The Elgin Vale Sawmill by John Manners

The Elgin Vale sawmill in all her glory on the 27th of May, 2006.
The mill is situated on the downward side of the declining foreground
to enable logs to be rolled on to the Canadian bench.

Saturday, the 27th of May, 2006, saw one of the infrequent occasions when the old Elgin Vale sawmill is brought back to life and put through its graceful paces by a group of dedicated men and women who have steam and timber coursing through their veins.

Situated in the South Burnett region of South East Queensland, which region incorporates the shires of Kingaroy, Kilkivan, Nanango, Murgon and Wondai, the sawmill at Elgin Vale,  earlier known as Scrubby Paddock, was established there in 1926 having five years earlier been established as a new mill at a place, some distance removed, called Sefton. On the 16th of March, 1987 the old sawmill ceased commercial production.

Ancient Leyland timber jinker, supplanter of bullock-powered jinkers.

Many of the people in the region have had or maintain a close association with the timber industry and find it unremarkable in themselves that they should devote such enthusiasm and skill towards the restoration, preservation and operation of an old, steam-driven sawmill.

The Elgin Vale sawmill is set up to mill the native pines, Hoop and Bunya, which were present in enormous abundance in the district at the time the mill was established. The log section seen on the Canadian bench is Hoop pine. The sawmill’s machinery is not designed to mill the huge hardwood logs which were available in the district.

Canadian Bench. Entire logs are first ripped to flitches
here before passing over skids to No. 1 bench.

The Canadian bench is interesting in that the whole bench consists of two long, metal plates which pass, with the log chocked into position on it, on either side of the circular saw blade over sets of rollers on the infeed and outfeed sides of the saw.

Quite impressive accuracy with the saw cut is achieved simply by the sawyer, eyeing along the saw before sawing operations commence, directing a man at the far end of the log to make small adjustments with a crowbar to the log’s position on the bench and, if needs be, chocking it into position.

The bench with its log are driven by a belt taking power off the countershaft which extends beneath the mill for almost its entire width. The saw is extremely powerfully driven and runs through a log of the size shown in less than a minute. When larger logs were being milled the Canadian bench was also equipped with an overhead saw in line with the lower blade. Provision for installing the upper blade still exists.

The Canadian bench has quite a set of teeth.

On the far side of the sawblade can be seen the belt which drives the saw. In the background are the raised skids on the outfeed side of the saw which are greased to facilitate the transfer of the flitches produced by the Canadian bench to the No 1 bench. The man who adjusts the far end of the log for sawing under the sawyer’s directions moves up to the skids during the sawing process to assist the sawyer to slip the flitch on to the skids.

Unless something specific is required, the No 1 bench produces the best boards available from the flitches supplied from the Canadian bench and its off-cuts are sent to the No 2 bench to be sawn as smaller boards. The best boards may later be re-sawn on the No 2 bench to meet an order for smaller boards.

View from the outfeed side of the Canadian bench (far right) shows
the skids over which the flitches pass to the No. 1 bench (far left)
above the outfeed of the gang of saws in the frame saw.

   The sawyer on the Canadian bench judges the best flitches he can get out of a log, bearing in mind the requirements and limitations of No 1 bench, and its sawyer judges the best boards he can get out of the flitches. The fence may look primitive but stays “square” and can be readily adjusted.

Nice Hoop pine boards coming off No 1 bench. Chap at far left is the sawyer, at far right is the tailer-out (nearly always the young bloke in the mill). The fence is on the right hand side of the bench as the sawyer faces it. Big sticks of hoop-pine are rare these days and this lot looks like it comes from re-forestation plantations.

The importance of the alertness of the tailer-out may be judged by the attitude of the saw and the direction of its revolution. If an off-cut is allowed to be picked up by the saw it will be pelted back at the sawyer with astonishing velocity and momentum.

Under the old system, as evidenced here, anti-kick-back mechanisms were distained as being impractical in circumstances where it was part of one man’s job to guard against kick-back.

Unguarded belts are really a bigger danger to men than saws and in this mill the belts are, for the most part, well guarded.

Closer look at No 1 bench.

Infeed and outfeed rollers are driven as part of the setup. Timber is fed in and tailed out on two rail trolleys pushed by sawyer and pulled by tailer-out. Timber rocks up and down a fraction of an inch over bench to lift off the infeed trolley after half-way mark and to ride on the outfeed trolley thereafter.  The waste on the floor would be further milled and “finger joined” in a more modern sawmill.

Stack of sawn boards from No 1 bench to the left of tailer-out standing between trolley rails, boards to be reduced by No 2 mill on skids to his right with No 2 bench further to his right again in background and waste to be docked for fuel on floor in foreground. Sawmill produces much more timber waste than it can use for boiler fuel and balance goes to assist keep Nanango and surrounds warm in winter.

Boards from No 1 bench which have run out to a taper have their taper docked here and waste is docked to firewood size. Waste (mainly) being docked at the docking bench by a pendulum saw. Belt drive comes from the countershaft beneath the floor to the overhead of the saw and an adjacent overhead drive pulley runs a belt down to the saw’s drive.

This frame saw is decidedly a bit of a rarity in the saw milling industry, not only presently but back in the early days of the Elgin Vale mill’s operation. Men who can put it through its paces are equally rare, probably to be found only in the South Burnett region. It seems to require all sorts of tweaking before each log can be put through it but the man who undertakes this task performs it with lightning speed which quite baffles the onlooker. Its roller feed-grips adjust automatically for the taper of the log. Something of a living fossil, its performance is not in the least inhibited by its dignified coating of rust and its fast reciprocal motion can really get the floor of the mill shuddering as the gang of saws
slices through a log.

Frame saw from the infeed side with 8 saws close-ganged to produce boards from the narrow logs. Somewhat Heath Robinson in appearance, everything is geared to run off something else, somewhat like a steam and belt driven pocket-watch. It is slow, but produces a lot of boards in one pass and, once set up and in motion, can be left to its own devices, literally.
 

Lest we forget. The eight-hour working day and forty-hour week elevated and immortalized.

Notwithstanding their unique skills and, in many cases, their isolated living conditions, sawmill workers’ wages were not very rewarding despite the enormous productivity of a few men. The engine driver, however, usually started work at 5.30 a.m. to have steam up by 7 a.m. and kept steam up until knock-off, when the fire was damped for the night but not extinguished. The fire was damped on Friday afternoons but burnt so low that it had to be fired up on Sunday evening to have steam on Monday mornings.

Where it all begins. Firewood, including longer-burning hardwood.

The original boiler was fired by the overhead, mechanical delivery of sawdust. The present boiler was rescued from an old hospital laundry and re-commissioned by the ingenuity of the mill’s present devotees. The mill’s own pine off-cuts are used for kindling but pine burns quickly and, once the fire-box is well ignited, unnecessary wear and tear on the fireman-engine-driver is averted by the burning of hardwood.

If bit of steam is needed, a bit of heat is needed first. Produces at around 70 p.s.i.
with all machines running.

It really is scorching, even for a hardened engine-driver, to stand for a few seconds in front of the open firebox when all necessary steam is being produced. While timber is thrown in by hand the shovel is used to feed the firebox with sawdust which comes via a conveyor belt directly from the machines on the floor above to a bunker which faces the firebox on the other side of the fireman’s floor in front of the firebox.

The heart of the sawmill, steam engine made by T. Robinson & Son Limited of Rochedale, England. Bore of 16" with stroke of 30". Power is transmitted via a flywheel with 10' 6" diameter, 12" wide face driving belt of 14" width. This engine started its working life in 1901 at Drayton, outside Toowoomba.

Simplicity itself. The piston is steam-driven from either end, the piston rod travels backwards and forwards, kept in a straight line by the cross-head guides, and is coupled to the crank rod which drives the circular crank which drives the shaft which turns the flywheel which drives the countershaft which drives all of the sawmilling machinery on the floor overhead.

Beneath the steam chest’s cover is a mechanical marvel, the slide valve, also referred to as the “D” valve. As it moves backwards and forwards it controls the admission of steam from the steam chest to both ends of the cylinder as well as exhausting the steam after it has given the piston a push in the cylinder. The “D” valve’s correct design and manufacture are critical to the good performance of the engine.

Rear view of engine’s cylinder, showing steam chest on right. Engine is, somewhat unusually, set beneath the sawmill’s main operating floor as is the countershaft and the drive belts reach from the countershaft upwards through the floor to the machinery instead of the more conventional set-up where belts from an overhead countershaft descend to the machinery on the mill’s floor.

The circular crank is connected to the flywheel through a concentric shaft and is driven eccentrically by the crank rod which is connected to the piston rod. Lubrication looms large in the thoughts of those who would keep these wheels in motion and the oil can stands ready to top up the oil reservoir as required. The transport of the flywheel to its present site in 1926, many miles from any railway, must rank as one of the great unsung sagas of the Queensland bush.

In the words of the old smoko song, “Round and round went the bloody great wheel.” 10' 6" in diameter with a 10" deep rim and a 12" face, this flywheel would be quite a piece of metal to be shifted around by the little cylinder and its piston but for the inexorable power of steam.

A relatively new tank but of traditional design on an old stand would seem to illustrate the principles by which the sawmill’s volunteer conservators undertake their self-imposed duties to do what has to be done to get the mill working again, but otherwise to leave it in its original state. All opportunities to introduce a touch of faux authenticity are cheerfully disregarded.

Perched for gravitational advantage above the sawmill’s roof is the supply of raw material for steam, colloquially called “water”.

And here is that same water, its function as steam performed, reverting to its raw material status.

It seemed to me on this visit to the sawmill with my schooldays mate, Professor Bill Tyler (here insert numerous degrees), that the reader of any writing on a steam-driven sawmill could rightly hold reservations concerning the authenticity thereof unless steam, as usually conceived in the mind’s eye, was made pictorially apparent. So here it is.