28 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Attendance. 



A. F. Anderson, Cadillac. 



U. A. Batchelor, Batchelor Timber Co., Sagi- 

 naw. 



Charles A. Bigelow, Kiic-land -Bigrlnw Cu.. Ilnv 

 City. 



Henry Ballou, Cobbs & Mitchell, Inc.. Cadillac. 



B. H. Cook, Cook. Curtis & Miller, Petoskey. 

 R. .1. Clark. Peninsula Bark & Lumber Co.. 



Sault Ste. Marie. 



George II. Chapman, Northwestern Lumber 

 Co., Eau Claire, Wis. 



D. H. Day, Glen Haven. 



J. E. Defebaugh, American Lumberman, Chi- 

 cago. 



F. A. Diggins, Murphy & Digging, Cadillac. 



C. R. Duggan, Timlle & Jackson, Pellston. 

 Lewis Doster, . secretary Hardwood Manufac- 

 turers' Ass. iiia lion, Chicago. 



<:. B. Dunton, Thos. MaeBride Lumber Co., 

 Grand Rapids. 



!•'.. Fitzgerald, Mitchell Bros., Cadillac. 



M. .1. Fox, <!- Von Platen, Boyne City. 



George II. Foster, Foster-Latimer Lumber Co., 

 Mellen, Wis. 



Henry H. Gibson. Hardwood Rkcokd, Chicago. 



R. Hanson. Sailing. Hanson & Co., Grayling. 



H. S. Hull, Oval Wood Dish Co., Traverse City. 



W. N. Kelley, Kelley Lumber & .Shingle Co., 

 Traverse City. 



A. B. Klise. A. B. Klise Lumber Co.. Sturgeon 

 Bay. 



W. W. Mitchell. Mitchell Bros, and Cobbs & 

 Mitchell, Inc., Cadillac. 



W. L. Martin. Embury Martin Lumber Co., 

 Cheboygan. 



D. S. MeMullen, Chicago 



A. W. Newark. Cadillac Handle Co., Cadillac. 



Guy Nash, Nash Lumber Co., Shanagolden, Wis. 



Bruce Odell, Cummer. Diggins & Co., Cadillac. 



John F. Ott, J. F. Ott Lumber Co., Traverse 

 City. 



N. II. Porter. Fast Jordan Lumber Co., East 

 Jordan. 



R. W. Smith, Louis Sands Salt ,!s Lumber 

 Co., Manistee. 



W. H. White, W. II. White Co., Boyne City. 



F. R. Williams. Elk Rapids Lumber Co.. Elk 

 Rapids. 



' ' What do you do with these things, ' ' a 

 Chicago dealer was asked, who had his store 

 window filled with wooden shoes and another 

 pile on the pavement outside; "sell them for 

 keepsakes?" "No, I sell them to wear," he 

 replied, and, probably indignant at the de- 

 risive smile evoked, invited his questioner 

 back into the store. One entire side was 

 piled high with wooden shoes, by far the 

 greater part of them of the kind that has 

 been made familiar by pictures of scenes in 

 Holland and the low countries. The rest of 

 them had wooden soles and heels, the leather 

 constituting only the upper part. It was evi- 

 dent from the number of the articles carried 

 in stock that they were good sellers. 



Three men were in the back of the store 

 trying .on wooden shoes, just as they would 

 try on shoes in any ordinary shoe store. 



"Ask Jan here what he uses them for," 

 said the proprietor, pointing to the nearest 

 customer. Jan replied in broken English that 

 they were the warmest foot covering he ever 

 worer "I could not do without my wooden 

 shoes. In the winter I get up and put them 

 -on and go out and milk my cows. They are 

 very warm. ' ' 



On examining the article the truth of this 

 becomes at once apparent. They are made 

 from one piece of wood and are absolutely 

 impervious to water. Once in a great while 

 one will crack. When the proprietor came 

 back to the front of the store, his ques- 

 tioner agreed with him that there was evi- 

 dently a market for his wares, — "But not 

 for Americans, only f oft foreigners. " " No, 

 for Americans too. Everywhere that men 

 work in damp places, there is need for these 

 wooden shoes. They are the only kind to 

 keep the water out. ' ' 



There is a market for wooden shoes in this 

 country. They are used in ice-houses, tan- 

 neries, stables and wherever dampness is 

 underfoot. The ordinary workman, as a rule, 

 does not pay a high price for his footwear, 

 and the cheap shoe takes water readily. If 

 he wishes to be at all safe, he must pay as 

 high as five dollars for a good pair of boots 

 or shoes, and even then will not be sure that 

 they are waterproof. Besides, if they last 

 six months in hard work, he is a lucky man. 

 He can buy a pair of wooden shoes for fifty 

 cents that are absolutely impermeable to 

 dampness, water, or moisture, and that will 

 last, at the least calculation, two years. "If 

 he only makes a dollar and a half a day, 

 why shouldn't he buy the wooden shoe?" 

 said the proprietor. 



The market for these shoes is found chiefly 

 in the Northwest, where the immigrants from 

 Holland, Denmark, upper Germany, and the 

 northern countries of Europe congregate. 

 They have influenced the Americans about 

 them in the matter of wearing their favorite 

 footgear to such an extent that at least two 

 large firms, one in southern Michigan and 

 the other in the East, are busy manufactur- 

 ing the articles. They are made chiefly of 

 birch and basswood, those on sale at the 

 store being of the latter wood. 



In the matter of their manufacture, the 

 same process is pursued as with shoe lasts, 

 the difference being that not so much care 

 need be taken with the wooden shoe. Blocks 

 of wood are put on the lathes and are 

 turned to a general form, then the graduat- 

 ing machines take the product and work 

 it to the required size, the toe and heel being 

 shaved off by hand, and the inside cut out 

 with a knife. The whole operation is a sim- 



ple ', and the peasants in the old country 



often carve their own, with the result that 

 the home-made article is fully equal to the 

 machine-made, except in the matter of finish. 



The demand for wooden shoes is constantly 

 increasing, and even this retail dealer sells 

 thousands of them each year. A large shoe 

 last manufacturer in Chicago has been con- 

 templating going into the business for some 

 time, and litis been repeatedly urged to do so, 

 one of his customers offering to give him a 

 large order at the start. He himself, an 

 American, used a pair of the wooden shoes 

 for a long time, wearing them about his 

 stables, and he stated that they are invalua- 

 ble for that kind of work, keeping the feet 

 perfectly "turn and leaving no odor. 



Only their shape and clumsiness .-ire against 

 them. As a matter of fact, in their proper 

 employment, for use in damp and odorous 

 places, they have a well defined sphere of 

 usefulness, and it is not improbable that as 

 their value for such work becomes better 

 known, the market for them will widen. It 

 is a matter that might be looked into with 

 profit by concerns which are engaged in last 

 making and similar uses of hardwoods. 



Driving Screws. 



A writer in the American Woodworker says : 

 "Modern wrinkles are not always good ones. 

 The other day I was in a cabinetmaker's estab- 

 lishment, where I saw a workingman 'driving 

 screws with a hammer' in regular nail-driving 

 fashion. It struck me that the driving of a 

 threaded screw into wood by hammer blows must 

 cause a serious rupturing of the wood, and 1 

 said so. The workman was "certain that the 

 screws went in just as well when hammered as 

 they would when turned in the usual way, while 

 the saving of time was a considerable item.' 



"Curious to see how the wood looked when 

 penetrated by a hammer-driven screw, I drove 

 several of the screws and several smooth nails, 

 cut and wire, into a piece of sash wood on a 

 straight line. Splitting open the piece of wood 

 on the line, so as to expose the screw and nail 

 cavities. I found just what I expected to And. 

 The wood penetrated by the wire aud cut nails 

 fitted closely and almost unbrokenly around 

 them, showing but slight downward forcing of 

 the fibers, while in the case of the driven screws 

 the wood was so compressed, mangled, torn and 

 dislocated that it looked as though the screw 

 had been sent in a hole several times too large. 

 and that the cavity around it had been filled 

 with sawdust and broken bits of wood. 



"It is reasonable to suppose that wood so 

 torn or broken by hammer-driven screws will 

 rot more rapidly than that around the nails. 

 Besides that, woodwork joined by the lacerating 

 screws thus driven will not be so strong as it 

 would be were nails used, or were the screws 

 driven as they are constructed and designed to 

 be driven. It may be all right, for those who 

 like that kind of work, to do work in that way, 

 but surely it is wrong to impose such work upon 

 men who do not know anything about methods 

 of manufacture. 



To Stain Hardwoods Black. 



The Holzmarkt says to stain hardwoods black, 

 dissolve 20 parts of anilin hydrochlorate in 300 

 parts of water. Add to the solution one part 

 of copper chloride, and apply the liquid to the 

 wood hot. Let dry aud then go over the surface 

 with a solution of potassium dichromate, 20 

 parts, in 400 parts of water. The stain im- 

 parted by this means is said to be of extraordi- 

 nary blackness and durability, resisting even 

 acids. 



