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I just received a package containing a sawguide sample from our newest customer, and I had to write this article right away. They were having issues maintaining clearance between their babbitt pad and saw blade. In other words, they had no gap control!

I recently received a call from a friend of mine about one of his customers. I knew the news couldn’t be good. Turns out, this customer had been burning up saws for a long time.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of an extremely annoyed monk who nailed a list onto a church door because he was fed up with the Roman Catholic church.

I may not be a monk, but I’m fed up and I have a list of reasons why.

I just received an email from a friend who recently visited a troubled sawmill. This sawmill has unfortunately been experiencing a lot of problems with their saws getting very hot and underperforming.

Gap control is the one of the most critical items to control in a sawmill. It determines how accurate your cuts are, and the quality of your lumber. Having gap control means maintaining that perfect 0.0015” gap between the saw blade and the babbitt pad of the sawguide.

We ran into a very interesting situation this week that I bet most of you would never have thought could happen. One of our sawguide systems, that has been running for several months, has had ongoing issues with fluctuating water volumes.

Although sawguides are one of my favourite subjects, I occasionally develop writer’s block when asked to write another blog post about them. I have heard this happens to many professional writers.

I have recently attended a few forestry sector tradeshows, the same ones the sawmill industry usually attends. I have spoken with many people in the industry who have questions about sawguides, which of course I am always very happy to answer. 

I think about this question a lot, and I am often stumped by what I see going on around me in the manufacturing sector. I find that people in our sector are doing the opposite of what I think should be the norm when it comes to spending money. The question I often wonder is:

The title of this article might be a bit strong, but there are times when sawmills immediately jump to blaming the saw blade manufacturer first. Don’t get me wrong, there are saw blade manufacturers out there who do not manufacture a good product and even for the good manufacturers, a batch of unsatisfactory saws slip through the cracks every once in awhile.

Is it enough to simply provide solutions in today’s business environment? Finding a quick solution to a problem is one thing, but a complete and functional solution involves many complex components. 

The following is a case study on why it’s not just the quality and design of your sawguide that you need to look out for, but the quality and design of your Babbitt pad and pocket as well.

For many of us, our first jobs were simple, mind numbing, broom operating tasks that required very little training—and there wasn’t much responsibility to go with them. But is this level of training sufficient for an Oiler in your saw mill?

Saw Guides require precise control of water and oil. Here's a VIDEO showing how a Weyco Raymond Guide Lube system can be used to provide this precision control.

Remember Opa, my Grandpa? The reason I ask is because I remember him telling me the same thing I wrote about in my last article—“the day you quit learning, is the day you die.”

Have you ever asked a really stupid question? Is there such a thing? I was brought up with the knowledge there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

I have been to a lot of trade shows and filers conventions. A common theme is emerging at each one; business is improving at a rapid rate and sawmills are going full tilt.

Have you ever wondered why some things work great in certain places and fail in others? I have come to understand that when designing any type of lubrication system, the biggest obstacle we encounter isn’t always the machinery, but sometimes the customer themselves.

I was having lunch with a business acquaintance. We were talking about various issues that he saw in sawmills and during that conversation he said, “Did you know that many sawmills that I've visited have had to open up the gap between the sawguide and the sawblade, in order for the sawmill edger to start?”

Since it’s racing season around the globe and many people love watching race cars go fast. Many dream they could get in a really nice race car and drive at high speed. I for one am not against that. It’s amazing on how many precision components go into a race car.

Remember the old days of carburetors? Did you ever get the notion to start making small adjustments to see if you could make it run better?

Have you ever given thought to what goes on behind the scenes when you see a new product? The saw guide lubrication system we build is one of those products that’s almost an application or machine specific that people think is a “one size fits all” type of machine. They never are.

Have you ever driven behind a car that’s going fast and their brake lights keep flashing? I have and I always wonder what the heck is going on. It is scary! I didn’t know what they were doing.

Whenever we are asked what we use to lube chains, we say, “oil.” It’s not a sarcastic answer it’s the truth. Some customers have used grease to lubricate chains and the results weren’t the best.

We recently commissioned a saw guide system for a customer and ran into some old school thinking.... 

I’m often asked how we reduce the water and oil that is needed to cool saws and lubricate guides with our saw guide systems, where others can’t. It’s a simple matter of physics.

I continue to see coloured Saw guides brightly lighting up the walls of Sawmills like decorative art. The last time I checked, Saw guides are used in a precision industrial application for the accurate cutting of lumber. They are also a major expense.

When we talk about lubrication systems, it can cover a very broad range of requirements, system styles, configurations and more. It’s a really wide brush!

We’re pleased to feature this week’s guest blogger, Ron Vandermeulen. Ron is an independent expert with over 34 years of saw manufacturing experience.

We are very pleased to introduce guest blogger, Dean Maier from Industrial Autolube International. Dean Maier has been in the automated lubrication business for 25 years, with 85% of that time spent in forestry applications.

After writing my last article on gap control, a business acquaintance of mine asked me if Babbitt grinders (some call them Guide Dressers) played an important role in maintaining the gap.

Why is the accuracy of a saw guide so important? If you look deeper into its importance, what it actually comes down to is 'Gap Control'! You are probably wondering what this is.

As I talk to people in the Sawmill industry, I find that many have been told things about anodizing that are incorrect. I think it’s important to have a clear idea of what anodizing is, so let’s start with an overview of the process.

I remember having a friendly conversation with a gentleman about saw guides and he said a few things that really bothered me. The first was that the people working in a sawmill couldn’t tell the difference between an accurate saw guide and one that’s less accurate.

For many years saw guides were always made of steel. Steel was the material of choice because it was believed to be the strongest and most economical material.

Many years back I was at a Filers Convention and someone got up to give a presentation. He was speaking about Saw guides and how they were manufactured. I thought it was going to be interesting to hear someone else’s perspective until the gentlemen stated, “The best anodizing is clear anodizing!”.

Many years ago sawmills ran saws that are made from thick steel plate so that the saws which were held in place by a collar could remain right while they were sawing lumber. The circular saw spacing was achieved in many ways including the use of spacers on the arbors that turned the saws or to tighten the saw collar to the arbor at a predictable distance.

After a quick review of the main sawmill equipment manufacturers, there’s definitely a leader in the area of video galleries.

You know the old saying that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they dress, and how they present themselves? The same rule applies to business. 

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about his experience in sawmills. The more we spoke, the more the same issue kept coming up.

The forestry sector is one of the oldest industries in existence. There are older occupations, but man has been using the forests for all sorts of things for thousands of years. Everything from homes and heat to décor and even cooking. Vast communities have grown around this industry, supporting generations of people, and spanning centuries of human history.

Everyone has good days and bad days. Today was a bad day for me. No, I’m not ill, but I received some very bad news from a friend. He’s not ill either, but he told me there’s soon going to be a lot of upset people in local sawmill communities.

I can’t believe it’s November already. The year has gone by so quickly, and it’s almost over. I caught my family hanging Christmas lights the other day. Seriously! I thought to myself, “What day is this? What month is this?”

Every fall there seems to be so much to do. There are conventions and trade shows in our business lives along with all the other activities in our personal lives that occur. You get so wrapped up in all these events, but then something happens that just makes you want to stand up and say something.

Spring and autumn are both busy times of year for conventions and tradeshows. It seems like something’s going on every week during these seasons. Over the years, I have been asked a lot of questions about sawguides at these types of events.

If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know that my most impassioned posts are often a direct result of me receiving a sawguide sample in the mail. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of dismal sawguides and I keep thinking I’ve seen the worst, but then I keep getting surprised. 

I remember many years ago visiting the Pacific Northwest to meet with the Head Sawfiler at a local sawmill. The first thing we saw when arriving at the mill site was an ambulance. Safety is a huge concern in sawmills and seeing an ambulance is obviously not a good sign.

I had a very interesting discussion this past week with a customer about Lube Systems and how they’re always the first thing to be blamed for any breakdown. It seems that with any failure in a mill the easiest thing to blame is not having enough lube, but that isn’t always the case.

I was talking to a good friend of mine on the phone the other day. We were just chatting about past projects we had worked on together, and others that my friend had worked on. Our conversation was light and going really well until out of the blue, my friend made a remark that changed everything.

I love going to Europe. Visiting all the historic buildings, encountering timeless works of art… it’s such an inspiring place. I am particularly fascinated by what inspiration is behind many of these historical works of art. 

This subject has been on my mind for a long time, stemming from my interactions with new clients. They always wonder why they are experiencing sawing problems.

It was Sunday morning after a busy week when I finally sat down to write this blog article. All last week I was thinking about how to write it. Thank goodness we are in an electronic age, otherwise I would’ve had pieces of paper with half written articles on them torn up all over the floor.