New band saw gantry and base Mostodloch Sawmill

Date Added: 27 May 2015 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1958 Picture No: 2964

Photograph courtesy of Robert Bruce, Drummuir.
Early days at Riddochs of Rothiemay Mosstodloch sawmill, the site of the present mill owned by James Jones. This was the first large bandsaw commissioned by Riddochs of Rothiemay set in among other traditional circular saw and processing sheds. By this time lorry transport was improving and the era of the mobile sawmill in the wood had ended with wood now travelling by larger lorries to permanent larger mills set up at strategic locations throughout the county.

Note that the band saw travelling gantry and bases are in the process of construction but behind can be seen the a large number of sheds housing the circular saws.

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Groups: Northeast Scotland , Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills

1 Comment

I worked here in the mid 1980s,and remember watching the big band mill cutting 40’ long 12’ by 12’ pieces,for fish farm cages at a time when fish farming was taking off - Douglas Fir was the preferred species,there weren’t many trees of that size in the north east and so the trees used to come over from the west....there was no other mill in north Scotland that could cut timber of these dimensions at that time...my father was MD of Riddochs at this time and I recall him saying that there was a good margin in the fish farm contracts! Comment left on 31 May 2019 at 22:01 by Lewis MacAskill

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