In 1886 Wilson & Hendrie, of Montague, Mich., tried their hand at Band Mill construction. Their mill as here shown is an enlarged copy of the Hoffman mill, but having a cast frame of apparently large dimensions. Locally this mill may have gone into use to some extent, but it found no market among saw mills generally. [Illustration: Band Saw Mill of The Wilkin Manufacturing Co.] And then in 1888 The Wilkin Mfg. Co., of Milwaukee, Wis., advertised and marketed a Band Mill designated as “the most common sense Band Mill made.” It had overhanging wheels of wood with rubber faces. In one respect this mill demonstrates how easy it is for one to imagine a trouble and then spend a lot of money to correct a trouble that really has no existence. It was known, of course, that a band saw under stress would be inclined to gravitate to the rear. In this mill the attempt is made to prevent this and compel the saw to follow its proper path around the wheels by raising or depressing the tail end of the top wheel shaft; and in order to do this automatically a steel trolley was applied to the rear edge of the saw, closely following it, whatever its position might be; but any movement of the trolley towards the front or rear was followed by a corresponding adjustment of the tail box of the top shaft. The effect of the trolley on the edge of the saw was bad; and besides that there really was no special need of any device of the kind. In connection with this mill there are also three other interesting features worthy of mention, as one of them in particular illustrates the method then prevailing of preventing a log from rubbing or dragging against the saw when the carriage was run back or being gigged for the next cut. At the present time an off-setting mechanism is applied to the carriage trucks, but previously a depressor, so-called, was applied to all mills substantially as shown in the Wilkin mill and others illustrated herein. That is to say, both the upper and lower saw guides were movable transversely, and the off-bearer by means of a hand lever, forced the guides back from the saw line, carrying the saw sideways away from the log, and in this manner contact with the face of the log was prevented; but it was hard on the saw. In this mill, however, there is a new departure as shown by the application of two small friction rolls or pulleys behind the saw, in place of the usual saw guides; the idea being to force the saw out to the saw line by means of the rolls, and then when the carriage was gigged the rolls were moved back and the saw permitted to fall away from the face of the log; this feature being an imitation of the same thing embodied in the Allington mill previously built at Saginaw, but not shown herein. This arrangement, however, proved to be severe on the saws, because such short bends will crack them in a short time, and besides this the rolls made such a roar in a mill that not much else could be heard.