A Sawmill Story

the most critical part of the whole saw are the points of the teeth of somewhere between 50 and 80 years old and the gullets are another piece and then the tooth when the tooth gets filed back too short you just roll the gullets out set another tooth in and twist it back in with a special wrench this is me at age 28 I'm operating a portable sawmill that I designed and built six years earlier 1980 at age twenty two years old I learned almost everything that I know about circular saws from this man Sam ball he was extraordinary his story is the story of Americana today we take lumber for granted it's everywhere and it's cheap but before sawmills were invented lumber was hard to come by in order to make a big beam before sawmills trees were hewn that is the sides were chopped flat with axes if boards were needed they could be split and planed the first sawmill and put that in air quotes please with the pit saw but pit saw was a reciprocating saw powered by men the next logical step was to attach a reciprocating saw to a mechanical power source like water or wind in a wooden framework and reduce the labor involved in this picture as you can see there's an old man tending a sash saw by himself it looks to me like this is probably powered by water but was it long until people made gang saws out of a sash saw that is they would have two or three or four or six sascha saws in one frame increased the horsepower and profoundly increased the productivity the Industrial Revolution may had made two big advances that changed saw milling profoundly steam power and circular saws a circular saw with this rotary action was far more efficient than a reciprocating saw it enabled rim speeds that is the speed at the edge of the saw to get up towards the magic 10,000 foot per minute target speed which almost every saw of any size uses even today is tomorrow right around 1925 Sam and his brother Tom hopped a freight train from Indiana and headed west they got to put to the Pacific Northwest and for about ten years Sam worked various jobs before he found his niche it was sawmilling and from 1935 to 1945 Sam Ball and his partner sawed 69 million board feet of railroad ties during the time that industry was expanding to accommodate the war effort this caused him to receive a deferment on military service because of his age but primarily because he was a key player in a key industry the nation needed railroad ties and Sam ball knew how to make him with steam he retired in 1945 moved to the area in Oregon where I then met his granddaughter and that was where I became acquainted with Sam he still had a little sawmill after he had retired and I got that from him and built it disassembled the stationary sawmill and built it portable the portable sawmill was an adventure in education and frustration it's hard to make a 50 inch diameter saw blade stand up and run I finally figured it out it took me about two months with the thing together to where it would basically function but it took me a solid year to figure out how to make that thing cut there are six variables that I just had to figure out by trial and error there was no internet there were no manuals there was no one else in my community whose opinion I could trust Sam couldn't help I was on my own and it took me a long time to figure out how to make that thing stand up and cut rim speed refers to the speed at the outside of the saw it's measured in feet per minute and the target rim speed regardless of the size of your saw is ten thousand feet per minute it has to be steady it has to be predictable it has to be transmitted from the motor to the saw the same way every moment saw tension refers to the tension that is put into a circular saw with hammers on a saw hammering anvil the tension in the saw enables it to arrive at a condition of maximum stiffness when the target RIM speed is reached it's critical that it reached that tension in order for the saw to stand up and cut straight if the saw is not sharp it won't cut if the teeth are not square it won't cut straight if the bottom of the bits are don't have a uniform pitch to the filing it will tend to dodge if the gullets themselves are not sharp they will not collect and hold the sawdust until it's discharged at the bottom of the cut the feed works that I designed was flat belts and they were continually slipping additional tension on the handle would speed up the rate of feed and so feed rate is a critical piece if you feed too fast it doesn't matter what your horsepower is you're going to lose rim speed it will change the saw tension your saw will run out or in to the log so feed rate is carefully monitored at all times with your ears and by sensing vibration in the frame of the mill power I've got to have plenty it's got to be smooth it's got to be steady it can't be interrupted each tooth removing a certain amount of wood requires a certain amount of horsepower and you have to be able to and on that let's see that's a 292 Chevy engine developed 110 horsepower the top of the power fair but I think I'm only using about eight saw lead describes the toe-in of the saw towards the Pat incoming path of the log if the saw is parallel to the path of the log then the log itself the newly cut face is rubbing on the saw as this log goes by and creates heat heat in a saw causes expansion expansion changes tension so lead is a very small amount of tow in where the leading edge of the saw is closer to the track than the tailing edge of the saw it has to be right so as it turned out in the rearview mirror thinking about and looking at pictures of that sawmill it was a nifty design it was a nice compromise between Portability and productivity my best day ever was 7,500 board feet of to buy material with myself and my dad as the entire workforce just the two of us that's a lot of lumber almost none of the modern portable sawmills that are so slick and so safe and so accurate and so portable none of them can match that kind of productivity on second-growth Douglas fir logs I'm proud of the way it worked out if you're looking at this video and thinking that mill looks dangerous you're right and I was aware of that but I had a family to feed I had work to do I had a dream about making money with this thing and I was careful Sam had operated mills much more than I did on a much more high production basis and he had all of his fingers except one but a table saw got that one so when I built my mill I was using the technology that had been around a long time I didn't realize it but that technology was about to become obsolete portable sawmills now are just they're beautiful little machines the band saws particularly are safe and effective and they're efficient they don't make much sawdust and they cut accurately and they're highly portable it's been a whole new era and portable saw milling that Sam could have never imagined and I frankly didn't see coming but we will have more about the current state of portable sawmills and the wonderful work that they do coming soon I push down on the handle it picks up on this belt with this idling he tightens the left-hand belt the left-hand belt goes clear around some more shifts underneath that are on the shaft that turns that spindle so when I turn the shaft in one direction it feeds the carriage ahead when I pick up on the handle it tightens up the other belt which just passes over the top of the same shaft causing the spindle to turn in the opposite direction it's a pretty good feat works unless it starts raining like it is right now at which time it doesn't work worth it's our where am I supposed to go XP what else it weighs about 80 200 pounds with motor you can pull it behind a 3/4 ton pickups with no trouble there are breaks on the continent axles the hitch is designed to be put on either end so if you have to pull into a landing from one direction or the other depending on where the logs are you can put the hitch on either end you said you'd be the lie can't see look at this mill it's an example of cutting-edge high production softwood saw milling technology it's also in Sam balls community it is partially owned by another one of his grandson in-laws Sam's lumbering legacy has reached far into the future of his family will you be there by the gate and will you recognize me even though my face is ain't cuz I will listen for your voice and it will lead me to your hand and we will walk together this is where forever begin now you take it up you you right you with me by side and you ride me with me right here with me right you with the day and there's no need to fire you left to count higher on his mustache turn on mine let's get did we tell them the date just so we can remember what is it a pony 8 9 8 funny waiting for the one 8 1983 Kendall just bought our place Kendall and Joanne Bob and Kathy Walker helping us move and jam and puppy and costly anakena king lear Olsen Kendrick and come on Jack

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 237,322

Rating: 4.9781141 out of 5

Keywords: Sawmill, head rig, steam power, Tie mill, rim speed, portable sawmill, railroad tie, saw hammering, saw filing, steam donkey, circular saw, pit saw, sash saw, water power, Corley, Frick, American, Jackson

Id: QnTr9EJdpQ4

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 07 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/naturalinfidel]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting.

[u/swenty]

"Rim speed in feet per minute"

Head bleeds.

OK, google, 10,000 feet per minute in meters per second

50.8 meters per second.

Thank you, Google.

[u/nomnaut]

Surprisingly melancholy and somber, recording a small piece of history arguably already forgotten.

Subbed.

[u/benfranklyblog]

The portable mill made my stomach knot up a bit.

[u/anontipster]

Pretty cool. Didn't know so much went into cutting wood.

Also interesting that he strapped a 292 Chevy engine to the device for power, lol.

EDIT: Just saw (no pun intended) that this guy is also the man behind this little gem.