HARDWOOD RECORD 



I? 



not show wear as quickly as does lighter fin- 

 ish. Tongue and groove work should have two 

 coats of wax. This will be found strongest 

 and most durable. 



Parquetry flooring ought to be frequently 

 swept with a hair brush or with a broom cov- 

 ered with cotton-flannel. Weighted polishing 

 brushes can be obtained, and their use will 

 restore a dulled surface. Many an over- 

 zealous housewife has ruined a handsome floor 

 by frequent applications of warm water. Oil 

 is another popular cleaner which should not be 

 used frequently, for it will gradually darken 

 the wood. Places most exposed to hard wear 

 should be rubbed with a cloth wet in turpen- 



tine. \Vhen thoroughly clean and dry, the fin- 

 ish may be renewed on these spots. If such 

 places are carefully looked after and kept in 

 order, the entire floor will not require a gen- 

 eral cleaning and polishing more than once a 

 year. 



Several parquetry fields, borders, and com- 

 binations are shown in the accompanying cuts. 

 The Hardwood Record is indebted for much 

 of the information contained in this article 

 and for the accompanying sketches to the 

 Wood-Mosaic Flooring Company of Koches- 

 ler, N. Y., and New Albany, Ind. This is 

 the foremost house in the world producing 

 parquetry flooring. 



^he Pianoforte. 



The question of who invented the piano 

 does not, perhaps, interest hardwood manu- 

 facturers so much as what woods can be used 

 in its manufacture, and the various uses to 

 which such woods are put. A brief history of 

 its origin may not, however, be out of place 

 in introducing an article into the manufacture 

 of which hardwoods enter so largely. 



SpiUane in his ' ' History of the American 

 Piano ' ' mentions the clavichord as a " step 

 toward the piano. ' ' This instrument was 

 probably invented in Italy during the four- 

 teenth century; then followed the virginal 

 and spinet. About the end of the sixteenth 

 century these instruments were superseded 

 by the harpsichord, which also originated in 

 Italy about the end of the fifteenth century. 

 Bartholomeo Cristofori of Padua, a maker 

 of harpsichords, seems to have been the orig- 

 inator of the piano in 1709, although there 

 are many claimants for the honor at about 

 this period. 



The name, which signifies soft and strong, 

 appears to date back to 1598, when in the 

 correspondence of an Italian named Paliarino, 

 an instrument called piano-e-forte is men- 

 tioned. 



Spillane says ' ' the first piano made on this 

 continent to all appearances was produced by 

 John Behrent in Philadelphia in 1775, ' ' since 

 which time a vast industry has been built up, 

 until today there are in the United States hun- 

 dreds of factories turning out from one to 

 fifty pianos a day, each going forth to exer- 

 cise a ' ' humanizing influence ' ' and play its 

 part in the development of minds. 



Pianofortes are either in the form of the 

 grand piano, in which the strings lie in the 

 direction of the keys, or they have the strings 

 stretched vertically perpendicular to the keys, 

 which is now the most common form and con- 

 stitutes the upright piano. 



The principal parts of the piano into which 

 lumber enters are the case, frame or back, 

 pin plank, sounding board and keys. 



A visit to a well-organized piano factory 

 cannot be without interest and instruction to 

 a lumberman and will well repay him for the 

 time spent therein. Since a thorough seasoning 

 of all lumber entering into the manufacture 

 of pianos is a necessity, every piece used must 



first be subjected to the dry kiln no matter 

 what its previous seasoning may have been. 

 From the dry kiln the sawyer receives the 

 lumber at the crosscut saw, where the oper- 

 ator cuts to schedule, passing from the cross- 

 cut to the rip saw and thence to the surfacer 

 and other machines in regular order until such 

 pieces as are to be glued together reach the 

 gluing machine, which deftly spreads \he 

 glue evenly on the surface of the wood. 



The parts which are glued together are 

 subjected to a pressure of many hundreds of 

 pounds under specially constructed presses. 

 Singularly, it has been found that presses con- 

 structed of wood glued together have given 

 more satisfactory results and have withstood 

 a greater strain than those built entirely of 

 iron, the method used being to glue one inch 

 luraber cross-banded together. 



Piano cases are mostly ' ' double veneered ' ' 

 on poplar, elm, chestnut and sometimes maple 

 and birch, the thickness of lumber used being 

 one inch, inch and a quarter, inch and a half, 

 and two inches, some manufacturers using 

 solid quarter-sawed white oak or birch. 



The principal wood used in the frames, or 

 backs, is soft elm, three inches and three 

 and one-half inches thick, although latterly 

 some Oregon fir and red gum have been 

 used and found to answer the purpose. 



Pin or tuning planks are built of quarter- 

 sawed maple, a quarter of an inch thick in 



three layers at right angles glued to two-inch 

 maple. 



Eastern spruce holds its own as the most 

 suitable and at present the only wood mak- 

 ing a satisfactory sounding board, this im- 

 portant part of the instrument requires much 

 care in its manufacture, the wood used being 

 one-quarter inch thick, ribbed with spruce one 

 inch square. 



The sounding board is fastened to a mal- 

 leable iron frame weighing from one hundred 

 (0 two hundred pounds. To this frame are 

 also fastened the strings, which are of steel 

 wire. The tuning of the strings is not infre- 

 queutly done by men to whom the art of play- 

 ing is as Greek, which may appear to be an 

 anomaly. 



Very few manufacturers of pianos make 

 their keys or actions, this being a branch of 

 the business requiring special equipment. The 

 keys are made from clear select white pine, 

 "shorts" being chiefly used. White maple 

 is the principal wood used for piano actions, 

 the mechanism by which the movement of the 

 keys is conveyed to the strings. 



Of the more expensive woods mahogany and 

 walnut are chiefly used for moldings, trusses 

 and pillars. These woods, together with oak, 

 are also used as veueers for outer finish of 

 the ease. These veneers, before being glued 

 to the case, are fii'st cross banded below with 

 birch or poplar veneer; here the gluing ma- 

 chine plays an important part. 



Not the least interesting is the filling and 

 finishing of the woods, which singularly re- 

 ceive their final finish from the bare palm of 

 the operator's hand, a noteworthy feature be- 

 ing the fact that instead of the polisher's 

 hand being, as might be expected, hard and 

 callous, it is as soft as the skin of an infant. 

 Upright pianos are made in three or four 

 sizes and grands in three sizes. Compara- 

 tively few pianos are exported to England or 

 other European countries, they being too 

 cheaply manufactured there, and the domestic 

 demand quite equal to the present supply. 

 The United States has, however, for some 

 years past been regarded as the producer of 

 the highest grade of pianos, thanks to the in- 

 defatigable perseverance of our manufac- 

 turers. 



Anecdote and Incident. 



utilized the Loan. 



There is a Philadelphia lumberman much 

 noted for brusqueness of manner, chari- 

 table instincts toward his friends and very 

 outspoken opinions of both men and man- 

 ners. Recently a customer walked into his 

 office with a request for a loan of $2,000 

 for a few days. The matter was quickly 

 adjusted and a check for the amount given 

 him. 



"What are you going to charge me for 

 this money?" asked the customer. 



' ' Oh, if you only want it for a few days 

 I won't charge you anything," promptly 

 responded the lumberman. 



The foregoing with the subsequent part 



of the story is related by the Philadelphia 

 lumber magnate. 



"What do you suppose that cuss did with 

 my two thousand dollars?" remarks he, in- 

 terrogatively. "He didn't do a thing the 

 next day but send me a check for an over- 

 due account he owed me, and discount it 2 

 per cent! " 



A Bedwood Becommendatlon. 

 W. E. Birmingham, the expert California 

 timber logger and estimator who for so 

 many years has been associated with the 

 White & Friant California interests, is in 

 Chicago this week. In discussing the non- 

 inflammable character of redwood he re- 



