1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUliE. 



some of the details. The machine in front 

 of the young man holding a pile of sections, 

 is what is called a Gray one-piece section- 

 machine. He is in the act of pntting a pile 

 of sections into the machine. Having done 

 this he steps around to the other side ; 

 and as fast as the tinished sections drop 

 down on a tray with a zip, zip. zip, he piles 

 them into a box holding 5U0. This machine 

 is automatic, and one man can feed the 

 strips of sections, and box them up, while 

 the machine is in motion. You will notice 

 at tiie right of the young man, four stakes 

 sticking up. Although the engraving does 

 not show it, this is really a truck which can 

 be puslied about the room, tilled with hives, 

 sections, or whatever else the men may be 

 working on. We have about two dozen of 

 these trucks constantly in use, not only in 

 our woodrworking room, but in all our de- 

 partments. 



At the rear of the young man are several 

 sawyers ripping section-bolts into strips 18 

 inches long, and 1{§ inches wide and i inch 

 thick. As they leave the saws, these strips, 

 or one-piece-section blanks, are perfectly 

 smooth on both sides. They are picked up 

 by small boys, and put into the trucks to 

 which we llave already referred. These 

 trucks are then shoved up to the section- 

 machines, only one of which is shown in the 

 picture, tlie other being located in front of 

 the one which you see. Near the center 

 of the room is a couple of cross-cut saws, 

 where all the cross-cut work is done. Fur- 

 ther l)ack is the planer. At the right is 

 a band re-saw. This machine is so large 

 that it reaches to the ceiling, though in the 

 engraving it is represented as much small- 

 er. Perliaps right liere a little description 

 of this saw may be interesting to some of 

 our readers. 



A heavy iron casting holds two wheels in 

 sucli a way that one wheel is directh above 

 the other,' and the distance apart varies 

 from ti to 20 inches, depending upon the 

 width of the stuif to be ripped. These two 

 wheels are connected by a steel belt, one 

 edge of which is serrated, or toothed. As 

 the wheels revolve at a high rate of speed, 

 tliis steel band, of necessity, travels at the 

 same rate. The superiority of the band- 

 saw over the ordinary re-saws rests in the fact 

 that it will cut thinner boards with far less 

 waste, and will do it more rapidly. It also 

 cuts to tlie best possible advantage ; that is, 

 it is always cutting perpendicularly against 

 the stuff. A couple of instances will illus- 

 trate the foregoing statements. Before we 

 proceed, however, we will say that "•re-saw- 

 ing ■■■ means ripping thick boards into 

 thinner ones. Well, let us take an inch board 

 and run it through an oidinary circttUtr re- 

 saw, cutting it into as many thin boards as 

 wecan. The best circular saw for re-sawing a 

 20-inch board makes a waste of not less 

 than ,',; of an inch. On cutting, we shall 

 have only two boards left, each a small trifle 

 over? inch thick. It will now be impossi- 

 ble to re-saw these again, as a large circular 

 saw would tear them all to pieces. We will 

 next take an inch board and see how many 

 thin boards we can cut out of it with a band 

 re-saw. With the latter there is a waste 



of only 2*0 ot" an inch ; and after once cut- 

 ting, we have now two boards nearly half 

 an inch thick. We adjust the rollers and 

 put one of these again into the band saw, 

 and And we are still able to re-saw it up into 

 three boards. We can thus re-saw an inch 

 board up into six thinner boards. Our Mr. 

 Warner hopes to be able to cut wood-sepa- 

 rators with it. As yet, however, the work is 

 a little rough as it leaves the saw ; but by 

 filing and setting the teeth in a certain way, 

 he may succeed ni doing so. 



In all kinds of work requiring thin boards, 

 this machine will save us, in the course of 

 the season, a considerable amount of lum- 

 ber, which otherwise would go into saw- 

 dust. It was purchased of Fay & Co., Cin- 

 cinnati. O. The cost was nearly $400, and 

 its weight two tons. 



Let us now pass on. At our left, as we 

 go up, is one of the cross-cut saws to which 

 we have leferred, near which stands our 

 Mr. Warner, the foreman. He it is who 

 stands in the distance (just over the young 

 man's right shoulder in the foreground). 

 Our engravers hardly did him justice; but as 

 he is supposed to be quite a long way off, it 

 will answer tolerably well. Just in front of 

 Mr. Warner is the machine for cutting out 

 insets in the section-bolts. This machine 

 we illustrated and described in Gleanings, 

 page 154. The next machine is for grooving 

 the ends of the one-piece and four-piece 

 sections. Still further on is a saw-table for 

 ripping up our |-inch lumber into all-wood 

 flames. Every time a board passes over the 

 gang-saws it rips three bottom-bars, top- 

 l)ars, or end-bars, as the case may be. Last 

 of all is an automatic machine which take;-' 

 a pile of top-bars, grooves them for a comb- 

 guide, and throws them down into a basket, 

 without any one touching it, except a small 

 boy who now and then gives it a feed of top- 

 bars. 



It is in this department where we turn 

 out daily 20,000 sections ; and we can and 

 do make a thousand hives a day. besides do- 

 ing other work. 



About a car-load of lumber is cut up every 

 three days. As fast as the pieces are tinish- 

 ed they are piled up in the trucks and 

 pushed" into the main building. Some- 

 times a truck-load of stuff is put on to the 

 elevator and carried into the second story, 

 where the hives, etc., are put together. 



In closing we would say that our artist 

 took a view of the saw-room one afternoon 

 in the dull season. If you will imagine more 

 men, more machines, more piles of stuff, 

 and, in general, more business, you will get 

 a fair idea of the way things look in there 

 during the rush which is just now coming 

 upon us. Yes, the rush is just beginning. 

 The foreman of our packing department 

 tells us we are shipping about a carload of 

 goods by freight every day. to say nothing 

 of the mail and express. 



Later, April ii'.— We are pained to give 

 the sad intelligence to our readers that one 

 of our head sawyers, a man well on in years, 

 had his hand mutilated so badly this morn- 

 ing that it had to be amputated. For sonae 

 reason which no one can explain, he put his 

 hand under the cutter-knives to one of the 



