First Test of my MP100 Beam Planer

Getting ready to square up and resize My reclaimed Beech timbers. I'll take twist out of some, crown out of others, and just resize or resurface others. This is a fun tool. I hope I haven't missed any metal in the beams! Or I'll be changing knives more often than I'd like. I should have a cut list available at the end of this week. Until then I'll just work of the worst ones to square two sides.
http://youtu.be/vqrN4dzH8uI

Hi Brad,

I am curious...that is a lot of work to "square up" timbers and a big machine too...

Would it not be easier to use "line rule" and not bother with trying to "make" the timbers "ideal."

This is just an observation...not a critique...:) I may well have not understood your final goals...

Regards,

j

I have to resize a lot of the timbers anyway per the cut list. About a third of the timbers have twist that we'd just rather not deal with. To leave them alone, it takes more skill and more time to do the layout and checking etc. You may also have the problem over time of trying to fit something inside up to a timber that is twisted. I feel it's a lot easier to deal with it now while we are re-sizing. Some faces really need resurfacing too due to the face damage from nail removal on some timbers that had a lot. In an ideal world, I could have prepped these timbers when I had extra time. As it is now, I'll get the first cut list (for the two workshop frames) at the end of this week. We haven't started the house design yet, so not sure how long that will take and how long til I have that cut list. Anyway, we'll get started prepping these timbers and by the time we have it prepped, we should have all the drawings for these two frames. We'll then start the layout and cutting.

Hi Brad,

I can understand that. You are correct, that working with twisted timbers or live edge is a skill in and of itself...I think you should have an easier time with layout too if the timbers are all "neat and clean."

I guess thats why I like the Asian timber framing methods so much. With line layout we really just stop looking at the timber/log for other than character, strenght, species etc...if it is twiste or bowed a bit...that makes no difference...

Sounds like you have lots of fun ahead of you...Keep us up to speed and I will log into you blog to follow along...

Regards,

j

Check nail holes for rust. I took a hunk out of a Witherby chisel on a piece of hidden rust. I've even reamed empty nail holes with a cordless drill before resawing. I'll have to wait for a better connection to watch your video.

Yes I know you can do it Jay. We are looking for effeciencies though as we have at least three frames here to do that we'd like closed in to the weather before next winter. I have about 130 reclaim beams here in my shed, and I'll have to order a bunch more too. I have a few that have as much as 1.5" of twist which is not insignificant. If it were a stand along post, I could layout as you said. But if it's to be part of a wall or have cabinets meet up to it or something, it would make life easier to be square. Plus it's really neat using this machine!!!
Dave, a buddy and I spent 3 months de-nailing all 130 timbers. We worked every other day to give our bodies a chance to recover. De-nailing, especially hardwood, will take a lot out of you. These contained broken off screws, all sizes of nails, lags, staples, carpet tacks and some hardware we never could identify. We got pretty good at it. We will be wand'ing every face again before we run the beam planer over it. No doubt we will his something. I'm going to have backup knives ready. By the way, I'm going to have a de-nailing video coming up from all that work showing he techniques we learned.

I had to do a lot of deironing on the posts I repaired for the Dutch barns. Not a fun part of using old timbers. I read an article in Sawmill and Woodlot years ago about a company that resawed reclaimed industrial timbers exclusively. The metal they removed went into a pizza fund for the crew. That is a lot of nail pulling.

Well, since the dust collector bag would fill up from doing just one beam, we built a bigger receptacle. 4'x4'x8'. the blower motor will blow the large chips into the box and it should be good for 8 to 10 beams. Then we have to dump it. It's designed to fit in my pick up bed so I can take it out to the burn pile or spread it to decompose. I can load it into the pick up with the forklift or carry it to the dump location with the forklift. I wish I could find somebody who could use the chips.


We put air relief holes on the sides near the top and stapled 1/4" wire mesh. For fun we want to stencil "Danger, live animals", and get my buddy in the box, then have another buddy come over and have him look at what I got. Then the guy inside can roar and beat on the inside of the box when he goes to peek in and scare him!

Brad, discreetly video the live animal cage stunt.

I'm still trying to think of the reason I would roll the timber 180 degrees after the first side is done. The only thing I can input is out of habit, on my own part. I sometimes will roll 180 on a log because it has some bulk on one side which cause some havoc in keeping the cant square, so to balance it out I take some off opposite side. But this isn't as much of an issue when working with this kind of stock. You mentioned the other two sides were not totally square to the first two. While you are right there doing the squaring put some future reference marks on the timber dictating the best aris.

Brad - I'm assuming that you're the actual operator in the video. We've been after a planer that can [also] handle beams, and it certainly looks like you've got the beam part covered with that MP100 head. Is it possible to run that head over a W-M LT40 bed. I'd hate to think that we would have to buy an entirely new mill just to benefit from the beam planer and, now that I think about it more, it would probably make owning one impossible (for us).

The MP100 only runs on the LT15 track. I don't think you would have to by the LT15 head, just as many sections of track as you would need to plane your beams.

Thanks for the information, Dave. Unfortunately, buying LT15 track sections would be cost prohibitive for us. We have enough invested in our LT40HD, and I was simply hoping that the planer head might work with our [paid for] track sections.

Thanks again ...

As Dave said, it's designed/needs to run on a 2 track mill. Check into the cost before dismissing it. It's not the fastest in the world to plane all four sides, but it ain't bad. It's all a matter of perspective. The cost is far below a 4 sided beam planer. So you can say that cost is proportional to speed.