New England sawmillers in Scotland on site near Ardgay, Ross-shire
The Images are courtesy of https://www.actonhistoricalsociety.org/ww1-sawmill-unit.html Also check out Records No 4778 – 4789 or under ‘Groups’ the ‘American sawmillers in Scotland 1917’.
This early morning photograph must have been taken quite some time into the year’s contract that the sawmill team had with the British Board of Trade, possibly the spring of 1918. A fair portion of the forest has been logged and an amazingly large pile of sawdust has accumulated behind the mill. The volume no doubt increased from the use of the inserted tooth blades which tended to be quite a bit wider than ordinary set tooth blades and hence more sawdust. Not certain how the sawdust is piled up but could be by a powered fan blower though wooden triangular cross section tubes made from some of the wooden boards? The sawdust pile has almost blocked access for the horse and sledges to the log ramp but some logs can still be seen awaiting the sawmiller.
Some parts of the saw bench are visible over the boarded sides. Apart from the saw blade the fixtures on the roller bench are most visible. The fixtures include vertical stanchions against which the vertical face of timber is placed. These then move in accurate measured steps across the bench for every saw cut to produce boards of the desired thickness. Also visible are the hand levers which move the stanchions a fixed distance with every pull and possibly some of the log holding hooked metal arms or dogs which hold the log securely on the bench.
Note that this is not the Sawmill Unit No 3 as the chimney from the steam engine is substantially different and has no spark catcher. It may well be one of the other nine units as they were all purchased in New England as variety of second hand working units, new ones not being available.
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Groups: American sawmillers in Scotland 1917, Forestry Areas, Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills