Pre–Industrial Revolution at
Hierapolis,
Asia Minor. The 3rd-century mill incorporated a
crank and
connecting rod mechanism. Water-powered stone sawmills working with cranks and connecting rods, but without
gear train, are archaeologically attested for the 6th century at the
Byzantine cities
Gerasa (in Asia Minor) and
Ephesus (in
Syria). The earliest literary reference to a working sawmill comes from a
Roman poet,
Ausonius, who wrote a
topographical poem about the river
Moselle in
Germany in the late 4th century AD. At one point in the poem, he describes the shrieking sound of a watermill cutting
marble. Marble sawmills also seem to be indicated by the
Christian saint Gregory of Nyssa from
Anatolia around 370–390 AD, demonstrating a diversified use of water-power in many parts of the
Roman Empire. They are claimed to have been introduced to
Madeira following its discovery in c. 1420 and spread widely in Europe in the 16th century. By 1627, sawmills appear in China during the
Ming-Qing transition. Prior to the invention of the sawmill, boards were
rived (split) and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a
whipsaw, using saddleblocks to hold the log, and a
saw pit for the pitman who worked below. Sawing was slow, and required strong and hearty men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had the advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so that the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline. Early sawmills simply adapted the
whipsaw to mechanical power, generally driven by a
water wheel to speed up the process. The circular motion of the wheel was changed to back-and-forth motion of the saw blade by a
connecting rod known as a
pitman arm (thus introducing a term used in many mechanical applications). Generally, only the saw was powered, and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to move the log steadily through the saw blade. A type of sawmill without a crank is known from Germany called "knock and drop" or simply "drop" -mills. In these drop sawmills, the frame carrying the saw blade is knocked upwards by cams as the shaft turns. These cams are let into the shaft on which the waterwheel sits. When the frame carrying the saw blade is in the topmost position it drops by its own weight, making a loud knocking noise, and in so doing it cuts the trunk. A small mill such as this would be the center of many rural communities in wood-exporting regions such as the
Baltic countries and
Canada. The output of such mills would be quite low, perhaps only 500 boards per day. They would also generally only operate during the winter, the peak logging season. In the
United States, the sawmill was introduced soon after the colonisation of
Virginia by recruiting skilled men from
Hamburg. Later the metal parts were obtained from the Netherlands, His wind-powered sawmill used a
crankshaft to convert a
windmill's circular motion into a back-and-forward motion powering the saw, and was granted a patent for the technique.
Industrial Revolution Early mills had been taken to the forest, where a temporary shelter was built, and the logs were skidded to the nearby mill by horse or ox teams, often when there was some snow to provide lubrication. As mills grew larger, they were usually established in more permanent facilities on a river, and the logs were floated down to them by
log drivers. Sawmills built on navigable rivers, lakes, or estuaries were called cargo mills because of the availability of ships transporting cargoes of logs to the sawmill and cargoes of lumber from the sawmill. The next improvement was the use of circular saw blades, perhaps invented in England in the late 18th century, but perhaps in 17th-century Netherlands. Soon thereafter, millers used gangsaws, which added additional blades so that a log would be reduced to boards in one quick step. Circular saw blades were extremely expensive and highly subject to damage by overheating or dirty logs. A new kind of technician arose, the
sawfiler. Sawfilers were highly skilled in metalworking. Their main job was to
set and sharpen teeth. The craft also involved learning how to
hammer a saw, whereby a saw is deformed with a hammer and anvil to counteract the forces of heat and cutting. Modern
circular saw blades have replaceable teeth, but still need to be hammered. in
Tampere, Finland, 1890s The introduction of
steam power in the 19th century created many new possibilities for mills. Availability of railroad transportation for logs and lumber encouraged building of rail mills away from navigable water. Steam powered sawmills could be far more mechanized. Scrap lumber from the mill provided a ready fuel source for firing the boiler. Efficiency was increased, but the capital cost of a new mill increased dramatically as well. By 1900, the largest sawmill in the world was operated by the Atlantic Lumber Company in
Georgetown, South Carolina, using logs floated down the
Pee Dee River from as far as the edge of the
Appalachian Mountains in
North Carolina. A restoration project for Sturgeon's Mill in Northern California is underway, restoring one of the last steam-powered lumber mills still using its original equipment. ==Current trends==