Paul's View

Let me start by asking, how much tension are you running in your guided saws? The answer should be, “Only as much as needed for the saws to stand up straight, both in and out of the cut.”

Robotics are now available for our filing rooms. Saw filers can now depend on robotics to do the repetitive work, day in and day out. However, it seems robots with automation in the filing room may be a little misunderstood by a few. 

When Enough is enough: True story about hand swaging a bandsaw. CFI saw filing columnist Paul Smith shares a story about a saw filer in Texas whose decision to retire after many years hand swaging bandsaws has a lesson for all mills today about the importance of automation in retaining filers.

The gullet, the space in front of each tooth that moves the sawdust away from the blade, is not just a random size cut-out in the saw. While the distance between the top of the tooth to the bottom (lowest point of gullet) is the gullet depth, the area of space in the gullet will determine how much sawdust or chip load the gullet can handle.

In our current economy, I will venture a guess, most readers have made or will be making some large supply or cap-ex purchases for their filing room. Although a saw filer may not make the final decision, ultimately he or she is responsible to make sure what was purchased works to the benefit of the department and the entire operation.

Make Inroads into U.S.A. with Smith Sawmill Service 

Lubrication-related filing room equipment failure plagues most sawmills. And it seems the problem is on the rise with the widespread use of automatic grease units. It's easy to become dependent on these automatic lubrication units to do the job. 

It's been said that having a sawmill without a filing room is like having a grocery store without a meat market. I would certainly not argue such a statement, but, I will say, both have advantages and disadvantages.

Many mills are finding the current lead time for new saws quite the challenge. The healthcare industry has been fighting this pandemic for over a year now and our industry, like many others, has been fighting the effects: shut downs,