At the Mill

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 9, 8 May 1944, Page 26

At the Mill

After their trip down the tramway the logs are hauled up skids singly by winch to one end of the mill, where the “ fidler ” is waiting to cut them into manoeuvrable lengths. This term applies to both the saw and the man who controls it. The saw is like a large handsaw except that it is power-driven. Its to-and-fro motion chops off the various lengths of the log for sawing into timber of required sizes. These roll down on to skids to await the breaking-down bench. This bench, as its name explains, breaks the logs down into “ flitches.” In the older mills two circular saws, one above the other, are used. In some modern mills huge bandsaws do the work.

The breaking-down bench in a mill where band saws are used is a fascinating piece of machinery. You marvel at the speed and accuracy with which the huge logs are sliced up. In some ways it’s like an outsize bacon-slicing machine.

The bench itself, a platform 8 ft. wide and 20 ft. long, is on wheels and runs up and down a short tramway past the stationary saw. Speeding back to the skids where the logs are stacked, the bench slows up and stops. A flick of a couple of levers and the “ kickers ” holding the logs spin round, sending a log up against the bench. A toothed upright shoots up from the floor and rolls

and pins the log securely against the four uprights on the near edge of the bench, holding it there until the man on the bench spikes it firmly to the bench. Then the “ nigger,” as it is called, disappears again into the floor. The man on the bench leaps over to his control dial, the sawyer beside the speeding band of steel throws over a lever, and the bench, plus log, moves down on to the saw. It is now the sawyer’s job to decide into what widths

he is going to slice the log. He knows what the mill orders are from a list on the wall beside him, but the miracle is that without a moments’ hesitation he signals in a special deaf-and-dumb language to the man on the bench, who, by spinning his control dial, moves the log nearer or further away from the saw. Then with a screech the saw bites into the end of the log, screams its way through, and off drops a length to be handed on to the breast bench for more specialized treatment.

Back speeds the breaking-down bench, up shoots the nigger, kicking the log round so that another slice can be taken from it. A finger sign from the sawyer, appropriate adjustment on the bench, and again the band saw bites into the now slimmer log.

You could stand a long time watching this nimble machine and its equally nimble operators as it speeds to and fro over that short 30 ft. of track.

The “ flitches,” as they are called in the mill, are carried on revolving rollers let into the floor, down to the breast benches. There are four of these benches in the largest mills, and the delivery-line down which the flitches are carried is so arranged as to feed all four. A lever-boy stands in the middle of the mill and with his controls operates “ kickers ” let into the floor at intervals along the deliveryline. These kickers throw the flitches oft on to skids beside the breast benches, where rollers carry them down to the saw.

The breast-saw work is done by two men, one in front of, and one behind, the

circular saw. The head sawyer in front of the saw is the most skilled man in the mill, for he has to decide, with due regard to the order requirements, how to use each flitch to the greatest advantage. In other words, he must decide whether the flitch will best provide 4 x 2’s or 6 xi’s or 4x4’3, bearing in mind the quality of the timber he is handling. And, like the sawyer on the breaking-down bench, he must decide in a hurry. There is no time to measure and mark the flitch, and there is no point in finishing up with a size of timber of no use to any one.

So with a confidence born of long experience he seizes a flitch, measures it with his eye, knocks his gauge over a peg or two, and runs the flitch through the saw to his mate on the other side. This man, the tailer-out, throws the sawn length behind him with his left hand and slides the rest of the flitch along the table back to the sawyer with his right. This is run through again and again until sawn into the required sizes. There may be an odd piece of timber over, perhaps a piece near the bark which is of no use except as firewood. This slab is thrown to one side and in the smaller mills cut into short lengths to be used by the locals to fire the family copper. Where the mill is steam-powered most of these pieces are used to feed the mill boilers.

In the larger modern mills many of the pieces are used as “ hoggings.” They are thrown into a chute called a “ hog,” in the bottom of which are a number of knives 9HL 801

revolving at high speed. These chew the timber into small pieces, and it is taken

away on a form of conveyer belt to be fed into the boilers.

The system of delivery-line which feeds the flitches to the breast benches is duplicated in another carrying the sawn lengths down from the breast benches to what is called the “ docking ” table. All rollers lead ultimately to this table, where the sawn lengths are deposited on a large portion of the floor of the mill into

which thin conveyer belts are set. These belts carry the lengths up to stops where they are automatically trued up against one side. Then off they go over two saws set in the floor. One saw chops off pieces too long at one end, and then, by reversing the rollers, the lengths are trued against the other side and passed over the other saw. Thus the lengths are trimmed to four sizes and pass on until they come to their appropriate bin, into which they fall on the shortest-first-the-longest-last principle.

The modern mills are set up on 12 ft. stilts in order to give the necessary fall to the timber and get it away from the mill-floor quickly. Hoggings, slabs, and sawn lengths all disappear below the mill-floor and are despatched quickly to their various places. The sawn lengths are stacked outside the mill to await delivery by rail to the customer.

One of the smaller mills, unusual in that it is electrically powered, possesses a dressing-mill which dresses the sawn timber. This mill is as quiet as a country road after a city street when compared with the main mill. Here individual lengths are run through planing-machines to emerge smooth and trim. One machine planes only one side at a time ; another dresses all four. A suction pump above each machine draws off the shavings along a pipe-line to a furnace some fifty yards away. Since fire is a big hazard in these mills the plan is to separate buildings as much as possible so as to avoid the danger of a fire spreading.

An interesting section of any mill is the “ saw - doctor’s ” shop. Here an expert sharpens and attends to the mill’s armament just as an armourer tends to an army’s weapons. And he is every bit as skilled. In the bigger mills the circular saws are set on a disk and revolve just so far each couple of seconds. As the disk stops a mechanical arm draws a rasp across one of the saw’s teeth and then rises and waits for the next to come round. So the saw can be put into position, the machine set to work, and the “ saw-doctor ” return half an hour

later to find his saw sharpened. Not so with the band saws. Each tooth of their whole 40 ft. must be done by hand. At one mill they were selecting from their stacks of 4 x 2’s and 6 x 4’s and 4 x I’s and all an order for the girls hostel of the Y.W.C.A., Nelson. At another they were fulfilling an order for the Housing Department for Christchurch. Everywhere it was the same story — timber is wanted in a hurry. Everywhere it was the mills motto —“ Timber’s got to go- down the railway to-day.”