Thread: logging in 1947

Tex

Many thanks for posting.
It was very infomative.I just loved watching how they did it and those redwood trees are huge

Tex

Great film. I found the automation and size of the mill, particularly bearing in mind it was 63 years ago, absolutely mind boggling.

The bandsaw was big, yes, but redwood is very soft and light (similar density to radiata pine), and in some regards a little like western red cedar. No cancel that. It can be used in similar applications as western red cedar, but it can be brittle.

I don't think the bandsaw would have handled dense hardwoods as shown in the film.

Again thanks for posting the film.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Tex

Great film. I found the automation and size of the mill, particularly bearing in mind it was 63 years ago, absolutely mind boggling.

The bandsaw was big, yes, but redwood is very soft and light (similar density to radiata pine), and in some regards a little like western red cedar. No cancel that. It can be used in similar applications as western red cedar, but it can be brittle.

I don't think the bandsaw would have handled dense hardwoods as shown in the film.

Again thanks for posting the film.

Regards
Paul

The bandsaw would handle hardwood fine, would just require the correct tooth angles and tensioning. large amounts of hardwood in this country have been milled using very similar bandsaws. in the boom time of the jarrah industry in WA a major percentage of the milling was done using large bandsaws, and even today the wide bandsaws play a major part in the hardwood milling industry in australia. The biggest issue would be the fact that no hardwoods would achieve anywhere near the mass of those old redwoods, it is said that they could live forever if man didn't cut them or some other accident befall them. It is not uncommon for them and their cousins the Giant sequoias to live well in excess of 3000 years, so much for everything having a lifespan hey Texx. as for the other greenies out there They were an important resource which provided a lot of timber for a lot of different things, HOUSING being one of those things, and they also kept a lot of people employed especially through times of great depression world wide and provided a resource that helped to keep not only america going strong but also many of her allied nations. Some people will also say similar things about whaling and to an extent they are somewhat right but the necessity for harvesting of whales diminished far before the timespan it was continued for. Wood and lumber are still required and will be for many hundreds of years to come. Thankfully there are a lot more plantations and renewed forest resources now days and people like those on this forum who do not like to see timber go to waste and mill logs which would otherwise been burned or chipped and buried.

Good thing they didn't have chainsaws.

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

The bandsaw would handle hardwood fine, would just require the correct tooth angles and tensioning. large amounts of hardwood in this country have been milled using very similar bandsaws. in the boom time of the jarrah industry in WA a major percentage of the milling was done using large bandsaws, and even today the wide bandsaws play a major part in the hardwood milling industry in australia.

It was a too flippant comment of mine, but based on a couple of factors.

The first was a sawmill near where I used to live in NSW. They cut predominantly stringy bark and would not touch ironbark for example. The mill manager told me they just couldn't do it. The reason was they had what I call a 6" bandsaw. I don't know how you really descibe it but the blade was 6" wide. Even with stringybark their boards often had a wave along their length. Let me come back to that point.

Secondly, when I was milling timber commercially ( I have retired from timber milling, but not retired in total) I had both a bandsaw and a circular saw. I used the circular saw predominantly.

The reason was that the bandsaw needed much more maintenance and far more care (read skill into that also). I suspect that the local mill I mentioned above did not sharpen frequently enough. Even on my mill I could sharpen the circular saw in 10 minutes while the bandsaw took 30 minutes and it had to be done more frequently. I think it would be a similar issue for a commercial mill.

The bandsaw blade does not like heat. As soon as the edge goes off the blade heat is generated. As soon as the front of the blade becomes longer than the back, though expansion, the tension is lost and the blade wanders. Very annoying when half way through a large log.

Hence my comment that I am not sure how they would cope with hardwoods.

Having said all that, I can't but be impressed seeing a huge slab of timber sliced off an almost unimaginably sized log. Much more impressive than a circular saw operation.

Regards
Paul

understood bushy.

Yes what you say is true about bandsaw blades losing tension and such, but honestly 6 inch bands are just babies, I have worked/doctored a lot which cut jarrah in WA and also quite a few cutting east coast hardwoods lots around the 12 inch and quite a few in the 14 to 16 inch wide range. how they perform on different timbers comes down to many factors, most commonly tooth angles and tension but there are also other factors which influence the wide bands which are simply not a problem with the likes of a woodmizer with narrow small pitch bands. Most good operators of the big band mills could tell long before they started getting badly waving cuts that they were getting blunt and they would be changed out, unless they didn't like the saw doctor then they would run them until the tension was upset and they were real blunt.

And yes they are mightily majestic trees. I have stood at the base of quite a few of them wishing I had a big chainsaw , including the mighty general Sherman. some people go to the states to go to disneyland, personally after landing in L.A. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there and see some of the country side. I would recomend the sierra nevadas with the Giant Sequoias and further north towards the coast to see the redwood forests as something for everyone to put on their "bucket list." They are Awesome.

I wanna go Alaska way, see some fishing and forests....

2 years ago i started this thread

Originally Posted by texx

2 years ago i started this thread

just shows good things come to those who wait or theres nothing new under the sun!!! take your pick, nice vid though