Mimicking the Appearance of Circle-Sawn Lumber
How to add "faux" saw marks to wood. May 5, 2007
Question
Is there a way to artificially create a "circle-sawn" look on hardwood lumber that was made on a band-saw?
Forum Responses
(Architectural Woodworking Forum)
From contributor Y:
Do you need the feel as well as the look?
From the original questioner:
Feel and look would be great, but I'm open to suggestions.
From Professor Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
Once the lumber has been sawn completely, I do not know of any way. However, one option for you might be to have the lumber sawn double thickness and then have someone resaw the thick piece into two thinner pieces using a circle saw. Then you would have one face circle and one face band sawn.
From contributor S:
If the timber is not too wide, you could use a circular sander or angle grinder to produce a progression of arcing scores across the board.
From contributor J:
Can resaw on a band saw, give a few teeth a heavy set on the cut side, and skim the surface, feed at a moderate to steady rate. Also a little wire brushing of the surface will make the saw marks stand out more.
From the original questioner:
This forum is great. Thanks for all the ideas. I'm trying to make flooring with a rough, antique, circle-sawn look. However, the wood I have is neither old nor circle sawn. I'm trying to get that look with the wood I have.
From contributor R:
If you set up a wooden fence right next to and slightly in front of the band saw blade and then run your boards at a slight, say 5 degree, angle you'll get the resawn look.
From contributor H:
How you do this will depend a lot on how wide the boards are. One option would be to do it on a table saw. Crank the blade up as far as it will go. Skew the rip fence slightly out of the cut, then set it so that you just barely skim the face of the board with the leading edge of the blade. Now set up a feeder in front and feather boards behind the blade.
Wider boards could be done on a radial arm saw with the arbor just out of vertical, and the lumber being fed through flat on the table. You would use a feeder to push the boards through right to left, with the saw skimming the faces. You'll want to cut on the leading edge of the blade again, so that it tends to push the stock into the fence.
In both scenarios you may need to artificially induce some blade wobble, or have a blade made up with a couple of slightly wider teeth. Tell your saw sharpening guy you want a blade that wobbles... he should be able to fix you right up!
I once worked at a large furniture mill where we routinely faked the look by running oak veneered plywood strips through a Weinig moulder, easing the edges but not touching the faces. The urethane outfeed rollers were replaced with steel rollers with weld bead laid down in arcs. Crank up the feed roll pressure, and the strips came out with "saw marks" embossed on the faces. It worked, but it was kind of rough on the feed roll bearings.
