Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood. At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost as
many boards grooved on only one side.

Remote possibility this will become a recurring need and I will be able to
afford machinery and or custom tooling to make this easy. For now I'm doing a
limited run of prototypes and could resort to cutting them one by one with a
circular saw. Perhaps even two at a time with two blades in a table saw. But
where is the fun in that?

Have access to an old 6" jointer and think modifying the knives with a series
of flats leaving a row of cutting tips spaced approximately 1/2" apart *might*
just work. Cutting at least 12 grooves in one pass.

Looking for ideas that are better than just goobering up a set of jointer
knives with a hand held abrasive blade. Have no free access to a surface
grinder or any machine shop equipment more sophisticated than a worn out
drill-mill combo.

BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid splinters
extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I want any radius
at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat the whole purpose of
having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip
--
William

William Bagwell wrote:
...
Have access to an old 6" jointer and think modifying the knives with a series
of flats leaving a row of cutting tips spaced approximately 1/2" apart *might*
just work. Cutting at least 12 grooves in one pass.

I like that idea. The 12-in-one-pass is an efficiency that you won't
get with anything else. Well, you could take a 12" planer & modify its
knives.

Looking for ideas that are better than just goobering up a set of jointer
knives with a hand held abrasive blade. ...

That sounds good to me, too. Clamp or bolt the knives together to be
sure of getting the "teeth" aligned, do a rough layout with Dykem (the
spacing and width will tend to vary a lot if you just wing it). I have
a holder for my angle grinder, so I'd use that & hold the knives in
hand, but vise-ing the knives & holding the grinder wouldn't be much
harder. I'd use a cut-off blade for better definition of the edges.

Sounds like fun.

Bob

"William Bagwell" wrote in message
...
Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood.
At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost
as
many boards grooved on only one side.

Remote possibility this will become a recurring need and I will be able to
afford machinery and or custom tooling to make this easy. For now I'm
doing a
limited run of prototypes and could resort to cutting them one by one with
a
circular saw. Perhaps even two at a time with two blades in a table saw.
But
where is the fun in that?

Have access to an old 6" jointer and think modifying the knives with a
series
of flats leaving a row of cutting tips spaced approximately 1/2" apart
*might*
just work. Cutting at least 12 grooves in one pass.

Looking for ideas that are better than just goobering up a set of jointer
knives with a hand held abrasive blade. Have no free access to a surface
grinder or any machine shop equipment more sophisticated than a worn out
drill-mill combo.

BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid
splinters
extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I want any
radius
at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat the whole purpose
of
having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip
--
William

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.

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.

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).

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

"William Bagwell" wrote in message
...

Decent planer blades are expensive.

On Jan 1, 10:51*am, William Bagwell
wrote:

BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid splinters
extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I want any radius
at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat the whole purpose of
having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip
--
William

Belt sander with extremely coarse sanding belts? I am not convinced
that a radius at the top or bottom will make any difference.

Dan

"William Bagwell" wrote in message
...
Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood.
At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost
as
many boards grooved on only one side.

Remote possibility this will become a recurring need and I will be able to
afford machinery and or custom tooling to make this easy. For now I'm
doing a
limited run of prototypes and could resort to cutting them one by one with
a
circular saw. Perhaps even two at a time with two blades in a table saw.
But
where is the fun in that?

Have access to an old 6" jointer and think modifying the knives with a
series
of flats leaving a row of cutting tips spaced approximately 1/2" apart
*might*
just work. Cutting at least 12 grooves in one pass.

Looking for ideas that are better than just goobering up a set of jointer
knives with a hand held abrasive blade. Have no free access to a surface
grinder or any machine shop equipment more sophisticated than a worn out
drill-mill combo.

BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid
splinters
extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I want any
radius
at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat the whole purpose
of
having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip
--
William

If the volume is high enough, get a quote from a moulding company. If you
like I can get a quote from one of my block suppliers that has a knife lab.
IF the volume is there.

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:22:55 -0500, Bob Engelhardt
wrote:

I like that idea. The 12-in-one-pass is an efficiency that you won't
get with anything else. Well, you could take a 12" planer & modify its
knives.

A 12" planer would not help me unless it was open on one side. An enclosed
planer would need to be at least 24" wide. Might Google for 12" jointers
though.

That sounds good to me, too. Clamp or bolt the knives together to be
sure of getting the "teeth" aligned, do a rough layout with Dykem (the
spacing and width will tend to vary a lot if you just wing it). I have
a holder for my angle grinder, so I'd use that & hold the knives in
hand, but vise-ing the knives & holding the grinder wouldn't be much
harder. I'd use a cut-off blade for better definition of the edges.

Ah, I was envisioning doing the grinding with the jointer *running*. Your way
will be a bunch safer.

Sounds like fun.

Building the mold has certainly been fun. I'm trying to avoid as much boring
production work as possible.
--
William

In article ,
William Bagwell wrote:

Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood. At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost as
many boards grooved on only one side.

Remote possibility this will become a recurring need
^^^^^^
For now I'm doing a limited run of prototypes and could resort to cutting them one by one with a
circular saw. Perhaps even two at a time with two blades in a table saw. But
where is the fun in that?

Have access to an old 6" jointer and think modifying the knives with a series
of flats leaving a row of cutting tips spaced approximately 1/2" apart *might*
just work. Cutting at least 12 grooves in one pass.

Router or circular/table saw and step fence (ie, a fence that registers
on the last groove) will do it faster than you can get done grinding
expensive planer/jointer blades into castellated groove-cutters. That's
a pricey way to have "fun", and you'll also have issues cutting these
dozens of grooves much further than 6" from the edge of the board with a
typical jointer fence setup. I infer that this will leave you with about
12" in the middle un-grooved, since it sounds like you are cutting them
every 1/2" in the 24" direction. That's not a good (safe) direction to
feed a jointer a piece of wood, and kludging up a fence that will get
over another 6" will be a major project.

Address the _remote_ possibility when and if it becomes real. I'd just
drop them into the CNC router and tell it to get cutting (and that's
what I'd suggest if you look to production tooling - something flexible
that can work unattended), but with a production-line mindset and simple
fence/jigs it will be done before you'd have the jointer kludged into
doing it.

Dado set without the chippers and a sled with the registration on the
tablesaw is probably most efficient.

Or switch to rough-cut lumber rather than plywood and you don't even
need grooves...

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

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

On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 08:39:32 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:


Belt sander with extremely coarse sanding belts? I am not convinced
that a radius at the top or bottom will make any difference.

Need to be extremely course. Some hobbyist builders use the points of drywall
screws to scratch up and roughen the surface of the wood. So this idea could
very well work.
--
William

On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 11:56:27 -0500, "Tom Gardner" wrote:

If the volume is high enough, get a quote from a moulding company. If you
like I can get a quote from one of my block suppliers that has a knife lab.
IF the volume is there.

Several places on line advertise $16 per inch for custom knives. Not bad until
you consider a jointer has three blades.

But yes, it is all about volume. The pulverizor mill at my work has disks that
are over five grand a set and IIRC around $700 to have sharpened. However, they
will grind over three million pounds of plastic before needing to be
re-sharpened so the cost per pound is insignificant.
--
William

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:51:17 -0500, William Bagwell wrote:

Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood.
At least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and
almost as many boards grooved on only one side.
....
Have access to an old 6" jointer and think modifying the knives with a
series of flats leaving a row of cutting tips spaced approximately 1/2"
apart *might* just work. Cutting at least 12 grooves in one pass.
....
BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid
splinters extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I
want any radius at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat
the whole purpose of having grooves for the bats little toenails to
grip

If the resulting pieces are going to be interior walls of bat
houses, it seems like you would want to simulate something like
tree bark or rough rock surfaces. Have you tried a coarse wire
brush or a flail on the plywood surface?

The surfaces of rough cut slabs probably would be ok without
further processing, if you have access to a local sawmill.

--
jiw

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:51:17 -0500, William Bagwell
wrote:

Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood. At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost as
many boards grooved on only one side.



BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid splinters
extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I want any radius
at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat the whole purpose of
having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip

T1-11 plywood? The T stands for "textured" -- similar to rough sawn
boards.

I thought bats were pretty fussy about building materials. Is the
formaldehyde glue in plywood not a problem?

--
Ned Simmons

On Jan 1, 9:51*am, William Bagwell
wrote:
Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood. At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost as
many boards grooved on only one side.

Remote possibility this will become a recurring need and I will be able to
afford machinery and or custom tooling to make this easy. For now I'm doing a
limited run of prototypes and could resort to cutting them one by one with a
circular saw. Perhaps even two at a time with two blades in a table saw. But
where is the fun in that?

Have access to an old 6" jointer and think modifying the knives with a series
of flats leaving a row of cutting tips spaced approximately 1/2" apart *might*
just work. Cutting at least 12 grooves in one pass.

Looking for ideas that are better than just goobering up a set of jointer
knives with a hand held abrasive blade. Have no free access to a surface
grinder or any machine shop equipment more sophisticated than a worn out
drill-mill combo.

BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid splinters
extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I want any radius
at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat the whole purpose of
having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip
--
William

It sounds like you need a gang saw. This is not the best picture, but
it gives you the idea:
http://tinyurl.com/26xgbvd
Mostly used in industry, but I suppose that you could make one.

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 12:26:06 -0500, Ecnerwal
wrote:

Router or circular/table saw and step fence (ie, a fence that registers
on the last groove) will do it faster than you can get done grinding
expensive planer/jointer blades into castellated groove-cutters. That's
a pricey way to have "fun", and you'll also have issues cutting these
dozens of grooves much further than 6" from the edge of the board with a
typical jointer fence setup. I infer that this will leave you with about
12" in the middle un-grooved, since it sounds like you are cutting them
every 1/2" in the 24" direction. That's not a good (safe) direction to
feed a jointer a piece of wood, and kludging up a fence that will get
over another 6" will be a major project.

Have used table saws since the 70s and never seen a step fence. Neat idea
though and I am going to pass it on to the hobbyist builders on another forum
even if I don't wind up using it myself. BTW "indexed miter gauge fence" is a
better search term than "step fence".

And yes the center 12" of the 24' will be a bit tougher to reach with a jointer
than the ends. One thing working in my favor is that my infeed and outfeed
sides of the jointer can be set to the same height. (Rather than the normal
setting where the outfeed is higher by the depth of cut.) This should make it
easer to embed the jointer in a larger table.

Address the _remote_ possibility when and if it becomes real. I'd just
drop them into the CNC router and tell it to get cutting (and that's
what I'd suggest if you look to production tooling - something flexible
that can work unattended), but with a production-line mindset and simple
fence/jigs it will be done before you'd have the jointer kludged into
doing it.

Ooh, I love the way you dream! ;-) Oddly enough one of the two commercial
builders who publishes sales figures uses a CNC router to cut his grooves.

Dado set without the chippers and a sled with the registration on the
tablesaw is probably most efficient.

With the addition of the stepping / registration, exactly what my fall back
plan is if my jointer idea fails.

Or switch to rough-cut lumber rather than plywood and you don't even
need grooves...

Most modern 'rough-cut' is marginally rough enough that some builders use it.
particularly the ones using western cedar or recycled pallet wood. The really
rough, rough-cut lumber seems to also vary in thickness too much for my design.
--
William

Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood. At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost as
many boards grooved on only one side.

It sounds like you need a gang saw.

Some brands of planers can be converted to use as a gang saw, like
this one:

http://www.woodmastertools.com/s/gang.cfm

There are also plans out there for making your own drum sander. I bet
you could redesign the drum on some of those to get closer to what you
want...

--Glenn Lyford

On Jan 1, 1:19*pm, William Bagwell
wrote:

Need to be extremely course. Some hobbyist builders use the points of drywall
screws to scratch up and roughen the surface of the wood. So this idea could
very well work.
--
William

I looked at the MSC catalog and their coarsest grit was 36 on sanding
belts. But I looked on the internet and found a place that sells
floor sanding belts that are 24 grit.

Dan

"Glenn Lyford" wrote in message
...

Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood.
At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost
as
many boards grooved on only one side.

It sounds like you need a gang saw.

Some brands of planers can be converted to use as a gang saw, like
this one:

http://www.woodmastertools.com/s/gang.cfm

There are also plans out there for making your own drum sander. I bet
you could redesign the drum on some of those to get closer to what you
want...

--Glenn Lyford


Reply:
for prototypes, stack saw blades with spacers like a Dado blade. Probably
do 3" of grooving with a standard table saw table.

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.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 18:40:06 +0000 (UTC), James Waldby wrote:

If the resulting pieces are going to be interior walls of bat
houses, it seems like you would want to simulate something like
tree bark or rough rock surfaces. Have you tried a coarse wire
brush or a flail on the plywood surface?

Have seen one design where the landing zone (typically the very back baffle
which hangs down 6" below all the other baffles) was covered with a slab of
real bark. Very attractive to us humans though I doubt the bats care. Want to
experiment with a wire brush but I suspect that any plywood soft enough to
raise a gripable grain is going to be too soft over all to work. Or in the case
of quarter sawn boards be readily available already rough sawn as you suggest
below.

The surfaces of rough cut slabs probably would be ok without
further processing, if you have access to a local sawmill.

Will check with our pallet supplier at work and see if he will share his source
of rough sawn lumber.
--
William

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:48:10 -0500, Ned Simmons wrote:

T1-11 plywood? The T stands for "textured" -- similar to rough sawn
boards.

None I have seen is rough enough. The texture its self is plenty deep but a
smooth and rounded texture. The existing grooves are way too far apart to be
useful. Plus all the center baffles need to be rough on both sides.

I thought bats were pretty fussy about building materials. Is the
formaldehyde glue in plywood not a problem?

Exterior plywood uses phenol-formaldehyde which out gasses far less than the
urea-formaldehyde typically used with interior plywood. Interior plywood is
unsuitable for other reasons. (De-laminates in the presence of bat urine) Plus
bat houses have no floor or bottom and unless intended for extremely cold
climates must have at least one vent. So basically formaldehyde is not a big
concern.
--
William

On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 12:21:26 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
wrote:

It sounds like you need a gang saw. This is not the best picture, but
it gives you the idea:
http://tinyurl.com/26xgbvd
Mostly used in industry, but I suppose that you could make one.

We have a home made two blade at my work to cut plastic cases. Done with 5/8-18
threaded rod since the spacing needs to be adjustable. The general 'rickyness'
is why I am leaning towards a modified jointer at the moment. A real gang saw
might be in my future plans.
--
William

On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 16:23:25 -0800 (PST), Glenn Lyford
wrote:


Some brands of planers can be converted to use as a gang saw, like
this one:

http://www.woodmastertools.com/s/gang.cfm

A bit pricey but nice! Never found a price on just the blades though.

There are also plans out there for making your own drum sander. I bet
you could redesign the drum on some of those to get closer to what you
want...

Or buy used. Found a 37" industrial sander on Craig's list last night for about
what those planers run.
--
William

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:51:17 -0500, William Bagwell wrote:

Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood.


BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid
splinters extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I
want any radius at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat
the whole purpose of having grooves for the bats little toenails to
grip

Why not staple galvanized 1/2" grid wire to the boards?

On Jan 2, 6:29*am, William Bagwell
wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jan 2011 12:21:26 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
wrote:

It sounds like you need a gang saw. *This is not the best picture, but
it gives you the idea:
http://tinyurl.com/26xgbvd
Mostly used in industry, but I suppose that you could make one.

We have a home made two blade at my work to cut plastic cases. Done with 5/8-18
threaded rod since the spacing needs to be adjustable. The general 'rickyness'
is why I am leaning towards a modified jointer at the moment. A real gang saw
might be in my future plans.
--
William

I have parts for a Fellowes paper shredder that self-destructed. The
blades on the grinder shaft are about 1.7" OD, 0.76" ID and 0.15"
thk. They were press fit on the shaft and the tips would also need to
be re-ground to cut wood. With a 3/4" arbor and some spacers, maybe
it would work for what you describe. You might look for a broken one
to use as a source of small blades.

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 07:15:23 -0500, William Bagwell
wrote:

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:48:10 -0500, Ned Simmons wrote:

T1-11 plywood? The T stands for "textured" -- similar to rough sawn
boards.

None I have seen is rough enough. The texture its self is plenty deep but a
smooth and rounded texture. The existing grooves are way too far apart to be
useful. Plus all the center baffles need to be rough on both sides.

T1-11 comes in 4, 8, and 12" dado/groove spacing. Put that on the
outside and just run 1/8" x 3/16" deep tablesaw blade grooves at 3/4
or 1" spacing inside, on both sides of the baffles, horizontally.


I thought bats were pretty fussy about building materials. Is the
formaldehyde glue in plywood not a problem?

Exterior plywood uses phenol-formaldehyde which out gasses far less than the
urea-formaldehyde typically used with interior plywood. Interior plywood is
unsuitable for other reasons. (De-laminates in the presence of bat urine) Plus
bat houses have no floor or bottom and unless intended for extremely cold
climates must have at least one vent. So basically formaldehyde is not a big
concern.

That's what I understand. I helped my neighbor build some a few years
ago but never heard of their occupancy. He painted them, against my
urging, though.

Fish and Wildlife Service bathouse building info:
http://www.fws.gov/Asheville/pdfs/beneficialbats.pdf

--
Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins
when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in
order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.
-- Peter Minard

On Sun, 2 Jan 2011 13:01:51 +0000 (UTC), xpzzzz wrote:

On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:51:17 -0500, William Bagwell wrote:

Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood.


BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid
splinters extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I
want any radius at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat
the whole purpose of having grooves for the bats little toenails to
grip

Why not staple galvanized 1/2" grid wire to the boards?

Wire will hurt the beasties' toesies. Use fiberglass or plastic screen
only.

--
Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins
when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in
order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.
-- Peter Minard

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 06:53:42 -0500
William Bagwell wrote:

snip
Have seen one design where the landing zone (typically the very back baffle
which hangs down 6" below all the other baffles) was covered with a slab of
real bark. Very attractive to us humans though I doubt the bats care. Want to
experiment with a wire brush but I suspect that any plywood soft enough to
raise a gripable grain is going to be too soft over all to work. Or in the case
of quarter sawn boards be readily available already rough sawn as you suggest
below.

I think you have a lot more competition in making/selling bat houses
than you think...

This outfit did some studying different designs (I took a class taught
by one of the owners many years ago) early on and ended up using a mesh
affixed over the wood. See:

http://www.batroost.com/bathousesand...ouseplans.aspx

http://www.batroost.com/meshtobuildabathouse.aspx

I would explore finding a local source for this stuff or similar if I
was going to try making very many of them...

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

On Jan 1, 7:51*am, William Bagwell
wrote:
Need shallow grooves in wood, *lots* of shallow grooves in lots of wood. At
least 48 in each side of dozens of 16 X 24" pieces of plywood and almost as
many boards grooved on only one side.

BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough....[for the] purpose of
having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip

Bat bleachers; kinda cute notion.

Removing wood is wasteful of both wood and energy; why not
rip strips from a board, and glue or staple them as appropriate
to the substrate? Instead of a half-inch kerf, you'd be using
a .030" bandsaw's kerf when you ripped a strip from the board,
and maybe another .030" when you made the wide strip into
a narrower one. I've been known to apply glue with a paint roller,
it's REALLY quick to apply to a single strip.

On 2 Jan 2011 05:00:32 GMT, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:

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

Have not used a horizontal mill since 1977! Come to think of it I can not
recall even seeing a (manual) horizontal any where in the past 20 years. Big
CNC one I saw at an auction a few years back lacked the long arbor I remember
from school though one was probably available.

But another idea to consider for the future. Will start keeping my eye out for
a cheap horizontal mill.
--
William

On Sun, 2 Jan 2011 07:02:04 -0800 (PST), "Denis G."
wrote:

I have parts for a Fellowes paper shredder that self-destructed. The
blades on the grinder shaft are about 1.7" OD, 0.76" ID and 0.15"
thk. They were press fit on the shaft and the tips would also need to
be re-ground to cut wood. With a 3/4" arbor and some spacers, maybe
it would work for what you describe. You might look for a broken one
to use as a source of small blades.

Interesting idea! Would never have thought to look in that direction. Hmm, if
it was large enough to shred thick plastic parts I could build one on the clock
for work. Slot me up a stack of plywood during 'testing'
--
William

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 07:56:19 -0800, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Sun, 2 Jan 2011 13:01:51 +0000 (UTC), xpzzzz wrote:

Why not staple galvanized 1/2" grid wire to the boards?

Wire will hurt the beasties' toesies. Use fiberglass or plastic screen
only.

Yes, many builders claim that bats actually prefer pet mesh or other course
plastic screen to grooves. I'm trying to avoid it due to the extra expense as
well as the labor to securely fasten the stuff. Requires corrosion resistant
staples every two inches in each direction.
--
William

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 07:41:27 -0800, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 07:15:23 -0500, William Bagwell
wrote:

None I have seen is rough enough. The texture its self is plenty deep but a
smooth and rounded texture. The existing grooves are way too far apart to be
useful. Plus all the center baffles need to be rough on both sides.

T1-11 comes in 4, 8, and 12" dado/groove spacing. Put that on the
outside and just run 1/8" x 3/16" deep tablesaw blade grooves at 3/4
or 1" spacing inside, on both sides of the baffles, horizontally.

Hmm, so your suggesting grooves in both directions? More expensive but also
more like natural bark.

Exterior plywood uses phenol-formaldehyde which out gasses far less than the
urea-formaldehyde typically used with interior plywood. Interior plywood is
unsuitable for other reasons. (De-laminates in the presence of bat urine) Plus
bat houses have no floor or bottom and unless intended for extremely cold
climates must have at least one vent. So basically formaldehyde is not a big
concern.

That's what I understand. I helped my neighbor build some a few years
ago but never heard of their occupancy. He painted them, against my
urging, though.

Actually Bat Conservation International now recommends painting the outside of
wooden houses. The inside should not be painted however a few builders
recommend using something to darken the bottom couple of inches of each
partition to prevent light from reflecting up into the house.

Fish and Wildlife Service bathouse building info:
http://www.fws.gov/Asheville/pdfs/beneficialbats.pdf

On Sun, 2 Jan 2011 16:17:47 -0400, Leon Fisk wrote:

I think you have a lot more competition in making/selling bat houses
than you think...

Yes, lots of competition. 34 more of the best ones are listed here,
http://www.batcon.org/index.php/get-...-model-db.html

Where I hope to be included in a month or two All but a hand full are all
wood construction and all of them including the few plastic houses are hand
crafted with corresponding high labor costs. I'm building a mold to
(potentially) truly mass produce bat houses. It may never run again after the
initial prototype run, or I could end up being the *competition*.

In either case I'm having fun actually making something new rather than fixing
the endless stream of broken stuff I see every day.

This outfit did some studying different designs (I took a class taught
by one of the owners many years ago) early on and ended up using a mesh
affixed over the wood. See:

http://www.batroost.com/bathousesand...ouseplans.aspx

http://www.batroost.com/meshtobuildabathouse.aspx

I would explore finding a local source for this stuff or similar if I
was going to try making very many of them...

The mesh is great but costs as much as the plywood it is attached to. Pretty
sure I can groove for about the same labor as stapling mesh. But who knows...
--
William

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:39:36 -0500, William Bagwell
wrote:

On 2 Jan 2011 05:00:32 GMT, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:

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

Have not used a horizontal mill since 1977! Come to think of it I can not
recall even seeing a (manual) horizontal any where in the past 20 years. Big
CNC one I saw at an auction a few years back lacked the long arbor I remember
from school though one was probably available.

But another idea to consider for the future. Will start keeping my eye out for
a cheap horizontal mill.

Ive built a number of machines for a friend of mine, who slots PVC pipe
for the water industry.

A pair of bearing blocks and a 1" shaft will give you an arbor to stick
blades on and all you need are a pair of toothed pulleys and a
reasonable sized motor, like a 5hp @ 3600 rpm

We are putting 4" carbide tipped slotting saws on the arbors, with
ground spacers between them..sometimes we have (30) .015 saws .125"
apart all running on an arbor at 3600 rpm.

Its very easy to do,..it just takes some consideration of what you
actually need, calc the horsepower and build the thing.

Oh..and our saw blades can cost us $25 each....but you can get by a hell
of a lot cheaper when tooling up for wood.

Gunner


Gunner

--

"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."
Robert A. Heinlein

On Sun, 2 Jan 2011 14:03:32 -0800 (PST), whit3rd wrote:

Bat bleachers; kinda cute notion.

Maternity colony, so more like bat bordellos than bleachers.

Removing wood is wasteful of both wood and energy; why not
rip strips from a board, and glue or staple them as appropriate
to the substrate? Instead of a half-inch kerf, you'd be using
a .030" bandsaw's kerf when you ripped a strip from the board,
and maybe another .030" when you made the wide strip into
a narrower one. I've been known to apply glue with a paint roller,
it's REALLY quick to apply to a single strip.

Cutting individual strips of wood and gluing them down one by one would be
incredibly labor intensive. However you just gave me a potentially useful idea.
Every one here has seen expanded metal. I recently have been seeing expanded
*cardboard* being used as packing materiel. Not sure who is selling the
machines to produce it but the stuff does resemble expanded metal.

If it is possible to do similar with solid wood and glue two or three layers
together, it might be possible to produce really thin, light weight, yet stiff
panels that the bats could grip from either side. Might even be useful in other
applications?
--
William

On 1/2/2011 8:23 PM, William Bagwell wrote:


Maternity colony, so more like bat bordellos than bleachers.
I recently have been seeing expanded
*cardboard* being used as packing materiel.

A couple of ideas. Old sawmills sometimes used a shop built rotary
planer- a horizontal spinning disc of wood with a single tooth sticking
down. If the rough sawn wood was fed slowly, you got a smoother plank.
If fed too fast, you got a series of arcs across the face of the lumber.
You could feed fast.

Plan B would be to purchase 1/4" corrugated cardboard honeycomb as is
used in packing, lay it on the plywood, and spray it with acrylic for
weather protection and adhesion.

Plan C?

Recycle the tread of old tires. Charge more because the bat bordello is
now green.

Plan D?

Buy the bark slab at the sawmill that is usually burned as waste. Use it
inside out to build the bathouse.


Kevin Gallimore

On 2011-01-03, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:39:36 -0500, William Bagwell
wrote:

On 2 Jan 2011 05:00:32 GMT, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:

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

Have not used a horizontal mill since 1977! Come to think of it I can not
recall even seeing a (manual) horizontal any where in the past 20 years. Big
CNC one I saw at an auction a few years back lacked the long arbor I remember
from school though one was probably available.

While I've got a small manual horizontal mill -- the Nichols,
appropriately enough. :-)

But another idea to consider for the future. Will start keeping my eye out for
a cheap horizontal mill.

You really want to take the idea, but not the horizontal mill.
The spindle speeds are not fast enough for clean woodwork.

Ive built a number of machines for a friend of mine, who slots PVC pipe
for the water industry.

A pair of bearing blocks and a 1" shaft will give you an arbor to stick
blades on and all you need are a pair of toothed pulleys and a
reasonable sized motor, like a 5hp @ 3600 rpm

That sounds like something which would use reasonable spindle
speeds for the task.

We are putting 4" carbide tipped slotting saws on the arbors, with
ground spacers between them..sometimes we have (30) .015 saws .125"
apart all running on an arbor at 3600 rpm.

While I think that he needs probably 0.125" saws, and spacers of
0.375" for a half inch center to center spacing. (Or do the bats prefer
closer groove spacing?)

Its very easy to do,..it just takes some consideration of what you
actually need, calc the horsepower and build the thing.

Oh..and our saw blades can cost us $25 each....but you can get by a hell
of a lot cheaper when tooling up for wood.

Especially if you can find a batch of first time resharpened
ones. You don't want a mix of different number of resharps because the
diameters would vary too much.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 3 Jan 2011 04:55:54 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:


Ive built a number of machines for a friend of mine, who slots PVC pipe
for the water industry.

A pair of bearing blocks and a 1" shaft will give you an arbor to stick
blades on and all you need are a pair of toothed pulleys and a
reasonable sized motor, like a 5hp @ 3600 rpm

That sounds like something which would use reasonable spindle
speeds for the task.

We are putting 4" carbide tipped slotting saws on the arbors, with
ground spacers between them..sometimes we have (30) .015 saws .125"
apart all running on an arbor at 3600 rpm.

While I think that he needs probably 0.125" saws, and spacers of
0.375" for a half inch center to center spacing. (Or do the bats prefer
closer groove spacing?)

I made up spacers of all different distances up to 2". The slot
patterns depend on what the client wants. Cut em on an automatic saw,
trim on a DV-59, hit em with a surface grinder on the ends so the blades
run true. Shrug.

I own a very small part of the business....shrug.

Its very easy to do,..it just takes some consideration of what you
actually need, calc the horsepower and build the thing.

Oh..and our saw blades can cost us $25 each....but you can get by a hell
of a lot cheaper when tooling up for wood.

Especially if you can find a batch of first time resharpened
ones. You don't want a mix of different number of resharps because the
diameters would vary too much.

Im not sure in his application thats all that negative.

Gunner

--

"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."
Robert A. Heinlein

William Bagwell wrote:
...
BTW these grooves need to be slightly rough. While I want to avoid
splinters extremely smooth groves are not what I need or want. Nor do I
want any radius at the top or bottom of the grooves. This would defeat the
whole purpose of having grooves for the bats little toenails to grip

Bats? Just get some rough-sawn wood or take some very coarse grit paper and
rough up the surface. They'll figure it out. They're able to cling to the
ceilings of caves, you know.

If you want to make it a project, take a 12 TPI saw blade, clamp it between
a couple of pieces of angle stock, and scrape the surface sideways. :-)

Cheers!
Rich