![]() This made mills safer by reducing chances of being scalded or killed by a boiler explosion or burst steam pipe. The biggest revolution of the 20th century in the mill itself is arguably moving from steam-driven machines to electric. IFG Forester Doug Bradetich says they use 100 percent of the timber that comes into the mills The efficiencies achieved – particularly in the past 40 years – are remarkable. In some ways, a beginning of keeping the yard clean is also the end of the story of how sawmills have changed in the past century. “A loader uses a log to ‘sweep up.’ The piles go to our ‘hog fuel’ burner, which makes steam for the dry-kiln.” He points to a pile of bark shed from logs as they are sorted into species-specific piles. “We use 100 percent of whatever comes in,” Idaho Forest Group (IFG) forester Doug Bradetich tells me as we walk across the log yard at IFG’s Laclede mill, a state-of-the-art plant cutting all local species to many specifications. Fiber became valuable enough to view as something other than waste. The Environmental Protection Act closed the door on that, but it was as much about economics as it was environment. ![]() Today, no burners spew sparks into the night. I did not stay on the millpond long enough to find out what summer might be like. In winter, one corner cooked while the other froze over. The burner stood like a lighthouse 150 feet off the starboard beam of a man pushing logs into the mill. The first was hard, somewhat hazardous work – I managed to fall into the pond my first night – and the second was boring and uncomfortable. One sorted logs – dumped en masse into the pond by a Cat loader – into an orderly row and pulled them toward the other, who used a pike pole to lever logs onto a conveyor chain that dragged them to the cutoff saw. On the periphery was a new device called a “chipper” and a huge tepee burner, receiving as much as 30 percent of what went into the mill. Stuffed between my dad and me was an assortment of machines – cutoff saw, debarker, head-rig, slab edger, double resaw, gang saw, single resaw, trim saws – connected to each other by open conveyors moving ever-reducing-sized pieces of wood – very quickly – toward the stacker. Finished stacks were hauled via forklift to the dry kiln and ultimately to the planer, where each board was smoothed and trimmed to 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches by 8 feet, standard framing lumber of the day. Boards that proceeded to the stacker were 2 inches thick by 4 inches wide by 8 feet, 3 inches long. The plant we worked in was specialized and newfangled. Sawmilling traditions of the first three-quarters of the century were fraying around the edges. The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) was a new idea and “enviros” were getting traction in the woods. Between him and me was a clanging, banging, rattling, whining, unheated, crowded, dangerous construction of sheet metal, electric motors, drive belts, chain conveyors, whirling saws, hydraulic rams, galvanized roofing, I-beams, concrete and wood that would never pass safety inspection today. He pulled “green” boards into orderly piles on the stacker. I pushed raw logs out of the dark waters of the millpond and into the mill. In another century, my dad and I worked swing shift one winter on opposite ends of a sawmill. Today’s mills are high-tech wonders, plus the industry and a history book they’re not your father’s sawmills
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