Iowa Old Threshers Reunion Sears Sawmill

This massive mill is considerably bigger than the Frick at Portland Indiana and handles logs accordingly. This mill does appear to be much more recent than the Frick as it has a higher degree of automation in its operation.


The mill was being driven by an Advance Rumely which looks to be a 70 or 75 HP engine. There was not anyone around to ask when the mill was inactive, and as you'll see from the pictures, the guys were a little busy when it was running. I would have liked to hang around afterwards but I had my boys with me and I like to keep them entertained rather than sitting around bored.


Loading a log into the mill. Note how easy it is for one man to load a massive log into the mill. The sawyer is using a cant hook to turn the log and roll it into the mill. The feed is designed so that it is down hill onto the log carriage.

This is one of the items of automation, an automatic log turner - the two clawed arms are driven from the engine and move up and down one after the other. Only one of the arms supports the log at a time - one holds the log and the other moves up, hits the log takes it from the first and turns the log about a 1/8th turn. The second arm then repeats the motion of the first with the same effect. This is repeated until the log is in the position desired by the sawyer.

During the cutting there was a little excitement after a nasty noise during one of the cuts - the saw was immediately stopped and the teeth inspected. They had not lost one, but it would have gone had they kept going. They replaced the tooth and got going again within a few minutes. This event gave a good demonstration of the control wire run between the mill and the engine - pulling on the wire closed the steam valve on the engine shutting it down.

Watch the slash fly as the mill gets stuck into a log. Slash is the dust and chips which emits from cutting blades. The slash is removed on this mill by a vacuum system and dumped away from the mill. This is another reason why I suspect this mill is fairly modern as usually a moving continuous chain is used to pull the slash out from the cutting area.

Getting right into the work of cutting a log - note that everyone is watching what is going on closely.

This is the final stage of the cut where the blades have just cleared the log, in another moment the carriage will be reversed as one of the sawyers mates takes the cut plank and feeds it to the width mill to clean it up.

This machine is driven by what appears to be a Ford Model T engine. The machine cuts the planks to a specific width and planes them at the same time to clean up the mill cut a little.

The last job at the end of each group of logs is to clean up the excess slash not taken up by the vacuum system.

A model sawmill driven by a model traction engine