Leonardo da Vinci – pioneer of sawmill technology

 

Leonardo da Vinci – pioneer of sawmill technology

If one goes in search of the earliest pictorial representation of crank-driven sawing machines, the trail leads to Leonardo da Vinci (1452 to 1519) and to Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439 to 1502), a great master builder and engineer. The work of both fell in the heyday of the Renaissance.

The depiction of the gate created by Francesco can be found in a manuscript. The manuscripts of Francesco di Giorgio Martini contain many thoughts on machines, weapons, and architecture that are also found in Leonardo’s early manuscripts. Significantly, these two men were summoned together to Pavia in 1490 to be consulted on the completion of the cathedral there.

For Leonardo da Vinci, drawing “ witty“ mechanisms was a method of work by which he sought to grasp the essence of the material world. He was not satisfied with exploring how a machine works, he wanted to go beyond that to find out the cause of how it works. By studying machines and mechanisms, he was able to enter into the basic laws of kinematics.

The Venetian frame by Leonardo da Vinci – designed around 1480 – the oldest representation of the crank-driven saw frame and automatic pawl feed.

Saw frames with crank drive achieved several times the performance of their cam-driven predecessors. In addition, the quality of the cut surface was much better.

In principle, all saw frames with transmission gears also featured the flywheel, which, with its energy storage capacity, contributed significantly to easier overcoming of dead centers and thus to smooth running and increased performance of these machines with slowly rotating drive shafts.

The oldest surviving illustration of a saw frame with flywheel, a design by Leonardo da Vinci around 1500. The machine could also have been intended to be driven by human power.

Both types of machines, the push-wheel gang saw and the gang saw with gearbox and flywheel, existed side by side on an equal footing for centuries, depending on the location of the sawmills.

Leonardo da Vinci’s studies on crank drive led to some new kinematic solutions for gang saw machines.

Leonardo also designed devices for bringing logs out of the water that were as simple as they were practical. However, many of his theoretical and practical works also indirectly benefited woodworking. Studies for the improvement of the water wheel belong to it as well as designs for the construction of canals, locks, weirs and dams, of structures necessary for the operation of water saw mills.

Not only sawmill technology

 

In the work of Leonardo da Vinci, the work in the field of wood technology took a significant place. He invented the first planing machine and was 300 years ahead of his time. He designed drilling machines that were indispensable for the production of wooden water pipes, which were needed in large quantities at that time, and he designed new wooden lathes with crank drive and flywheel.

Planing device (sketch by Leonardo da Vinci))

 

Maschine mit spindelbewegtem Support zum Bohren hölzerner Wasserrohre (sketch by Leonardo da Vinci um 1500)

The mill builders

If artists and engineers, who are among the most important in history, dedicated themselves to these tasks again and again, then this testifies to the position of woodworking in those times. Among the creators of the first machines and mechanisms for woodworking, much admired today, are also the simple millwrights. It was them who had to take the ultimately all-important step of putting technical ideas into practice. They had to have a certain amount of theoretical knowledge. This included knowledge of the fundamentals of mechanics as well as of the properties and behavior of the mill timbers. The millwright had to match the size and shape of the water wheel with the quantity and flow rate of the water.

Source: Historical pictures and texts VEB Fachbuchverlag Leipzig „Vom Steinbeil zum Sägegatte“ Finsterbusch/Thiele