Going In Circles: The Foley Belsaw Circular Sawmill
Going in Circles: The Foley Belsaw Circular Sawmill
While some people love their new fangled lumber saw mills or chainsaw mill, many people just cannot give up their Foley Belsaw Circular Sawmill. And there's a reason. This thing is a classic for a reason: year after year, it offers reliable performance that other makers find hard to mimic.
A sawmill is an important piece of equipment on many farms and in rural zones where the wooded areas provide timber needed for sawing. Lumbe for rural and farm buildings comes through rough cut boards. Also Furniture and cabinets are created, at a sawmill, through rough lumber that has been dried and then planed smooth.
A sawmill also provides income in many rural areas by employing men who provide timbers and ties for mines and railroads. These people are also employed to provide rough boards for local markets. In fact, in some communities, the sawmill has been a staple of that community, offering employment going back decades. This is especially true of the circular sawmill. The circular sawmill first came to real prominence thanks to the Foley Belsaw Circular Sawmill.
Many are the members of rural communities who recall that their first sawmill was the solid Belsaw M14. It takes quite a bit of manpower to make it work well, but that's part of the point: again, putting the community to work. And when it works and the men work, this sawmill produces lumber at a fast and furious rate.
Actually, in the early part of the 1900s, the company was just Belsaw. It was bought later, in 1977, by Foley, giving it the new name of Foley Belsaw. The Belsaw circular sawmills were made as recently as the 1990s, but were then discontinued.
It's a shame, really, because at the time, Belsaw offered farmers an affordable, small, light and basic mill. The log carriage in a Belsaw sawmill was pushed by hand, which meant not a lot of training was required to run it and run it well. Old Belsaw brochures still available explain that the farmer can saw and sell his lumber, and from this, use the money to purchase a manual winch. This winch would then allow him to move his log carriage. The manual went on to say that the farmer could use his profits to purchase an automatic power feed. This should allow him to bring in more profits, and from those monies, to buy many more labor-saving extras. More and more extras made the Belsaw more profitable. It became kind of an addiction of sorts--but a positive addiction. It was almost like a hobby for many men, but a hobby which took care of his family's needs.
That early Belsaw sawmill was light and little and light, but still it could saw large logs effectively.
You can't buy the Foley Belsaw Circular Sawmill new any more. However, every now and then, you can still find one popping up on the secondary market. If you do, think about buying it. You'll not only have an effective way of cutting lumber, but you'll have an important and cherished part of rural Americana.
