Introduction

Sawmill was described by Wise-Geek (2013) as a
facility which processes raw timber into dimensional lumber for shipping and
eventual sale. Prior to the development of the sawmill, people harvested timber
and cut the resulting logs into planks by hand, an often painstaking
process. Sawmills centralized
timber processing in the 16,000s allowing a high volume of timber to be
processed at a central location, which was initially powered by water and later
by steam electricity.

Before being processed, lumber must be graded and
sorted. Sometimes this is done on the site of a timber harvest, and at other
times grading is handled at the sawmill itself.
The process of sawmills includes the following:

·
Debarking which removes the back of
the log.

·
The head saw, head ring or primary
saw sawn of the log into cants (unfinished logs to be further processed) and
fitches.

·
Depending on the species and quality
of the log, the cant will either be further broken down by a resaw or a gang edger into multiple fitches
and or boards.

·
Ending will take flitch and trim off
all irregular edges leaving form sided timber.

·
Trimming the square the ends at
typical timber lengths.

·
Drying removes naturally occurring moisture
from the lumber, this can be done with kiln or air dried.

·
Plane smooth the surface of the
lumber leaving a uniform width and thickness

Examples of sound levels with Decibel ranging from 0
to 140 Decibels according to Noise Help Com (2010) include the following.

·
Healthy hearing threshold (0Db)

·
A pain dropping (10Db)

·
Rusting leaves (20Db)

·
Whisper (30Db)

·
Babbling brook (40Db)

·
Light traffic (50Db)

·
Conversational speech (60Db

·
Shower (70Db

·
Alarm Clock (80Db)

·
Pass diesel truck (90Db)

·
Motorcycle (riding)` (100Db)

·
Rock band (110Db)

·
Thunder clap (120Db)

·
Peak stadium crowd (130Db)

·
Jet engine at take off (140Db)

Most noise levels are given by decibel which are
decibel adjusted to reflect the ear’s response to different frequencies of sound.
Sudden, brief impulse sounds, like many of those shown at 120 Db or greater;
are often given in Db (no adjustment).