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From: Steve Hoas
Categories:
Date: 06 Feb 2003
Time: 19:26:11
Remote Name: 139.142.248.228
There are a lot of discussions on frost notches for winter. In our mill we use a 1/8 in frost wheel with a bristol board blotter in between it and a 1/2 inch wheel to get a total of slightly over 5/8 inches. We also grind the factory blotters of the wheels with a wire wheel so that the wheel faces make proper contact. On our head saws we use a 3/16 inch and a 7/8 inch with 2 blotters to make slightly more than one inch. The two blotters make the frost "tit" slightly bigger. This can also be done with the 1/8 inch wheel. Some filers glue the wheels together with contact cement or plaster of paris, but I have found that occasionally the frost wheel will get caught by a saw tooth when putting a saw on the grinder and if this is the case the whole weel is lost but if they are not glued, a new 1/8 in wheel can be replaced and dressed to fit the template. The only problem is that the extra long "tit" can interfere with the swage when re-swaging. The cure for this is to knock the "tit" down with a piece of round stock and a hammer. The wheels used for the frost tit are slightly harder than the normal wheel so that they don't wear down too quickly. Another cure for frost is to use the smaller tit with one blotter and to chisel the frost gullet with a cold chisel. This deforms the sawplate slightly to the sides to scrape the frost residue off the sawn lumber and helps to keep the saw from snaking. This should be done after swaging so that the chisled bump will wear down with the swage as the saw is reground and should be all gone by the time re-swaging is done. If it is too big when swaging, the swage clamp screws will hang up on the bump. This can be cured by the benchman keeping an eye on the teeth and when he notices that the saw will have to be swaged next run, he can slightly roll the bottom of the gullets to flatten the chiseled part if he deems that it is too big and will interfere with the clamp screws. When dressing the wheel shape it is advised to keep the corner of the gullet where the tooth throat meets the gullet at a fairly sharp right angle. This also helps to keep the sawdust in the gullet while cutting. One final method of preventing snake in frost is to slightly grind every other tooth down on the top after swaging. This in effect makes the toothe space double the normal size and the lowered tooth then acts as a raker. I use a small angle grinder to do this. You do not have to grind much off either. I have even done this right on the rig inemergency cases (and also to prove a point). I have used all of these methods and if done properly they will all work well to control snake in frozen wood. I hope this is of some use to you.