100 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



pretty well combed for "softwoods" for these purposes, such 

 logs being either hauled to the mills or loaded on cars at the 

 railroad. 



In making sliced or rotary cut veneers from logs they 

 must first be steamed for from 12 to 24 hours, depending 

 upon the species, after being cut up into bolts from two feet 

 to six feet in length. After steaming, the bolt or short log, 

 is spanned in a sort of lathe and turned past a large sta- 

 tionary knife which may take off a continual roll like a sheet 

 of paper or short pieces like these on the sides of hampers. 

 There may be considerable waste in this process, due to 

 twisted grain, splits, frost cracks, seams, knots and other 

 defects in the logs, but with perfect clear logs the number 

 of square feet of veneer which comes off is considerable. 

 Waste material, except the cores, which are used for pulp 

 wood by some mills, may be used to fire the boilers. To un- 

 derstand all of the processes involved it may be necessary 

 to take up the description of the making of different classes 

 of veneered packages. 



(a) Bushel Baskets to Contain Fruit 

 At present the main wood used for this purpose is black 

 gum as it makes a nice white basket. For the top hoop of 

 the basket oak was formerly used but now good ones are 

 made from black gum, soaked before being bent. 



To make these hoops, which give strength to the top of 

 the basket and over which the cover fits, logs are sent into 

 the mill in lengths of five feet, two inches. They are split 

 into boards % of an inch thick with a band saw, with a kerf 

 of 1/16 of an inch so that there is very little waste. These 

 boards, after slabbing, are run through a machine with a 

 series of small circular saws, like a lathe machine, which 

 splits the boards into strips of the suitable thickness for 

 bending. The main part of the basket, called the "web," is 

 made by hand by laying strips on a circular form and join- 

 ing them at the center. These "webs" are then sent to an 

 automatic machine which turns out about five baskets per 

 minute. Wire handles are also put on automatically from 

 wire in rolls and the basket is ready for the cover. Baskets 

 are dried outside on an open porch and the loss in drying 

 is very small. 



