A facility where logs are processed into lumber is known as a sawmill or lumber mill. Modern sawmills utilize a motorized saw to cut logs crosswise to length depending on standard or bespoke sizes and lengthwise to make long pieces (dimensional lumber). The “portable” sawmill is straightforward to use. The operator manually pushes the motorized saw as it slices the log horizontally along the length of the steel bed where it is lying flat. The simplest type of sawmill, known as a “Alaskan sawmill,” consists of a chainsaw and a specially made jig that operates horizontally.
Before the invention of the sawmill, boards were made by a number of manual techniques, such as hewing, riving (splitting and planing), and more frequently, hand sawing by two men, one above and the other in a saw pit below, both using a whipsaw. The Hierapolis sawmill, a ROᴍᴀɴ water-powered stone mill at Hierapolis, Asia Minor, dating back to the third century AD, is the earliest mechanical mill that is currently known.
In the next decades, water-powered mills spread throughout Europe. By the 11th century, they were common in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. At the saw blade, the wheel’s circular motion was changed to a reciprocating motion. Typically, only the saw was powered, thus loading and moving the logs required manual labor. A portable carriage that was also propelled by water was created early on to move the wood steadily through the saw blade.
The circular saw blade had been created by the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, and a considerably higher level of mechanization was made possible by the development of steam power in the 19th century. The mill’s leftover lumber served as a supply of fuel for lighting the boiler. The advent of railroads made it possible to transport logs to mills rather than having them constructed alongside navigable waterways.
The Atlantic Lumber Company in Georgetown, South Carolina, operated the biggest sawmill in the world by 1900, using logs floated down the Pee Dee River from the Appalachian Mountains. The introduction of electricity and advanced technology accelerated this trend in the 20th century, and today the majority of sawmills are large, pricey operations where the majority of the work is automated. A variety of forest products are consumed in addition to the sawn timber, including sawdust, bark, woodchips, and wood pellets.
Let’s see the Amazing Procedure Processing Big Tree Factory Machine – Extreme Heavy Equipment Sawmill Cutting Tree in the video below.
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