MESSRS. WADDELL AND M'LEOD’S SAWMILL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4435, 7 June 1875, Page 5

MESSRS. WADDELL AND M'LEOD’S SAWMILL.

An important establishment in connection with the timber trade of this province is Messrs. Waddell and McLeod’s sawmill.soccupying a large site on the reclaimed land. It is a little less than two and a half years ago since Messrs. Waddell and McLeod started this venture, and the very large proportions it has now assumed speaks volumes for the energy and enterprise of the proprietors and the progress and prosperity of the colony. The dimensions of the sawmill proper are about 70ft. by 50ft., and in this building is placed an extensive plant of machinery for the purposes of sawing, planing, tougueing, grooving, moulding, boring, morticing, tennoning, &c. Among the many machines, foremost in utility stands that for performing, in one process, the quadruple operation of planing, tongueing, grooving, and moulding. By the agency of this, timber may be dressed on three sides and turned out as moulding of any given pattern, and this at the rate of from five to ten thousand feet per eight hours, according to the width of the timber treated. The machine is an American patent, and for a time held sway as being the premier of its kind ; but it has since been eclipsed by English ingenuity, and a machine now afloat for Messrs. Waddell and McLeod, which was constructed in one of the manufacturing districts of the old country, will dress four sides at one operation and with greater speed than the American machine. The tennoning, boring, and morticing machines are also very ingenious in their construction, and of great value as manual labor savers and for performing their work with marvellous exactitude. In a second storey of the building are situate the carpenters and joiners’ shop, turners’ shop, and drying room. The carpenters are principally employed in fitting together window-sashes and doors of all posible descriptions, the constituent parts of which have been turned out by the various machines. There are also a few machines here, notable amongst which is one yclept the “ drunken saw.” This is a small circular saw, fitted on either side with obliquely cut washers, the result being that when in circulation a kind of horizontal motion is produced, and though the saw-plate is but one eighth of an inch in thickness, an inch out may be put in timber to any depth necessary. Jt is used principally for graving small jobs. On this storey also is the drying-room, &0., an apartment with a grated floor, wherein large quantities of sashes and doors are laid for a few months in order to be thoroughly dried before being placed in the market. Independent of this building is the glazier’s shop and glass store. The whole of the machinery is driven by steam, a 12 h.p. high pressure engine being employed for the work. There are many conveniences, to make the labor of working the mill as light as possible, chief amongst them, being a tramway, upon which timber is conveyed from one portion of the establishment to another on small trucks. •