Abstract: A wood product assembly includes a cutter and skewing assemblies. A cutter positioning body is movable by the slewing assembly along a slewing axis. A spindle housing is mounted to the cutter positioning body for pivotal movement about a pivot axis. A spindle, to which a cutter, such as a sawblade or chipper head, is affixed, is mounted to the spindle housing for rotation about a spindle rotation axis by a drive assembly. The drive assembly includes a fixed position drive motor and a drive shaft assembly. The drive shaft assembly comprises a hollow drive shaft sleeve and a drive shaft. The drive shaft sleeve extends at least part way through the drive motor and is rotatable by the drive motor. An end of the drive shaft is slidably housed within and rotated by the drive shaft sleeve. The skewing assembly is coupled to the spindle housing to position the spindle rotation axis to a selected angular orientation to position the cutter at a selected skew angle.