MR. W. BOOTH'S NEW SAW MILL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4718, 14 May 1894, Page 2

MR. W. BOOTH'S NEW SAW MILL.

(From Our Own Correspondent). CiRTERTON, Saturday. It is just twelve weeks since Mr Booth's mill was unfottunaicly destroyed, and a new and improved mill haa taken its place, which started work on Ist May. The site chosen is in a better position than the late mill stood on, being nearer to the railway line and the planing mills. The newly erected structure is 80 feet long and 87 feet wide, and in addition there is an engine and boiler bouse 31 feet by 32 leet. This latter building has walls of concrete six feet high and twelve inches thick. Tho floor also is of solid concrete, and the engine is set on a concrete bed 16 feet and 4| feet I higb, no less than 45 casks of cement being used in the coucrete work, The mill has two boilers with 50 four inch

tubes in each, and are ten feet long aud six feot in diameter, aod represent 60 h.p.

The ongine is by Olias. Young ncd Co,, London, 25 h.p., horizontal, Tho The five ton fly wheel and the main shaft is aleo resting on a solid bet) of concrete, and is 13 feet in diamelev with a driving wheel attached 10 feet in diameter. The engine is eupplied with a patent sight lubrioator, which is self acting, and while the engine is working is always lubricating with monotonous regularity, giving a drop of oil at h time, and requiring no attention after it is once set.

Tho mill is very compact., The ripping bench carries four-feot saws and the breaking down travelling bench carries twin oiroular saws, the bottom ono being six feet and the top five feet six inches in dimeter The travelling bench for breaking do>vn logs is driven by a ten inch belt 76 feet long, and the ripping benoh by an eight inch belt 80 feet long / the mam belt being twelve inches with a length of 95 fee . A simple arrangement on the California pump principle, being an endless belt with buckets attached, conveys the fawdust to a shoot above the engine room, whence

it is shot down in front of the turnaces and used as fuel. The sawdust

is fed to the pump by an wrought

[iron worm twelve iuohes in diameter. Tbe main shaft wliioh cirrioj all the driving pullies ia four inches in diameter, and there are numerous back pullies. The massive, frame of squared totara to carry thoruuia ebafcing is tenoned into immense logs down six feet below the surface of the ground. Trucks on a tramway come closo alongside the.ripping benokand the timber is loaded on there and conveyed along the tramway across tho railway line right into the planing mills on the other side, or the timber is transferred direct to trucks on tbe Government siding which runs parallel with the private lino of the millowner. The railway siding is a double loop, one of which supplies a long lino of empties, the other runs through the planing mills and can bo loaded there oral the timber yards and runs on to the railway at either end. There is a regular network of tram lines about the mill, one branch leads to a truck repairing • shop, another to the sawmill to fetch tbe sawn timber away, a third conveyes away the green slabs and another brings dry firewood to the furnaces. A smithy is convenient to the will; All the blacksmiths work required for the now mill was iell done by Mr Arthur Bishbp, foreman of the mi'!. A shed 86 x 12ft is nearby and it is uaeiUor, storing when it is ng/in use. The cost ofl building anlfitting the new mjH (ell on Mr woth as there wasJ^H ™>| i-nill.