steam powered vertical saw

[catoninetails]

I am currently working on a 3D visualisation of an historical penal settlement in Tasmania, Australia.

Included in the site was a steam powered vertical and circular saw. The historical plans i have availiable dont offer enough detail in terms of its gears and expressions and alas i am simply a lowly 3D modeller not an engineer.

If anyone knows a publication, website, article etc which you think would hepl me it would be greatly appreciated.

cheers

 

[JStephen]

Try the world of model railroading- those folks get interested in stuff like this.

In the early days of US steam, much of the equipment was imported from England, quite likely the case there and many other places in the world as well. So information on practically any steam-powered-sawmills should be of use to you.

 

[unclesyd]

If you can get to library and their reference section. There are handbooks, especially by Audel, in the US that cover nearly all the steam powered sawmill equipment used the US. This was especially true for the Northwest US and Western Canada.
Every steam engine mechanic and operator had the Audel books. Some of the steam engine groups might have some references.
I had several Audels until they walked off.

Wiley still publishes these handbooks so you might contact them to see who might have a collection of the older editions.

http://www.wiley.com

 

[TBP]

I think you'll find most (if not all) equipment of this era was driven by flat leather belts off the flywheels of the steam engines. Factories typically had line-shafts that extended for considerable distances, with wooden wheels of various diameter. The belts on these drove whatever factory machinery there was to drive. Some machines had to be driven opposite others off the same shaft, so that's why the flat belts were sometimes looped in figure-8's - that reversed the drive wheel on the driven machine.

 

[rmw]

Early in my career I had a client that was a saw mill, and it was pulled with a corlyss steam engine pulling a line shaft that provided power to the whole mill. My involvement was the wood fired boiler and steam system, but there was something magical about going next door into the engine room and watching that huge machine with its 19 ft dia flywheel pull that belt.

There were vertical saws somewhere in the line (to stay on topic) but, they were pulled by the line shaft, not independently steam operated. The only other steam operated equipment in the saw mill was the horizontal saw carriage and the cylinders that turned the logs over. (can't say their name in the venacular that was used.)

The chuk-plop chuk-plop noise of the valve action was mesmorizing. I am glad that I got the opportunity to see one of these monsters run in every day service. Sorry I can't help on directly driven vertical saws.

rmw