The Lancaster ledger. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905, 1893-10-18

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pass to gang iath mill, which cuts
four laths at once, and from there TO
the lath- binder, where the bundles are
tied by hand, These are placed in a
bundle and lsth htrimmer and cut into
any length from four feet to SIX
inches
While the slabs are moving TO the
right into the lath machinery the
boards are sent to the left. Rudolph,
Mintz, the ledger man." takes them
rs they fall upon the table and runs
them through an adjustable edger
which has four saws on one side for
ed2ing and ten saws on the other side
placed one inch apart for making
flooring. A "cent," which is stick
of timber six inches thick and four
teen inches wide, is run through the
ten saws and comes out eleven strips
of flooring elk inches wide and one
inch thick, The boards are passed
through the other side of the edaer,
and. without loss of time, go over a
roll to train of chain carriers run
ming TO the left. The chains take the
boards to tho 'trimmer," where
Trimmer Steadman cuts them into
ten, twelve, fourteen and sixteen foot
lengths by simply pressing down foot
pedals.
"rhis is model mill," said H. II.
Mitchell the millwright, who put itup.
"We would like TO operate it oil day
long, for saw-mill seems to be q nov
city to majority of the visitors who
come here. We could cut up big
pile of logs in day. Finnegan has a
record of slabbiug 1850 logs in a run
of ten hours, and that is "A lot of Iun-
ber"
At the Centennial all the saw-mill
machinery was of the circular saw
order. with one exception. w. L.
Covel, who has been in the saw-mill
business ever since he was able to file
n buck saw, spoke of the exception as
the beginning OF the change in the
form of saws.
''The first band saw" said Mr. Covel,
'was little one, with n ! inch blade,
and about ten feet long, made in France
about twenty-five years ago. 1t at
trnntn1 I,ttl, al 4
man, in America, came to the Centen-
NAL with the first band saw ever saw.
II WAS large mill, with 12-iuch
blade, with the pulleys 80 arranged
that it would cut at any angle. Saw.
mill men regarded il with nstonish-
ment, but il failed to do it's work in
such way as to compete successfully
with the circular saw Manufacturers.
however, examined it closely, saw its
weak points and went home to i'm.
prove on it. About a year after the
Centennial j heard of band saw at
South Bend, Ind, that could cut
$4,000 feet of whito ash in tep hours.
That was looked upon as wonderful.
A few days ago. in the State of Wash.
ington, II band saw turned out 1873, 400
feet of boards, eighty-five per cent. OF
them one inch thick, in twelve hours.
This astonishing increase in capa.
city * entirely due to improved
methods in manufacture. The original
band saws were made, fitted, shsrpened
and turned by hand, Now oil that is
done automatically by machinery. The
earlier blades hardly had two teeth
alike, all varied one way or the other,
but even then makers saw that the cir
culnrs were out of date. They soon
found that it was necessary for all the
teeth to be alike and that tho bla ls
must bc looscned in the center by ham,
mering IL 80 rs to make il spread.
This makes the edges run straight over
the pulleys and gives q straight cut.
Then they found that their mills were
too light. so built them heavier, and
now band-saws are used in every large
and modern mill except few in the
South. Chicago Record.