Two Minor Wood Industries. 239 



The logs are first peeled and then rolled on to a small saw 

 carriage which takes them to a slow-moving drag-saw operated 

 by belting from the engine. Here they are cut into bolts exactly 

 16 inches long. 



The bolt splitter with the aid of a steel rule then carefully 

 measures off on one end of a bolt two lines which cross each 

 other at right angles exactly at the pith. The bolt is then split 

 apart into quarters with a froe and mallet. This work is most 

 carefully performed since the shingles have to be cut on the 

 machine almost exactly along the radius of the bolt. 



The bolts then go for the softening bath into two steam boxes 

 each 8 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 5 feet deep and lined with tin 

 sheeting. A heavy flat hinged top, similarly lined, closes on the 

 boxes like the top of a tool box. Into these boxes the live steam 

 from the boiler is conducted through pipes. The bolts are kept in 

 this bath for about three hours when they become a greenish- 

 gray color and so soft that one can press his thumb nail quite 

 deep into the yielding wood. All knots are thus sufficiently 

 softened so that the knife cuts through them as through cheese. 



The steaming bolts are lifted from the vats by means of a 

 spike-shodded stick and placed in a trough conveniently located to 

 the hand of the knife operator. 



The knife itself is made of fine thin steel 18 inches long and 

 about 6 inches wide and is spanned in a sash frame which moves 

 up and down severing one shingle from the block at each stroke. 

 The frame is moved up and down in stationary hardwood grooves 

 by a piston-like shaft the upper end of which is attached by a 

 hinged joint to the lower end of the frame and the lower end to 

 a point on the circumference of a wooden wheel which is revolved 

 by a belt from the main flywheel of the engine. 



Directly below the spanned knife on the frame itself is the 

 gauge which consists of three round iron rods each ^ inch in 

 diameter set vertically in the woodwork of the frame. The 

 center rod, directly below the middle of the knife, is set in a plane 

 3/16 inch (the thickness of the middle of a shingle) back and 

 away from the plane of the knife. The other two rods on either 

 side are similarly placed but in planes 5/16 inch (the thickness of 

 the butt end of a shingle) back from the plane of the knife. The 



