CAIRNS News found this posted on Facebook by a history group. We’re wondering how today’s “safety industry” would have viewed this scene?
Multiple “offences” against endless regulations no doubt, that would probably run into hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines that would send the milling operation broke?
No doubt some of our readers will be able to list the breaches of modern day regulations by this feisty North Queenslander of years ago. As they say, they don’t make them like they used to!
PS: Commenters on the Facebook post say the truck is an International. We imagine it’s got an impressive set of leaf springs.
The mill would only go broke if they were silly enough to pay the bloody fines. Once you figure it out you stop doing silly things like that.
My father Jack, Uncle Clive and Grandfather Bill fell the largest Kauri pine ever harvested in Nth Queensland, This was the process with sweat, energy and amazing skill and knowledge,
1, all three of them, excellent axemen honed in Wood-chop competition at local annual shows, set up and balance on three lifts of springboards on the opposite sides of the tree,
2, then cut by axe, (no chain saws those days) side cuts 4ft deep notches into each side of the tree, that had to be large enough to large enough to stand in, this took two weeks to achieve,
3, They work out the direction they had to fall the tree, this was also overseen by the forestry officers as there would be a penalty if they got it wrong and destroyed any other mill able-timber when dropping this massive tree,
4, Then realigning the spring-boards to the back of the tree to cut the top undercut for the V-shaped notch cut to guide the tree in the direction of falling,
5 My father (Jack) operated a black-smith shop in Malanda and used the forge to join the two 6ft saw’s , using the forge welded the crosscut saws together making them 12ft long, they then used the joined saw to cut into the back of the tree, inline with the two side cuts the saw only had one foot of movement, this makes the distance through the tree being 8ft for the two side cuts + 11ft through the centre =19ft through the log!
5. They still had to do the second bottom cut in the V-shaped notch (and use wedges to keep the saw gap open on the bottom cut in the wedge so they could move the double crosscut saw) at the back of the tree to form the V-notch, they also had to preserve as it was up to 11ft wide and at its thickest, up to 2ft in depth,
6. Then then re-locate the spring-boards to start the front cut to fall the tree, also using wedges to stop the tree sitting back on the crosscut saw, I have on several times again at shows been on one end of a double handed 6ft crosscut as you have to pull the saw towards yourself the energy to pull a very sharp 6ft saw and cut say a 3ft log and and they did that with the 12ft saw, Wow they must have been fit!!!, and they dropped the tree in the right direction without smashing any other mill-able timber.
7. This is where the real skill comes in, as stated above the log is now 30ft round and 60ft long, this magnificent log has a unique future, it is destined to be shipped to America and being made into the frames of Grand Piano’s, mmmm, bit of a problem, the only option to transport the logs from the Tableland to Cairns is by rail, so
8. The log had to be cut first into 3-20ft lengths, then each segment had to be split in to 3-flitches, near as possible into equal parts, then each flitch being app’ 9ft 6inches in height to fit through the tunnels on the Karanda range,
9. A few stats, the log (if milled) would have contained 60,000 super feet of timber enough to build six homes on the Tableland,
10. I don’t have any photos of the above process only fabulous information as Dad told us kids the history of this amazing log, although, what I do have is an original photo of Grandpa’s unique horse team with Bluey as the lead horse, used to haul logs from Gadgarra into the mill at Peeramon for milling, no satellite maps then, no rein’s on the horses, just a number of cracks of the whip (just cracked in the air) to go right or left, a Giddy-up to go and Wooer-there to stop and a bloody big log (dropped at the top of each hill and hitched at the back of the wagon to slow it on the way down the hill as the brake and dragged back up on the return trip)
And just for kicks n giggles: Why is a Bullocks ass tighter when pulling a loaded wagon up hill, than a fishes bum when swimming? look in the comments for the answer.
In fond memory of the 1940’s in Malanda, Atherton Tableland, Nth Qld.
Rgds Sen Len.
not to mention the criminal negligence clause that was inserted into the workplace health and safety act a few years ago which has far reaching implications for owners/managers of all workplaces- In Queensland, a “workplace” under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 is defined as any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking, including any place where a worker goes or is likely to be while at work. this includes paid and volunteer work and covers almost all rural properties, your home if you work from there plus your airbnb…
what an awesome photo, I wonder what they used to load the logs with.
I can remember my old man carting logs out of the bush with an old T model ford, and cutting them into foot blocks on an old saw bench with no safety guards and a drive belt with a mind of its own whenever the blade jammed in the log ahhh the memories
LOL. One of the many reasons I live in Mexico.
We often laugh at some of the vehicles that have been modified here, because people need to modify them. No approvals, no permits ….. and no fines. In fact nobody generally pays much attention to that sort of thing, because people need to do that sort of thing for work and money.
And then there are the people, often many, riding in the back of utes. We often wonder whether the cops in Australia would rather see these people shot where they stand rather than see them riding in the back of a ute. For their own safety of course.
Australia is being regulated into a bland corporatocracy utterly devoid of any real humanity, and most people can’t see it happening.
The 1929 photograph tells me that in order to restrain a population as dynamic as the Australians they are going to have to be assualted en masse with bioweapons, restrained from human and civil rights and lumbered (excuse the pun) with every manufactured crisis that can be thought of and made to pay for it. And endlessly guilted by backward populations do not invent, build, make and act across the spectrum of human endeavor.
But we survived!
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