UTILIZATION OF DOGWOOD AND PERSIMMON 
33 
applied to the wooden fixture which fits over the hinged spindle 
in a shuttle. The silk threads are unwound from this fixture as 
the shuttle shoots across the loom to make the woof of the material. 
Soft, breakable, rough-finishing woods will not fulfill the quill 
requirements of the silk industry, but dogwood and boxwood are 
very satisfactory. 
The hole bored through the fine cylindrically shaped quill makes 
the quill virtually a shell, and a wood softer or weaker than dog- 
wood or boxwood is likely to break in use. Some users prefer dog- 
wood quills and some boxwood. The boxwood quill is smoother and 
cleaner looking, but, being more brittle, is more apt to chip when 
turned, bored, or dropped. Chipped surfaces are always apt to 
catch threads and cause loom interruptions. 
FLYER BLOCKS 
Thousands of flyer blocks (fig. 20) are made from a small propor- 
tion of the waste in the utilization of dogwood for shuttle blocks. 
ELEVATION SECTION 
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A FLYER BLOCKS 
QUI LLS 
HANDLES 
Fig. 20. — Products made from small dogwood dimension 
Only a very few manufacturers make them, because they are trouble- 
some to manufacture and must be exact as to size. As with other 
products for textile mills, the dogwood flyer block is superior to 
those of other woods. 
GOLF-CLUB HEADS 
Approximately 1,000 cords of persimmon, the equivalent of 500,- 
000 board feet, log scale, is used annually for golf-club heads. 
Practically all golf-club heads at the present time are made from 
persimmon. Them was a time when dogwood was largely used for 
this purpose, but the difficulty of obtaining dogwood in large enough 
sizes has practically eliminated it. A golf -club head, though a small 
article when completed, must be cut from a rather sizable piece of 
wood. Persimmon, although it is not quite so hard as dogwood, is 
well suited to the purpose. 
