
it passes over the blades. One before and one after. I think for safety
this would need to be a two person job. One feeding halfway, and one
pulling the other half while the first guy gets another sheet ready. I do
not see anyway for one person to do this safely. I suppose you could do it
with push sticks, and pads with handles. I use them all the time for solo
cutting small pieces to keep my hands away from the blade(s).

Great idea! Had considered rollers but was thinking too small. Spring loaded
rollers can be sprung off the rafters greatly simplifying the 'machine'. No
need to build a heavy expensive metal frame just to hold a few rollers. And
should be no problem grabbing help for a few minutes here.

What kind of production are you talking about this maybe becoming?

Could be a total flop or possibly as high as several hundred units per year. At
least two dozen others are building bat houses with the intent to sell. Only
two of them have any hint of sales volume on their web site. I need to be
prepared for this to go either way though I expect it will be some where in
between.

If the
production volume is high enough it might be more efficient to groove full
sheets of ply at one time, and then cut them down to the smaller size. It
would obviously be easier to handle the smaller pieces, and to make a saw to
groove them.


A half a sheet ripped long ways would be much easer (and safer) to handle than
a bunch of small pieces. Could probably even use this same roller set up with
the jointer even if I never build a gang saw.
--
William