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Tips to the Trade 



LUMBER SORTING AND CREAM SEPARATING 



There is a condition of things in the cabinet wood trade today 

 that in a way reminds one of tlie process of cream separating, in the 

 business of sorting and marketing lumber. 



In the old days farmers separated the cream from their milk by 

 a slow, natural, incomplete process, and it remained for a certain 

 condition in mechanical progress to develop cream separating into 

 a science. Maybe the connection between this and the hardwood 

 lumber business will not at once be apparent, but the comparison 

 herein presented may furnish a new viewpoint on sorting and selling 

 hardwood lumber. 



There was once an observant sawyer operating a hardwood mill 

 of small capacity where oak was being cut into car stock, bridge 

 timbers and other common merchantable dimensions. In the work 

 of cutting the heavier dimensions was produced a large percentage 

 of siding. Some of it was made one inch and some of it two, 

 whichever best suited the work of reducing the logs. 



This siding was considered unimportant and often was marketed 

 at even a lower price than the squares and heavier dimensions. 



Jvow this observant sawyer noted that much of the siding was 

 clear stock, so he suggested to the proprietor that instead of running 

 it m with the common sound boards that it be reduced to wagon 

 pole dimensions and piled separately until enough for a carload 

 could be accumulated. 



The proprietor did not think much of it, but he made no objection 

 because he was not seriously concerned with the siding, simply 

 considered it as a sort of by-product of his bill stuff. Therefore, he 

 let the sawyer have his way and carry out his idea. There was 

 something of an awakening though and an arousing of a somewhat 

 lively interest when he marketed the first car of clear stock and 

 realized that out of a car of it he might get returns that would 

 abnost double the value of a carload of his bill stuff. 



That was away back in by-gone days, and since that time prac- 

 tically all hardwood millmen, large and small alike, have learned to 

 discriminate in the matter of clear stock as compared to common 

 sound and to seek to utilize each log for the kind of cutting it 

 seems best fitted. 



Yet in conditions existing today there are better opportunities for 

 observant manufacturers and handlers of lumber to do things which 

 enable them to realize more for their product than existed in those 

 by-gone days. 



There is today a demand in furniture, sash and door factories 

 and planing mills for the unusual in wood figui;e for natural wood 

 finishes that present something striking and unique. Part of this 

 den-.and for fancy figured wood is supplied by the veneer trade, but 

 there is much of it in the solid lumber, and there are many uses 

 for which the solid lumber is better adapted. 



It is not merely a rage for mahogany or Circassian walnut, every 

 kind of figured wood is finding favor, and there is also a stronger 

 inclination than ever before to use wood in its natural color and to 

 seek for different woods to get variety of color, which makes a 

 market for the figured product in every variety of hardwood. 



Well may a product of this kind be classed as the cream from 

 lumber operations. The cream gatherers in the lumber business have 

 heretofore been pointed out as those who wUl buy a carload of quar- 

 tered oak or something of the kind, select out that which shows the 

 most conspicuous figure and make complaint of the rest. They take 

 the cream out of the shipment and want the price reduced on the 

 rest of it or reject it entirely. 



The real cream of the hardwood product is the figured wood. The 

 unusual trees, burls, crotches, etc., and the cream separating, as 

 applied to this, consists in methodically assorting, assembling and 

 marketing them for all they are worth. 



There is hardly a sawmill man operating in hardwood but who 



from time to time has some of this unusual figure in his product. 



Sometimes it is an entire log, it may be a crotch, or it may be an 



oak tree with mammoth burls on it, which may be considered a 



—36— 



uuiEani-e and yet wlien cut off and worked up may prove valuable. 



It is a little diflicult to suggest what might be termed a scientific i 

 method for assorting or separating out this cream of tlie hardwood 

 product, as it occurs in different forms and often must be handled 

 by different methods. 



The big mill making enormous quantities of lumber tliat ]iass 

 in a more or less steady stream under the eyes of the grader might 

 do some good by instructing the grader to mark the unusual figui-ed 

 stock as special and have it piled aside. There is a certain chance 

 also to sort the logs, to discern the unusual in figured wood from the 

 appearance of the logs, pile these aside until enough of them arc 

 aeccimulated for a run befoi'e putting them through the mill. 



Where a mill has a dimension stock department there is sometimes \ 

 a chance to work burls and freak pieces of logs and timber entirely 

 apart from the main mill itself. Often, too, in cutting waste and 

 odds and ends into special dimensions for furniture there is this 

 occurrence of the unusual in figure that is worth while and the same 

 syslem of sorting out may be resorted to as that employed in sorting 

 out lumber at the mill. 



There is no need to elaborate on how fitting it would be to use 

 figured framework in a piece of furniture made up of matched and 

 figured panels, or how much more valuable this should be to both the 

 timber and the furniture manufacturer than plain dimension stock. 

 Tliese points are obvious, besides the value is never fixed, depending 

 upon both the figure itself and the appropriate setting it gives to 

 something else. 



The main point to the whole story is that just as the observant 

 sawyer in by-gone days saw a way to realize from what was regai'ded 

 as a by product more than was obtained for the regular bill stock, 

 so are there opportunities today- — opportunities that are too good 

 to let pass to separate this cream of the forest product found in 

 the way of especially figured wood, from the regular stock of lumber 

 witiiout in any way detracting from the grade or value of the 

 regular product, and realize a special figure for this cream that 

 may add considerably to the profit account of the sawmill. 



T. 

 POPLAR AND PAINT 



Poplar liunboT has an aifinity for paint that never has been 

 equaled by anything except the white pine of the North, which is 

 no longer available in its good oldtime quantities at reasonable 

 prices. 



This fact may not seem startling or have the element of newness, 

 but it is an important point that the purveyors of poplar lumber 

 well may keep alive and working, in this day of competitive adver- 

 tising and boosting of woods and claims all kinds of superiority 

 for some that are offered as substitutes. 



Poplar not only takes paint better, but it holds it better than 

 almost any other wood .available, and this makes it a very desirable 

 material for planing mill work, frames and outside work of all kinds 

 in house construction. It should also commend its use for interior 

 finish where paint is to be used, or where the enamel effect instead 

 of natural is to prevail. 



Poplar not only takes paint better, but it works better and stays 

 put. When it is once thoroughly dry it is comparatively free from 

 warping and has many other good qualities, imt the least of which is 

 its atlinity for paint. The ease with which it can be painted and 

 the tenacity with which it holds its paint, should enable the salcsn;an 

 handling a good lino of poplar to get the preference in the planing 

 mill trade and also in lots of cabinet work. It is merely a maiter 

 of keeping poplar good points alive and working. The fact that 

 others make the claim that their lumber is as good as poplar, is in 

 itself a confession of the superiority of this well-known wood. 



CARE OF LIVE STOCK 

 One of the great leaks in woods operations is the loss or inef- 

 ficiency of live stock by reason of bad or careless feeding. This 

 is especially true where horses are employed. Perhaps as much 



