Pigs, Frogs, Worms and Chickens OH MY!
Several our inner circle pointed us in the direction of an old moonshiner/sawyer that had an old 1940’s Frick sawmill. His name was Aaron Davis a typical seasonal connoisseur of non-taxed adult spirits and a better than average sawyer. This leg of the adventure takes a crazy turn, my grandfather had experience around a sawmill during the WPA, the north Florida winter was turning into spring, Aaron was out of hooch and money too, he told my dad if we helped, he would cut the lumber for a $100 per 1000 board ft. It took a few days to get the mill ready to cut, handling the logs were tough at best, Aaron told me I will make a sawyer out of you in a few days, he put Dad and Granddad tending, grading the lumber and gang ripping the slats. Aaron had a random rhythm to cutting, he was taught by an old dude that couldn’t even count as the story goes, a double knot or 00 Frick mill standards are 4 ft apart, carriage is 15 foot long, and a full pull is an inch, a click is a ¼, Aaron’s mill had a homemade log scale that he copied from his mentor. The log scale read backwards from the saw back to standard a little hard to chase but it gave you a quick way to cut standard cants for gang ripping and or offloading flitches for production cutting dimensional boards. Aaron said that most sawyers try to make square ones out of round ones, 15-year-old me jumped right in on that theory. In ag we learned what a board foot was, our teacher’s goal was to teach us how to survey timber, I wasn’t the least bit interested. Aaron would look at our list of boards, look at our logs, tell me which ones will fill the order faster, tell us how load ‘em up on the ramp. Aaron ran a minimum true cut with the goal to square to the centerline of log, once that parallel cut has 4” at least of exposed grain, a 2” cut is made, flip log 90* and repeat, flip and repeat until 3 sides have exposed grain. At that point depending on the square cant, example: 12”x12” can’t = 2- 6” boards on a side x 6 – 1” cuts deep, 12 boards total or 3- 4” boards on a side x 6-1” cuts deep or 18 boards total. The concept is simple, Aaron hated to cut with dad and grandad they would spend 2 hours saving a $.50 board. My grandaddy always pushed the profit was in the by-product concept, make 20% on the product line, sell the slabs and sawdust for beer money. Aaron pushed the theory that if you weren’t here, I could be drinking or the “you never get back wasted time” and work hampered recreation concept. He had a thermostat set at 1000 board feet, cutting his way about 4 hours. My dad and grandaddy wanted to get a days’ worth anytime they worked, and a day was daylight till 10 minutes after dark. I have cut 3000 board feet of 1” x 6” x 10ft cypress in the patented John Armond Day. Needless to say, Aaron, started limiting the Saturday cuts to 4 hours. With about 5000 sq ft we headed to Taylor to start the Pig sanctuary.
Engineering notes: Frick manufactured it first sawmills in 1853 before the start of the Civil War, as the story goes George Frick and brother JD owned a fabrication factory that furnished mechanical grain cleaners (fans) grist/flour mills, sawmills, paper mills, wheat trashers for companies that designed and patented specific pieces of machinery. During the Gettysburg campaign the Confederates, whose lack of shoe leather was very serious, occupied Waynesboro for a few days. They took all the leather belting from the Frick shop, closing the business until after the war when a new plant was erected across the street. It included a foundry, pattern department, boiler shop, blacksmith shop and machine shop. The Frick Co. was formed in the latter part of 1872 as a “co-partnership or association.” The capital of the Association was $35,000 which was increased to $125,000 in 1879. During the mid-seventies they began building portable sawmills. The completion of the Western Maryland and Mont Alto railroad greatly increased shipping facilities. In 1881 Frick Co. built a new shop in the west part of town adjoining the railroad tracks. The new plant was so extensive and modern, for that time, that the Scientific American printed a feature article about it. In 1882 their first refrigerating machinery was manufactured. In this decade the steam tractor engine was built. The engine could both haul the thresher and operate it. A great new era in power farming was opened up. Early in the 1900’s the Frick sawmill was the center of modernization through the southeast, the US military purchased 100’s of the portable steam engine/ sawmills to build bases throughout the United States. My grandfather’s first exposure to a Frick Sawmill was during his time in the WPA program in the late 1930’s. His story included leaving Georgia swamps recruited (abducted) at 16 years old to work the WPA in Jacksonville, Florida. I asked one time when he saw his first sawmill, he said when he was a child loggers would bring cypress logs out of the Okefenokee to cut for the military. The trees were so big that the loggers made a temporary train track into the swamp by mounting rails on cutoff stumps. His memory recalled that the train cars were about 30 ft long and each tree was as wide as men were tall and one to each rail car, anything smaller was a waste of effort. I always wanted to challenge that story until I personally fished in the swamp as a kid and saw the rail stumps and the 3ft in diameter logs tossed beside the canal ways of the Okefenokee. He went on to add that the WPA had sawmills pulled by steam tractors, his group cleared land as they built US1 down the East Coast of Florida, usually first on site they cleared pads for the sawmills that provided temporary structures for the adventure. Aaron had accumulated a junkyard full of Frick and Yoder mill parts, the functioning mill was built in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s for a Navy Construction Battalion located in Jacksonville, Florida. In the 1930s Bureau of Yards and Docks began providing for “Navy Construction Battalions” (CB) in contingency war plans. In 1934, Capt. Carl Carlson’s version of the CB was approved by Chief of Naval Operations. CBs would have a dual command; military control administrated by fleet line officers while construction operations would be administrated by Civil Engineer Corps officers. In 1941, the Navy decided to improve project oversight of civilian contractors by creating “Headquarters Construction Companies”. CB’s were changed to Seabee’s and skillset became multi-faceted with all advanced military training being USMC instruction. That training led to Seabee’s being tasked as USMC Pioneers (Shore party) in multiple landings. They added responsibilities over time to include all platoon facilities development, fabrication, and combat utilization. On the construction side of their toolbox the NCF Seabee’s were formed with skilled tradesmen making the NCF competent in all types of vertical and horizontal civil construction as well as associated engineering. Aaron purchased the mill in parts, story goes it was part of a Corp of Engineers project in the Osceola Nation Forrest, the parts were scattered at a number of sites but mostly at Camp Blanding. Aaron had in his possession a notebook and toolbox prepared for the US Navy by Frick. This notebook was a detailed construction manual for the Frick model 00 mill, this document included paper templates for all the base and carriage timbers, fastener blueprints, the toolbox had specialty tools, fixtures, bushings, bearings, material blanks, a 3 ft tall hickory barrel full of bolts/nails and sand-casting plugs to duplicate every cast part on the mill. This footlocker style toolbox 6ft x 6ft x 6ft was definitely set up to be on remote sites. The mill had two carriages, a 3 dog 15 ft and a 4 dog 21 ft. We only ever used the 15 ft. Two inserted tooth saw blades a 54” with 60 F style inserted tooth hammered at 500 rpm, and a 60-inch manual set 48 tooth blade. The mystery of the cutting wood is like anything else, there is an explanation, understanding the mechanics of a sawmill baffles most, with our team Aaron, my dad, my grandfather, and myself it was like herding squirrels, frustrating at best, but an adventure that took me to another level of understanding. I tell my kids that in 1975 there was no internet, the best source of information was skilled craftsman. On any given day a 50-year-old piece of equipment is great, like most machines the mechanics are easily challenged by operator complacency. Nothing is worse than run out when cutting material on a sawmill, time is money, and inconsistency to an engineer leads to mental illness, to a craftsman it leads to turrets, to an alcoholic a reason to drink, and to me at 14 was not interested to become any of the above. Like any of our adventures we jumped in over our head. We ran about 400 board feet on the first weekend, it took a half a day to get everything running, lubed up, parts in motion, moved around so we had good access. By 2:00 pm we made the first cut. By 4:00 pm we cut a couple 100 board feet and had established a rhythm, identified we had a slight run out issue, 1/8 inch in 10 ft, Aaron opted to sharpen the blade, 60 teeth blade at best about 2 to 5 minutes per, best scenario 3 to 4 hours. The debate has always been sharpening or replacing, the best teeth in 1975 were $2 per tooth, today about $6. My grandfather could and loved to sharpen stuff, something in his nature, he would sharpen my Bell saw blade in about 4 hours, my deal has always been and through the years a point of profit issue vs what my dad called my rush to waste mental illness. Here is the applied math, I easily cut 1000 board feet in 8 hours, I charged $400 per 1000 in 1975, $50 per hour. If the mill was shut down for 4 hours, you would lose $200 in revenue. 60 teeth today are $360, in 1975 they were $2, 60 for $120 it took about an hour to change them. It took 4 hours at best to sharpen them. $120 + $50 for 1 hour is $170, or $30 to the good if it only took 4 hours. Two other take aways the removed teeth can be sharpened and used again; issue is a bench sharpened tooth in 1975 equaled $3.33. Carbide scrap was $1 per pound 60 teeth weighed 2 lbs. In a heated debate with the collective we all agreed that a new set of teeth was good for about 5000 board feet. About .04 per board ft. From that point on we adjusted the cost, put the tooth replacement on the maintenance schedule. There are several inherited issues with the mechanics of cutting wood, base frame, and carriage alignment are critical, the foundation for portable sawmills is the point of control. I have seen sawmills that base frame is stiff enough to control a plane of operation for the carriage. Early portable sawmills used timbers as the foundation and base frame, the footprint needs to be stable, able to hold extreme loads, the average cypress log 20 inches in diameter 10 ft log weighs 900 pounds. The Frick portable sawmill concept designed for the CB’s was precut, drilled, from Douglas fir, the kit was crated ready for assembly. The Frick 00 was designed to ship worldwide, unload, assemble, cut native timber, then abandon on sight. The stationary version used the same mechanism and was familiar in operation as the units 1000’s of military and civil servants had used worldwide. Any deviation in movement of the foundation, carriage or frame could easily exaggerate the percentage of era between the log, blade and headstocks. Most of this type of inconsistency shows as thickness variation. Twist and or foundation settling establishes a consistent pattern of run out, while misalignment runs thick to narrow or vice versa. Aaron’s mill had a dip that gave every board a variation in thickness at the same spot. The blade is another source of run out, variation in RPM can pull the blade, a blade with no toe in can cause the blade to overheat, change the direction of tension and lead the blade. The biggest issue is tooth wear, to ensure blade temperature blade toe produces a wear pattern for the inserted teeth of the blade as the wear changes the angle of the cut pulls the blade into the log. Straight tooth wear causes parasitic drag as the blade enters the log loading the engine. Depending on the drop in RPM the hammered tension in the blade causes a transition from negative to positive and based on speed variations can cause a wobble. I have never cut lumber on a band saw. Cut 10’s of 1000’s of board ft using Frick, Yoder, and Bell Saw hammered inserted tooth rotary blade saws. Sawmills, like most things in the world, are challenged by weather related obstacles. The blade and drive system including the power plant are similar to racing engines, they need to be tuned based on the environment to be successful. I have raced with folks that build a car and race it until it breaks, never adjusting, never tuning, running until the good is used up. I saw the same thing with the sawmill business, the complacency was 10x worse than racing, the understanding of machine is limited by the most owner/ operators. Aaron once made the comparison between his wife and the sawmill that went like this, somedays I wake up and my wife gives me a hug, a kiss, and tells me she loves me! The next morning, she hates me, like my wife, until I cut that first board will I know whether my sawmill hates me today or not! I worked on a research project for TDOT, the concrete guru on the project told in Tennessee there are 100 perfect days a year for pouring concrete, the rest are a challenge because of deviations in elements. His final take was great money for 100 days, breakeven for 100 days, loose your ass for 100 days. Not knowing how to tune an inserted tooth sawmill can easily fall into that nightmare. The business model falls into 2 categories, if you have a product line, a source of timber, the machines, the labor/ skill you can save 1000’s of dollars over store bought lumber, or the second business model chases a cut to sell lumber business that is greatly dependent on timber producers. I was told once timber producers are devious at best, the truth as most earth-bound business models is they are over invested for the percentage of profit, feast or famine, as one of my things to live by, be a student of your sport, 20% profit is great but there are times that the margin at the point of sale has to be 100% to net 20% across 365 days.
Sawmill
Years ago, a dude called me up and wanted to know about a Bell saw sawmill I purchased and put into operation. I told him to come over and check it out. The minute he got there he was on a mission to convince me I had done it all wrong, at that point we had cut over 100,000 board ft of Cyprus boards. After about 2 hrs. of explaining our design, he said if you’re not going to do it right you should quit. At that time a rabbit jumped out from the end of the mill, I said how would you catch that rabbit. He went off about getting his dog, sneaking around the mill, putting food out, snaring, whatever! I walked down picked up the rabbit, a pet of my daughters, he said it’s obvious you knew something I didn’t, I said and that’s the morale of this story.