Making Things in the Mill

Making Things in the Mill. Sawing. Coming to the sawmill with felled trees, the settlers would leave with sawn timber to build their houses, barns and furniture., Water powered the saw cutting blades for the frontier millers. At the early sawmills, the saw blades were rectangular and moved up and down. Gears and shafts changed the turning motion of the waterwheel into this vertical motion. Waterpower also provided pressure to push the huge trees against the powerful cutting blades. The trees were cut into very large beams for building houses, and smaller lumber for other uses. The first sawmills produced rough sawn products. Later mills used smaller water-powered planers and lathes to smooth the wood., (captions)< , Sawyer , Using water to move the large rectangular blades called sash saws up and doum, sawyers would cut the settlers' huge trees into lumber for buildings, wagons furniture, toys and other needs of the frontier family, Sawmill , At the early sawmills, the logs were floated into the mill from the millpond. A chain with hooks pulled the logs into the large water-powered saws, and the cut wood was stacked for drying.