EPISODE 285 MASSEY FERGUSON DEMOLITION ANCIENT TIMBER RESCUE…JOHN CALDER SAWMILL
Alan skeoch
march 16, 2021
From this jumble of broken dreams…timbers were rescued.
then put through John Calder’s saw mill and planer
To become white pine planks from ancient trees…almost free of knots.
THIS IS THE STORY OF THE RESCUE OF MASSEY HARRIS FERGUSON WHITE PINE BEAMS.
alan skeoch
March 15, 2021.
The Massey Ferguson factories were built in the late 19th century. Red bricks turned black by the soot of untold numbers
of coal fired steam engines, White pine timbers bashed snd beaten by cast iron parts carts. Southern pitch pine
flooring so tough they were hardly scarred. I found them 40 years ago when the factory was being demolished.
A rescue seemed necessary. You can be the judge of that.
Those wood construction materials were almost overlooked while I was retrieving factory pieces such as the Iron Working machine
or the the wheeled cast iron parts carts. So much wood. Piled and shattered by the excavators and bull dozers. What a waste.
I rescued a cross section of the wood…some white pine timbers…some pitch pine floor boards. Then cleaned them at home
pulled out an spikes…tested the pieces with my belt sander. They were beautiful. So the wood rescue began.
ALL the Massey Harris factory carts were abandoned and damn difficult to rescue like
this beauty angled for a fall. Sadly it was lost, But several were saved. and rolled
up planks into the back of the truck
The Massey Ferguson factory floors were held up by hundreds of white pine
beams…12 x 12 inches wide, perhaps 12 feet long.
Problem getting these beams after the building was knocked down. How to get
the beam out from under all the broken pieces. Think about it.
How? Not so easy. Imagine a gigantic game of ‘pick up sticks’. Dislodging one beam in a pile of beams might cause
an avalanche. To avoid that I used a heavy rope attached to the ball Hitch on the back of my truck. Tie the rope to the
selected beam…drive forward to get the beast into a level place for loading. Watch out for spikes that could blow a
tire or puncture my hand. I think one tire got punctured and CAA was called. Fixed in not time. Not sure that happened
on the Massey site. It has happened often.
First rescue was the big 12 x 12 white pine beams used to support all the floors in the buildings. Most were about 12 feet long
and could slide in my van with a little effort. Truck could take six with ease if back doors were open and the extended beams
were flagged with a red warning sign. I got pile of these beams. Then about halfway through the demolition some other
guy got the same idea on a bigger scale. He brought in a flat back truck and had the beams loaded by a crane. Glad
to see him. I stopped my beam rescue about then as I had more than enough stacked at home in the laneway.
Eventually someone else got the idea and the rescue of the beams was done
on a larger scale.
The southern pitch pine planks were totally ignored and there were hundreds of them. Most had big spikes in them
with points obvious. The wood grain once cleaned was marvellous. So I continued fishing for lumber but it was a
little more difficult because the spikes were like fish hooks. Trying to get one plank brought a whole bunch. These were
not small planks…4 inches thick, 8 to 10 inches wide…heavy and long. Such a waste to see these planks
ground to splinters and hauled to some disposal site. I managed to get several van loads of them and now
our cellar has pitch pine walls. Wish I had rescued more but there was no time and too much danger even when
using a long rope and the truck hitch. Somebody had to tie the plank which meant getting a little to close to
the piles of planks dumped by the excavator.
You my begin to wonder wha I would want with this beaten up lumber. See
the final entry…the Wooden Folk Art piece
Why would I be stupid enough to do this?
Because John Calder, my cousin Eleanor’s husband had just finished assembling a saw mill on their farm. John was
a brilliant man. I miss him as do all that knew him. He bought or was given a saw mill that had been taken apart some years
earlier and left in pile of rusting parts. In the pile was an immense cast iron planing machine still intact. So John spent
months reassembling the mill beside his barn located between Fergus and Bellwood in Wellington County. This was
not an easy task. But John had time and he had the skills that I will never have.
TO BE CONTINUED IN EPISODE 286 THE JOHN CALDER SAWMILL, BELWOOD, ONTARIO
P.S/
Might interest you to know what I made with some of the bits and pieces
of Massey Ferguson wood waste. Sample below, story is coming.I loved using distressed
wood pieces to work into a picture. The backboard of this piece has been pecked by a thousand
chickens. The piece has No Name…that is your task.