Great thread:
Long braces were used by the better millwrights to steady structures such as the Mulley saw mills of the 1846 vintage and earlier.
One that I am familiar with had no short braces but relied only on 4" by 6" long braces crisscrossing each other in the outer wall cavities, and repeated for each every bent, notice none were pegged either, lets make that clear here. These braces ran from the sills up to within 12" of the upper plates, and were on an even run and rise.
They were intentionally inserted to steady the building as the sawing equipment ie; the log frame carriage started forward and stopped between each stroke of the pitman during the sawing action.
The building was 2 storey, and had identical bracing on the lower floor.
The huge timbers over and under the saw blade guides (20" square by 30'long) had double braces and double supporting posts on each end, the timbers sat in dovetail sockets between each set of supporting posts with wedges to ensure that they could not move,
even with all this lateral support the building would still respond to the sawing action slightly, and uncanny as it may seem you could feel the frame respond even to a person walking around.
NH
