30 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



'Builders of Lumber History 



(Hce Portrait Supplement.) 



Frcil E. Babcoek was boru at Fulton, Os- 

 wego count}-, Xew York, April 16, lS6o, of 

 good old-fashioned Yankee parentage. He 

 •was reared on a farm and at the age of 

 twenty-two made his first venture in com- 

 mercial pursuits by becoming a general util- 

 ity man for a cotton manufacturing insti- 

 tution at Providence, R. I. In 18S8 he went 

 to Bay City, Mich., at the suggestion of 

 his brother, E. V. Babcoek, where he be- 

 came an employe at one dollar and twenty- 

 five cents a day, of Eoss, Bradley & Co., 

 white pine factors of that city. He 

 served an apprenticeship and gained a 

 practical knowledge of the lumber busi- 

 ness at that place, filling various posi- 

 tions from lumber pile to shipper. In 1890 

 he joined the firm of Switzer & Eastwood, 

 jobbers in white pine at West Bay City, 

 Mich., as inspector and shipper, and some 

 months later was sent to Pittsburg to assist 

 his brother in selling lumber for that firm. 



About this time he and his brother, E. V. 

 Babcoek, organized the lumber jobbing house 

 at Pittsburg of E. V. Babcoek & Co., and 

 from the day of its inception the business 

 was a success. Since that time Mr. Babcoek, 

 in connection with his brothers, E. V. and 

 Oscar, has grown in lumber affairs by leaps 

 and bounds, until today the brothers are 

 at the head of a half dozen important lum- 

 ber manufacturing and jobbing houses, and 

 are among the largest stumpage owners of 

 the United States in Pennsylvania, West 

 Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia. 



Mr. Babcoek 's elder brother has been at 

 the head of the manufacturing end of the 

 business, and upon F. E. Babcoek has de- 

 volved the marketing of a quantity of hem- 

 lock, spruce, yellow pine and hardwoods 

 that would be appalling to the average 

 man. He has developed lumber salesman- 

 ship into a science, and from no institution 

 in this country is the sales end of a business 

 carried on in a more forceful and satisfac- 

 tory way than is handled by this man. It is 



NUMBER XCIV 



FRED RAYMOND BABCOCK 



not necessary to go into details of the won- 

 derful growth of F. E. Babcoek and his 

 brothers in lumber enterprises. SuflSce to say 

 that the joint efforts represent one of the 

 largest lumber manufacturing and sales in- 

 stitutions in this country. 



Mr. Babcoek is a staunch association 

 man ; a thorough believer in mutual educa- 

 tion of the trade for the elimination of un- 

 intelligent competition, and for everything 

 that tends to the highest standing and integ- 

 rity of the industry. For some years he 

 was president of the Pittsburg Lumber 

 Dealers' Association. For several years he 

 was also a director of the National Whole- 

 sale Lumber Dealers' Association, and for 

 the past few years he has been successively 

 second and first vice-president of this organ- 

 ization. Now it has come about that by 

 unanimous choice of the association, he has 

 become its president. In addition to his 

 active participation in lumber affairs, Mr. 

 Babcoek is a broad-gauged business man 

 with allied interests in banking and other 

 enterprises. 



Mr. Babcoek was married in 1895 to Miss 

 Prances St. Ledger Jacobs of Charleston, W. 

 Va., and a stalwart and handsome duo of 

 boys has blessed the union. 



In club and social affairs Mr. Babcoek 

 is a leader in the great metropolis of Pitts- 

 burg. In appearance he is a man of youth- 

 ful features and stalwart proportions. He 

 is an indefatigable and intelligent worker. 

 His manner is a personification of cordiality 

 and frieudliness, and perhaps it is due to 

 these attributes more than any others that 

 his success can be traced. 



The Hardwood Eecobd sincerely congratu- 

 lates Mr. Babcoek on his advancement to 

 the position of dignity and trust that is 

 represented by his unanimous election as 

 president of that sterling lumber organiza- 

 tion, the National Wholesale Lumber Deal- 

 ers' Association, and it is with sincere pleas- 

 ure that it presents to its readers his coun- 

 terfeit presentment in the supplement of 

 this issue. 



Paper Birch of the Northeast 

 and Its Utilization 



While the paper birch of the Northeast 

 (Betula papyrifera) is not, broadly stating, 

 an important hardwood, nevertheless it is 

 of considerable value locally, particularly 

 in Maine, where it stands second in the 

 amount of annual cut of hardwood. It is 

 used exclusively for certain woodworking 

 industries and there are certain lines of 

 manufacture for which nothing else can be 

 substituted. The annual cut of paper birch 

 approximates 32,000,000 board feet, or 80,- 

 000 cords. 



The most important industry dependent 

 upon paper birch is spool manufacture. 



which uses annually about 43,000 cords. 

 The spool mills are located throughout the 

 birch regions. For the manufacture of this 

 article the wood must be perfectly sound 

 and free from red heart, coarse knots, mil- 

 dew, stain or pith, which means that only 

 the best grade of birch can be utilized, and 

 there is a consequent large waste which is 

 used mainly for fuel. 



The green logs as cut in the woods are 

 brought to the mill during the fall or win- 

 ter, in four-foot lengths, and are first sawed 

 lengthwise into squares. These squares are 

 made four feet long whenever possible, and 



are of various dimensions, depending upon 

 the size of the spool to be manufactured. 

 They must be sawed out before the first of 

 .Tune and preferably before the first of 

 May, to prevent staining, as round logs 

 with the bark on begin to stain as soon as 

 warm weather sets in. Three-foot bolts will 

 be stained their entire length by the middle 

 of .June, and soon after white streaks begin 

 to appear in the wood and it loses its 

 strength. It has been demonstrated that 

 the best results are obtained by sawing the 

 wood while it is frozen. Clear white stock 

 of the best quality yields a thousand board 

 feet of spool bars for every two cords of 

 round logs, though the average is two and 

 a half to three cords per thousand feet. 



Immediately after sawing, the green bars 

 are stacked in piles out of doors but under 

 cover, where they are allowed to air dry 

 for several months. Before using they are 

 put in a dry-kiln for still further seasoning, 

 as it is absolutely necessary to guard against 

 any change in size or shape of the finished 

 article. 



The general process of manufacture of the 

 bars into spools is about the same for the 

 different mills. They are first cut into short 

 pieces, the exact length of the spool de- 

 sired, which are then turned on a lathe to 

 the required shape. In many cases the 

 process is entirely automatic, and the spools 

 are turned out at the rate of one a second. 

 After turning, the spool must be smoothed 

 off carefully, which is accomplished by roll- 

 ing the spools together with several balls 

 of wax or paraffine in a large hollow cylin- 

 der for about an hour or more. 



The largest spools are made in three 

 pieces, the cylindrical piece several inches 

 long, threaded at each end, serving as the 

 body. 



Many substitutes of paper birch have been 

 tried in the manufacture of spools, but so 

 far none have proven wholly successful. 

 Pulp is used to some extent, particularly 

 for large spools, which have also been made 

 with pine. Sawdust, compressed by hy- 

 draulic pressure, has been tried, but is very 

 heavy and unsatisfactory in other respects. 

 Other woods which have been experimented 

 on have all proven wanting as compared 

 with paper birch. One of the most favora- 

 ble features of this wood is the fact that it 

 does not quickly dull the turners' tools. 

 Further, it is sure to "stand" well after 

 seasoning. 



While the spool mnnufacturers require 

 only the white wood, the heart of the paper 

 birch is very highly valued for the backs of 

 brushes, because of its rich red color. As a 

 consequence, what the spool manufacturer 

 rejects, the brushmaker utilizes. Brush 

 backs are made of various hardwoods such 

 as ebony, black walnut, Circassian walnut, 

 sweet birch, holly, rosewood, mahogany, etc., 

 for the most expensive kind, while the 

 cheaper articles are made of less valuable 

 species of chestnut, beech, maple, basswood 

 and Cottonwood. 



