CA2202120A1 - Method and apparatus for forming curved cants for curve sawing in an active gangsaw - Google Patents

Abstract

A gangsaw in-feed mechanism for positioning a cant and feeding the cant generally longitudinally into a gangsaw along a feed path, wherein the cant is oriented with its planar faces generally horizontal, and wherein the in-feed mechanism has laterally opposed laterally translatable skewable chipping heads lying generally in first and second generally parallel vertical planes laterally opposed on either side of the feed path, a method for opening opposed generally vertical longitudinal faces so as to form curved longitudinal profiles on laterally opposed sides of the cant according to an optimized profile solution, so as to feed the cant into the gangsaw along a generally linear feed path for curve sawing in the gangsaw, having the steps of longitudinally translating and positioning the cant along the feed path between said chipping heads, laterally translating and simultaneously skewing the chipping heads, according to the optimized profile solution, into cutting engagement with the laterally opposed sides of the cant so as to open the opposed generally vertical longitudinal faces and form the curved longitudinal profiles by aligning the first and second planes at an angle of attack so as to be generally parallel to the instantaneous tangent of the optimized profile solution at an instantaneous location of the cutting engagement, and feeding the cant from between the chipping heads along a generally linear portion of the feedpath into the gangsaw.