86 FOREST UTILIZATION 



The tight heading plant of the woods contains 

 the machines a, b and c, while the machines d 

 and e are usually combined with the cooper 

 works, unless they form a separate establish- 

 ment. 

 II. Staves. 



(a) Staves for barrels containing the more valuable 

 beverages are hand made (rived staves). The 

 riving of staves wastes timber. Proper bilge and 

 curvature are obtained either by hewing (Ger- 

 many) or in the finishing plant (America). 



The white oak timber used must come from 

 straight trees of over 18 inches diameter. Such 

 trees are found in clumps only. Hence the ne- 

 cessity of a portable finishing plant, using from 

 J 5 to 35 horsepower. At each set or site now 

 usually 15 miles from the railroad at least 100,- 

 ooo staves are manufactured. Six hundred rough 

 staves have the weight of i.ooo finished staves. 

 Hence it is wise to bring the plant close to the 

 timber. 



The felled tree is sawed (by hand) into blocks 

 of two inches more than stave length, which 

 are placed on their larger ends. Then .the 

 sap line is demarked with a pencil, and inside 

 the sap line, with the help of a pattern showing 

 the cross section of a stave, as many staves are 

 pencil-marked as possible. 



By axe, wedges and wooden mauls the block is 

 then halved and quartered (and rehalved and 

 requartered in case of heavy blocks), the clefts 

 following the pencil marks. The sectors are 

 then split, along the annual rings, into rough 

 staves always following the pencil marks. 



The core of at least four inches diameter, con- 

 taining the small limb-stubs, is thrown away. 



The rough staves are inspected and sorted and 

 piled hogpen-fashion for air drying, either be- 

 fore or after sledding or wagoning to the fin- 

 ishing plant. It might be added here that this 

 finishing plant is contrary to expectation never 

 combined with a heading plant. 



(b) The "stave bucker," by which three-fourths of all 

 rived staves made in the United States are re- 

 fined, dresses and planes both sides of the staves 

 to proper curvature and bilge. A rack forces the 

 rough staves through the narrow passage left be- 

 tween two knives (either straight knives, or 



