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Here is another old Saw Mill from down south.

George-CT

New member
Not sure if I posted any of these before, but as you can see, I like saw mills. These were down in the hills of Virgina......This one ran of a water wheel and wooded slush-ways.... Spent a day here and really enjoyed it.... Lot of stuff to go see, and they let you work with it all also...

George
 
Just a suggestion. I have been trying to get Cierlast to go out and take some more barn pictures up there if Wisconsin, that too could be made into one heck of a slide show. Are you also interested in other types of mills? This place is beautiful, just like the others that you have posted. I enjoy their stories and pictures, thank you! Kelley (Texas) :clap:
 
n/t
 
and elevation of about 2600 feet in the Blue Ridge Mountains.... They have a great working blacksmith shop which is why I went there to start with as I was going to do that when I retired from the Ironworkers so wanted to do one up that
was from that time period. When I got into the Ironworkers, as and apprentice I got to work in the blacksmith shop withi and old German guy who took a liking to me. That was rare of the old timers in the business to do that. They protected their job. By then he was in his late 60's and this was to be his last job. We made our own chisels and it was also the rigging loft where we made up our own chokers etc. That was pretty much the last of the blacksmith shops in this area. Same with the chokers, we now have to have them factory made and meet state and fed codes. I was pretty good at wire cable splicing.... Lost art now pretty much.... On rainy days rather than send the apprentice home, they would put me in the rigging loft making chokers... I had a nice collection of old forgers, bellows, anvils, etc.... Still have some of it, but sold off a lot of it when I saw the health was not going to permit it....I have some nice shots of the blacksmith shop I will dig up....

Here is the the base story of this mill...... Its a real popular spot in the mountains of Virgina. We use to run this road most of the time when we went to see my daughter in Charleston, SC. It was not uncommon for us to be to or 3 days later on arrival to her place. There is a lot to see in these mountains... One of my favorite drives on the east coast. I never run I-95 along the coast, to busy...

Before 1890, on land not far from his birthplace in Patrick County, Ed Mabry had a water-turned lathe, which he used to make chairs. He later worked as a blacksmith in the coal fields of West Virginia. In 1903 he returned to Floyd County and soon began construction of the mill. It was first a blacksmith and wheelwright shop, then became a sawmill. By 1905 it was in operation as a gristmill. By 1910 the front part of the mill was completed and included a lathe for turning out wheel hubs, a tongue and groove lathe, a planer, and a jigsaw. Between 1905 and 1914 he bought adjacent tracts of land, mostly for the purpose of acquiring more water power. Those who knew Ed Mabry thought well of him and have described him as peaceable, easy-going, honest, hard working, a Primitive Baptist, and a Republican. Whatever he needed he tried to make himself, including most of the furniture in his home. He did not travel much, but when he did it was either on foot or in his one-horse Concord wagon.

I will post more on this later if you like. Really neat place if you like old stuff like we do...

Geo
 
see the innovation evolve over time. A lot of it is done the same way now, just in a fancier package.... What interest me most is they had to invent it or build it from scratch with no blue print... Much of it was simple but effective..... There a lot of old thread mills in this are where I live. I could do a really nice slide show on them...All made stone along the rivers to power them. I detect a lot of them that burned down... some only a mile from me... But what a night mare.. and why I hunt them with the minelabs. To knock or null out the iron.
Every piece of iron that went down is right there in the ground. Can drive a man nuts... you knows its there but how do you get at it.
I usually pick a small area and clean it up...Not a summer project for sure, more like fall work....

Plenty of old barns around these parts. A lot of them were chestnut wood. That brings good money so a lot of them have been bought up and removed. But still plenty of them out there, many restored also. I will do that later this year.... Whats elft to a lot of them here is the stone work.......The wood is long gone..... I need to dig up a shot of one in Rhode Island.... Beautiful, right on the ocean....Just the stone work left, but it is impressive.......

Geo
 
at Luling, Texas. At the time that I took this picture, it was being restored. I have been wanting to go back there because I hear tell that there is an abundance of River Bass being caught above the dam. River Bass are similar to a Large Mouth Bass, but smaller and slimmer, and seldom exceed five or six pounds in weight. I would like to drive over there one day and fish for several hours, then eat dinner with an old cowboy friend of mine that lives a few miles north of there. Jerry and I go back a long ways, we use to compete against each other at some of the weekend roping events back in the late 1960's and early 1970's. He was a good roper and tough to compete against. Kelley (Texa) :)

[attachment 167262 zedlersmill_3.jpg]
 
do any canoing or boating of any sort on it? Looks like a good flow of water on it....Had to be to run that mill... Seeing all the tin roofs on them I would think it
must of really been hot in there working. Nice if they restore it. River bass sound pretty good also.... Funny, I finally got old enough to get a Senior free fishing licence, and have never used it. Yet right up to age 65 I bought a fishing license every year. Great fishing spots all around me and I have not gone sense age 55. To many other hobbies I guess....not to mention my short attention span on everything.... Ever go detecting around the old mill? Any swimming areas there to water detect in?

Geo-CT
 
We had a wielder at work that was an artist. He learned his trade as a blacksmith apprentice in Sicily. None of the other wielders could dream of the things he could do with a torch and steel. I saw him make antique keys for locks, well the locks were antiques but had no keys. He would make hinges for old cabinets and such that you could not tell from the originals.
 
I did a fair bit of forging and blacksmithing in my younger days... I loved it.

calm seas

Micheal
 
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