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Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



June 25, 1917 



yet the elimination of even one or two men here and 

 another there, may save a respectable sum in course of 

 a year. 



The lack of adequate apparatus for handling logs is 

 apparent at many mills. Gravity might be used much 

 more than it is. The band cut off saw promises economy 

 and is rapidly coming into use. Too much hand work is 

 frequently employed in handling veneer between the 

 lathe and the clipper. Most veneer mills need more 

 trucks. Veneer should never touch the floor between 

 the clipper and the warehouse. Tlie dryer is the greatest 

 labor saving device in the veneer mill; and more atten- 



tion could well be paid to equalizing saws. The equip- 

 ment for keeping mills clean is worth careful thought. 

 Too much of that kind of work is done by hand. The 

 hog is a labor saver in chopping fuel for the furnace. 



Better Buying Arrangements Needed 



L. P. Groffmann of the St. Louis (Mo.) Basket and 

 Box Company presented a paper, "How to Order Veneers 

 and Panels." He dealt chiefly with the troubles of the 

 manufacturer who receives from his customers orders 

 which are not clear. This practical paper is given in full 

 elsewhere in this issue. 



History of Veneer Cutting 



Changes in Methods of Manufacture in a Century 



1 O LOOK BACK fifty or more years in the mak- 

 ing of a veneer and to compare methods 

 obtaining in those days with today's practice 

 of slicing with knives, would be as big a 

 stretch of the imagination as to compare the cutting of 

 boards by the old pit saw with the modern band saw rig 

 equipped with saws ten, twelve, to eighteen inches in 

 width, operated at a speed of 8,000 to 10,000 feet per 

 minute. Notwithstanding all the advances which have 

 been made in knife machines for cutting veneers, so 

 little change is found in the veneer sawing machine 

 itself, that it can be said with all safety to be practically 

 the same machine today as it was fifty years ago. The 

 factor of the skill of the sawyer back of the machine is 

 still the prime element ot successful cutting. 



In this backward glance let us turn our eyes for a 

 moment to old England, now so torn with grim war, 

 where v^e catch a glimpse of a veneer saw^ used in the 

 earliest days of the art, the flange of which had a 

 diameter of ten to twelve feet, weighing in itself some 

 four or five tons. The rim of this flange required 1 00 

 segments to cover it, and all together it was a ponderous 

 affair. Today the veneer saw has a flange about five 

 feet in diameter, to which a set of segments is applied, 

 bringing the total diameter to seventy or seventy-two 

 inches. 



The only changes marking the veneer sawing machine 

 of fifty years ago are those found in some places from 

 the all-wooden stay blocks with stay block screws which 

 reached through holes in the stay block and screwed into 

 the log of flitch to be sawed thus securing it; whereas the 

 machine of today is equipped either with iron stay blocks 

 or with wooden stay blocks containing steel clamps run- 

 ning in steel clamp slides, thus eliminating the screws ex- 

 cept for the heaviest flitches. This enables the operator to 

 leave a very thin last board. It has been my good for- 



riie above is .i synopsis of a paper on the history and processes ol 

 veneer making, read before the convention of the Nntional Veneer and 

 Panel Mannfacturcrs' Association, Chic-Jgo, June 12. 1917, by John C. Mc- 

 Causlan. assistant sale-; mnmc.T for Henry Disston & Sons, saw works. 

 Philadelphia. 



tune to know a number of the old-time veneer sawyers 

 of New York City, and a jollier lot of chaps never lived, 

 and to have fought through with them some of their 

 battles in perfecting the finish and method of grinding 

 the segments to avoid undue waste of time in fitting seg- 

 ments to flanges, and to have solved in some degrees 

 the problem of making for them the peculiar and deli- 

 cate saw sets which they use to set the teeth. Right here 

 let me say that a veneer sawyer sets the teeth of his saw 

 differently from sawyers in other lines, setting the teeth 

 for clearance and twisting them at the same time to 

 "polish" the veneer and bring out the figure. 1 have in 

 mind old George Tice, some thirty-five years ago, pay- 

 ing ten hard-earned dollars for one of these little saw 

 sets, v^hich, by the way, are only four or five inches long 

 by about an inch wide, weighing but a few ounces. He 

 lost it on the way home. You may well imagine v^rhat 

 George said when he discovered the hole in his pocket 

 through Vifhich the "set" disappeared. 



In days gone by, when a man wanted veneers, he 

 bought a log, say of rosewood, mahogany, walnut, or 

 satinwood, as the case might be, and carried it to his 

 favorite mill. In bargaining for the cutting, the owner 

 of the log usually specified the sawyer who was to cut 

 it for him, and then offered a prize of five or ten dollars, 

 or perhaps a silk hat or box of cigars, for nicely cut 

 veneers, with the dancing figure well preserved, and what 

 was most important, the maximum number of veneers to 

 the inch. The sawyer would then be particular to keep 

 his saw sharp, and frequent filing of the teeth was nec- 

 essary to polish the veneer and bring out the figure and 

 prevent tearing of the fiber of the wood. 



The sawing of veneers did not hold full sway long, for 

 knife cutting machines of the rotary type were used as 

 early as 1846 by a Mr. Titus; and Felix A. Mulgrew of 

 New York operated a rotary machine over forty-five 

 years ago. There was also an experiment made by T. B. 

 Wilson, who invented a machine and knife to cut fluted 

 or corrugated veneers. The very earliest veneer slicing 

 machine 1 was able to get any trace of was operated by 



