Picture of old time sawmill

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I do have an older friend of mine that has an old mill very close looking to that...God its scarey to run it.
 
Looks like an old American No. 2; I spent a lot of days off-bearing on one of those that we bought in the late 50's and rebuilt in steel. The off-bearer is the man in the foreground, he puts the slabs on the slab pile and stacks the cants. Our mill was powered by a Gray-Marine 6-71 converted to radiator cooling and had a 8 foot piece of 4" pipe straight up off the exhaust manifold, no muffler, you could hear that engine a mile away, or more, every time the saw bit wood. I think the negative has been reversed on this photo; the sawyer, the man on the other side of the saw, pulling the carriage drive lever should have the saw on his right.
 
We get to watch a sawmill very similar every year at a power steam show in Crown Point Indiana. It is powered by an old tractor using a leather belt about 50' long and 8"-12" wide. Believe the owner is out of Ohio and travels the summer cutting at tractor shows.
Lee here is that picture reversed.
 
Last edited:
Here is Georgia, those small mills are still operated every day all over north Georgia especially. Dangerous as hell in every way!
Greg Harrison
 
By the late 60s to early 70s, there was between 15 and 20 of these mills running, day in day out, in Kitsap County. They were all setup as portables; we could finish a job on Monday and be sawing again Wednesday 10 to 50 miles down the road. I don't recall anyone seriously hurt on one of these mills. The dangers are to apparent, right in your face. Through put was 15 to 20,000 BF a day.
 
OSHA would cringe at..........

a remote control saw mill operated from a mile away in an underground bunker.thanks again for nothing big brother!
 
Lee, the image may be reversed but it's probably a left hand mill. After 16 years working around a right handed Lane mill, left hand mills confuse the heck out of me.
 
I already posted these pictures once, but they are from our old sawmill!

mill01.jpg


mill02.jpg


mill03.jpg


mill04.jpg


It was an old double band saw which used 3 phase 220. If anyone has any knowledge about these types of saws, please let me know!


and yes, a house was built around it :)

Also, here is a picture of our (not-so-good-looking sawdust burner)

smallfloodedburner.jpg


neil young actually recorded a song in there!
 
Last edited:
Maybe old....

but there is at least three still in operation around me. One in my neighbors woodlot 1/2 mile behind my house. Powered by an old Deere with belt drive. No OSHA 'round here, don't think they could find this one with one of the Uncle Sam's best spy satellites.:hmm3grin2orange: Old farm family, they cut a few stems and mill 'em up when they need to build something. It maybe be dangerous equipment but still cool as he11 to see still in operation.

I can think of at least dozen more sitting around here rusting in fields or under old sheds, sad.
 
old saw mill

im too young to actually know alot abot them but i have seen them run one like that at a county fair looks neat but dont get your fingers around the belt
 
mill

Ran one similar with my Father in law about 10 years ago. Power was a 40 horse Massey diesel tractor. Both are gone now.
Steam show at Alexander NY has a setup running every year.
 
That's the only kind I've been up close to!

Three generations sawed on it---well the third gen guy--my age--went off onto other things and his dad sold the place. It has been moved. It was under a roof and had sides added in the winter.

Their saw was a tad bigger and run by a Detroit--and could be heard for 10 miles if the wind was right.

Noone ever got hurt on that saw. Well, once an offbearer got his butt in the big saw, got stitched up and came back to work the next day. And of course the mud and rocks and bark were rough on the sawyer, so they grew beards in the winter.

Well, at one time or another, I occupied every position except sawyer. Not in the professional sense. Just when we needed to make some lumber for our own little projects. That's the saw we ran my bodock log on.

52" I think was the size. Sound right?
 
nice old mill my dad ran an old crab mill in iowa 20' carrage 52" blade
powered by a d7 cat we cut a semi load of grade lumber a week.
l was the off bearer for 5 to 8 years. and that does look to me as a lefthanded mill.
 
also if you zoom in on the pic the carrage is made of wood
 

Latest posts

Back
Top