The writer pauses here to pay a tribute to the memory of Mr. E. H. Stearns who possessed the brains from which sprung the splendid machinery built by the Stearns Company. To him more than to any other man living or dead, are the lumbermen of this country indebted for the mill equipments which brought the greatest success to them. He was the first man to give grace and beauty of design as well as strength to saw mill machinery. He was the first to produce carriages with accurately setting head blocks with self-receding knees, in place of the old time wooden head blocks with screw sets.
The eccentric setting blocks, and subsequently the double acting set works, which we all now copy, came on the market through him. The big circulars with reversed top saw models of construction, came from him. Live Rollers and labor saving machines originated with him, as also did the splendid Gang Edgers which we now have in place of the old single saw edger with its traveling table. He designed and built the first of the special heavy class machinery required in California now largely in use in that state.
And yet, with all the splendid service he rendered the lumbermen of this country, he was allowed to go down to his death with not enough to pay his funeral expenses, and few to do him honor. The men with whom he dealt are now mostly dead, but the living successors should remember that to him they are largely indebted for the full measure of prosperity they now enjoy.
Mr. E. H. Stearns in 1885
BAND SAW MILL OF E. P. ALLIS & CO.
Described as the latest candidate in the NORTHWESTERN LUMBERMAN
of January 9, 1886
In 1885 E. P. Allis & Co. of Milwaukee, Wis., actively began operations with Band Mills for sawing logs. In principle their constructions were similar to all the others heretofore named, but for nearly four years they persistently adhered to a mill having at least one glaring defect, namely, overhanging wheels; that is, there was no supporting boxes outside of them. In 1889 they corrected this defect.
But the amusing feature in the mill of E. P. Allis & Co. is shown in the effort to keep the slack slide of the saw on the back side of the mill where it belongs, and thus prevent making snakey or dishy lumber. The overhanging wheels, nine feet in diameter for eight-inch saws, are shown. The top wheel was almost entirely of wood, and the spokes were flat and wide, the object being to obtain an atmospheric resistance continually as a pull back on the cutting side of the saw. A tightener pulley was also applied to the saw on the rear side.