Mill information from the 1997 newsletters as reported by Paul Shirley.

February, 1997

I called Ross Goodyear after the meeting. His mill is not available to us this year. I feel that a saw mill is a great attraction to our show, so with permission from various club members, I started looking for a mill. After looking at 2 or 3 mills, I got to talk to Bob Bishman. He has a Lane Mill similar to Ross’s mill for $1,000.00. I got approval from 14 members to purchase the mill. I feel that with a $2,000.00 cap on this project, it should be worth it to us. If we can build it portable, we can use it at both shows. Bob will deliver it to me by the end of March or early April. Ross indicted that he may be able to help set it up and operate it. I would be willing to build a shed to keep it in. Bob, Bill, Tom and I went to Parish to see it. It’s all complete with a 50 inch blade. We hope to have it ready for the June show.

June, 1997

We sawed our first board tonight. The Lane Mill will be ready for the show. All that is left is the tires, hitch and some of the walk ways on it. We were lucky to get some professional help on it. Bill Pharoah did the machine work that had to be done. Ross Goodyear helped set it up and did the welding. Bob Shirley and I did most of the rest of it. The rig will need the carriage rebuilt later on, but that can be done later. We will be under our $2,000 estimate.

July, 1997

The Lane Saw Mill worked exceptionally well for putting it together from a pile of parts. Many thanks go to Ross Goodyear for all his help and to Bill Pharoah for his help with the machine work. Bob Shirley and I did a lot of weekend and night work to get it running. We had a lot of fun trying different tractor and even a Ford flathead power plant on it. Our total cost was around $1800.00 to complete the project.