In 1972 Pete Rice sold the mill to Bud Howlett and in 1981 Bob Fuller with his sons Jeff and Doug, and daughter Cindy took over the Granville Mill. The mill currently employs approximately thirty two people. Clapboards The production of pine and spruce clapboards at the Granville Mill continues as it has on site since 1913. Logs are mounted on a lathe to remove bark and even the diameter for better sawing. The log is then marked to show which way the grain is oriented.
Trees can twist as they grow to the left or to the right.
It is necessary to know this as it affects the smoothness in the planing operation. The log is then mounted on a carriage that moves over a saw which makes a cut along its full length. The process is continued until the log is rotated 360 degrees. The clapboards are then stacked by alternately layering uniform sized clapboards into six foot by six foot stacks. These stacks are then left to air dry until they are ready for planing.