CHOPPING WOOD BY STEAM.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 718, 1 October 1870, Page 3

CHOPPING WOOD BY STEAM.

A useful invention has just been perfected by Mr Bisby, the proprietor of the steam saw mills in Hobart Town. It is a firewood cleaver worked by steam, and acts somewhat on the principle of stampers in a quartz crushing battery. The cleaver or stamper is fixed in a wooden frame, and consists of a wooden shaft working perpendicularly through the top of the frame, and an under cross bar. To this shaft is attached a massive rectangular block of iron, weighing about two hundred pounds, to the lower end ot which the knives, which form a right angled cross, are attached by means of screws, so that they can easily be removed when they require to be sharpened or repaired. Underneath is fixed a block of wood, on which the clumps of firewood are placed to be split; this block is so arranged that when the cleaver is lowered, about eight inches intervene between the block and the knives. The cleaver is raised by the action of a " cam" or semi-circular arm fixed on an axle, and set in motion by a drumwheel and belt attached to a pulley, and driven by Bteam. The " cam," as it revolves, passes through a pei-pen dicular slit in the wooden shaft of the cleaver, and while the " cam" is performing the upward portion of its rotation, it enters this slit, gradually raising the cleaver until it passes out, as the descending portion of the circle is about to be traversed. The cleaver thus released falls instantaneously with Buch impetus that the clump of wood placed in position on the block, direcily under the cleaver, is shattered into four or more pieces. The cleaver is raised and released again by each revolution of the " cam," and works at the rate of about forty strokes a minute. Two men are required to attend to the cleaver—one to pick up the clumps of wood, and hand them to the other, who, acting as feeder, places them in position under the cleaver. When the girth of the clumps is so great as to render it desirable that they should each be divided into more than four pieces, the feeder manages to so place the clump, that only a portion of it is broken off at the first stroke, or by turning it round when the first stroke has not completely severed it into quarters, he secures a second stroke which halves the quarters. The wood, it should be observed, must first be sawu into pieces, ranging from ten to twelve inches in length, an operation performed in the saw-mill. This is rejttisite, in order that they may stand perpendicular under the cleaver. The cleaver is likely to prove a most useful invention, judging from the trial in the presence of a number of the citizens of Hobart Town.