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Thg Figured Wood Game 



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[See colored supplement "Exquisite English Walnut Panel"] 



There are figured veneers — and figured veneers. The expert 

 veneer man can take a log of ordinary figure, and by dint of skill 

 in cutting his flitches, succeed in producing veneers either on a 

 veneer saw, slioer or rotary cutter, that will show something in 

 the way of a figure. However, high-class fancy veneers can only 

 be produced from richly figured logs or from burls. The figured 

 veneer game calls for long experience and the highest skill. 

 Primarily the selection and purchase of the logs, flitches or burls 

 is pretty nearly a science. When it comes to converting a log to 

 secure the best possible results in the way of figure, width, sound- 

 ness of stock, etc., the business gets down to another branch of 

 the science. When it comes to cutting the flitches to veneers, 

 still added skill has to be possessed by the operator. A quartered 

 section of a log may produce the best results on a slicer, and 

 may possibly produce a more alluring figure when mounted on a 

 stay-log, and cut on a rotary machine. Fancy veneer production 

 in all respects is a science in order to achieve the best results. 



Some years ago a well-known New York veneer man said to 

 the writer: "If a man has any gambling instincts to gratify, it 

 isn't necessary for him to go down into Wall street to satisfy 

 them, or to play faro-bank, draw-poker or the ponies. All he 

 has to do is to go into the figured veneer business and he will 

 have every speculative ambition fully satisfied. ' ' 



The man who makes money out of the figured veneer game 

 is one who knows how to look into the inside of a log that 

 has its bark on, and tell pretty nearly what sort of a figured 

 veneer he is going to get out of it. There are few men in the 

 world who are capable of doing this, and hence the country is 

 strewn with failures in the figured veneer business. It 's science 

 combined with a gamble. The man above quoted, although at 

 one time regarded as one of the best fancy wood men in the 

 country, has since made a lamentable business failure. 



A few years ago the writer was visiting with C. L. Willey, 

 the foremost fancy wood man in the United States, at his Chi- 

 cago plant, when he observed: "I wish you would come over 

 here tomorrow, because I am going to open up what I regard as 

 the best Circassian log that I ever saw. I paid a lot of money for 

 it, and I believe it is going to make some wonderfully handsome 

 veneers. ' ' 



Dropping around at the plant the next day, I encountered 

 Mr. Willey 's son, Charles, and said to him: "How did that 

 great big Circassian log turn out that your father opened up this 

 morning?' ' 



"You don't want to see my father today," observed Charles. 

 "He put that log on the carriage this morning to fliteli 

 it, and it wasn't worth a rap. The whole business is shoved 

 out on the dump, as not a piece of it was worth putting on a 

 slicer. ' ' 



The log as it originally laid in Mr. Willey 's yard looked 

 reasonably sound, and bore every outward evidence that it would 

 produce ten thousand feet of high-class veneers. It probably cost, 

 laid down in the Chicago plant, a matter of five hundred dol- 

 lars, and proved to be an absolute loss. This is one side of 

 the story. The other side is that an astute buyer will occasionally 

 dig up a log that will develop wonderful results in splendid 

 veneers. There is romance as well as speculative qualities in 

 the figiired veneer business. The accompanying picture supple- 

 ment was reproduced from a forty-two-inch square panel, which 

 was one of a dozen varying in all particulars, and was made up 

 of as many distinct figured sections of burls that came out of a 

 big log of English walnut that was purchased by C. L. Willey 

 some years ago in England. It is said to be the most remarkable 

 English walnut log that was ever brought to America; and was 

 out of one of the largest, if not the largest trees existing in 

 that country. It showed an age of from six hundred to seven 

 hundred vears. Mr. Willey purchased it entirely by accident. 



At the time of the purchase he had considerable dealings with 

 William Oliver & Sons, timber merchants of London, and just 

 before sailing for Europe in 1908, he received a letter from them 

 telling about this tree. In company with his representatives, 

 he visited the private park of Lewis Vernon Harcourt, a mem- 

 ber of the British ministry. Mr. Harcourt 's park is a beuatiful, 

 finely timbered estate of 1,200 acres, situated near the village of 

 Nuneham Courtenay, in Oxford county, about sixty miles west 

 of London. Much interesting history obtains concerning the 

 estates of the Harcourts. Some 170 years ago the village of 

 Nuneham Courtenay was removed a considerable distance from 

 its original site to its present location, and it is alleged this 

 walnut tree grew in the village garden, was excavated, and 

 moved to the Harcourt private park to serve ;is one of its 

 chief ornaments, and to preserve a notable example of tree growth. 

 The tree doubtless had shown no material growth since the time 

 of its removal, and Mr. Willey found its main bole lying on the 

 ground at the railroad station awaiting transfer. The log was 

 twenty feet long, seven-and-a-half feet in diameter at the butt, 

 about five feet through at its narrowest point, and eight-and-a-half 

 feet in diameter at its crotch top. It contained about 4,200 feet 

 board measure. 



It was certainly an unpromising looking object, and the average 

 American farmer, in clearing out a tree of any such sort from his 

 property, would undoubtedly have consigned it to the fire. Mr. 

 WiUey thought he could see something in it, however, and pur- 

 chased it for approximately $750. The decayed portions were cut 

 away, and it was trimmed up somewhat, but, in order to get it 

 into the hold of the steamer, it ^^•as necessary to cut it into two 

 sections. It reached the United States by way of New Orleans, 

 and when transferred from the vessel it was found necessary to 

 again cut the larger section into halves. It required an entire 

 car to transport the log to Chicago. 



The chief feature of the log was two enormous burls connected 

 together by a twisted smaller section. , When the sections of the 

 logs were landed at Mr. Willey 's yard, his interest was much 

 increased in them, and he took particular pains, with the skill 

 for which he is so famed, in cutting the burls to show the best 

 figure, with the result that he secured from this one log 72,000 feet 

 of twenty-fourth-inch sliced veneers, on which he placed a value 

 of fifteen cents a square foot, or $10,300. About one-half the 

 veneers have been sold at this price, and the remainder are still 

 housed in Mr. Willey 's fireproof warehouse at Chicago. 



In aU respects it is the most marvelous English walnut burl 

 veneer that has ever been cut. While the picture here reproduced 

 does not approximate the beauty of the veneer itself, its wonder- 

 ful attractiveness can not be disguised. Even in the picture the 

 conventionalized geometrical figure can be plainly seen, as well 

 as the similitude of animal heads, flowers, butterflies and pictured 

 effects of all sorts and descriptions. There are more pictures to be 

 seen in one of these veneer panels than can be found by the most 

 imaginative in the burning coals of a log fire. 



A few days ago one of Mr. Willey 's buyers found an American 

 black walnut tree in the heart of a remote canyon in Oklahoma, 

 purchased it, and shipped it to the Chicago plant. This log was 

 of about the same size as the English walnut described in this 

 story, but it developed more than sixty thousand feet of wonder- 

 fully beautiful veneers. The peciUiarity of this log was the fact 

 that the heart grew within four inches of one side, which in 

 flitching enabled Mr. Willey to secure quarters more than thirty 

 inches square. These cants were attached to a stay-log and cut to 

 veneers on a rotary cutter, developing panels eight feet long and 

 forty-two inches wide. In the figure of this log is combined all 

 the standard markings known in the veneer industry — mottle, 

 stripe, curl, blister and wave. This veneer has not yet been mar- 

 keted, but it promises to produce a value in excess of the English 



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