Page 303 - The Lost Ways

But when machinery was needed, it was generally referred to as a mill. There were many
types of mills, but the three you were most likely to encounter were the following:

❖ Grain Mill – Both farmers and individuals would take grain of all types to the grain mill
to have it ground into flour. Hand grinding is a slow process that is usually
accomplished by using a stone in a stone trough. In order to grind enough for a family
to eat for a day, it would take about five hours. The grain mill could do this in a matter
of minutes.

❖ Sawmill – Sawmills cut logs into boards of all shapes and sizes. While some sawmills
used circular saw blades, most used reciprocating saws, which were similar to a large
version of today’s jigsaw or scroll saw. Although they were slow by today’s standards,
they were much more efficient than using a two-man saw and a scaffold or splitting
boards with wedges and then smoothing them.

❖ Stamping Mill – In mining towns, stamping mills could be heard operating around the
clock. These were the heaviest duty sort of mills and were tasked with breaking big
rocks down into small rocks and small rocks into pebbles.

Gears

There were a number of ways of setting up the gears for a mill, depending on the way

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