A bit OT, steam sawmill on the Woodwright's Shop

Alan · **Posted:** Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:44 pm

Someone on another forum I read posted this link to the online video episode of the Woodwright's Shop's visit to an operating steam powered saw mill. This would be great for everyone involved in the Southern Forest Heritage Museum to see, and I hope they can become something like this:

http://flash.unctv.org/woodwrightss/2900/wws_2907.html

Jeff Newenhof · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 1:59 am

Not as big as the sawmill on the show, but there is a small steam sawmill at the High Desert Museum just south of Bend, Oregon.

http://www.highdesertmuseum.org/exhibit ... a_Sawmill/

Gary Gray · **Posted:** Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:07 pm

The Somerset Steam & Gas Engine Association near Orange, Va. operates a steam sawmill also. Scroll down the photos. They put on a very nice show every year.

http://somersetsteamandgas.org/photos.html

Warren · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:16 am

A "under running" Corliss? Hmmmm. But being a woodworker and steam dude,it was all very interesting never the less. Thank you!!

jim templin · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:51 pm

"Under running corliss" refers to the direction the engine runs. In stationary engine practice, an engine is said to run "under" when the crankshaft rotation away from the cylinder occurs with the "under stroke" rather than the "over stroke". A steam locomotive costomarily runs "Under" when in forward motion, and runs "over" when in reverse.

elueck · **Posted:** Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:12 am

Speaking for the Southern Forest Heritage Museum, we would love to be able to share the same sort of experience with our visitors. Fortunately, we do have our totally belt driven machine shop fully functional. Our 1920 Allis-Chalmers Corliss engine that used to power the planer mill is also functional, but the 1920 boilers that feed it have not felt a fire since 1954.
As of this date, we have not done any work on the Corliss that powered the sawmill. We would be happy if we could restore the sawmill to its 1957 condition and run it on electricity.
We are hoping that over the winter we will complete the restoration of Fernwood Columbia and Gulf motor car M-4, replace a large number of ties on our previously existing railroad track, an finally surface and align the railroad trackage that we rebuilt and built this past autumn. If we can complete at least a portion of this work, we plan to offer regular train service on Saturdays in 2010.
We invite all of the RYPN readers to visit us and see our progress!