American and Germaii Saw Mill Practice 



115 



It is difficult to make a comparison of the output which could 

 be secured by American practice from the same material. It 

 can be done accurately only by sawing a similar series of logs, 

 or else roughly by making certain assumptions. We may as- 

 sume that all the logs were 24 foot logs, which was very nearly 

 the case in the average (23.7 feet), and that in American prac- 

 tice these would be cut into 12-foot lengths ; we may then 

 assume a taper of 2 inches in 12 feet, hence that all the top logs 

 would average 2 inches less at the top. Then scaling by the In- 

 ternational scale, described in this issue, which appears to come 

 more closely to actual mill practice than any of the log scales in 

 use, we would come to the following relations : 



10 18 in. logs scaling 1850 



1650 

 1450 

 1250 



2200 



2250 



1000 



300 



board feet 11950 

 This may be set equal to 1000 cubic feet, which would bring 

 the output to a little less than 61 per cent of the log contents. 

 The lath and other small dimension cut from the slabs would 

 somewhat improve this figure. If now we assume that the 

 waste — which in German practice is transferred from the mill 

 to the consumer, and which as we have seen is discounted in the 

 price, by a casual calculation at 25 per cent— reduces the Ger- 

 man output by that much in material, namely to 58 per cent, 

 •we must come to the conclusion that the best American mill 

 practice, where stock sizes are made and the slabs are worked 

 up, is probably not inferior and very likely superior not only in 

 efficiency of production and saving of freight but in utilization 

 of material, 



A loss, however, unquestionably occurs in the woods, due 

 to cutting to standard lengths. But, even here, a change to 

 •odd sizes may not in the end secure as much saving as we might 

 theoretically figure out ; at least a part of the saved lengths will 

 appear again as waste in the consumer's hands, our whole 

 system of wood use being based on standard sizes, which do not 

 readily allow changes. 



B. E. Fernow. 



