POST DATE Sep 23, 2016

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. I thought I would write a few articles about some of the common questions I get asked. The first question for today’s article is, “Can you repair aluminum sawguides?”

This question is quite simple to answer, but the answer that’s right for you depends on how you want your sawmill to run. So the answers are:

Yes

No 

Let’s start with explaining the “Yes”. First, it’s important to understand that a sawguide is the micrometer of your sawmill. Similar to the bearings in an Indy racecar, a sawguide is subjected to a lot of abuse while in operation and therefore gets damaged. If you try to repair a damaged bearing in a racecar, would you get the same level of performance out of it versus a new bearing? Probably not, and your chances of successfully winning the race would be very low. The same is true with a damaged sawguide – it just doesn’t perform the same.

I have seen people put putty on sawguides, weld them back together, and a few other questionable things. These repair methods may make the sawguide look good cosmetically, like using bondo on a car, but they can severely affect the accuracy of a sawguide. These techniques do not improve or repair the structure of the sawguide, they just make it look better. 

Since the sawguide is the micrometer of a sawmill, accuracy is truly the most important factor to maintain. Imagine you are having parts measured for your company, and the micrometer the inspector is using has bondo all over it and was welded together in three spots. Wouldn’t you be suspicious, and think the accuracy of that measurement had gone to hell? The same is true for sawguides! 

Once repaired, sawguides are not as accurate as they were before, no question about it. This inaccuracy will affect the productivity and recovery of your sawmill. Meaning… your mill will be much less profitable than it was before when it had accurate guides.

So now let’s cover the second answer to if you should repair your aluminum guides, which is “No”. Before we get into it, I know there are some people out there who will say, “What about the nicks?”, not to be confused with the New York Knicks who have no chance of ever being successfully repaired. I think in most cases, 95% of the time or more, people only try to repair severely damaged sawguides, not just ones with scratches or minor cosmetic nicks. 

When you think about repairing your aluminum sawguides, you are really making a statement. You are saying, “What is more important? Saving a small amount of money by repairing them, or investing in new ones to keep my mill running productively and profitably?” The pennies you save by repairing pale in comparison to the dollars lost due to decreased accuracy and recovery in the lumber manufacturing process. 

After reading this, I know many people will say, “Well, we didn’t see a difference in accuracy after we repaired our sawguides.” That is only true if your so-called precision sawguides were in extremely poor shape in the first place. That’s another can of worms entirely. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. When you repair junk sawguides, you still have junk sawguides. I want to use some stronger words, but you never know who’s reading this.

There are also companies out there who tell you they can repair sawguides. I have yet to see a good repair job. Remember that we are talking about repair in terms of accuracy, not the cosmetic look of a sawguide. I would be very suspicious of companies who say they can repair your guides. It’s like taking your car to a body shop to get the motor fixed. Since I haven’t seen a good repair in over thirty years, I can only conclude that these companies just want to get an order out of you and are not concerned with the productivity of your sawmill.

Ultimately it’s up to you if you want to get your sawguides repaired or not, but remember, it sends a statement about what you feel is important in your business. Being cheap short-term and sacrificing long-term profitability, or making the investment needed now to ensure profitability in the future.

I vote no on sawguide repair. What about you? 

Author: Udo Jahn

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