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Sawing Defects and their Causes 



Oi'i-asionally a wholesale dealer in lumber will find himself in a 

 liad fix with a lot of lumber on hand, perhaps on oars awaiting 

 his order, having been refused because, as a result of poor sawing, 

 it ran uneven in thickness. This condition is not uncommon in the 

 yellow pine industry but seems to be more prevalent in hardwood 

 sawmilling than in any other branch of luhiberinfj. It is one of 

 the reasons why many wholesalers in hardwood hesitate and even 

 refuse to buy stock from the smaller mills, and it is one of the 

 things that haniiicaps the small millman 'when he goes out to sell 

 his stock fither to a wholesaler or to a consumer. 



The writer has in mind a specific instance illustrative of this 

 feature and the attitude experienced millmen and dealers take 

 toward it. The case is that of a well-known hardwood millman 

 who saws quite a lot of lumber himself and buys quite a lot from 

 other mills to help supply his trade. Frequently owners of small 

 mills come to him offering their product. He experimented with 

 this stock until he found it so difficult to handle because of poor 

 manufacture that he lost his inclination to turn a friendly eye to a 

 proposition of this kind. 



By and by, because of the insistence of so many of the smaller 

 millmen, the large operator conceived the idea of instructing and 

 supervising them in their work in the hope that some might be 

 encouraged to improve their product. The particular case in mind 

 here was a small millniau who was so insistent on making a deal 

 that the lumberman in question made a tentative agreement with 

 him on condition that he would put his mill in proper order and do 

 his sawing as it should be done. The millman readily agreed to all 

 this and was verj' thorough in his promises to make his lumber 

 right, and on this basis he went back home and started to work 

 getting out lumber. By and by the lumberman went down to see 

 what he was doing but no sooner did he observe the plant and its 

 equipment, and the work it was doing, than he called the whole 

 deal off. In talking of the matter afterward he said that the small 

 millman simply had never gotten into his head a true conception 

 of what it takes in the way of equipment and what it means in 

 the way of perfection to do good sawing. 



It is impossible to say just how much lumber is lowered in value 

 by poor sawing at hardwood mills. It is easily evident that if it 

 could be totaled and the deficits rightly measured it would present 

 some startling figures. Moreover if the figures were presented it 

 is probable that there are many millmen who would argue that a 

 certain percentage of poor sawing is unavoidable and there is no 

 use in trying to attain perfection in this work. 



Yet we do get evidence now and then that notwithstanding many 

 mills are woefully careless and many thousands of dollars are lost 

 to the sawmilling fraternity because of poor manufacture lowering 

 the value of their stock, it is not only practical to do almost 

 uniformly perfect sawing but it is not difficult to find examples of 

 where it is being done. The writer recently spent some days 

 observing the work of a good mill with this very point in view. 

 It was a well equipped mill but not extraordinarily so. It con- 

 sisted of one log band saw and two band resaws, one for ripping 

 flitches into boards and the other for resawing boards. The mill 

 was kept under observation not just one day but in a general way 

 for nearly a week, and during all that time it was hardly possible 

 to find an instance of a board spoiled or lowered in grade because 

 f)f poor sawing. The band saw in the mill was made to stand up 

 to its work and the minute it showed signs of not doing so it came 

 iitY the wheels and a freshly filed one took its place. There was 

 nothing extraordinary in either the filing room equipment or the 

 filer's ability. It was just an average example of modern, well 

 handled sawmilling in which the percentage of poorly manufac- 

 tured lumber was so low as to be practically a negligible item. 



A certain yellow pine millman once made the statement that if 

 he got as much as a carload of missawed lumber in 12,000,000 feet 

 of stock somebody would get a jacking up. This was said to 

 illustrate the degree of perection that is attained in the work of 



sawing in some of the piue mills. Pretty nearly the same degree 

 of perfection can be obtained in a hardwood mill. It may call for 

 •■hanging saws oftener than in sawing pine but there is nothing 

 impractical or extremely difficult about it in this day of science 

 and outomatic appliances in the filing room, and its accomplishment 

 is possible. 



It is contended by some that the greatest percentage of miscuts 

 in sawing lumber is due to crowding, to efforts to secure quantities 

 extended to the point where they sacrifice quality. This fault, 

 however, is more likely to be found in the pine mills than in the 

 hardwood. The hardwood men realize that they must handle their 

 work more carefully than the pine men to get the best lumber in 

 the best shape from their logs, consequently there is not generally 

 the same element of crowding in the hardwood mill that is found 

 among the pine mills. Perhaps there are some mills where they 

 put so much stress on the quantity that they sacrifice quality, but 

 that is not the rule especially in these days when the quantity 

 element is helped along by the use of resaws to relieve the mill 

 saw^ of part of its work. 



What is usually assigned as the next important cause of raiscut 

 lumber is poor work in the filing room, which may be due to either 

 ignorance or neglect. Sometimes when a new filer comes on to the 

 job even though he has had experience and takes pains with his 

 work he will have some trouble for a while. However there are 

 competent filers to be had and millmen as a rule pay enough for 

 this filing service that they may well insist that their saws stand 

 up and do their work. It is the duty of every mill manager to 

 watch this point in his mill carefully for sometimes even if the 

 filer is competent he becomes careless and negligent and things of 

 this kind should not be tolerated in this day, because both the 

 timber and the time of the millmen are too valuable to be wasted 

 at poor sawing. Sharp saws should be insisted upon rather than 

 so many saws or so many changes a day. A dull saw not only 

 pulls heavy but it runs uncertainly and is likely to go bad and 

 spoil lumber any minute. The sawyer should watch his saw care- 

 fully and when it shows duU, puU it off immediately regardless of 

 how long it has been running, and see that it is put in perfect cutting 

 order. 



Poor head blocks and poorly and improperly installed raaehinery 

 may cause defects in sawing. There is very little excuse for this 

 condition because any man competent to erect and operate or 

 manage a sawmill has sense enough to know when his machinery 

 equipment is faulty either in itself or in its installation. That 

 means that it is either negligence, carelessness or something of 

 the kind that permits the use of machinery not in proper condi 

 tion. There is very little excuse for the man who permits things 

 of this kind to continue very long. 



Another preventable and inexcusable source of defects may be 

 found at the edger. Here again we have a matter of carelessness 

 rather than of ignorance. Carelessness makes a dozen bad boards 

 where ignorance or necessity makes one, and it is carelessness 

 that causes fully ninety per cent of the irregylarities and defects 

 in the edging and trimming of lumber. Carelessness of this kind is 

 unnecessary and inexcusable. It is the duty of the sawmill fore- 

 man to prevent just such things as these. The manager or the 

 owner should see that his mill foreman does his duty in this respect. 



Miscuts in sawing and lumber spoiled or lowered in grade 

 through defective manufacture is, after all, quite largely a matter 

 of habit. It is a habit of neglect and carelessness that somehow 

 fastened on to the system of millmen and operators in the old 

 rough and tumble days when timber sawing and precision in sawing 

 were not considered factors of great importance. We need some 

 swearing off from these old habits and a campaign of reform in 

 the sawmilling industry that will cry out for precision in this work 

 until it not only makes itself heard but until the cry is duly 

 heeded by the majority of sawmill operators without regard as to 

 their size. 



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