Buildup on feed rollers can cause chatter

During a visit to Louisiana recently, the ph360 owner down there asked me about some chatter he was experiencing in his finished material.  The material was longleaf pine.  I took a picture to document the problem.  The chatter seems to be worse on one side and erratic.  You can see in the picture what was happening.

We checked everything about the ph360.  The feeding system is much more robust on the ph360, so it was a mystery why this might be happening.  After our discussion about what it could be and after I left, Rusty, the ph360 owner, took some time to test what it could be.  The material he was planing, longleaf pine, is very pitchy, and pitch can build up quickly on the feed rollers in the planer.  These feed rollers are very important as their function is not only to push the material through the planer, they also hold the material firmly, so the board cannot move or vibrate as it goes through the planer.  These rollers had a lot of pitch built up on them and apparently this buildup was causing the problem.  Rusty cleaned one side of each of them and watched the result on the board.  The chatter changed.  Part of it cleared up.  He cleaned the rest of them and the chatter went completely away!  Apparently, though the pitch appeared hard, it allowed that board to vibrate enough to cause this chatter on the finished product.

So, keep your feed rollers clean when working with pitchy material.  We have used a mixture of soap and water to put on these rollers to keep the pitch buildup to a minimum, and have even resorted to turpentine or paint thinner to help reduce the buildup when in very pitchy wood.  Apparently, it is worth the effort to keep these rollers cleaned.

Sunbelt Ag Expo

We just completed a show at the Sunbelt AG Expo in Moultrie, GA.  It was a really nice show!  One of the local residents brought logs to the exhibitors at the show so we could mill up the lumber and he would pick up the material at the end of the show.  He got a lot of nice lumber.  The 8 pine logs he brought us ranged in size from 10" - 20" in diameter.   We made a lot of nice 1" lumber from these logs.  He took home around 600 board feet of Logosol cut lumber.  According to some of our visitors, it was as smooth as any bandsaw cut lumber on site.

After one demonstration, a guy came up and felt of the face of the board I had just sawn, and said, "It just don't get no better, does it?"  The boards produced on the M7 sawmill were straight and true, and really looked good.  We had big crowds whenever we cranked up the sawmill.  People would gather around and watch a board being sawn on the mill and then be amazed when they inspected the resulting plank after watching it being cut with a chainsaw.  That a chainsaw could cut that smooth had never occurred to them.

We also had the demo trailer with a 25KW Diesel Generator that we used to power the ph260 4-head planer/moulder.  We cut a bunch of white oak blanks into a round - over pattern as people watched.  Again they were amazed at the resulting board.

Some of our old friends and planer and mill owners came by to talk about how they were using their Logosol equipment, and how satisfied they were with it.  One M7 owner had bought his mill at the Sunbelt AG Expo over 10 years ago and said he had made a lot of lumber with it, and used the lumber in barn and outbuilding projects over the years.  He was definitely a happy customer!

All in all it was a good show, but it was a workout for me, as I was busy as a one-armed paper hanger, running the sawmill, running the planer, talking with visitors, and handing out brochures.

Log Table for M7 Sawmill

We recently did a demo day at my farm in Alabama. We had several oak logs that were the right size for showing the M7. We wanted to have them ready for quick loading and leave them the unused ones there for quick loading onto the sawmill in case someone came up for a demo later in the summer. So, we built a nice log deck out of these logs. My son, Rivers, was the main builder of this platform, I just helped. Here is a picture of the result.  You can see that we selected two fairly straight good sized logs - about 14" in diameter. We cut some short logs and notched them with a v-notch, so these top logs will be stable, and then placed the  log deck logs on top of them.  The whole thing is very stable.  You can always add some screws to the setup if you are worried about movement.  But, if your notches are deep, the log deck will be very stable and you can pile the logs on them.  You can see that the log deck is about the right height for the M7 sawmill log supports, so you can just roll them over onto the M7 when ready.  We also brought the logs over on a trailer, and they log deck was the right height to roll the logs off the trailer onto the log deck.  This log deck makes everything easier!

How to tell length of Logosol Knives

Recently I had a request about how to know the length of Logosol knives since our catalog does not have dimensions on many of the new moulding knives as shown in the catalog. You can find out from the numbers of the knives which are written on each knife in our catalog. Part of this number will provide indication of the length of the knife.

Knives beginning with:
94 = 40mm long (1.5")
95 = 50mm long (1 15/16")
96 = 60mm long (2 3/8")
98 = 80mm long (3 1/8")
910 = 100mm long (3 15/16")
913 = 130mm long (5 1/8")

So, a knife with the number 94572 will be 1.5" in length. A logosol knife with the number 91301, will be 5 1/8" in length.

Logosol Sponsors Outdoor Project Contest

Logosol is sponsoring an outdoor project contest with Wood Magazine this fall. It's been going on a while and has a few days left in which to enter. Our contest is one of the most popular on their website, with 115 entries so far! I want to encourage you to join and show what can be done with your Logosol equipment! I get a lot of pictures of some great projects that Logosol equipment owners have done with their equipment and woodworking talent, and I hope that someone with a Logosol will win this contest!

Here is the link: www.woodmagazine.com/photos/woodworking-showdown/

Instructions are on the site to enter the contest. Good luck!

Oh, yeah, the winner gets a brand new Logosol Chain Sharpening Robot!

New Logosol Setting Rule for PH260

We recently made a quick video for the New PH260 Setting Rule. This is a very handy tool for speeding up the setup of the PH260 4-Head Planer/Moulder. The video has been published on youtube, but you can view it below.



Click on the Video if you want to view it on Youtube!

New Logosol Videos on the Web

Logosol is working on a batch of videos for the web! The first is up via you-tube. You can see it here:


If you have a video of a Logosol product in action, please share it with us and the rest of the web. If you already have it on You-Tube, please share the address with us via comments for this blog.


You will notice other videos that are available now about logosol products, including the bandsaw blade sharpener. Keep a watch on You-Tube for Logosol!