Century-Old Shingle Mill Restored and Functioning on Pennsylvania Mountaintop

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With the coming of warm spring weather, Allan cleaned, primed and painted over the original gray color of the American chestnut machine. His use of red, green and gray resulted in a spruced-up, rejuvenated, and cheerful looking shingle mill. He then mounted 6x6 wooden skids beneath the four cast iron legs so that the tractor could pull the mill without breaking the legs. Hooking it onto the tractor and skidding it down into the garden area, Allan and Gary set up the mill and leveled it by putting pins on each corner to hold it steady and unmoveable. It still stands in that spot today.

A few problems remained that required outside purchases. The clutch pulley shaft--it had, after all, been made in 1886--was worn and therefore running lopsided, as were the shaft on the main drive gear and the two shafts on the four-inch pulleys. Parker Machine Works in Canton, Pennsylvania, made new shafts and put new sleeves in all the pulleys. The original 12-gauge blades (36, 40, and 44 inches) were thin and tapered and tended to break easily, so Gary contracted with the International Knife and Saw Company in Florence, South Carolina, which made a new 40-inch blade that is twice as thick as the originals. These are the specifications:

40' diameter x .148 plate x 4.030' bore x 72 teeth

30 degree positive hook

12 pinholes .400' on 17¹/₈' b.c.

6 pinholes .400' on 5?' b.c. countersunk

518 rpm e.H.

Model XR4072N148

All pinholes countersunk 82 degrees .580' diameter on left hand side of saw.

Despite the minor timing problems that remained, Gary sawed 38 bundles of shingles between May and August of 1998.

In 1999, Allan solved the timing problem by placing a file under the timing mechanism. Eventually Gary plans to replace the worn rollers, but for the moment, the file works extremely well, and he has sawed 160 bundles to date. Since no written instructions have survived, he and his father feel justifiably proud of their work with this mill. They have done quite a bit of research on the history of shingle mills, which were made by A. B. Ireland in Greene, New York, with the cast iron parts forged by the Lyons Iron Works at Greene, New York. The Ireland Company produced both shingle mills and drag sawmills until the 1940s, when it went out of business.

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