Sawmill

Sawmill process

A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of 100 years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end.

• Logging fells (falls) and cuts (bucks) trees to length.
• Logs are taken by truck, rail or river to the sawmill.
• Logs are scaled either on the way to the mill or upon arrival at the mill.
• Decking is the process for sorting the logs by species, size and end use (lumber, plywood, chips).
• Debarking removes bark from the logs.
• The head saw, head rig or primary saw, breaks the log into cants (unfinished planks) with a smooth edge.
• Edging will take the cant and trim off all irregular edges leaving four-sided lumber.
• Trimming squares the ends at typical lumber lengths.
• Drying removes naturally occurring moisture from the lumber. This can be done with kilns or air-dried.
• Planing smoothes the surface of the lumber leaving a uniform width and thickness.
• Shipping transports the finished lumber to market

History

The earliest known reference to a working sawmill comes from a Roman poet, Ausonius who wrote an epic poem about the river Moselle in Germany in the 4th century AD. At one point in the poem he describes the shrieking sound of a watermill cutting marble. It is likely that watermills of all kinds were well used in the Roman period from references given by Vitruvius in 25 BC and Pliny the Elder in 77 AD.

Sawmills were widespread in the medieval period, as one was sketched by Villard de Honnecourt in c.1250.^[2] They are claimed to have been introduced to Madeira following its discovery in c. 1420 and spread widely in Europe in the 16th century.^[3]

The sawmill was also described by the Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon (1550-1607) by applying a pitman arm onto a wind mill, which converted a turning motion into an up-an-down motion. Corneliszoon patented the sawmill on December 15, 1593 and the pitman on December 6, 1597. He built the first sawmill there in 1594.

Prior to the invention of the sawmill, boards were rived and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a whipsaw, using saddleblocks to hold the log, and a pit for the pitman who worked below. Sawing was slow, and required strong and enduring men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had the advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so that the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline.

Early sawmills simply adapted the whipsaw to mechanical power, generally driven by a water wheel to speed up the process. The circular motion of the wheel was changed to back-and-forth motion of the saw blade by a Connecting rod known as a pitman (thus introducing a term used in many mechanical applications). A pitman is similar to a crankshaft, but in reverse; a crankshaft converts back-and-forth motion to circular motion.

Generally, only the saw was powered, and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to steadily move the log through the saw blade.

A small mill such as this would be the center of many rural communities in wood-exporting regions such as the Baltic countries and Canada. The output of such mills would be quite low, perhaps only 500 boards per day. They would also generally only operate during the winter, the peak logging season.

In the United States, the sawmills was introduced soon after the colonisation of Virginia by recruiting skilled men from Hamburgh. Later the metal parts were obtained from the Netherlands,^[4] where the technology was far ahead of that in England, where the sawmill remained largely unknown until the late 18th century. The arrival of a sawmill was a large and stimulative step in the growth of a frontier community.

Early mills were taken to the forest, where a temporary shelter was built, and the logs were skidded to the nearby mill by horse or ox teams, often when there was some snow to provide lubrication. As mills grew larger, they were usually established in more permanent facilities on a river, and the logs were floated down to them by log drivers.

The next improvement was the use of circular saw blades, and soon thereafter, the use of gangsaws, which added additional blades so that a log would be reduced to boards in one quick step. Circular saw blades were extremely expensive and highly subject to damage by overheating or dirty logs. A new kind of technician arose, the sawfiler. Sawfilers were highly skilled in metalworking. Their main job was to set and sharpen teeth. The craft also involved learning how to hammer a saw, whereby a saw is deformed with a hammer and anvil to counteract the forces of heat and cutting. The circular saw was a later introduction, perhaps invented in England in the late 18th century, but perhaps in 17th century Holland, Netherlands. Modern circular saw blades have replaceable teeth, but still need to be hammered.^[5]

The introduction of steam power in the 19th century created many new possibilities for mills. They could be built away from water and could be far more mechanized. Scrap lumber from the mill provided a ready fuel source for firing the boiler. Efficiency was increased, but the capital cost of a new mill increased dramatically as well.

By 1900, the largest sawmill in the world was operated by the Atlantic Lumber Company in Georgetown, South Carolina, using logs floated down the Pee Dee River from as far as the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina.

A restoration project for Sturgeon's Mill in Northern California is underway, restoring one of the last steam-powered lumber mills still using its original equipment.

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