The Iola register., 1886-10-29
sAw.p.,sT LUMBER.
How the Refuse OF O. cae Saw-Mills 10
Converted Into Building Material.

How the Refuse OF @, ::at saw-Mills II
Converted Into Building Material.
Every week two little schooners arrive
at South Chicago and are towed up the
sinuous course of the Calumet river to
Lake Calumet and then to Pullman.
These little craft come, like the large
majority of the Chicago fleet, from the
lumber towns in Michigan, but, unlike
the boats which seek Chicago harbor.
they are loaded with the refuse of the
lumber-mills instead of with the lumber.
A few years ago one of the great prob
lens of the lumber business was how to
get rid of the saw-dust, and finally large
furnaces were built in to which the saw
dust was poured all day long and was
consumed as fast as manufactured. A
new use for the refuse matter has been
found and now the two little vessels
bring to Pullman about four hundred
tons of saw-dust every week during the
season of navigation.
On the shore of Calumet lake, at the
southern extremity of the city of blick,
behind which are several small noun
tains of saw-dust. A sign ON the
buildings informs the curiosity-seeker
that they are owned by the Terra Gotta
Lumber Company. Inside the first of
the structures the scene is like that of
any pressed-brick yard. Clav is being
brought in and sifted from the pebbles
it contains. Then it is pressed between
large rollers which thoroughly pulver-
ize it. Then it is put into mixing
trough, where it is worked up into a
another large trough where large
wheel rolls round ana round and a thin
stream of saw-dust is poured in and
mixed with the clay. The saw dust is
added until it exceeds the clay in bulk,
some times little and some times by a
hundred per cent, according to the ma
ture of the lumber TO be turned out.
After the dust and clay have been
thoroughly mixed into a dark gray
paste, the stuff is scraped out and pour
ed into the molding-machine, where,
by means of piston moving in the
cylinder, the clay and the dust are
pressed through molds which leave it in
the shape desired. Some of the mate
rial is pressed into kind of corrugated
slab about an inch in thickness, eight
feet in length and one in width. This,
when finished, is used for flooring.
More is pressed into thinner strips for
ceilings, and the largest quantity is
made up into kind of hollow brick
for general building purpose.
After being pressed into shape the
nodded "lumber'' is taken to a driving
room, where it is partly dried, and then
to the great kilns, where it is piled up
and burned like brick. The fire turns
the material regular brick red, and
burns out the saw-dust, leaving an ap-
parently solid but in reality very porus
article. A large piece of the brick lum-
Der was picked up and found to weigh
no more than piece of wood of the
same size. A nail was driven into a
piece and held as though it was in a
piece of wood while the ''lumber" gave
no signs of cracking. In another build
ing men were engaged in saving the
bricks off at an angle SO as to be a
suitable shape of building arches. An
ordinary circular saw was used and
seemed to cut the material as easily as
it could a piece of lumber.
The industry is comparatively new
one and the process of manufacture is
handicapped by patent, but in a year
this one factory alone uses in the neigh
borhoOd of twelve thousand tons of saw
Chicago NeDs.