- A plant where timber is sawed into boards.
- A large machine for sawing lumber.
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For more information on sawmill, visit Britannica.com.
A facility where timber is sawn by mechanical equipment into boards and planks. Many early sawmills were operated by power generated by rivers, streams, or tidal changes. The development of the gang saw, which contained several parallel saw blades in a single frame greatly enhanced their efficiency; this innovation was followed by the invention of the circular saw. Virtually all saws are now operated by electric power.
In 1634 a sawmill was in operation on the Piscataqua River between Maine and New Hampshire. By 1706 there were seventy operating in the colonies. A primitive type had a single sash saw pulled downward by a waterwheel and upward by an elastic pole, but more usually waterpower moved the saw both up and down. A few colonial mills had gangs, or parallel saws, set in one frame so as to cut several boards simultaneously. Muley saws, with a lighter guiding mechanism, were also used. Sawmills multiplied, but their technology did not greatly improve in colonial times. They handled principally soft timber of moderate dimensions, and operators were satisfied if a sawmill cut one thousand board feet a day.
Shortly before 1810 Oliver Evans's wood-burning, high-pressure steam engines began to appear in sawmills. These engines made it possible to manufacture lumber where waterpower was not available, as in the forested flatlands of the southern United States. Indeed, the portable engine owes its development in the United States partly to its usefulness for sawing timber. Circular saws, introduced about the middle of the nineteenth century, increased mill capacity because of their higher speed, but they were wasteful because they turned too much of the log into sawdust. Band saws, though invented earlier, did not become widespread in the United States until after the Civil War. They are now highly popular because they are faster, create less sawdust and more usable wood with their narrower kerf, or cut, and can handle logs of the largest size.
The giant sawmills developed for the most part in the great forest regions west of the Appalachia: in the white-pine belt of the Great Lakes Basin, in the yellow-pine area of the southern United States, and in the fir and redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest. By the end of the twentieth century, the South had nearly caught up with the West as a producer of lumber, largely because of falling production in the West. New technologies, such as optical scanners to ensure a clean cutting edge, had increased the production capacity of American sawmills, which produced an average of 7.6 million board feet per factory.
Bibliography
Andrews, Ralph. This Was Sawmilling. New York: Bonanza Books, 1957.
Cox, Thomas R. Mills and Markets: A History of the Pacific Coast Lumber Industry to 1900. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974.
Smith, Kenneth L. Sawmill: The Story of Cutting the Last Great Virgin Forest East of the Rockies. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986.
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.
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.
Sawmills seem to have existed 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 invented 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.
In the twentieth century the introduction of electricity and high technology furthered this process, and now most sawmills are massive and extremely expensive facilities in which almost every aspect of the work is computerized. Today a mill can make many hundreds of thousands of boards per day.
Small gasoline-powered sawmills run by local entrepreneurs served many communities in the early twentieth century, and specialty markets still today.
The latest trend is the small portable sawmill for personal or semi professional use. Many different models have emerged with different designs and functions. They are especially suitable for producing limited volumes of boards, or specialty milling such as oversized timber.
Technology has changed sawmill operations significantly in recent years, emphasizing increasing profits through waste minimization and increased energy efficiency as well as improving operator safety. The once-ubiquitous rusty, steel conical sawdust burners have for the most part vanished, as the sawdust and other mill waste is now processed into particleboard and related products, or used to heat wood-drying kilns. Everything is used. While the bark may be ground for landscapine barkdust, it may also be burned for heat. Sawdust may make particle board or be pressed into wood pellets for pellet stoves. The larger pieces of wood that won't make lumber are chipped into wood chips and provide a major source of supply for paper mills. Wood by products of the mills will also make Oriented strand board paneling for building construction, a cheaper alternative to plywood for paneling.
A sawmill appears in a soap opera called Twin Peaks.
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Wood from Victorian mountain ash, Swifts Creek |
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - savværk, savskæreri
Nederlands (Dutch)
houtzagerij, zaagmolen
Français (French)
n. - scierie
Deutsch (German)
n. - Sägemühle
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πριονιστήριο
Português (Portuguese)
n. - serraria (f)
Русский (Russian)
лесопильный завод, лесопилка
Español (Spanish)
n. - serrería, aserradero
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - sågverk
中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
锯木厂, 大型锯木机
中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 鋸木廠, 大型鋸木機
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 제재소, 대형 제재용 톱
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 製材所, 大型製材のこ
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) مؤسسه لنشر ألخشب, ألمنشرة
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