History
The first portable sawmills were the "One Man Farmer's Sawmills." These mills featured large circular blades and were marketed during the early twentieth century by companies like Sears, Montgomery Ward and JC Penney. These machines were all "private label" machines manufactured by the Belsaw Company. Many early sawmills were designed to be belt-driven from a steam traction engine (which could also be used to transport the saw) Belsaw also sold sawmills under their own name until the early 1990s. After this the Belsaw line of equipment was sold under the name "TimberKing."
Prior to the advent of the portable 'mill, small-scale sawmills were generally cobbled-together affairs constructed and operated by (almost always) two men with a penchant for tinkering. This was, and remains, a traditional occupation for Amish men; unlike most mechanical systems, small sawmills typically do not use electricity.
More recently, portable bandsaw mills represented a dramatic shift in design. Unlike traditional mills, they used a resaw blade of the type used on a band saw rather than a circular blade, which reduced weight and cost, and reduced the size and weight of the bearings and support blocks. The smaller kerf on these blades dramatically increased the yield from a given log. Use of band blades also allowed for a different design where the head, consisting of the blade and a power source, moves back and forth while the log remains stationary. This is in contrast to traditional mills where the log moves on a trolley while the blade remains fixed.
Larger mills have recently come on the market which are portable only in sections. These cut faster and can handle larger logs but do require additional set up.
Read more about this topic: Portable Sawmill
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)