Perfect sawing in the circus tent

Per Simon Edström with his sawmill.

Per Simon Edström has the perfect saw house for his Logosol Sawmill: an old circus tent, which also has room for the sawn lumber.

It is never too late to realize your dreams. Ask Per Simon Edström, 78 years old and busy creating the perfect acoustics with the help of 200 spruces and one Logosol Sawmill.

Per Simon Edström has devoted his life to realizing his theatre dreams. He has done the most: Written plays and books, directed, acted, worked with lighting and as a theatre architect. He is mostly known for being the driving force behind the theatre boat Arena, a government-funded region theatre, which berthed at 60 places in the Stockholm and Lake Mälaren archipelagos. This adventure ended in 1985.
”The politicians thought we were too left-winged, so they closed us down,” Per Simon says.

Cognac in the sauna

But instead of retiring, he took the opportunity to realize his own ideas, everything from an experimental theatre at home on his farm, to a wood-heated sauna built of a gigantic cognac barrel.
”The first time we used the sauna there was a delightful scent in it. Later on, the scent disappeared and you needed a bottle of cognac each time to recreate the atmosphere. It became too expensive to use the sauna, Per Simon says jokingly.
His great passion is the theatre on his farm. He compares it to an instrument, which you have to give the correct acoustics, and there also has to be a closeness between the audience and the actors. In order to exploring the possibilities, he built his own theatre called Modellen (the model) with room for an audience of 80 people.
Here he has produced plays in all kinds of theatre forms, and the experiments have proven what Per always has maintained.
”The classical arena theatre is superior,” he says.
The arena is like a circus with the audience around the entire ring. A circus tent lacks the acoustics, and the arenas of today, like the Globe Arena in Stockholm, lack the closeness to the audience. The best would be an arena of wood, like the Drottningholm Theatre.
“The walls will speak if they are built of two inch thick spruce boards,” Per Simon says.
He designed an arena theatre for Ramallah, the Palestinians’ temporary capital on the West Bank. It was never built, but everything needed for realizing the dream was closer at hand, at home on Värmdö.
“50 years ago, my father planted spruces in an enclosed pastureland. To be honest, I did not like that the pastureland disappeared,” says Per Simon, who after a couple of years changed his opinion.
”Instead of thinning, we sold Christmas trees. People came here by car with newly-bought roof racks and axes. They cut down their Christmas trees themselves and paid 25 Swedish kronor each.”  As time went by, the spruces grew tall. Per Simon saw the opportunity to restore the old pastureland and get himself building material for the perfect arena theatre. He bought an extended and completely equipped Logosol Sawmill, which was placed in a circus tent.
”You can’t find a better sawing house. The sawmill and the lumber are protected from wind and weather.”
The theatre manager had no difficulty in learning how to handle the sawmill.  When he was young, he worked as a timber estimator in the forest, and he trained two persons who used the first chainsaws. Nowadays, he also has help when sawing, but he himself takes care of the most important job: sharpening the chains.
“A sharp chain means everything, especially when you are cutting into a spruce with hard knots in it,” Per Simon states.

Officially a barn

Actually, it is not a theatre he is building. The 24 metre (79 ft) long building will primarily be a hay barn for the ewes and lambs on the farm. Today the bales of hay are stored in two old circus wagons.
”But when the barn is empty in the summer, there is nothing stopping you from having a theatre here, so you might as well build it right in the first place,” Per Simon says.
The ’theatre barn’ will also serve as an exhibition room for a travelling waxworks show from the 19th century. It has been exhibited in the Museum of National Antiquities, but today it is stored up. *

High potential for small-scale wood processing!

This tree (Bulnesia sarmientoi) is very unique for its dark green color and its special oil content which makes it very resistant against decompostation. It weighs between 1100 to 1200 kg / m3 (15% humidity) and is also used for posts. Dieter Stosiek (closest) helps lifting the tree.

Although we are absolute beginners, we were able to cut some really fine boards.

Here Dieter Stosiek is cutting an Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco. These trees are most interesting for us as they normally form very good and straight trunks and are not as hard as the others. They weigh around 880 to 900 kg / m3 (15 % humidity). These trees were used in former times by the Mennonites for building the roof-truss of their houses, but was later on replaced by imported beams from the eastern part of Paraguay. It needs a special treatment and careful drying process in order to avoid deformation. It will be very interesting for building gates, sheds, houses for the workers and in the corral.

After work was done, the cut material and the sawmill are transported to a shed at the center of the farm. All photos: privat

Logosol got a letter from Dieter Stosiek. For the last 15 years he´s been living in the Central Chaco of Paraguay. He bought a Logosol M7 and are now planning for demonstrations and sales.
 

Read his letter to Logosol:

"For the last 15 years I am living in the Central Chaco of Paraguay. I have a Master of Science degree in tropical agriculture from Hohenheim University in Germany and came to Paraguay as a member of the GTZ (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit) to work in a bilateral development project at an agricultural experimental station. In 1995 I started my own consulting, specializing in land development and farm planning. For the last 10 years I worked as an expert for the National Forestry Service and the Ministry of Environment, advising the local farmers in setting up their cattle ranches.

In the Paraguayan Chaco between 20.000 to 50.000 ha of natural woodland will be cleared annually and transformed into pastures. So far, only a small amount of the resulting timber is used - mainly as posts for fences and corrals. All the other wood products (boards, beams...) for necessary farm constructions (gates, sheds, corral, houses) comes mainly from the eastern regions of Paraguay where we have much higher annual rainfalls and a much better infrastructure.

So far, the transport of trunks to the populated centers in the Chaco (German speaking Mennonite colonies) for further processing, is due to the long distances, poor infrastructure and often low trunk quality not profitable.

A rising demand of construction wood and decreasing natural resources in the eastern region, led to steadily increasing timber prices and at the same time to a decreasing quality. In the last years I spoke with many farmers about the problem and most of them would be very interested in a flexible, comparatively cheap wood processing system, to make use of their own resources.

This is not only an economic but also an ecological concern. Normally, almost all the residues of the woodland clearing will be burned about one to two years after the deforestation. The possibility of processing their own trunks directly on the farm with a chainsaw operated sawmill, can greatly reduce this waste of valuable timber.

For these reasons, I bought on my last trip to Germany in August a LOGOSOL M7 from your representative in Bad Saulgau and shipped it to Paraguay where it arrived around Christmas.

The unit will be operated with a Stihl MS660 chain saw, mainly for testing and demonstration. We have tested the sawmill with different types of wood and I was really pleased of the good results we could achieve right from the start.

As soon as we our selves have enough operating experience, we will invite - for a start - all the local farmers for an on farm demonstration. I’m very confident, that there will be a high potential for selling your products on the local market. Basically we have three target groups: German speaking Mennonites, Paraguayan and Brazilian ranchers and investors from Europe. The farms range between some hundred to some ten thousand hectares with demand for low cost solutions like your Timmerjigg or Big Mill System to more expensive and more sophisticated units like the M7 or the new band saw LM40 you developed.

Best regards,
Dieter Stosiek

The Logs Go on Private Railway to the Sawmill

Bo Malmborg works as a production technology manager at Electrolux in Motala, so it is not surprising that the logistics around the sawmill are well thought out. The logs arrive on the track to the right. Then, they are lifted onto the Logosol Sawmill with the help of the electric gantry crane. Finally, the boards and planks are placed on the wagon to the left and transported to be seasoned.

Even small railways require a turntable. Behind you can see the line’s engine depot. The engines and the wagons Bo has built himself.

Bo Malmborg recommends using a gantry crane for lifting logs. He himself has two, and this one is portable.

Bo Malmborg is probably the only Logosol-Sawmill owner in the world who carries logs from the forest to the sawmill on his own personal railway. The line is 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) long, and is found in Tiveden in Sweden.

The idea of building a railway started to develop in 1969, when Bo Malmborg’s parents bought a small forest property at lake Örkagen. To provide capital for the purchase they harvested trees on the property, but some logs were left on the other side of a bog.
"I considered making an aerial ropeway, and also other methods to carry home the logs," says Bo.
Most of all, he wanted to build a railway, inspired by the Märklin trains of his childhood. But how would he, as a private person, be able to build a full-scale railway? During his military service, five years later, he found the solution by a roadside outside the town Tibro.

Railway from a peat bog

"There was a pile of rails from a closed-down peat litter factory. I bought the rails and financed the purchase and the transport by selling half of the rails to a scrap dealer. I kept all the switches and axles."

The width of the track is 600 mm (24"), the standard for small industrial railways. In Sweden, this type of railway has mostly been used on peat bogs. The trains have been replaced by vehicles with balloon tires, which has resulted in a supply of rails, axles, wagons and engines available at reasonable prices. The laying of the rails started immediately, but when the goal was reached, all the remaining logs had been used up for making the ties of the railway.
Since then, the railway has been improved and extended success-ively, and today it is 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) long.

The first board hangs on the wall

With their own forest, railway and a constant need for timber for hobbies and renovations of the buildings on the property, it was only a matter of time before a sawmill was acquired. Today, the Logosol Sawmill has its natural place by the railway.
"The first sawn board hangs on the wall in the bedroom," says Bo’s wife Elisabeth, who has become accustomed to the many years of railway building.
"At my first visit to my then future parents-in-law, we spent two days painting railway wagons."
The combination "railway and Logosol Sawmill" is both entertaining and useful. In civilian life, Bo is a production technology manager at Electrolux’s stove factory in Motala, and at work he organizes streamlined productions. In the case of the railway, he has also succeeded in this.

Safe lifting in the forest

Örkaggen Railway, as the line is called, has several technical solutions that other Logosol Sawmill owners should consider copying. Especially when it comes to log handling.
"In the forest we pull the logs to the tracks with the help of an iron horse, and  load them on the wagon using a gantry crane," says Bo.
The gantry crane is easy to take down and bring with you out into the forest. It straddles the wagon, and the logs are lifted by an ordinary chain hoist which can be pushed backwards and forwards on the crane beam. This results in safe lifting, even when handling heavy logs.
The Logosol Sawmill stands beside a double track under a big gantry crane, which extends over the two tracks and the sawmill. The wagons loaded with logs stands on the track furthest away from the sawmill. With the help of the gantry crane the logs are lifted over to the sawmill. The processed timber is then placed on another railway wagon on the track closest to the Logosol Sawmill.

Even more enjoyable

The most dangerous operation, when it comes to all types of sawmills, is handling of heavy logs. Many people have a hoist fastened to the ceiling above the Logosol Sawmill, but what do you do when there is no ceiling? Well, you build yourself a gantry crane. The example from Örkaggen Railway shows that it can be used both in the forest and by the sawmill.
"Building a gantry crane is not so complicated. I welded together rails in triangles to be used as legs, and used a part from an industrial conveyor belt as crane beam enabling the hoist to be moved. But you can just as well use an I-beam," Bo states.
It can also be worth laying rails next to the Logosol Sawmill and obtain a couple of wheel axles, to build a movable log table. Carrying logs on rails only takes a fractional part of the effort, compared to using rubber wheels on the ground. Furthermore, there is no denying that wagons and a gantry crane make the sawing even more enjoyable.
More about Örkaggen Raiway is found on the Internet:
www.hypatia.se/okj

Every plank, panel and moulding is made by Marita and Per

”When the piles of timber were at their largest point, we had to do as marathon runners and concentrate on one log at a time,” says Marita Lindgren. Marita and Per sawed around 70 cubic metres of timber using their Logosol Sawmill and then built their dream house.

Per and Marita Lindgren are townies and did not originally own any forest. The couple has four grown-up children and an old dream of building a house after their own ideas. When a property in the village where Per spent the summers of his childhood became for sale, the dreams began to take shape.

A M7 Sawmill and a two-cutter planer/moulder was bought from Logosol. Shortly thereafter, the storm Gudrun came, which felled large parts of forest in the north of Sweden, and suddenly there was more timber than they could take care of.

When everything was sawn up, it was about 70 cubic metres of timber. At the same time they started to build their house. Last summer, the dwelling house was built. It is a two-storied house of 190 square metres, and it is built in the same style as the old buildings in the village.
But why would two townies start sawing, planing, moulding and building themselves, when there are ready-made houses that they can buy? Well, this house becomes exactly as the Lindgren family wants it, down to the last detail. But the feeling of wholeness is just as important.
”To people of today milk is just a carton in the grocery store. We seldom think of the whole. If you are sawing the timber yourself, you are taking part of the entire process from fresh-cut timber to beautiful boards,” says Per.

The first time he read Fresh Cut he nearly burst with laughter when people in the magazine described the act of sawing timber as almost a spiritual experience. Now he is not laughing anymore.
”It may sound silly, but you can actually get a relationship with a plank.”
The building project has now come so far that the Lindgren couple has sold their house in the town in order to move to the house of their dreams in the country.