﻿26 BULLETIN 12, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Shoe shanks are made from rotary veneer which is cut the requisite 

 thickness, and are seasoned after they are cut out. 



SPOOLS. 



More than half the cut of paper birch in New England is manu- 

 factured into spools, the amount exceeding 40,000 cords a year. 

 Nearly all thread spools, such as are used on sewing machines, are 

 of this wood, and no other commodity demands so much paper birch. 

 Two or three properties fit it admirably for spools. Its color is 

 white and attractive, when seasoned it holds its shape, which is the 

 most important thing for a spoolwood, for the least warping would 

 make the winding of thread on it impossible with the delicate ma- 

 chinery employed for the purpose. Though the wood is fairly hard, 

 its dull tools less than almost any other wood fit for spools. This 

 is a valuable quality, for the lathe knives and bits must be kept very 

 sharp or they will not cut true, and the spool will be spoiled. The 

 wood easily takes polish, which is given the spools by rolling them 

 about with balls of wax or paraffin in hollow cylinders. 



The whole process of spool manufacture must be followed with 

 care, beginning with felling the trees, which is done in New England 

 in late fall or early winter. Logs 4 feet in length are cut and hauled 

 to the sawmills as promptly as possible, the purpose being to give the 

 wood no chance to stain. Defects due to growth or disease, such as 

 large knots, pith, mildew, red heart, or stain, must be thrown out. 

 The logs are sawed in bars of the required sizes. These, when 

 properly seasoned, are cut into lengths and passed through lathes. 

 A machine turns out a spool a second. The center of the spool indus- 

 try in this country is in the Piscataquis and Penobscot Valleys in 

 Maine, though there are mills elsewhere. The market for the product 

 is at home and abroad. Scotland has long been a large consumer of 

 paper-birch spool wood, but shipments to that country usually go in 

 the form of bars, and not finished spools. The first shipment of bars 

 to Scotland went from Bangor, Me., in 1882. The trade with that 

 country is now decreasing because birch forests, recently made acces- 

 sible in northern Europe, supply wood more cheaply. 



The largest spools hold 12,000 yards, the smallest 20 yards. It is 

 customary to manufacture the largest in three pieces, and sometimes 

 two kinds of wood are employed, one for the ends and the other 

 for the central shaft. 



The rejection of so much wood by the spool manufacturer results 

 in excessive waste. In some instances no attempt is made to use the 

 waste for other purposes, but occasionally novelty mills are operated 

 •in connection with spool factories, and special attention is given to 

 the unitization of what the spool makers reject. In sawing small 

 bars one-half of the log is cut away as sawdust, and this is seldom 



