I need 1000’s of 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ x 18″ pieces of pine or fir and am wondering if a cabinet table saw would be best for cutting these?
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That depends on what you are starting with. If you can get 1/2 × 31/2 stock from the yard / mill all you'll need is a chopsaw. If you are buying thick slabs rough off the sawmill everything changes.
It depends what you're cutting them from.
A TS has a 1/8" kerf blade, which can turn a lot of your timber into sawdust, especially if you're cutting 1/2" pieces from a much larger piece. But it'll be quicker than the main alternatives: a bandsaw and a handsaw.
A bandsaw can, in theory, waste less wood as the kerf can be much narrower. But in practice bandsaws can leave a rougher surface requiring more dressing-away of wood to get smooth. And you HAVE to eliminate blade drift or your pieces will be wonky and will need making right - more time, more sawdust.
A site saw or even a handheld circular saw might be as quick as a cabinet saw; perhaps quicker depending on your source material.
If you have a US saw, you may have to spend time and effort arranging some means to cross cut things to length as most US cabinet saws don't have a sliding carriage for cross-cutting. Neither does a bandsaw; and that also has a limit to the length it can cross-cut.
Lataxe
Actually we were thinking of cutting them from 2x4's .
Cheap and easy to get>
If I understand you, you are thinking of ripping 2 x 4's into ½" thick pieces. I see 2 problems with this; one 2 x4's are notoriously twisted and warped making ripping them a somewhat risky operation, given that I would cross-cut them first and work with the shortest pieces possible, the second issue is a 10" table saw is not capable of cutting 3½" in a single pass, so you would have to flip the piece over and make 2 passes not ideal for a fine finish or safety. Given all this, the bandsaw is the only saw I would recommend to do what you have in mind.
Do the finished 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 18" parts need to be smooth and clean and perfect? The radiused corners on a normal 2x4 means the outside 1/4" of each face is waste.
As mentioned, the yield from "cheap" 2x4's will probably be a lot less than you think if they need to be reasonbley rectangular and straight. Even kiln dried 2x4's are wet and would have to be dried for some time. During this time they will warp. You can then bandsaw, joint and plane blanks out of them and cut them to size. Starting with more reliable product like poplar from a reputable lumber yard in the first place will probably be cheaper in the long run.
If you cut all of those parts from 2x4s, you'll come back the next day to find a big pile of Pringles.
What are you going to use them for? Can you use 1/2" plywood? It is more stable, easier to cut and better yield. If you use plywood cabinet grade indoors. CDX is good for outdoors, but not always perfectly flat. Still better than a cutdown 2x4. Also ripping that tall and thin on a tablesaw is dangerous.
In response to can 2 x 4s be used to create 1/2" lumber slices. I recently needed a number of 1" x 36" x 3.5" pieces of wood from 2 x 4s for a sliding cupboard project. What made this project work, and I think might work for Shadybrook, is I bought a Freud 10" x 30T Industrial Thin Kerf Glue Line Ripping Blade (LM75R010) having no idea if it would work to also enable a large number of 1/8" slices from 3/4" poplar boards as banding for plywood shelves. In both cases this blade worked admirable with no saw marks on the cutoffs. I removed 1/4" from each side of HD 2 x 4s. The kerf is .09" so the throw away cutoffs are less than 1/4" thick and although i have no use for them they have not warped or twisted. I cut the 2 x 4s in two half cuts of a blade height just over 1.75" and the end result was spectacularly clean cuts.
I had never heard of the Freud glue line blade and just bought it on a whim and was pleasantly surprised at the results so far.
I think what we are all missing here is the fact that he said he need thousands of these pieces cut. With a 2x4 having a nominal thickness between 1¼" & 1½" he will only yield 2 usable pieces regardless of the blade kerf size for every 18 inches of length. To obtain these 2 pieces it will require 4 relatively dangerous cuts to be made so to generate 1000 pieces that would entail 2,000 risky and ill advised operations not to mention an extraordinary amount of time. Debating which saw blade to use is pointless we all should be advising what appears to be a less experienced member DON'T DO IT! Your fingers and safety aren't worth it. If you insist on ripping 2x4's in this manner the bandsaw is the only safe solution.
IMO the poster above makes an excellent point. I’d we assume the fact you don’t have a table saw means you don’t actively use one, this isn’t the safest task for a beginner.
That said the problem with 2x4’s is knots. I have little doubt at some point you are either going to have a knot explode, go flying by you face, or jamb the blade.
Whatever you do, cut then to length first, don’t try to run an 8’ board through the saw.
Also, you need to joint one face and edge first. So you need to,buy a jointers too ;-)
I will echo this is best done on a bandsaw.
Could it be that we are all entirely on the wrong tack here? Shaddybrook was conspicuously specific in asking if he needs a "cabinet table saw". Could this really be the noble case of someone soliciting support from us to buy that long lusted over power tool? Could it also be that someone important in his/her life may be resisting the expenditure for that which his/her heart so deeply desires?
So let me be the first to say, "Yes, Shadybrook, buy that cabinet table saw! Just DON'T use it for that incredibly dangerous operation you have described!"
I would never try a table saw for cutting thousands of something like this. And never ever with 2x4s or any construction lumber.
The only way I would do it is on a bandsaw. I would get 5/4 stock, most likely poplar in this neck of the woods. Thickness plane each side smooth, resaw in half on a bandsaw, then thickness plane the rough sides to finished thickness.
But thousands? That's a lot of milling. Mind numbing milling.
This is what sawmills are for.
If you need thousands of pieces then just place an order for the stuff you want from the sawmill directly.
They will produce exactly what you want quickly, safely, and doubtless at a lower price than buying the 2x4s.
Here's a plan.
Buy a decent cabinet saw.
Order the timber from the sawmill.
Take your significant other out to dinner on the difference in price between buying 2x4s and the real price you paid the mill.
Use the huge amount of time you saved to enjoy your new saw!
À 2 or 3 hp quality (heavier) 14 inch bandsaw with a 1 inch, 2/3 tpi carbide Blade will do the job with a finish as good as a tablesaw blade.
First resaw the pieces full length of the 2 X 4 and they will bow in all directions and cut to length on a crosscut the pieces that meet your straightness requirement.
Just noting that 2x4s usually have rounded edges on them, so that may not be what is wanted. I just went through a basement storage shelf-building project, and the rejection rate of 2x4 boards cup twisted or bowed, or with pith, was about 75%.
Actually, thinking about how many man-hours it would take one person to do thousands, one at a time . . . .
To make 1000 sticks, you would need 1500 linear feets of 1/2 thick wood . Since we get two from each by resawing, we need 750 feets of 2 X 4 or 75, 10 foot long 2 X 4. you will loose 1 ft to get a multiple of 18 inches from each and that will help in dodging knots and defects. say you add another 10% waste, we need 75 X 120% = 90 studs or 900 feets.
Say you first feed the 2X4 through the planer at 16 fpm to square one face and remove the rounded corner, that will represent 56 minutes of planing. Add 2 hours for setting-up and discarding chips, we have 3 hours.
Feeding through the saw at the same feeding rate and handling steps will add another 3 hours. Planing to 1/2 inch all the strips will then require 6 hours. Cross cutting to 18 inches long could take one minute per 10 foot strip so 180 minutes or 3 hours.
Roughly two days of work.
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