YO BULLETIN 440, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGEICULTTJRE. 



The power plant usually consists of an engine and two boilers. 

 The engine is frequently underneath the mill and the boilers in a 

 separate boiler house. The mill floor is commonly raised from the 

 ground in order to make room underneath for shafts, belting, and 

 conveyors. The building is frame with a board roof. A conveyor is 

 installed for carrying out sawdust and a Hght track built to an 

 outside burner for slabs. The cost of the; equipment in such a plant 

 is about $10,000. The cost of dehvery, installation, and construction 

 of the building brings the cost of the completed plant up to $15,000 

 or $17,000, exclusive of pond and yard. 



In a representative mill of this type two men are required to 

 operate the log j acker, do the scaling, and roll the logs down on the 

 deck. The logs are turned on the carriage by the steam nigger; 

 and two men, a setter and a dogger, handle the setworks and the 

 dogs on the carriage. The sawyer is located at the saw and the 

 offbearer places the boards and slabs on the rolls as they are sawed 

 from the log. The pointer transfers boards from the rolls to the 

 edger table and the edgerman manipulates the edger. One man is 

 stationed at the rear of the edger and two men manage the trimmer. 

 The slabs are loaded on cars and delivered to the fuel piles or slab 

 fire by two men. The remainder of the crew consists of a foreman, 

 an engineer, a fireman, a filer, a millwright, and a night watchman. 

 The total crew contains 19 men, and the daily cost is about $63.20. 

 Based upon an average daily output of 38,000, the direct cost of 

 sawing is $1.66 per 1,000. With a daily average of 40,000 the direct 

 cost is $1.58 per 1,000.- The labor cost of maintenance is largely 

 covered by the wages of the sawyer, engineer, and millwright. The 

 additional cost for supphes and overhauling is judged to be from 

 25 to 40 cents per 1,000. Thus the cost of sawing is from $1.90 to 

 $2.10 per 1,000 feet. 



There are two common methods of loading lumber for yard 

 delivery at these mills. One is to load the boards on small cars 

 directly behind the trimmer; the other is to allow the lumber to pass 

 upon a sorting table behind the trimmer, from which table it is loaded 

 on various lumber cars or trucks. The latter method allows a better 

 separation of the different grades. The crew is the same in each 

 mstance, a grader and two sorters. The daily labor cost is $9.25, 

 or the equivalent of 24 cents per 1,000 for a daily output of 38,000. 

 Thus the average cost of sawing and sorting in mills of this class is 

 from $2.10 to $2.40 per 1,000, depending upon the cost of labor and 

 material and the class of lumber manufactured. 



Circular miUs are frequently intermittent in operation and thus 

 incur costs while idle. Crews are often less efficient than in larger 

 mills, and the mill equipment and yard facihties generally are not 

 such as to obtain the best quality of lumber from the logs. 



