(jeb@oscalemag.com). - O Scale Trains Magazine Online

A Backwoods SawmillCharlie FlichmanI wanted a small sawmill for one of the sidings on my On3Rio Grande Southern layout. At the 2003 National NarrowGauge Convention, Sierra West was showing their new sawmillequipment kits, former produced by CHB. You can see photosof all of these kits by going to [www.sierrawestscalemodels.com]. These kits really look nice, but I was unsure of whatpieces I wanted. Years ago, I had purchased one of KeystoneLocomotive Works’ Danby Sawmill kits, which was producedin 1978. Upon looking over the kit, I decided that parts of itwere not up to today’s standards for detail. I decided to use thesteam engine and a lot of the small details included with theDanby kit, but decided to replace the husk (saw) and log carriagefrom the Danby kit with the same from Sierra West Models.In reviewing the rest of the Sierra West sawmill equipment,there was a carriage drive with hardware and a sawdust blower,live-rolls, a cutoff saw and dead-rolls, a log turner, log deck,a log haul, an edger and overhead line shaft system. Now thequestion to be answered was, “What do I want to include in mysawmill?”One of the fun parts of the hobby for me is to research aproject. I collected all of the magazine articles on sawmills thatI had, to determine what equipment to include in my sawmill.Mine was not to be a full blown mill with all of the trimmings.I didn’t want a log pond as I didn’t have the room for one inthe area that this mill was going located. Therefore, I didn’tneed the log haul equipment, which is what is used to get thelogs from the pond up to the log deck. My mill wasn’t going toproduce finished lumber, so the edger equipment that trims theboards to a finished width was not needed. This mill will provideties and rough cut lumber.The Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette carried a series ofarticles, called “The Sawmill Chronicles” (from July 1984 toMarch 1986), covering the construction of the then CHB sawmillequipment kits, so I won’t repeat any of that here. Thesearticles proved to be very helpful in determining what pieces Iwanted and didn’t want. I made a preliminary plan as to whatwould fit into my allotted space. Then, a phone call was madeto Sierra West and I purchased the kits for the husk, carriagedrive and hardware, live-rolls, cutoff saw and dead-rolls, logturner, log deck and overhead line shaft system.I built the husk, the log carriage, and the table parts of thelive and dead-rolls. The live-rolls are powered, which gives themtheir name, and the drive shaft for these rolls is contained withinthe floor joists of the mill. The articles in the NG Gazettes andthe Sierra West manual show that some of the wood supportparts of these models are dummies, and they will be replaced byparts of the sawmill structure that you are building. Both of theseresources build the equipment free of the sawmill structure. Oneof the articles in the Gazette series built the floor support struc-Fig. 120 • O Scale Trains - Mar/Apr ’07