The design

The main part of the KMP mill would have worked, if the machinery were reversed. I could just get more scale lumber and build part of the model using their plans, but after a recent discussion here on copyright, I felt that would not be appropriate. So I've made a plan that copies some aspects of the model but is mostly based on research.

I've found a fair amount of material on the web, including several fascinating videos of sawmills in action on YouTube. My era is vague-- modern reconstructions of old time buildings, but I'm going for the sort of thing late 19th century lumber companies would throw up. From what I can find, these were little more than sheds, just a roof and minimal walls to protect the equipment from the rain. There was no attempt at fancy finish, probably because the buildings were practically guaranteed to burn down within a couple of years. The company would just dig the machinery out of the ashes and rebuild closer to the trees. This is typical of what I have seen:

It's pretty clear this was built by people in a hurry to get on to other things. I imagine the machinery was set up first, then used to cut the lumber the shed is built from. Board and batten roofs do not have the lasting power of shingles, but most companies expected to be long gone before the termites had gotten a good start. I should point out that this sort of mill is an intermediate step in lumbering workflow. Its job is to cut logs into easily handled rough boards, say 4" X 12", that are then shipped down to a finishing mill on the flatlands. 

The mill is built around the machinery, so that's the place to start. I have this "rural sawmill" from Woodland Senics:

These are white metal castings, not the best quality, but better than some I've dealt with. These will require a lot of clean-up and some modifications: for instance, the log carriage (bottom right) is only 7 feet long and the carriageway (bottom center) 20 feet. That severely limits the size of log that can be handled. A serious logging operation would work with 40' logs, but in the interest of selective compression, I'm willing to go with 20'. 40 footers will be hauled out of the woods, though, so I'll have to show them being cut in half. Increasing the log size will mean modifying the carriageway and building a new carriage.

With these parts in mind, I drew up a set of plans. I used EazyDraw 6 for Mac as my design application. It's sort of halfway between a CAD program and an illustrator-- I can freehand shapes to start, then refine sizes and add dimensions as needed. I set the plan to 1/87 scale so everything will print full size.

This is four pages. Everything is drawn with the rectangle or polygon tool. I use magnification a lot: shapes are first drawn in at 2X then the corners tweaked at 8X. Grid snapping (to the nearest scale inch) keeps everything aligned. I worked out the framing first, then duplicated that and put the sheathing right on top of the copy-- this makes everything match. There is an advanced duplication feature that makes it a snap to add 40 identical boards in a row.

Edit: As I start to build, I am discovering minor mistakes in the drawing, mostly in size call outs. I'll post a corrected, full size version when the project is finished.

The building dimensions are based on the KMP kit, 20' X 40'. The WS parts will fit nicely into this space, even after expansion:

I figured there's be a wood pile in the northeast corner, so I added a bit of wall to keep it dry. I'll add other fittings, such as a safety screen along the drive belt, as the need becomes apparent.

Here's how the mill will look from the front:

And here's the framing plan for one end.

I have the lumber on hand, so I'm ready to start. Should be fun.

pqe

Watching from here...

I have some good memories of rural sawmills. I built my first house board by board, paycheck by paycheck, from a local sawmill. I made friends with the sawyer and was able to just go to the mill and select lumber at any time, no matter if they were working or not. 

One of my wishes is to model one of the mills. It will be fun to watch your build. 

Sawmill details

I've just been clearing out three cartons of old MRs and pulled a couple of Jack Work articles from June and July 1968.  Small sawmills and machinery by the master scratchbuilder of his day.

David

Sawmill

There was a great series in the Gazette in the mid to late 80's I think. It was on scratch building an O scale mill and it was designed around the machinery too. Shrunk down to HO it would be 6x8 inches or thereabouts. It used a pond and the ramp/chain to get logs into the mill.

There was another article too in Model Railroading mag in the 90's or early 2000's. It went for over a year I think and went in for a lot of detail on construction.

I can't do better on the dates as all my mags are buried in a POD I'll be real interested to see how this one unfolds.

Jack 

Timber Times Issue 24

Timber Times Issue 24 has full size HO plans for a similar mill.

Tulsa

...

I fail to see any reason why you could not get a pile of scrap wood and use the original plans from the KMP mill to scratch build a new structure that suits your space.  Copyright rules withstanding.

Resources, copyright

The articles mentioned (not to mention Ken's actual experience) sound like excellent resources. I'll have to track them down. That will be in the future though, so please comment if I do anything that contradicts those sources.

As a musician and writer with skin in the game, I take copyright seriously. Yes, I can legally and ethically use the KMP plans, which I have paid for, to build a new structure- after all, I am allowed to read a book more than once. However, my intention is to blog about it as I go. Could I do that without showing the KMP plans? I don't know. So I'm starting from scratch.

pqe

Some Canadian & US steam mill inspiration for you

Hi Pelsea and all,

Have a look at the machinery layout inside the McLean's Mill at Port Alberni Canada It is fed from a log pond. It is a reasonably small mill and should go close to the size of your model sawmill

For another forum I put together the following plan based on the machinery in the McLean Mill  that was designed to fit in a tight space between 2 railway tracks.

Some important things to watch that will set the dimensions of your mill: 

• The log arrival area must be able to handle the longest length of your feed logs.
• The run out area for the main saw must be at least 2x the length of your feed to prevent the flitch being sawn from bumping into other flitches that have already been sawn that are awaiting feeding to the planer/slitter mill. Failure to do this could stop the next pass on the main saw. Ideally there should be some additional length in the run-out area to ensure separation. 
• The slitter saw run-out area also ought to be at least twice the length of your longest feed log as well for the same reason. At McLean's Mill the slitter saw output speed was quite fast. 
• The downstream cut-to-length saw is not shown in this plan. It is there to remove any defects in either the front or back of any lumber coming from the planer/slitter saw, as well a being able to cut full length output into shorter lengths for products like fence palings. 

Some other US inspiration can be had at the following YouTubes

In Georgia - an 1890's small steam-powered saw mill from light-up to cutting timber - It does have the cut-to-length saw, but might not have a planner/slitter mill:

and for comparison, the larger Sturgeon's Mill in California, working redwood feed logs

I wish I could help more...

It has been 40 years or so since I was in one of the mills. My wife's family was in the logging and lumber business in the Ozarks. Grandpa owned a tie mill and various relatives had mills too. The other grandpa cut and hewed ties in the woods and carried them out on his shoulder, and he was a small man. Amazing. 

Anyway, the mills were small to medium size single blade circular saw mills. This video shows something of similar size. 

There was always a sawdust mountain beside the mill building too. The small mills didn't burn the sawdust, but just piled it up. The only mill in the area that had a burner was a flooring mill. My house had flooring from the mill. The mill burned down shortly after I got my flooring. They would give you the scrap lumber from the flooring process to use for firewood. I miss those times. 

There is a small mostly open

There is a small mostly open air saw mill at a state park in Michigan.  Called Hartwick Pines.

They still run it on some weekends.  They also have some other related buildings such as a dorm and what have you.

It is also a really nice camp ground that I got to every couple years.

-Doug M

Cutting wood

Thanks for the links- they will be invaluable in detailing the structure.

I spent today cutting wood. On the KMP model, I stained my wood before cutting. That worked well enough, but I did have to touch up the ends of the boards. I thought I'd try the alternate approach this time around. The first step was to make a cut list. I'm not used to doing that for models, but I do when planning a 1:1 project so I know how much lumber to buy. In this case, it gave me a chance to double check the plans, forcing me to look at the thing board by board. Good thing too. I found several mistakes, which I will correct and post when the project is finished. (Who know what other changes I'll have to make?).

My cut lists are usually informal (scribbles on the usual graph paper) but I made this one in Excel:

Fancy, isn't it. There's probably a mistake there too. We'll see.

I set up to cut the angled boards first. My goto tool for angles is Midwest products Easy Miter Box. The tricky part of setting up a cut is to accurately measure the piece. One of the first things I learned from posting these build blogs was the secret of dividers- (someone commented and clued me in). I first pick up the dimension from a scale ruler:

That's a pair of drafting dividers my father used in college in 1930. He gave them to me in 1958. We both have kept them needle sharp. Here's a close-up to show how this ruler works:

It's just like an architect's rule. If you need a dimension like 3' 3", you place the right point on the 3 foot mark and the left point on the 3" mark to the left of zero. It's easier than it looks, because the markings are engraved, and the slot will lightly hold the point. Notice the chopsticks grip on the divider. If you hold them this way, you can easily spread or contract the points. Once you have the divider sized, it will stay that way if you handle it carefully. I use that to mark the lumber if I am cutting freehand or to set the stop if I am using a jig.

I use a piece of plastic as the stop, holding it with a clamp When cutting mitered wood, it is important that the stop fit tightly against the wall of the box and that the piece isn't roughly shoved into place. Either will give you a long cut. Here's the finished cut:

I like the Midwest box better than the ubiquitous aluminum one because it fits a razor saw better. It also allows me to use a blade to cut the thin stuff (saws just tear that up):

Of course, I have to take the back off of the razor blade. It will just pop off after I grind down the pinch at one end of the back.

For straight cuts I did more or less the same thing with my trusty chopper II. This all left me with a couple of hundred boards:

That's an ArtBin box with adjustable compartments. It is very handy for keeping projects organized and for preventing the grand flings I am prone to. (You know what I mean-- the parts are innocently sitting there in a bowl, and not paying attention, you pick up a tool from the bench, catching the bowl, and FLING!!)

Next step, staining. I've never stained individual bits this small, and would appreciate your suggestions.

Thanks for looking in.

pqe

I admire people that have

I admire people that have this much patience! I'm not one of them... Good luck and I'll be watching closely!

Staining individual bits

If I was doing this I would put some masking tape sticky side up on a board - cardboard - or whatever and line the boards up sideways on the masking tape.  

I would then stain one side, wait for them to dry (perhaps with the help of a fan or blow drier), turn them over and stain the other side.

...

My staining process includes staining a known piece to get a sense of the time needed to get the darkness I want [plus how many dips] and then throwing it all in the stain at once.  The result then is everything has the same similar level of stain, though individual pieces may be lighter or darker.

^^How I've done some ties

This is fun to watch! I came very close to getting my wife to do this. I designed a building in SketchUp, we bought the wood and she cut most of it. That's as far as that project got. But yeah like Benny I've just dunked the wood in a plastic container with the stain product.

Am I the only one that stains

Am I the only one that stains the wood before cutting it?

-Doug

...

If you stain before cutting, you end up with ends that are not stained.  If you stain the ends after cutting, you end up with uneven stain on the side ends of your lumber.

A question for the stainer?

Do you want all of the cut timbers stained "more or less the same" or do you want some significant colour variation in the stained timber? Sawmill Mark1 proves you are across the staining process - Well done for a well executed model.

The answer is pretty easy if you want the timbers stained "more or less the same" - use the container that they are stored in. 

• make up your stain to the intensity of colour you want  
• pour stain into container for a depth sufficient to cover the highest pile of timbers in a partition
• slowly swirl around (the stain will seep under the dividers) and ensure all timbers get a dunk. You can use an eyedropper to transfer stain into partitions where more stain is needed
• Drain off as much of your stain solution as you can into a bottle and keep for re-use
• If you are careful, invert the container onto about a 4-layer thickness of paper towel so that the partitions and the cut and stained timber are left behind on the paper towel (this is the easiest way of keeping your cut timbers sorted while they dry) Allow to air dry on the paper towel for 24 hours or so. 
• clean your container wth paper towel and place the container back over the partitions upside down
• Carefully invert the paper towel and the container - (this keeps your cut timbers sorted in their respective partitions)
• discard the paper towel, close the container lid and you are done.

If you want different levels of stain, then the staining process can be both simpler but involves more steps to achieve a varied stain. You have 2 basic ways to achieve this. For both processes below you will need to manage how your timbers are laid out for drying so that they can be accurately re-sorted back into their respective partitions in your container when you are done and you probably will need a good set of tweezers...  

Method 1 - make up however many different concentrations of stain that you want (for example 3, a light, medium and dark stain and store each separately. Separately pour each solution into a disposable aluminium baking tray, select some your timbers and dunk, then air dry each timber and replace into their respective partitions. Drain the stains back into their respective bottles, mark the bottles and store for future use. This method gives you several  bottles of different stains that can be used for future projects when done. 

Method 2 - start with your lightest stain in a disposable aluminium baking tray, remove about 1/3 of pieces from your storage box, stain, remove the cut timber from the stain and then let them air dry on paper towel, add more stain to the solution and repeat by dunking some more of your cut timber and then increasing the stain intensity ..until all cut timber is stained. This process results in 1 bottle of the final darkest stain.  

Some addition tips:   

1. For the smaller pieces, dip same length at a time For smaller pieces, use a disposable plastic spoon or tweezers to fish them out of the stain, and lay out  to dry on paper towel,  Keep similar sizes widely separated when they are drying. This will keep the same sizes of the smaller pieces segregated so that they cannot get mixed up.
2. For both methods 1 & 2 the aluminium trays can be wiped out with paper towel and re-used when another staining run is required.
3. There are 2 factors affecting the final colour of the stained timber:
   (a) the colour intensity of the stain - in simple terms - The more concentrated the stain the darker the final colour. However...
   (b) the time of immersion in the stain also has an effect - in simple terms the colour ibecomes more intense for a longer time in the stain BUT there is a time beyond which the stain colour will not get any darker. A longer time in the stain only increases the depth of penetration of the stain into the timber and will not increase the darkness of the stain at the surface of the timber. (a) is really the determining factor for how dark your finished stained timber can be, 

I hope that this helps,  

Lex Parker has a UTUBE video

Lex Parker has a UTUBE video of staining his bridge.

West coast sawmill terminology

Not to make corrections for anybody, but terminology does vary by region. I offer the following just as comments to be helpful for deciding how to build your mill. One of the most important issues is flow of the cants/boards from the log to the finished stack. Chains and rollers used to transport lengthwise, and parallel chains for transporting on the green chain crosswise.

Main saw = head rig

Slitter = resaw

cut to length = trim saw

table = green chain.

Most, if not all of the small mills had a maximum productivity length of 20 feet. Anything over that was usually a special order, even 24 ft joists.. Longer logs would move around as they traveled through the saw and lead to uneven cuts. Bridge timbers or other large structural stuff were always special orders. And special orders would severely cut into production. The product from the main saw that were to be run through a resaw are called cants. Lumber that was used locally was usually used as rough lumber, 2x4s were anywhere from 2"x4" to 2 1/2" x 4 1/4" or so. It severely cut production to use the head rig to cut 2x4s or 1x4s so the resaw, usually a sash gang (a series of saw blades  sort of like hand saw blades fixed in a frame that moved vertically in a reciprocating motion) or two sets of small circular saws set in a frame that could be moved along their shaft to vary the widths. Both of these were quite expensive so many small mills just cut everything on the head rig.

The cants were sometimes shipped to a resaw/planer mill by rail, flume or trucked. Right here where I live the primary mill cut large cants, 4 to 12 in. by 12 to 16 in.  or so and then flume them down to the planing mill for resawing and planing. Some lumber might go into dry kilns for finish lumber. The Broughton limber mill in the Columbia River Gorge flumed cants several miles.

The only mill that I ever saw that could cut 32 ft. regularly was the Fruit Growers mill near Lake Almanor in California and that was then resawn into box shook for orange and apple boxes. Weyerhauser could cut longer stuff in Springfield, Oregon or in Longview, Washington, but only as special orders. These mills of course, were large permanent installations until large logs started to become more scarce.

By a forester, former log scaler and sawmill hand.

...

All wood used in this photo were stained at the same time in the same batch of stain.  As you can see, the individual boards took up the stain differently.

Copyright

Deviating somewhat from the main thread, but addressing a related subject, I believe you can include the plans on the blog under the 'Fair Use' doctrine. I too have 'skin in the game' as a creator of graphic arts and phone apps. 'Fair Use' applies to representation to illustrate and not for commercial use. I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that if you include copyrighted material (with attribution) to illustrate a concept or point, you're in the clear. The trouble starts when people use unattributed material and represent it as their own, or use copyrighted material for commercial gain. 

If I dye I go to heaven, but where do I go when I stain?

I've spent the last few days trying to make new wood look old. I didn't have the nerve to try John's method, considering my inherent clumsiness, the restricted space I'm working in (the rain was coming down in buckets, so I had to work indoors), and the amount of stain I had on hand.

I did some experimenting, first with time:

This is Builders in Scale SilverWood stain, one of three solutions I tried. I left the sticks in the solution for various amounts of time:

Each stick is labeled with the number of minutes it spent in the bath. There was surprisingly little variation in color, especially after 24 hours of drying time. I wound up using it with 5 to 10 minutes of soak time. One interesting feature of this product is the sticks come out of the bath with hardly any color at all-- it only shows as the stain dries.

Also-rans:

• A Behr product from Home Depot. This is a mix to order process, which I thought might be useful, but it turned out that it's not really a stain, but some sort of varnish. You can paint it on and rub it off any old way, with no variation in the color at all due to technique. I guess this is a good thing considering the clientele of the store. The color I chose looked silver in the store, but was too blue in use.
• Good ol' India ink and Alcohol. This is getting hard to make because most things sold as "India Ink" are not soluble in alcohol. They are some kind of acrylic to satisfy pollution laws, I guess. The product that worked is by Pro-Art.  It stains well, but is too black for this project.
• I have tried leather dye in the past- it is also too black.
• My favorite stain is min-wax, but they don't have this color.

Left to right-- SilverWood after 5 and 10 minutes, India Ink, and Behr wood stain formula ST107.

So, having chosen SilverWood, I needed to come up with an easy system for staining 325 pieces of wood. I've seen some really classy staining setups on these pages, but with a low budget and zero storage space, I need to improvise. I've been thinking of something along the lines of a fishnet in a bucket. While Christmas shopping I came across this:

Nearly everything I need for 3 bucks-- a net and plastic tweezers (I haven't found  a use for the little jar yet.) The pantry yielded an aluminum pan for the solution. I bent the pan to fit the amount of solution I had. With this setup I can dip a fairly large batch of wood:

Of course wood floats, so I cut a piece of furnace filter (the adjustable kind, cutting it leaves quite a lot of useful scrap) to hold it down:

Whoops, still floats, plastic mesh and all. Fishing weights to the rescue:

After a ten minute soak, I dump the lot onto a piece of paper towel and separate the strips:

As I said, the color darkens as the alcohol dries. It's kind of like watching film develop. This system works well, except I found the thinnest boards have a tendency to stick together, especially if I try too many at once. That leaves an uncolored side on each. I had to divide a couple of batches and redo them.

For tiny pieces, I used a tea bag for dipping:

The mesh on this brand of bag is almost too fine, I had to swirl it around to get the stain inside. Here it is just out of the pot- the wood looks like new, except for the ends. (These Mighty Leaf bags are also a good source of scale fence mesh.)

For long pieces, I made a basket out of the furnace filter mesh:

It also needs a mesh cover and weights:

After about six hours, all of my wood was some shade of silver, and I was out of stain.

There's more color than this photo shows, but it is accurate as to blotches. Those happened on the last few batches as the stain was getting low. I tried to extend it with a bit of alcohol, but that didn't work out too well. Luckily, the blotches are only on one side, and that can be hidden. Or, I can get more stain and redo them. And of course, there's always paint. I'll see as the model goes together.

Here is a close-up of some roof boards:

And for those who are morbidly curious, yes, there was one fling. Luckily it involved the drying pan and not the stain pan, but there was plenty of colorful language as I searched for little grey pieces of wood on a grey carpet. My wife looked at me funny the rest of the day.

Next, building and painting the floor.

Thanks for looking, and Merry Christmas.

pqe

...

I found with staining that if you stain it once, let it dry, and then stain it again, you get much quicker, darker staining than if you stain for a long period of time.  Your pieces look like they are a great shade now, though, so I would Not stain again!

The trick to leather dye and denatured alchohol is the amount of alcohol used. Sometimes you may be look at as many as 40 drops of alcohol to one drop of leatherdye.  I love my leatherdye, and speaking of which, I have to get more - I'm pretty much out!