# Pics of old sawmill equipment in my own backyard (almost!)



## Brmorgan (Apr 18, 2010)

OK so here's the backstory. 50-60 years ago, there used to be an old bush sawmill set up on a small lake about half a mile behind my house down an old logging road. My property, along with a few adjacent neighbors, used to be the personal property and home of the mill owners, and when the mill was finally shut down (still trying to find out from some old-timers when that was exactly) most of the equipment ended up here spread out over our properties, with the old mill site now housing the local rod & gun club. The two brothers that live across the road own the main piece, from which many of our places were subdivided decades ago. A couple years ago, before I knew all this, I was out on a ride on my quad down below their house, on what I thought at the time was public land (they don't mind people riding on it, at any rate) and happened upon heaps and heaps of old mill equipment just rusting away in the trees. Yesterday I decided to take my camera back there to take some inventory and see if it was worth asking my neighbor about the idea of removing some of the stuff, at least for preservation if not to get running again. 






As you can see there isn't much left of the carriage itself, but the steel parts are still all there. In the foreground of this shot is the main flyback (there may be another term for it) carriage drive spool with cable still on it. The shaft a few feet farther back is the main saw arbor with the big drive pulley obscured by the pine tree in the foreground. It's in really good shape other than some surface rust. Not bad for ~60 years out in the elements. The big stabilizer washers and arbor nut are still on the arbor end of the shaft, too. I'm not sure what the big shaft/wheel at the back of the shot is. Carriage drive maybe? There are also a couple hundred feet of heavy Duncan waste chain lying around here too.





Here's what I think are the carriage drive works assembly pieces (no longer assembled!). I think the big gear is from something else, but maybe not. It's all kind-of a jumbled mess.





Another carriage drive piece, I think.





This looks like what's left of the engine that was being used at the time. Some sort of lever that hooks into the clutch on it.





There's the old head saw, pushed into a jumbled mess that's seen a fire or two. I don't think it'll ever be resurrected. I wouldn't mind having it around though just as a showpiece leaning up against the barn or something.


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## Brmorgan (Apr 18, 2010)

*More pics*





Here's the main saw deck. The high cribbed portion at the far right is the main support for the saw arbor; you can see the steel splitter knife attached to the left edge of this part. The offbearer(s) would have worked on the flat platform in the foreground, with the carriage riding on the higher rails beyond that. The sawyer would have stood on the other side of the arbor from the offbearer.





Here's what's left of the carriage guide rails, I think. There's 1" angle iron inverted and attached to long 5X5" timbers that are largely rotted away now.





This is some sort of old steel sled under all that junk. At first I thought it part of the carriage, but after looking at it, I can't see how anything mechanical has ever been attached to it - it's just some I-beam that's been upturned and connected at each end from the looks of it. Maybe it was for moving logs in the winter? It would be interesting to have, though. Also, the blower "pipe" in the rear-right of the photo is made from an assortment of old 5-gal. oil pails etc. welded together. No waste here!






An old 1-1/4" arbor buzz/trim saw. I dug up the arbor that this saw probably came off of, also complete with washers and arbor nut. A bit rusty though. I had no idea they were still using scratcher saw teeth that late; I figured people had converted to hook teeth by the 50s. It looks neat though.





An old Webb & Clifford planer. I have the bottom head/shaft from this thing up in my shop. It would be a good solid frame to build a planer or edger/ripsaw around. It's still nice and square but the wide-angle lens distorted it in the photo.


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## Brmorgan (Apr 18, 2010)

*Other random stuff...*





Some sort of old planer or resaw unit upside-down. I can't tell which because the guts are all gone; just a couple feedrolls left. Shame to leave it to rot away like this though...





Here's the manufacturer info on the above unit. Looks like"American Saw Mill Machinery Co., Hackettstown, NJ, USA". I am unsure of the "Hackettstown" because it's obscured and I couldn't get low enough to see without laying down on the ground. I'm unaware if that's a real town or not; I'm sure someone here will know.





You know how much fun it can be to sort through a knotted mess of chain? How about trying this pile out? It's big enough to fill a few pickup trucks and contains more types of deck/roller/drive/waste/flat/box chains than you can shake a stick at. Some neat really old antique chain types I'd never seen before there too.





Aren't you glad we have sheet metal blower ducting now? I can't imagine trying to work with this 1/4" sidewall stuff. I can maneuver an entire modern blower cyclone around by myself if I have to now; it's all I can do to pick up a few feet of this pipe! In the background to the left are various pieces of old conveyor troughing and chain runs. A lot is pretty bent up.





Another big blower manifold and one of the big blowers. The blower fan itself is cast iron and looks more like a flywheel than a blower, compared to today's stuff.


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## Brmorgan (Apr 18, 2010)

*More...*





There are probably half a dozen to ten old double-cut 10" or 12" bands down there all folded up. I thought this made a neat picture, and I swear the chain was like that when I found it.





A big deck chain drive sprocket. There are a few various ones kicking around in the different piles.





This spool of cable's probably worth a few bucks. It looks like 1-1/4" diameter. I can't begin to move it.





There are more than a couple old vehicles too! Old log truck cabs and frames, even old classic cars half-wrecked.





I don't think this ol' boy is going anywhere anytime soon...


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## DRB (Apr 18, 2010)

Cool pics. Nature sure has a way to reclaim the past. It's hard to imagine that that was an open mill yard at one time.


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## mtngun (Apr 18, 2010)

Thanks for the pics, Brad. 

A lot of good metal there. Shafting, channel, angle. 

Surprise it didn't get hauled off a couple years ago when scrap iron was bringing good money ?


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## Woodsurfer (Apr 18, 2010)

Wonderful pictures, thanks. Reminds me of the remains of old cars I found in middle of an Ontario forest - surrounded by 24" dia hardwood. Takes a while for the forest to absorb an engine block, but it'll happen.


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## Brmorgan (Apr 18, 2010)

mtngun said:


> Thanks for the pics, Brad.
> 
> A lot of good metal there. Shafting, channel, angle.
> 
> Surprise it didn't get hauled off a couple years ago when scrap iron was bringing good money ?



Nobody pays for mangled steel around here, even if you have a couple tons of it. Brass, copper, and aluminum only pretty much. They'll come and pick up steel for free, say if you have an old wrecked car or something, which saves you the cost of trucking it down to the scrapyard yourself.


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## cowtipper (Apr 19, 2010)

Just had to look it up... and there is a real town called Hackettstown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackettstown,_New_Jersey


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## Coalsmoke (Apr 19, 2010)

Hey Brad, great pictures. Looks to me that everything of value was taken when they wrapped operations up. Torching marks are often a sign of that, still happens today, cheaper to torch the 'scrap' stuff off the good salvageable equipment then to pay someone to turn wrenches.


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## Brmorgan (Apr 19, 2010)

Woodsurfer said:


> Wonderful pictures, thanks. Reminds me of the remains of old cars I found in middle of an Ontario forest - surrounded by 24" dia hardwood. Takes a while for the forest to absorb an engine block, but it'll happen.



Yeah there's plenty of those around here too. A couple hours' drive south of here, I saw an old '40s truck with a 12"+ tree growing up through the engine compartment (engine was gone). It ain't going anywhere!


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## aggiewoodbutchr (Apr 19, 2010)

Cool pics!

How thick are those bands? They might make good knife blade stock.


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## htpd43 (Apr 19, 2010)

cowtipper said:


> Just had to look it up... and there is a real town called Hackettstown
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackettstown,_New_Jersey



Hacketstown is about 30 min n/e of me. Its a blue collar town like alot of the towns in this area and it's got the closest white castle to me. I never heard of a mill equipment company being there but there were quite a few mills in this area years ago so it makes sense that there was a manufacturer close by. There are two closed paper mills within 6 miles of my house. Most people don't realize how rural parts of NJ still are. It's amazing the type of industries that used to be in this state that no longer are.


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## DJ4wd (Apr 19, 2010)

Those are high quality pictures and what a good job of digging around and then explaining them to us. rep sent!


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## Brmorgan (Apr 19, 2010)

Coalsmoke said:


> Hey Brad, great pictures. Looks to me that everything of value was taken when they wrapped operations up. Torching marks are often a sign of that, still happens today, cheaper to torch the 'scrap' stuff off the good salvageable equipment then to pay someone to turn wrenches.



It's entirely probable that the better equipment was put into one of the big mills in town. Up until the early '60s, there were only planer mill operations right in town here. They essentially just bought rough lumber from the dozens of "bush mills" that littered the landscape around here at the time. These bush mills could range from just a handful of guys operating a headrig carriage (such operations were common for milling railroad ties; offcuts got sold to the planers) to some much larger ones that were essentially their own little town out in the middle of nowhere. I know a few folks who spent a large portion of their childhood growing up in such camps; some were large enough to support their own schools.

Anyway in the late '50s into the '60s, road infrastructure improved to the point that it was more practical to truck logs to town than to run ever larger mills miles away from town and its services. This resulted in most of the remote mills shutting down and consolidating in town or merging with the planer mills. The mill that was here was one of the closer ones to town - I'm only about 6-7 miles from downtown, which today is a 5 minute drive, but 60 years ago would have been a much larger affair getting up and down the hill and 1000' elevation change. And to give an idea of how many of these mills there were, there was one one about 3/4 mile down the road closer to town (I know one of the guys with property on the old mill site), and there was another one maybe a mile and a half farther down the road past my place. All owned by different folks apparently. A mile and a half past that is a small family-owned mill that's still operating; 4-5 miles farther is the site of one of the larger camp-style mills that a family I know operated years back. Not much left but some old boards and garbage heaps. I found some neat stuff there. And a couple miles further up the road is another small private mill that's still operating. Lots of competition around here!



Back to the old mill parts here though - are the headrig / carriage parts worth saving? I hate to see them just rusting away like they are. There are numerous sprockets, rollers/cylinders, lengths of bulk shaft, etc. that should still be plenty usable, though I doubt I'll find myself needing a big box-chain star drive or the like anytime soon!



Aggie, those bands are +/- 1/8" thick. There are a couple old circulars lying around that are thicker. I can get an endless supply of saw and chipper/planer knife steel for practically nothing, between the sawmill and the scrapyard. I already have more than I know what to do with, really.


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## Coalsmoke (Apr 20, 2010)

Wow you're not kidding when you said you were well populated with mills 50 years ago. Most of our history is tied to a water course of some way or another, as that was of course our means of log transportation. 

As for the headrig, well, anything can be resurrected with enjoy gumption, from a non-emotional attachment perspective, no its not worth saving. However, if you ever wanted a project it would make a heck of a good one, if you could find enough of the bits to put together the headrig and carriage. The carriage and drive system with the setworks is going to be the more valuable and "must save" item here, if much of it is left.


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## Brmorgan (Apr 20, 2010)

Coalsmoke said:


> Wow you're not kidding when you said you were well populated with mills 50 years ago. Most of our history is tied to a water course of some way or another, as that was of course our means of log transportation.
> 
> As for the headrig, well, anything can be resurrected with enjoy gumption, from a non-emotional attachment perspective, no its not worth saving. However, if you ever wanted a project it would make a heck of a good one, if you could find enough of the bits to put together the headrig and carriage. The carriage and drive system with the setworks is going to be the more valuable and "must save" item here, if much of it is left.



The setworks are one thing I never did see. That doesn't mean much though as there's plenty of stuff obscured by other junk, not to mention i wasn't really specifically looking for them.


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## TraditionalTool (Apr 21, 2010)

Brmorgan said:


> The setworks are one thing I never did see. That doesn't mean much though as there's plenty of stuff obscured by other junk, not to mention i wasn't really specifically looking for them.


Brad,

Not to be stupid here, but isn't "setworks" a modern term used for the blade adjustment on a movable head sawmill, like a bandmill? You might try to get advice from someone that is not blowing smoke up your you know what...

Many of the old sawmills merely have a movable bed on them, which allows you to secure the log and make a cut. You adjust the log, that's your setworks! Set your log and cut it! 

On bandmills people refer to the setworks as what moves and operates the adjustment of the blade, because the log is stationary while cutting.

To understand if it would be worth it for you to fix up, it seems you would need to understand what is actually needed to assemble and run the sawmill, and then determine what parts you have. There's pieces of winches in there, and other stuff. Try to figure out what the basic components are, how the saw head would attach to the bed.

There's a picture of the bed portion in the first pic of the "more pics" post. That part looks like it might be pretty complete.

Not clear to me if there's more parts than is what is needed, there could be not only parts from more than one mill, but other machinery also. Looks like a lot of various stuff.

I would look at that bed and see if it is operational at all. You could replace the wood easily.

That said, let's say there's nothing worth restoring, I agree that taking some of the parts would be cool.

That big @$$ gear would be cool, as would the circular blades. I've actually seen the old large circular blades priced high on ebay. One auction now where there are 5, priced BIN, for $200. Another for $700.

Not sure they are worth that price, but for someone with a sawmill it might be worth...so, even though the sawmill might not be worth saving, you might be able to turn some of the parts.

Seriously, I would check that bed and rail system out, you could get another head rig pretty cheap actually, it's more common for the bed/rails to be missing.

OTOH, have fun looking for the setworks...


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## Brmorgan (May 1, 2010)

The setworks were on the carriage and adjusted the horizontal position of the log/cant relative to the blade. You can see the sawyer adjusting the set in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2-SVfRP8_g

I never did find any of the log holding/positioning stuff, just the saw arbor and carriage drive works, so who knows where that all ended up. I'll take a closer look, but unless it was buried, I don't think it's there.


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## Coalsmoke (May 1, 2010)

TraditionalTool said:


> Brad,
> 
> Not to be stupid here, but isn't "setworks" a modern term used for the blade adjustment on a movable head sawmill, like a bandmill? You might try to get advice from someone that is not blowing smoke up your you know what...
> 
> ...




What's that saying, ... its better to look a fool than to open your mouth and prove everyone right.


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## YarraValleyDude (May 1, 2010)

Cool pics there, thanks for posting.

Where i live we have a lot of that stuff left in the bush but most of the good stuff was pilfered years ago, that site looks all intact still.


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## Brmorgan (May 1, 2010)

I get the feeling this thread happened to fall between a little bit of a feud somehow... I take no sides! LOL.

TT, I forgot to also clarify a couple things in that last post:

1. The saw bed in the photo is ALL wood other than the various bolts and washers that hold it together (which are NOT salvageable). I can't see any metal left anywhere on it, so I'm not sure what would be left if I were to replace all the wood. It would be a good template to pattern a new one after though.

2. The "pieces of winch" are just that, I suppose, but they are in fact the driveline for the carriage. Cable was wrapped a few turns around both spools, and when you turned the main spool it would pull cable from the secondary on the carriage, thereby causing it to turn and drive the carriage across the bed. Reverse the rotation on the main spool, and the carriage would return. Modern headrig carriages are driven by exactly the same sort of idea, though much more modern. I could probably take a picture of the old unused one at work sometime if you like.

3.


> Many of the old sawmills merely have a movable bed on them, which allows you to secure the log and make a cut. You adjust the log, that's your setworks! Set your log and cut it!



That's true as far as turning the log, but horizontal thickness-of-cut adjustment was done through the carriage setworks. As an aside, up here any log turning mechanisms on headrig carriages are TO THIS DAY commonly referred to as "ni**ers" because back 100 years ago before hydraulic/mechanical turners, you would often see some big unlucky black fellow riding the end of the carriage turning the logs by hand. I say unlucky because more than a couple guys were killed by getting out of position and getting drug through the headsaw by accident. The turners on the headrig at work are still labeled as such on the control panels and electrical boxes, though I did notice that some of the more conspicuous labels got ripped down after I showed my foreman when he didn't believe me that they were called that. I was just wondering if that term was common to describe log turners in parts farther south?


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## Coalsmoke (May 1, 2010)

Not really a feud, more one sided. I called Mr.Tool on his BS a few months back and he's had his underwear in a knot ever since. Brad, I can see you writing a book about the interior bush mills. You should give it some thought. Have you ever read the book "Tie hackers to timber harvesters"? It provides an interesting historical account of the industry in BC.


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## Brmorgan (May 1, 2010)

Coalsmoke said:


> Not really a feud, more one sided. I called Mr.Tool on his BS a few months back and he's had his underwear in a knot ever since. Brad, I can see you writing a book about the interior bush mills. You should give it some thought. Have you ever read the book "Tie hackers to timber harvesters"? It provides an interesting historical account of the industry in BC.



No, I don't think I've heard of that one. I'm presently working my way through one called "The Green Chain" which is written by a guy from town here who made a film by the same name about the forest industry a couple years back. I haven't seen it though. I bought the book because there's a chapter in there which is an interview of the head of the local IWA (now USW) union office. I've dealt with and talked to him quite a bit over the years.

I'm trying to get my hands on a copy of this old book/paper:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4005172

As per writing a book, it would be an interesting project but would take a long time. I do know quite a few people with such info though. For instance I just found out the location of another mill today from the old guy I often get saw parts from. I'd never heard of it before.

FWIW i started poking around on Google Earth, and I counted 17 now-defunct mill sites that I know of for sure, possibly 20 if a couple hunches are right, all within 50 miles of town and most much closer.


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## Coalsmoke (May 2, 2010)

I can believe it. The industry has faced amazing changes over the past 50 years. I'll keep an eye out for that book for you down here.


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## Old Hilly (May 2, 2010)

As a bit of trivia about old sawmills. The town near me, Wauchope, NSW (now called Wauchope, the Timber Town by the tourist people) used to support well over 20 sawmills within the town itself and another 20 odd mills out in the bush. Some of these mills only employed 2 men and processed waste from the larger mills. They cut fence pailings, garden stakes, oyster sticks and more. Some cut weather boards, flooring, cladding and lining boards, other mills cut big timbers and there was also a NSW Government Railway Mill that just cut timber for the railways dpt.
Those times are long gone now. There are only a couple of mills working in the area today, one being run by the Daughter of the man who built it way back in the mid 1940's. This lady is now in her 60's so how long that mill will keep going, who knows.
Dennis.


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## TraditionalTool (May 2, 2010)

Coalsmoke said:


> Not really a feud, more one sided. I called Mr.Tool on his BS a few months back and he's had his underwear in a knot ever since. Brad, I can see you writing a book about the interior bush mills. You should give it some thought. Have you ever read the book "Tie hackers to timber harvesters"? It provides an interesting historical account of the industry in BC.


Nope, actually coal you proved that you don't know WTF your doing about logging, after braggin' about it for months about how you were gonna show folks...then you sold your mill because you couldn't make a go of it.

Talk is cheap, and you have a lot to learn about life, after you get out of diapers. Now your down to your CSM, and I imagine you'll show everyone how to make a business out of that also...

In just a month your went from showing all the loggers how to do it, to folding up your operation...pretty pathetic...

Then I see you giving advice on this circular mill... :newbie:


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## Old Hilly (May 2, 2010)

Well, I'm going to add my little bit of knowledge of old mills to this discussion.
In the old and basic mills in this area the first stage of milling was the "breaking-down saw", often a "Canadian" saw with 2 blades, one set above the other so big logs could be cut without having a single huge circular blade. The log was pulled through the saw while riding on a timber carrige and pulled by a winch which was controled by a man called the "friction driver" because the winch had a sort of slip-clutch to control the speed the log was fed into the saw.
Once the first cut had been made the log was rolled onto it's flat face and "bumped" into position for the second cut. When there were 2 flat faces on the log it would be "bumped" across the trolley, usually with a hefty lever, ready for the first "flitch" to come off the log. This "flitch" then went to the main saw bench to get broken down to 3x2's or whatever was on the cut list. Those timbers, "scantlings", then got flipped over by the "tailer-out" to the docking bench where the "dockerman" cut them to length and flipped the waste into the rubbish bin. The wanted timber went down a chute into the "yard" where the "yardman" would assemble the orders as the required sizes were cut.
Takes me back to a better time, this does.
Dennis.


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## Old Hilly (May 2, 2010)

One thing I should have mentioned is that there was very little metal used in these old mills. By far the the most common component was timber, including the rails that the cariges ran on were made of timber. Much of the saw frame was timber, as were all the benches and mill frame.When a mill burned down there was little to salvage. All the steel would fit on a big utility trailer and the ash and charcoal got 'dozed into the firepit where the sawdust and scraps were normally burnt. Then the boys would start over and do it all again.


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