I am always impressed at how ingenious and creative the men were who designed and actually built these water powered saw & grist mills. I wonder how long it took to build this mill? Yep, times were a lot slower then, and it shows in the quality of the workmanship. And the lumber...wow...not your Home Depot lumber, that's for sure...back then, 2 x 4's were real 2 x 4's....not some cheap quality wood and considerably smaller than a 2 x 4. Thanks, Herb, for this wonderful look at this mill.
Thank for comments. We have a smaller water-powered sash sawmill at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine. It took volunteers many years to get it running properly. Here is a video of it sawing lumber last weekend: ua-cam.com/video/30tBXWrZrH0/v-deo.html
The other reason for the change in size is the change in the whole sawmilling industry, back when sawmills like this were popular the wood would be transported through the water and often times sit in the water up to a year, as a result of this the way the wood dries was very different meaning it would stay the same size as it is milled exactly, today 2x4 lumber is cut to approx 2x4 then kiln dried, and warps and twists in this process which requires finishing to bring to a useable piece of lumber (less than 2x4)
iliketobuildstuff....Thanks for the information. So...if today's mills know that a kiln dried 2 x 4 will actually come out at 1 1/2 x 3 1/2, then they could just as easily start with a larger dimension timber and have it finished to a true 2 x 4. But if they did that, they would not get as much profit out of a log. Yea, sounds rather cynical, but that's the way the almighty 'bottom line' philosophy is today.
It is not a law that they have to be slower. Making them go really fast would just wear things out faster. But there are other ways such as increasing the number of blades so that you can cut the same amount of wood at one time, but by using multiple saws.
iliketobuildstuff I work at a saw mill, and trust me, we aren’t trying to scam consumers. A modern 2x4 is 1 1/2” by 3 1/2”. Thats the international standard for construction. If mills started cranking out full 2x4’s, carpenters would have to learn a new scale for laying out their frames. I know every saw mill is different, but at ours, me recycle all of our waste cuts, either to mulch, chips, or firewood, so we aren’t really concerned about squeezing the most we can out of every log.
First "industrial" place I ever visited as a kid. The blacksmith shop was my favorite. Now I'm a Millwright, Machinst & Welder. Excellent place for kids.
Thanks so much for the video...me and my wife are only in our 30's but still love seeing the ways of the good ol' days and even talk about if only we could go back to those times. Amazes us how there is nearly 215,000 views on your video but only a little over 1,000 people even thought to leave it a thumbs up!
Thank you for your comment. I volunteer at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine where we have a similar but smaller water powered sawmill that we run in the summer. It is a joy to work with. Come visit sometime if you have a chance. ua-cam.com/video/O2fESvZ9vOg/v-deo.html
Fantastic! I love these old machines, I would love to work there, explaining the machinery and doing the repairs. My friend in Southern Ohio, resurrected a semi-portable, 1900s era saw mill with a steel blade, it would have been powered by a semi-portable steam engine, it its day. He powered his by a power-take-off, on the back of a 1945 Jeep. He made an ok living cutting railroad ties, and wood benches for small sport stadiums.
Great mill, the saw machinery looks similar to what was used in the Dutch wind mills, brilliant to see these mills still working, ingenious design, out forefathers sure were clever. I've always wanted to own a water powered weaving and spinning mill
Thanks for the advice. We have a similar sawmill at the Maine Forest and Logging Museum in Maine with wooden gears. The teeth appear to be rock maple and are holding up well.
not really primitive as such, it's actually built through education/knowledge. primitive would be how the American Indians made arrow-heads. *being square, pardon me.
i wouldnt really call it primitive. we use the same technology now in wood shop tools. the only actual difference is the source of rotation/torque. one uses a water wheel and current tools use an electric motor. outside of that the designs havent really changed in basic design in millennia. open up any lathe some time youll see even now you can run them off any belt driven system.
Thanks for your comment. We have a similar water-powered sawmill at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine. We just posted a description of the technical details you might enjoy: www.maineforestandloggingmuseum.org/…/Leonards-Mills…
Was playing Kingdom Come Deliverance this morning and noticed this device near Sasau Monestary along the river. Now I found this video. Amazing. Thanks for uploading this.
Very educational and interesting ! Things such as this are falling away from historical facts and memory. In this instance, this is an informative video!
Thanks for your comment. You can see another water powered sawmill running this summer at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine. Here is a link to their website: www.maineforestandloggingmuseum.org/
This is a very impressive structure and machine. Seeing it in real life is really neat. Overall, Kings Landing is a interesting place to learn about life as a settler in North America.
I visited the mill years ago and have always wanted to build a smaller water powered saw from scratch , ill get round to it one day. the settlement is outstanding. I see some people commented on how slow it was. I thought that was the genius part of the mechanism for its time that it stopped hand sawyers breaking their backs. if I still lived down the road to kings landing I have to spend every spare hour I have in the settlement as a volunteer.
The first water-powered sawmill in North America was in what is now Maine in the 1620s, but it was on the Great Works River in what is now York County, the southernmost county in the state of Maine.
went to France, I visited the Vosges country. I saw the same sawmills. Energy was water, and many of these sawmills are still spinning. In French, they are called: Scierie à Haut Fer
I'm surprised how much torque that water wheel delivers, seeing how it goes from a big -> small gear ratio and then that directly drives the saw mechanism. And it's all wood-on-wood too. I can see why water wheels were used for a long time for textile mills, besides the constant speed with varying load thing.
They are not forced to sit at a desk or assembly line all day, attend useless meetings, bad lighting, sick buildings, with people that don't like each other and the constant threat of losing your job due to office politics and an ass-kissing middle manager looking to get promoted by any means necessary.
@@Lestat3721 Hey doofus, these waterwheel-powered sawmills haven't been around for a couple thousand years and so it's obvious to anyone with common sense to see where T Wal was coming from
@@get-the-lead-out.4593 That particular one, no, but by the time this particular one was made, they were already in use for a couple thousand years. It'd be like someone calling the new Ford car a miracle, because it is the new model.
@@Lestat3721 Huh? What? lol well I'm not trying to be mean but I an all seriousness you got your head shoved a little much up your butt....you're now saying no not that particular water-powered saw mill, when it's that particular saw mill being the one that is the whole focus of T Wal's comment and the particular one being the point here as well ...and as for your astray analogy of the Ford car that youre using to back up your logic, there are in FACT times that car manufactures including Ford will bring out a new model that has totally amazing technology, features, designs, etc etc and yes called or looked at as a miracle by MILLIONS of advertisements, magazine articles, news headlines, and then by millions of people and one reason being that although the car itself is no longer seen by 99% of people as a miracle, the technology, features, designs, etc etc that have been developed for them are often seen as a miracle. Another important thing to keep in mind is that T Wal's comment is based on the people's perspective back 400 years ago who many of them would see this as a miracle, and so you have to imagine back then how they didn't have all these ways to see things all around the world to see/know about all the other waterwheel saw mills that may have been built with the same things. They had horse and buggy style transportation and so wasn't like they took vacations to go see a bunch of them whereby being desensitized to there miracle-like attributes , and thus when this saw mill was built, it was something large, amazing, fascinating, new or at least newer, and yes even a miracle or at least in a sense a miracle especially when the people knew how much their town's saw mill would provide the much needed lumber for them right where they could have easy access to it and could build their town's other needs from the revenue it created...and also so no more traveling far to other towns to get lumber or having the labor-intensive task of making their own with basic tools in comparison to having a saw mill, etc etc
There's remains of old cornmill in North Yorkshire, UK, that has a horizontal mainwheel driven by a pinion from the disappeared waterwheel. The teeth of the mainwheel are made of wood but apple was the preferred wood.
They just grew a new tree the size of board they needed. On a more serious side note, definitely very cool and looking at the swarf it seems evident that the feed rate is set really low.
steam has lots of power when you look at those pulleys and reduced gear ratios that log is nothing to the power of that drive, when you look at the steam expanding 1 to 1700 of its original volume
@@sullivanpecharka3830 Exactly... no one needs to be so hard on someone else just for asking a question that they sincerely want to know and not just goofing around with it .
Originally there was probably a water source higher than the mill to replenish the pond. Later, the pumps may have been steam powered, and still later powered by one or two stationary engines probably powered by gasoline.
In the UK, I have heard it said thay use Applewood for the TEETH on the cogs, as its more durable, they say oak is too hard and abrasive, give it a try.
Legend has it that this mill has been cutting the same peice of wood for over 3 centuries
No fair ... lol!
Haha
I like it. Know why it’s clean, good clean fun! No body gets hurt
All the wood at that place is cut in that mill, it takes minutes
Hey at least it can work 24/7 and not take breaks haha.
I visited when my daughter was 8 year’s old. At 28 she stills remember this fabulous outing.
I am always impressed at how ingenious and creative the men were who designed and actually built these water powered saw & grist mills. I wonder how long it took to build this mill? Yep, times were a lot slower then, and it shows in the quality of the workmanship. And the lumber...wow...not your Home Depot lumber, that's for sure...back then, 2 x 4's were real 2 x 4's....not some cheap quality wood and considerably smaller than a 2 x 4. Thanks, Herb, for this wonderful look at this mill.
Thank for comments. We have a smaller water-powered sash sawmill at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine. It took volunteers many years to get it running properly. Here is a video of it sawing lumber last weekend: ua-cam.com/video/30tBXWrZrH0/v-deo.html
The other reason for the change in size is the change in the whole sawmilling industry, back when sawmills like this were popular the wood would be transported through the water and often times sit in the water up to a year, as a result of this the way the wood dries was very different meaning it would stay the same size as it is milled exactly, today 2x4 lumber is cut to approx 2x4 then kiln dried, and warps and twists in this process which requires finishing to bring to a useable piece of lumber (less than 2x4)
iliketobuildstuff....Thanks for the information. So...if today's mills know that a kiln dried 2 x 4 will actually come out at 1 1/2 x 3 1/2, then they could just as easily start with a larger dimension timber and have it finished to a true 2 x 4. But if they did that, they would not get as much profit out of a log. Yea, sounds rather cynical, but that's the way the almighty 'bottom line' philosophy is today.
It is not a law that they have to be slower. Making them go really fast would just wear things out faster. But there are other ways such as increasing the number of blades so that you can cut the same amount of wood at one time, but by using multiple saws.
iliketobuildstuff I work at a saw mill, and trust me, we aren’t trying to scam consumers. A modern 2x4 is 1 1/2” by 3 1/2”. Thats the international standard for construction. If mills started cranking out full 2x4’s, carpenters would have to learn a new scale for laying out their frames. I know every saw mill is different, but at ours, me recycle all of our waste cuts, either to mulch, chips, or firewood, so we aren’t really concerned about squeezing the most we can out of every log.
First "industrial" place I ever visited as a kid. The blacksmith shop was my favorite. Now I'm a Millwright, Machinst & Welder. Excellent place for kids.
So milling was a gateway trade?
Where is this at??
This is crazy i live in NB
By far the coolest thing I've seen in a long time! Thanks!
In its day, these mills saved a lot of backs. Plus they were faster then by hand.
Thanks so much for the video...me and my wife are only in our 30's but still love seeing the ways of the good ol' days and even talk about if only we could go back to those times.
Amazes us how there is nearly 215,000 views on your video but only a little over 1,000 people even thought to leave it a thumbs up!
Thank you for your comment. I volunteer at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine where we have a similar but smaller water powered sawmill that we run in the summer. It is a joy to work with. Come visit sometime if you have a chance. ua-cam.com/video/O2fESvZ9vOg/v-deo.html
Fantastic! I love these old machines, I would love to work there, explaining the machinery and doing the repairs. My friend in Southern Ohio, resurrected a semi-portable, 1900s era saw mill with a steel blade, it would have been powered by a semi-portable steam engine, it its day. He powered his by a power-take-off, on the back of a 1945 Jeep. He made an ok living cutting railroad ties, and wood benches for small sport stadiums.
Great mill, the saw machinery looks similar to what was used in the Dutch wind mills, brilliant to see these mills still working, ingenious design, out forefathers sure were clever. I've always wanted to own a water powered weaving and spinning mill
Kings landing is p outstanding.The setting, is fabulous. The sawmill is incredible. Its truly heavy duty.
There's something to love about primitive technology!
Thanks for the advice. We have a similar sawmill at the Maine Forest and Logging Museum in Maine with wooden gears. The teeth appear to be rock maple and are holding up well.
not really primitive as such, it's actually built through education/knowledge. primitive would be how the American Indians made arrow-heads. *being square, pardon me.
Kyle Bittle not primitive at all there are wheels and axels , inclined plans and levers on the Space Shuttle......
i wouldnt really call it primitive. we use the same technology now in wood shop tools. the only actual difference is the source of rotation/torque. one uses a water wheel and current tools use an electric motor. outside of that the designs havent really changed in basic design in millennia. open up any lathe some time youll see even now you can run them off any belt driven system.
In what world is this primitive
At one time these were state of the art high tech. In some ways they still are.
Great educational video.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment. We have a similar water-powered sawmill at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine. We just posted a description of the technical details you might enjoy:
www.maineforestandloggingmuseum.org/…/Leonards-Mills…
That is real neat! Thanks for posting your excellent video!
A fascinating look into the past AND the present! Thanks for making this video and your informative explanation!
Was playing Kingdom Come Deliverance this morning and noticed this device near Sasau Monestary along the river. Now I found this video. Amazing. Thanks for uploading this.
I just love Kings Landing. When I was a kid I wished that I could live there. Now I’m a history teacher...and I still wish I could live there.
Fascinating! I could easily spend all day there. Are they by chance taking any job applications? The scenery there is Absolutely Gorgeous!
Very educational and interesting ! Things such as this are falling away from historical facts and memory. In this instance, this is an informative video!
Thanks for your comment. You can see another water powered sawmill running this summer at Leonard's Mills in Bradley, Maine. Here is a link to their website:
www.maineforestandloggingmuseum.org/
This is a very impressive structure and machine. Seeing it in real life is really neat.
Overall, Kings Landing is a interesting place to learn about life as a settler in North America.
Simply awesome. I love old things and lumber. Combine the two and I’m in Heaven.
Come from a long line of Mill operators, never saw a fancy boy in a pair of slacks and vest in a mill. :)
Wonderful post. A pleasure to watch.
Very interesting! Thank you.
worked on the cross roads 43 years ago to kings landing was there when they first started the saw up
True craftsmanship at its finest. What a treasure.
Nice video man! Thank you!
I visited the mill years ago and have always wanted to build a smaller water powered saw from scratch , ill get round to it one day.
the settlement is outstanding. I see some people commented on how slow it was. I thought that was the genius part of the mechanism for its time that it stopped hand sawyers breaking their backs. if I still lived down the road to kings landing I have to spend every spare hour I have in the settlement as a volunteer.
WOW!!!! Simple and crude but amazing effective. Especially for 1600s technology
Wow,I think I have a jigsaw puzzle of this mill. It’s amazing and very ingenious how it all works. Beautiful 🤗
what a beautiful place i could hang out there for ever !!!
I was told as a child that Elm was the best wood for gears. But that was before the Dutch Elm disease. Oh, and, that was told to me in 1969.
And any wood is good for the o. Lady
TilDeath1776 US Surely not soft wood, wouldn't only hard wood be of use in this application.
hickory is still the best handle wood though
very Cool, thanks!
Everything must be very synchronized. A slight error and snapped teeth and cogs would be the result. Amazing to see it working.
A very interesting video. Thank you
That is beautiful!
What a cool old industrial age they built back then. Light years ahead of the old 2 man pitsaw.
That's incredible!
The first water-powered sawmill in North America was in what is now Maine in the 1620s, but it was on the Great Works River in what is now York County, the southernmost county in the state of Maine.
now that real history its not the speed you go its the direction your headed in thank you
went to France, I visited the Vosges country. I saw the same sawmills. Energy was water, and many of these sawmills are still spinning. In French, they are called: Scierie à Haut Fer
awesome.......... I love it........
I'm surprised how much torque that water wheel delivers, seeing how it goes from a big -> small gear ratio and then that directly drives the saw mechanism. And it's all wood-on-wood too.
I can see why water wheels were used for a long time for textile mills, besides the constant speed with varying load thing.
The best part is free power.
Something tells me these mills cut more than 1 twelve foot board per day.
Very similar in type and age to the wind sawmills in The Netherlands. Fascinating.
Huge waterwheel, nice to see it working and well.
Listening to that noise all day for how many years. Not one work place shooting. What has this world come too. We're all going backwards.
They are not forced to sit at a desk or assembly line all day, attend useless meetings, bad lighting, sick buildings, with people that don't like each other and the constant threat of losing your job due to office politics and an ass-kissing middle manager looking to get promoted by any means necessary.
@@oldmanfromscenetwentyfour8164 Well said 👍
Guns don't kill people but sawmills with a gun do.
Must have seemed like a miracle in this wild land 400 yrs ago when they opened the gates and it turned the wheel.
I don't think it would really been seen as a miracle, seeing as how waterwheels have been around for a couple thousand years.
@@Lestat3721
Hey doofus, these waterwheel-powered sawmills haven't been around for a couple thousand years and so it's obvious to anyone with common sense to see where T Wal was coming from
@@get-the-lead-out.4593 That particular one, no, but by the time this particular one was made, they were already in use for a couple thousand years. It'd be like someone calling the new Ford car a miracle, because it is the new model.
@@Lestat3721
Huh? What? lol well I'm not trying to be mean but I an all seriousness you got your head shoved a little much up your butt....you're now saying no not that particular water-powered saw mill, when it's that particular saw mill being the one that is the whole focus of T Wal's comment and the particular one being the point here as well
...and as for your astray analogy of the Ford car that youre using to back up your logic, there are in FACT times that car manufactures including Ford will bring out a new model that has totally amazing technology, features, designs, etc etc and yes called or looked at as a miracle by MILLIONS of advertisements, magazine articles, news headlines, and then by millions of people and one reason being that although the car itself is no longer seen by 99% of people as a miracle, the technology, features, designs, etc etc that have been developed for them are often seen as a miracle.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that T Wal's comment is based on the people's perspective back 400 years ago who many of them would see this as a miracle, and so you have to imagine back then how they didn't have all these ways to see things all around the world to see/know about all the other waterwheel saw mills that may have been built with the same things. They had horse and buggy style transportation and so wasn't like they took vacations to go see a bunch of them whereby being desensitized to there miracle-like attributes , and thus when this saw mill was built, it was something large, amazing, fascinating, new or at least newer, and yes even a miracle or at least in a sense a miracle especially when the people knew how much their town's saw mill would provide the much needed lumber for them right where they could have easy access to it and could build their town's other needs from the revenue it created...and also so no more traveling far to other towns to get lumber or having the labor-intensive task of making their own with basic tools in comparison to having a saw mill, etc etc
They couldn't have opened it 400 years ago because they didn't have electric water pumps like this mill uses.
Makes me miss my home state so much! Love it in Maine
Thank you sir. It is educational.
Amazing.
I’d love to see one driving a circular table saw like Hanson’s Mill on Little House on the Prarie. Seems like it cut wood fairly fast.
Cette scierie est tout à fait similaire aux scieries que l'on trouvait dans les Vosges en France et en Ardenne Belge
There's remains of old cornmill in North Yorkshire, UK, that has a horizontal mainwheel driven by a pinion from the disappeared waterwheel.
The teeth of the mainwheel are made of wood but apple was the preferred wood.
great video! do they give public tourrs of the facilty?
Yes, this mill runs several times a day during the summer. You can check the King's Landing website for times.
I saw in France, Vosges region, sawmills similar to this one. They are over 100 years old
Beautiful 👌
VOUS ETES UNE référence ,chez les bélikeux
Ironic they have to replenish the dam with two electric motors.
But I enjoyed the doc.
Love the view☺️
I like the indexing device...was that on the 1623, or a later improvement?
Have seen this indexing ratchet on other mills including one in the Maine State Museum but unsure when it was first developed.
How long does the blade stay sharp ?
''powered by water'' -we use 2 electric pumps to pump the water up to the wheel
I want one of these for Christmas
wow, cool stuff.
I'm convinced that falling water is a solution to the energy issue.. . capture the power...!
fantastic old mill..... he said all wood on wood is the steel to steel I see a upgrade ?
How was the first mill built if you need lumber to build it with and you need a mill to cut lumber?
Pit saws using 2 men were used previously to make lumber: ua-cam.com/video/vJeaOO_I5R8/v-deo.html
wow. thank you.
I like that it uses a electric motor to pump water in to the pond to power the mill
This blade just goes vertically, Wickes was the first to have a blade that slanted each stroke to maintain cut on each tooth.
Wood really be impressive if the saw blade was made of wood too, obsidian wood be even more impressive. :D
The docent kind of looks and sounds like Wolfgang Puck
New brunswick canada? i was thinking Westeros
The narration sounds like something out of Sesame Street.
Fascinating
Of course Maine was the first
to have a water weal mill for wood.
It was not Maine or even the United States at that time it was Acadia.
Did you ever finish cutting that one board?
I don't think the feed was set very fast for the sample board
7 months later...... NO...!
its slow but allows the workers to have constant coffee breaks
My question exactly!
They just grew a new tree the size of board they needed.
On a more serious side note, definitely very cool and looking at the swarf it seems evident that the feed rate is set really low.
We use hard white maple for gears on our mill in Indiana, USA.
Where’s this mill at? I’d like to visit.
They say portable saw mills are slow ... but this my god
You should try it by hand ...
steam has lots of power when you look at those pulleys and reduced gear ratios that log is nothing to the power of that drive, when you look at the steam expanding 1 to 1700 of its original volume
recently saw a portable where the cut over 5,000 board feet in a day. go look at "acorn to Arabella" on youtube
i want one you need to have a collage come in an do blue print's on this mill
Install more blades because the force is good enough.
What an amazing piece of technology
I wanna buy a place just like it!😁
2 electric pumps? How did the mill get the water back in the day?
It is for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE ...!!! ...You asshole...! Obviously, the original mill in those days was installed in the upstream ...!
@@potatosalad5355 damn why so agressive. Its a valid question.
@@sullivanpecharka3830
Exactly... no one needs to be so hard on someone else just for asking a question that they sincerely want to know and not just goofing around with it .
It is bizarre as the whole Western World. To pump water up the hill - to use water fall to turn the wheel. God speed!
Originally there was probably a water source higher than the mill to replenish the pond. Later, the pumps may have been steam powered, and still later powered by one or two stationary engines probably powered by gasoline.
In the UK, I have heard it said thay use Applewood for the TEETH on the cogs, as its more durable, they say oak is too hard and abrasive, give it a try.
So cool.
awesome
its driving me nuts that the blade does not engage more than 3/4 its length.
yeah but it would use more if the log was bigger !
Does your 17th century automated saw engage its whole length
So it’s electric
I've been there !!!!!!!!
This guy in the mill could be Wolfgang Puck’s brother.
So what are we talking here, a half inch kerf? A bushel of sawdust per foot!
Looks like strawberry in rdr2
EDIT: 4years later, I literally don't remember posting this comment, just randomly searched water powered sawmill...
Good morning from St John Parish, Louisiana 4 Sep 20.
Ces scieries sont encore en usage mais seulement pour les touristes. Au début elles appartenaient à l' Administration des Eaux et Forêts
13 hp. i wonder how much torque water wheel produces. cool
wait what powers those pumps
Wow.
Does this mill have a practical use or was it just built as an attraction? I wouldn't think that this mill has been around that long.
This mill is a recreation to show the importance of water-powered mills in the past. Maine had 2000 water powered mills in 1850.
@@herbcrosbyThat makes more sense. Seems like an incredibly slow process but I guess its innovative and obviously got the job done.
Where is this at I would like to visit it
King's Landing is in New Brunswick, Canada. Here is a link to their website: kingslanding.nb.ca/
Where is this at. I'd love to see it
Kings Landing is located in Prince William, New Brunswick: kingslanding.nb.ca