On 2011-01-01, William Bagwell wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 09:36:16 -0700, "Bob La Londe" wrote:

[ ... ]

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.

Hmm ... conventional (horizontal) milling cutters -- 7/8" or 1"
diameter holes, with a keyway to lock to a key milled in the arbor. OD
is about 3", though much larger are available.

Stack the blades alternating with spacer rings. If you get
bowing in the middle under cutting loads, make one of the middle spacers
a bearing ring instead. A shoulder on one end of the arbor and a thread
for a nut to compress the stack on the other end is common with
horizontal milling machine arbors. Support the arbor at both ends, of
course.

Those cutters are more expensive -- but you can probably get
them in carbide to last nearly forever if this turns into a long term
project.

They are available in thicknesses from 1/32" up to several
inches, so the odds are that you can find something which works for you

Good Luck,
DoN.

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