I just had a look back on my last entry on the water powered Mulay saw mill, its barrel wheel, and realized I need to continue working my way up to the cutting blade, its attachments, the log carriage, the upper saw guides, and many of its sensitive intricacies, and settings that will ensure a straight, square edged and useful piece of rough sawn lumber, acceptable for use in the early building trades, and I must say all that was available in many rural areas
What really got me thinking about the mill was a conversation I had recently with my son in regards to the mill and the operation of the mill in regards to the successful sawing of lumber and how it was accomplished on what at first glance appears to be a very rough and crude mechanism by today's standards
let us just look at the business end of the mill, we will deal with the framework that supports the log as it is being sawn, how it is constructed, how it moves accurately in both directions by the stationary vertical blade, as it smoothly moves up and down--imagine this--the saw miller gently opens the penstock admitting water into the barrel wheel, the blade comes to life and begins to move slowly up and then down probably at 25 rpm, idling speed, no sound just the rush of the water in the lower part of the mill, at this point the sliding gate is just cracked open and when needed can be opened to bring the blade up to an operating speed of 125 rpm