INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — In the southern part of Indian River County, off 82nd Avenue at 8th Street, sits a steam-powered sawmill. The antique machine rumbles to life once a month or so, chewing up logs of yellow pine and spitting sawdust into the air as the engine itself rocks on its frame as it keeps the saw blade moving.
On Sunday, a handful of men gathered at Tommy Hearndon’s property on the north side of 8th Street, just west of Vero Equine, and prepared to carve up four large logs.
Hearndon once had a mobile home on the site, but a hurricane ravaged it and the property has sat vacant in the meantime. Not long ago, he was chatting with childhood friend Alan Rudd, who had a steam engine and sawmill with no place to put it. Hearndon had property and nothing to put on it.
It was a match made in log cutting heaven.
The 22,000-pound sawmill and engine takes about 10 people to run and about a half hour – if all runs smoothly, which is not often the case, to saw planks out of the logs.
“They waste a day of their lives and have some fun,” Hearndon said, taking a break from cutting the milled lumber into manageable pieces with a chainsaw.
He said the logs often come from other property owners and some tree companies looking to dispose of the wood without taking it to the dump.
For Rudd, having a place to set up his steam engine and sawmill is more fun than anything else.
“It’s a play thing more than a business,” he said, adding that he does have a business with the mill – the Knot Hole Lumber Company.
The lumber cut from the logs can’t be used for structural buildings, such as homes, but could be used to build pole barns, fences and even furniture. A thick slab of pine atop a couple cinder blocks makes for a unique bench in front of the steam engine for those visiting the site to take a load off.
“I was born in the wrong century,” Rudd said, chuckling. “Story of my life.”
Years ago, he got interested in antique tractors, which grew into a love of antique engines – particularly flywheels. In the 1980s, he built himself a steamboat, which started the collection of engines.
A then-member of the Florida Flywheelers Association, Rudd and a couple other members were responsible for setting up a club-acquired sawmill near Frostproof, Fla.
“I got into it,” Rudd said, adding that he later left the club to go and do his own thing – which meant buying a steam engine and sawmill and hooking the two together.
The steam engine was built sometime between 1910 and 1917 by James Leffel & Co., which no longer has any records for the machine. Rudd has researched the engine but can’t find one in any catalog or document that matches his engine’s specs – so all he can do is guess at the age of the engine.
Running the sawmill and steam engine is a way to keep a piece of the past present – introducing it to those who might not otherwise have known about it.
For 3-year-old Brodie Woodall, the steam engine looked like a “choo-choo train,” he said and sounded like a dinosaur.
Brodie came out to the property with his family, including 3-year-old Chanley Rovella, dad Michael Rovella, mom Kathryn Woodall, and grandma Kathie Rovella.
“I need a dining room table,” Woodall said as she watched the men feed a log through the 52-inch saw blade.
“It’s been pretty entertaining,” Kathie Rovella said of watching the sawmill and steam engine operate, adding, “It’s nice they share it with people.”
She also marveled at the interest some still have for how things used to be made.
“Simple, hard working, still gets it done,” Rovella said.
Rudd and Hearndon have not yet set a date for the next time when the sawmill will be in operation. However, they try to pick one Sunday every month or two to run the machine and invite the public to come out watch it in action.
Rudd said he would keep his Facebook page updated with the next date once it’s been decided. His page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/alan.rudd.7 – you will need a free Facebook account to access the page.