Misplaced Pages

#855144

35-491: Hastings Mill was a sawmill on the south shore of Burrard Inlet and was the first commercial operation around which the settlement that would become Vancouver developed in British Columbia , Canada . Founded in 1865 by Edward Stamp , the sawmill operated until its closure in 1928. The store building of Hastings Mills was moved to Alma Street in 1930, situated within present day Hastings Mill Park . The store building

70-525: A cheaper and in some use cases more robust alternative to plywood for paneling. Some automatic mills can process 800 small logs into bark chips, wood chips, sawdust and sorted, stacked, and bound planks, in an hour. Hierapolis sawmill The Hierapolis sawmill was a water-powered stone sawmill in the Ancient Greek city of Hierapolis in Roman Asia (modern-day Turkey ). Dating to the second half of

105-587: A company in England, backed by capital of $ 100,000 , to produce lumber in British Columbia. Stamp also secured from the colonial government of British Columbia the right to purchase or lease 16,000 acres (65 km) of timber on the lower coast, and selected a mill site on a point of land along Burrard Inlet's south shore. Delayed by the failure of crucial machinery parts to arrive from England, Stamp did not begin cutting lumber for export until June 1867. After managing

140-626: A metal crank from the 2nd century AD has been excavated. Literary references to water-powered marble saws in Trier , Germany, can be found in Ausonius ' late 4th century AD poem Mosella . About the same time, they also seem to be indicated by the Christian saint Gregory of Nyssa from Anatolia , demonstrating a diversified use of water-power in many parts of the Roman Empire . The three finds push back

175-415: A term used in many mechanical applications). Generally, only the saw was powered, and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to move the log steadily through the saw blade. A type of sawmill without a crank is known from Germany called "knock and drop" or simply "drop" -mills. In these drop sawmills, the frame carrying

210-406: Is a facility where logs are cut into lumber . Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ( dimensional lumber ). The "portable" sawmill is simple to operate. The log lies flat on a steel bed, and the motorized saw cuts the log horizontally along the length of the bed, by the operator manually pushing

245-536: Is much like those of hundreds of years ago: a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end. The Hierapolis sawmill , a water-powered stone sawmill at Hierapolis , Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey , then part of the Roman Empire ), dating to the second half of the 3rd century, is the earliest known sawmill. It also incorporates a crank and connecting rod mechanism. Water-powered stone sawmills working with cranks and connecting rods, but without gear train , are archaeologically attested for

280-581: Is the Hierapolis sawmill , a Roman water-powered stone mill at Hierapolis , Asia Minor dating back to the 3rd century AD. Other water-powered mills followed and by the 11th century they were widespread in Spain and North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, and in the next few centuries, spread across Europe. The circular motion of the wheel was converted to a reciprocating motion at the saw blade. Generally, only

315-526: Is the small portable sawmill for personal or even professional use. Many different models have emerged with different designs and functions. They are especially suitable for producing limited volumes of boards, or specialty milling such as oversized timber. Portable sawmills have gained popularity for the convenience of bringing the sawmill to the logs and milling lumber in remote locations. Some remote communities that have experienced natural disasters have used portable sawmills to rebuild their communities out of

350-456: The Christian saint Gregory of Nyssa from Anatolia around 370–390 AD, demonstrating a diversified use of water-power in many parts of the Roman Empire . Sawmills later became widespread in medieval Europe , as one was sketched by Villard de Honnecourt in c. 1225–1235. They are claimed to have been introduced to Madeira following its discovery in c. 1420 and spread widely in Europe in

385-687: The Pee Dee River from as far as the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina . A restoration project for Sturgeon's Mill in Northern California is underway, restoring one of the last steam-powered lumber mills still using its original equipment. In the twentieth century the introduction of electricity and high technology furthered this process, and now most sawmills are massive and expensive facilities in which most aspects of

SECTION 10

#1732837263856

420-636: The sawfiler . Sawfilers were highly skilled in metalworking. Their main job was to set and sharpen teeth. The craft also involved learning how to hammer a saw, whereby a saw is deformed with a hammer and anvil to counteract the forces of heat and cutting. Modern circular saw blades have replaceable teeth, but still need to be hammered. The introduction of steam power in the 19th century created many new possibilities for mills. Availability of railroad transportation for logs and lumber encouraged building of rail mills away from navigable water. Steam powered sawmills could be far more mechanized. Scrap lumber from

455-399: The 16th century. Prior to the invention of the sawmill, boards were rived (split) and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a whipsaw , using saddleblocks to hold the log, and a saw pit for the pitman who worked below. Sawing was slow, and required strong and hearty men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had

490-407: The 20th century the introduction of electricity and high technology furthered this process, and now most sawmills are massive and expensive facilities in which most aspects of the work are computerized. Besides the sawn timber, use is made of all the by-products including sawdust , bark , woodchips , and wood pellets , creating a diverse offering of forest products . A sawmill's basic operation

525-492: The 3rd century AD, the sawmill is considered the earliest known machine to combine a crank with a connecting rod to form a crank-slider mechanism . The watermill is evidenced by a raised relief on the sarcophagus of a certain Marcus Aurelius Ammianos, a local miller . On the pediment a waterwheel fed by a mill race is shown powering via a gear train two frame saws cutting rectangular blocks by

560-627: The 6th century at the Byzantine cities Gerasa (in Asia Minor) and Ephesus (in Syria ). The earliest literary reference to a working sawmill comes from a Roman poet, Ausonius , who wrote a topographical poem about the river Moselle in Germany in the late 4th century AD. At one point in the poem, he describes the shrieking sound of a watermill cutting marble . Marble sawmills also seem to be indicated by

595-600: The Hastings Mill Store and sent their children to the Hastings Mill School, which included students from Moodyville on the opposite side of the inlet. This would change after the Canadian Pacific Railway chose Vancouver as the terminus for the transcontinental railway. Nevertheless, the lumber industry remained the backbone of the new settlement's economy, and Hastings Mill was "the nucleus around which

630-606: The Native Daughters of British Columbia, the museum houses artifacts and curiosities from Vancouver's past, and First Nations art. Built in 1865, the museum building is the oldest building in Vancouver. The building was one of the only structures to survive the Great Vancouver Fire in 1886, and was used as a hospital and morgue for the fire's victims. Sawmill A sawmill ( saw mill , saw-mill ) or lumber mill

665-433: The advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so that the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline. Early sawmills simply adapted the whipsaw to mechanical power, generally driven by a water wheel to speed up the process. The circular motion of the wheel was changed to back-and-forth motion of the saw blade by a connecting rod known as a pitman arm (thus introducing

700-530: The availability of ships transporting cargoes of logs to the sawmill and cargoes of lumber from the sawmill. The next improvement was the use of circular saw blades, perhaps invented in England in the late 18th century, but perhaps in 17th-century Netherlands. Soon thereafter, millers used gangsaws, which added additional blades so that a log would be reduced to boards in one quick step. Circular saw blades were extremely expensive and highly subject to damage by overheating or dirty logs. A new kind of technician arose,

735-720: The city of Vancouver grew up in the 1880s" and remained important to the local economy until it closed in 1928. After Hastings Mill closed, the building that housed the Hastings Mill store was transported by barge to the foot of Alma Street in 1930. The building was officially reopened in 1931, and was dedicated as the Museum of B.C. Historical Relics in Memory of the Pioneers, or the Old Hastings Mill Store Museum in 1932. Operated by

SECTION 20

#1732837263856

770-495: The fallen trees. Technology has changed sawmill operations significantly in recent years, emphasizing increasing profits through waste minimization and increased energy efficiency as well as improving operator safety. The once-ubiquitous rusty, steel conical sawdust burners have for the most part vanished, as the sawdust and other mill waste is now processed into particleboard and related products, or used to heat wood-drying kilns . Co-generation facilities will produce power for

805-529: The firm for less than two years he retired, and shortly thereafter his company went into liquidation in England. The mill closed for a period in 1870 but opened again in August after being purchased by Dickson, DeWolf and Company of San Francisco. Known at first as Stamp's Mill, it now became the Hastings Sawmill Company, or Hastings Mill. The early settlement was in effect a company town. People shopped at

840-411: The forest, where a temporary shelter was built, and the logs were skidded to the nearby mill by horse or ox teams, often when there was some snow to provide lubrication. As mills grew larger, they were usually established in more permanent facilities on a river, and the logs were floated down to them by log drivers . Sawmills built on navigable rivers, lakes, or estuaries were called cargo mills because of

875-441: The growth of a frontier community. The Dutch windmill owner Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest invented in 1594 the wind-powered sawmill, which made the conversion of log timber into planks 30 times faster than before. His wind-powered sawmill used a crankshaft to convert a windmill 's circular motion into a back-and-forward motion powering the saw, and was granted a patent for the technique. Early mills had been taken to

910-536: The mill provided a ready fuel source for firing the boiler. Efficiency was increased, but the capital cost of a new mill increased dramatically as well. In addition, the use of steam or gasoline-powered traction engines also allowed the entire sawmill to be mobile. By 1900, the largest sawmill in the world was operated by the Atlantic Lumber Company in Georgetown , South Carolina, using logs floated down

945-478: The operation and may also feed superfluous energy onto the grid. While the bark may be ground for landscaping barkdust , it may also be burned for heat. Sawdust may make particle board or be pressed into wood pellets for pellet stoves. The larger pieces of wood that will not make lumber are chipped into wood chips and provide a source of supply for paper mills. Wood by-products of the mills will also make oriented strand board (OSB) paneling for building construction,

980-600: The saw blade is knocked upwards by cams as the shaft turns. These cams are let into the shaft on which the waterwheel sits. When the frame carrying the saw blade is in the topmost position it drops by its own weight, making a loud knocking noise, and in so doing it cuts the trunk. A small mill such as this would be the center of many rural communities in wood-exporting regions such as the Baltic countries and Canada . The output of such mills would be quite low, perhaps only 500 boards per day. They would also generally only operate during

1015-472: The saw was powered, and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to move the log steadily through the saw blade. By the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the circular saw blade had been invented, and with the development of steam power in the 19th century, a much greater degree of mechanisation

1050-402: The saw. The most basic kind of sawmill consists of a chainsaw and a customized jig ("Alaskan sawmill"), with similar horizontal operation. Before the invention of the sawmill, boards were made in various manual ways, either rived (split) and planed , hewn , or more often hand sawn by two men with a whipsaw , one above and another in a saw pit below. The earliest known mechanical mill

1085-514: The way of connecting rods and, through mechanical necessity, cranks (see diagram). The accompanying inscription is in Greek and attributes the mechanism to Ammianos' "skills with wheels". Further Roman crank and connecting rod mechanisms, without gear train, are archaeologically attested for the 6th century AD water-powered stone sawmills at Gerasa , Jordan, and Ephesus , Turkey. A fourth sawmill possibly existed at Augusta Raurica , Switzerland, where

Hastings Mill - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-581: The winter, the peak logging season. In the United States , the sawmill was introduced soon after the colonisation of Virginia by recruiting skilled men from Hamburg . Later the metal parts were obtained from the Netherlands, where the technology was far ahead of that in England , where the sawmill remained largely unknown until the late 18th century. The arrival of a sawmill was a large and stimulative step in

1155-440: The work is computerized . The cost of a new facility with 4,700-cubic-metre-per-day (2-million- board-foot -per- day ) capacity is up to CAN$ 120,000,000. A modern operation will produce between 240,000 to 1,650,000 cubic metres (100 to 700 million board feet) annually. Small gasoline-powered sawmills run by local entrepreneurs served many communities in the early twentieth century, and specialty markets still today. A trend

1190-777: Was opened as the Old Hastings Mill Store Museum in 1932, and houses exhibits that showcase artifacts and items of significance to Vancouver's history . In 1867, Captain Edward Stamp began producing lumber in Stamp's Mill at the foot of what is now Dunlevy Avenue after a planned site at Brockton Point proved unsuitable due to difficult currents and a shoal. Stamp's efforts in developing the mill are summarized by Robert Macdonald in Making Vancouver: Class, Status and Social Boundaries, 1863-1913 : In 1865 he formed

1225-548: Was possible. Scrap lumber from the mill provided a source of fuel for firing the boiler. The arrival of railroads meant that logs could be transported to mills rather than mills being built beside navigable waterways. By 1900, the largest sawmill in the world was operated by the Atlantic Coast Lumber Company in Georgetown, South Carolina, using logs floated down the Pee Dee River from the Appalachian Mountains . In

#855144