Last weekend I was lucky enough to wrangle an invitation to
Miner’s Annual Saw Day. What’s a “Saw Day?” In this case it’s
private backyard mini-festival hosted by Dale Miner and his
family that features an all-day demonstration of a sawmill
powered by a vintage 1916 Case steam engine tractor. The steam
engine is a beast of a machine that weighs in at 13 tons and
generates 65 horsepower from a 250-gallon boiler. And like at
any backyard festival, there was lots of wonderful food, some of
it prepared over an open fire. Throw in a beautiful, sunny, fall
day here in Ohio and it was just about perfect. Watch the video
and you’ll see it all, including a “half-size” steam tractor
Dale built in 1980 from scratch. It’s a scale model of the big
machine he bought in 1983. The sawmill was made in the early
1950s. It’s powered, of course, by the tractor and the very long
belt connecting the two machines. The main belt not only turns
the 54″-diameter saw blade but also propels the carriage that
moves the log down the track