Gang-sawing

Quicker preparation for strip-building and laminating

Written by Randall Davie

From Issue April 2017

Four blades on a single arbor increase accuracy and dramatically shorten working time.

When I was getting ready to build a cedar-strip kayak, just the thought of ripping about 900′ of 1/4″ x 3/4″ cedar strips was daunting. Pushing 18′ planks through the tablesaw 50 times was not how I wanted to spend my time—I'm rather impatient and like getting jobs done quickly. I started playing with the idea of gang-sawing, putting more than one blade on my tablesaw to make multiple cuts with each pass. Using four blades to make just 13 passes for the kayak strips I needed sounded a little more reasonable.A full-sized saw with an arbor long enough to take a stack of blades and spacers is required to do this. I have a 10″ tablesaw that can accommodate a stack of four blades with spacers. I didn’t need 10″ blades to cut the 3/4″ stock I needed for strips, so I bought four identical 7-1/4″ narrow-kerf carbide-toothed blades. The smaller blades are cheaper and, being lighter, don’t strain the motor when starting up. I don't recommend using more than four blades; it would make for an awful lot of material for your tablesaw to remove.

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Comments (6)

Steve says:

April 3, 2017 at 8:47 pm

What hp table saw for this setup? I only have a 1-1/2 hp contractor style saw and am guessing it wouldn’t be up to this task.
1. Randall Davie says:
  
  April 4, 2017 at 12:49 am
  
  1-1/2 hp is plenty,but you need an arbor long enough; most direct-drive saws can’t take a dado set. I think my arbor is around 1 3/8″. I hope that helps.
  1. Steve says:
    
    April 4, 2017 at 6:52 pm
    
    Definitely worth a try. I built two wood-strip canoes cutting every strip individually. I need to make some lams for some mahogany thwart knees and this looks like the way.
Greg Watson says:

April 3, 2017 at 11:40 pm

Steve, I bet you’d be ok. I’ve done 7/8″ dados on a similar saw, and that’s removing more wood per pass than this setup would.
John says:

April 4, 2017 at 11:49 am

Very cool. Although I don’t have a molder, I can see setting up a gang of 4 with saw-kerf-width spacers to cut concave on one face of the board and another molder head to cut the convex shape on the other face before ripping the strips. Four complete strips in 3 operations!
Michael Colfer says:

April 7, 2017 at 2:45 pm

Thanks, Randall. Most of us do plenty of laminating these days, and your idea is wonderful. I will definitely use it. My table saw is a 40-year-old Craftsman 10″ I bought for a couple of hundred and have been using heavily ever since. It has an arbor long enough. Excellent article.