Woodworkers Sawmill

[Carlos B]

Thank you stilldoinit, good luck with your mill, if you don't require construction length lumber you might want to consider the carriage system I talk about. It's easier to build, the cutting head is stationary for more accurate cuts and the carriage has a larger stance on the track also for less track defects transmitted to the cut. Like most things there is always a trade off though, for 16' + construction length lumber the trailer frame would be very long. With modern technology, sawmill machinery has changed, but older mills still run carriage systems running on heavy gauge RR tracks and powered by 20' long steam cylinders to feed the carriage past the giant 60" bandsaw heads.

Many years ago I operated the power house at such a mill, it is shut down and declared a historical site now. At the risk of boring you, here is a story repeated to me of an incident that occurred before I started there. The mill and power house were shut down one weekend for maintenance, for some reason the valve handle which controls the carriage feeds on one of the three bandsaw mills was not locked closed and sometime during the maintenance work the valve was opened in the control station. When coming back on line the power house always powers up first so when the crews start up Monday morning steam press., water, air and electrical services are ready to go. When the crews came in Monday morning they found one of the saw carriages hanging half out the side of the mill building. When the power house came back on and pressurized the mill steam system, the open valve control had started the carriage moving on the track gaining enough speed to snap the carriage connection to the steam cylinder and sending the carriage over the rail end stops and through the wall. The crew in the power house (a different building) was not aware of what had happened and there was no one working the Sunday night shift in the mill. No one was hurt so ha, ha, lol funny story, but boy lock those valves out.