HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



tiou and the opportunities it furnishes to display better face and 

 figure. The other is the superiority of liardwood when used in in- 

 terior trim. It is impossible to determine the comparative weight of 

 each factor, but the trend of arguments and sentiment expressed in 



the past has been toward giving veneering all the credit, whereas 

 there is perhaps an equal amount of credit due the superiority of 

 liardwood itself for the progress of the veneered door. 



.T. C. T. 



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African Cedar 







Okume. the so-called African cedar, which was considered for 

 a long time to be a species of Bursera, is now definitely known to 

 be BosweUia l-1aineana, a member of the frankincense family 

 (Bvrxeracece). This is a group of trees remarkable as furnish- 

 ing an agreeably scented resinous substance which exudes when 

 the bark is pierced. Okume is closely allied to a common tree of 

 Covomandel, known as oHbanum tree (BosweUia serrata — Eoxb.) 

 wliiih is supposed to have yielded the frankincense of the ancients 

 and now so extensively employed for its grateful perfume as 

 incense in the Roman Catholic churches. 



Okume, also called angouma, holds an important place in the 

 forests of French Congo. It is common throughout the deciduous 

 forests of Congo and thrives on a great variety of soils, usually 

 along the many rivers and streams which bring these forest areas 

 in communication with the coast. It is a large deciduous tree, 

 often more than six feet in diameter and from one hundred to 

 one hundred and fifty feet in height. Mature trees attain enormous 

 trunks wliich project their tall summits above the more modest tree? of 

 the forests. The bark, especially of young trees, is seldom over 

 half an inch thick, is yellowish-green in color and peels off in 

 thin white layers or irregular flakes capable of being used for 

 packing purposes. The wood, which has been exported from French 

 Congo for more than fifteen years, resembles West Indian cedar 

 used so extensively in making cigar boxes, and on this account 

 is now often substituted for it and is known in the trade as 

 African cedar. 



The sap-wood is nearly white and the heart-wood is light brown 

 or yellowish. It is moderately hard, light in weight (twenty-eight 

 to forty-two pounds per cubic foot), coarse and even grained, and 

 works very easily. Although okume does not have the color of 

 walnut, it has been sold in the English markets as African walnut. 

 It is considered inferior to Circassian walnut, for the reason that 

 it is too coarse grained and does not take a sufficiently good polish 

 to serve as a successful substitute. The wood has been favorably 

 considered by a number of importers but until now its use has 

 been confined largely to cigar box manufacture. It is a wood that 

 will come into more general use in the near future, for it possesses 

 qualities not remotely resembling those of some mahogany-like 

 woods. The pores, which are moderate sized, are somewhat more 

 numerous than those of true mahogany. They are often subdivided 

 and contain resin. The pith rays are conspicuous and not very 

 numerous. 



The natives in Africa use the enormous trunks of this tree for 

 making canoes, which are commonly dug out of a single log the 

 width of which is often from five to six feet. In this respect 

 okume corresponds to the corotu tree (Enterolobium timiouva — 

 Mart.) of Central and South America. The demand for this timber 

 is greater than the supply, not because of the scarcity of the 

 wood, but because of the sparse settlement and the lack of culti- 

 vation which tends to render the necessary provision in this part 

 of Congo too meager and irregular to exploit the forests suc- 

 cessfullv. 



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The Spoor of the Saw Tooth 



Many lessons are found along the trail of the saw tooth in the way 

 of signs of unnecessary waste in both lumber and veneer sawing 

 which are worthy of being taken seriously to heart. For example, 

 occasionally a board is found on which a long cornered saw tooth 

 has left its mark very conspicuously; a board that will require dress- 

 ing off a full sixteenth of an inch of good lumber to get it down to 

 a smooth, even surface and eliminate the mark of the one long 

 saw tooth. 



For example, take a saw that runs anywhere from two or three 

 hours to half a day. In that time it turns out quite a lot of lumber. 

 If it is cutting inch lumber, and the saw cuts 16,000 feet, there is a 

 thousand feet of lumber that must be dressed thin, simply because 

 the filer did not take the pains to reduce that one long corner and 

 make the saw cut smoothly. 



It is not long since this matter of saving of saw kerf was taken 

 up quite seriously, so seriously in fact that not only was much skill 

 called into play to operate thin circular saws, but a great boost was 

 given to the band saw, because it would do the work without taking 

 so much timber for kerf. 



What is the ultimate result if a sixteenth of nn inch kerf is 

 saved by using a band saw and then a long cornered tooth or two left 

 that through carelessness makes it necessary to dress that sixteenth 

 off to get a smooth board? Instead of improving matters, they have 

 been made worse, and the trail of the saw tooth is showing heavily 

 in waste. The matter of waste caused by reducing the board to a 

 smooth face is not the only loss, as often in doing this the board 

 itself is spoiled, because its thickness is reduced below the standard 



required for it. To the close student of manufacturing methods the 

 trail of the saw tooth tells its story as plainly as the spoor of the 

 big game in Africa tells the experienced hunter what he is following 

 and where he may expect it to lead him. 



Occasionally a millman is found who is considered a crank on the 

 subject of smooth sawing. The writer recalls a particular instance 

 where a man operating a small mill became possessed with the idea 

 of turning out the smoothest sawed product of anybody in his sec- 

 tion of the country. It came about through his doing a little of the 

 saw filing himself, and as the mill was new the result was pleasing, 

 and he gradually developed a pride in turning out smooth sawed 

 lumber. This idea became so developed in his mind that when promi- 

 nent saw markings began to show either on the face of his log or on 

 the boards as they dropped from the saw, he would stop the mill 

 instantly, go over his saw carefully, find what was causing the mark- 

 ings and correct it if it took an hour. 



Apparently this man wasted much valuable time for what looked 

 more like a hobby than good sound sawmill sense, but in reality while 

 he wasted time, he saved lumber and made a reputation. As a matter 

 of fact, he made more money by following this hobby than he would 

 otherwise have done, and perhaps more than he had any idea of. It 

 was largely a matter of personal pride with him to see that no lum- 

 ber went out with saw marks of long corners on it. He liked to get 

 his boards so smooth that it was impossible to identify the rate of 

 feed used per revolution of the saw. 



This kind of sawing required a little more care and extra money, 

 but in reality it made him money. Another fact, but really logical 



