Active sawguide assembly and method

An active sawguide assembly, used to position a plurality of saws along a saw drive arbor, comprising:

• a set of sawguides mounted to one another to create an array of sawguides having laterally-abutting lateral sides;
• means for laterally translating said array along a lateral path;
• and
• means for simultaneously pivoting each said sawguide about its own sawguide axis so that said lateral sides slide over one another, wherein said set of sawguides is a plurality of sets of sawguides, and wherein sawguides within each set of sawguides within said plurality of sets of sawguides are positioned adjacent to one another to create separate arrays of laterally-abutting sawguides, each array of said separate arrays corresponding to a set of said plurality of sets of sawguides, said assembly further comprising:
• (a) sawguide biasing assemblies for biasing each sawguides in each said set against one another;
• (b) for each said array a sawguide array skewing assembly coupling said sawguides of each said array to one another and pivoting within said array said sawguides in unison about their respective pivot axes.
• wherein said means for laterally translating said array includes lateral driving means to move each said array independently of other said arrays in said separate arrays along a lateral path relative to a workpiece infeed direction.