Ripping

At Rex Lumber Company, each of our mills has multiple options to rip one or both edges on rough lumber. Rip saws are used to saw through the thickness of the lumber to produce random width lumber with one ripped edge or blanks at specified widths with both edges ripped.

Improve Your Yield &Reduce Waste

We can help improve your yield and reduce waste by blanking and ripping an edge on your rough lumber orders. The most basic form of ripping is using one of our straight-line rip saws. These saws have a single blade and can rip only one edge at a time. Straight line rip saws are similar to table saws used in many shops, just larger. The main benefit of having stock ripped on a straight-line rip is the stock travels through the machine in a straight line on a feed belt, a fence is not used. This provides a true straight edge on the material, whereas ripping stock off a fence tends to follow the curvature in the board. We also use laser lights that are lined up with the blade to adjust the material before it goes into the saw. The use of laser lights allows us to minimize the amount of waste that is ripped off the edge, but still maintains a straight edge. In smaller quantities, sometimes that board is fed through the machine a second time to rip the other edge. In large quantities, one of our gang rip saws are used. Once a straight-line edge is ripped, the straight edge can be used to ride along the fence of a table saw to parallel blanks with each pass.

Let UsRip Blanks for You

Do you operate your own molder? Do you use a standard set of blank sizes? If so, consider letting us rip your blanks for you. Our gang rip saws are the main output for ripped lumber at our company. These rip saws use multiple blades to rip a single piece of lumber multiple times in one pass through the machine. We have two types of gang rip saws in our mills. The first type has fixed blades; the second type has movable blades and is also computer optimized. The blades on a fixed blade rip saw are not permanently fixed, but they are locked in place on the arbor using spacers or lock collars. The spacers or lock collars are set to the appropriate widths to rip a board into a finite number of predetermined sizes. Like with the straight-line rip saw, we use laser lights that are adjusted to line up with the blade configuration to be able to best judge how to rip specific pieces of lumber. Fixed arbor rip saws are often used for ripping individual orders that in many cases have been pre-selected for width. An example of the use of a fixed arbor rip saw would be ripping a rough 6” wide piece to yield to two 2-5/8” rips. Fixed arbor rip saws can be used on random width lumber ripping multiple sizes; however, when yield is most important, we use one of the computer-optimized moving blade rips saws. As the name implies, the blades move automatically on the arbors using motors. Prior to ripping material, the operator plugs in the desired rip sizes required. Boards are first scanned using a series of cameras to determine the length and width, then the computer decides the optimal yield based on the sizes and the required output. The blades then adjust, and the board is fed into the machine and ripped. The process continues with the next board until the load or order is complete. The optimization rip saws are typically used to rip larger orders or entire trailer loads of lumber.

Does Your Shop HaveDead Inventory?

Let us rip it for you to increase your yield. The capacity of our straight-line rip saws allows us to rip material as thin as 3/8” up to 3-7/8” thick, and as narrow as 1” up to 23-7/8”. Our fixed arbor saws allow us to rip material as thin as 1/4” up to 3-3/4” thick, and as narrow as 3/4” up to 23-7/8”. The optimizer saws as thin as 4/4 rough stock, up to 6/4 rough stock, and as narrow as 3/4” up to 15” in width.

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