File:Canadian forest industries 1886-1888 (1888) (19902265683).jpg

Title: Canadian forest industries 1886-1888
Identifier: canadianforest188688donm (find matches)
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: Lumbering; Forests and forestry; Forest products; Wood-pulp industry; Wood-using industries
Publisher: Don Mills, Ont. : Southam Business Publications
Contributing Library: Fisher - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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PUBLISHED I SEMI-MONTHLY, j The only Newspaper devoted to the Lumber and Timber Industries published in Canada ( SUBSCRIPTION I $2.00 PEK ANNUM VOL. 6. PETERBOROUGH, ONT., JUNE 15, 1886. NO. 12 HISTORY OF THE SAW MILL. How surprised I was on seeing in a museum, a long time ago, such things as scissors, seal rings, necklaces, and pairs compasses, that were taken from Egyptian tombs 3,000 years old ! But, after all, men were men 3,000 years ago, and women were women. They had the wants, the needs, the vanities of men and women, and they had brains not unlike our own to supply them. The most boastful Yankee (not that Yankees are more boastful than other people) in some of the rooms of the British Museum is obliged to confess that the ancients originated a great many good notions which we moderns have only improved upon. For instance, there are few tools more ancient than the saw. All the ancient nations appear to have had it; certainly the Hindoos, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, The saw may have existed even before there were any men on earth. There is a creature called the saw fly, with two saws in its tail, which it actually uses for eawing the stems, leaves and fruits, wherein its eggs are to be deposited. There is also a saw- fish, the long snout of which is a saw. It is said also that the original inhabitants of the island of Madeira found a ready-made saw in the backbone of a fish. The Greeks had a pretty story attributing the invention of the saw to the accidental find- ing of the jaw-bone of a snake by one Talus, who used to cut through a small piece of wood. Being a slave, and finding that this jaw-bone eased bis labor, he made a saw of iron, and thus gave mankind a new and most valuable tool. The ancient sawB differed from ours in two ways. The, teeth were so arranged that the cut was made by pulling instead of pushing ; and the teeth, instead of being set one to the right and one to the left alternately, were set so that ten or a dozen in succession were slant- ed one way, and the same number the other way. The ancients had several varieties of the implement. The Greeks, for example, had cross-cut naws for two men, also saws for cutting marble into slabs. And they had a kind of tubular saw for hollowing out a marble bath- tub, similar in principle to the method now employed. Among the pictures uncovered in the buried city of Herculaneum there is a representation of two genii sawing a piece of wood on a car- penter's bench very much like ours and using a •aw with a wooden frame similar to those now employed. .Still more strang there was no serious attempt to start another saw mill in England for more than a hundred years In 1707 an English timber dealer of large capital built a saw mill to be moved by the wind It was t ought to be a great and difficult enterprise, and it attracted much public atten- tion. Some years before an author had explain ed the advantages and economy of saw mills ; then the society of arts gave the scheme of building one their approval, and, finally, the mill was actually built by an engineer who had studied the saw mills of Holland and Norway. No soonor was the mill complete than the sawyers assembled in great force and tore it to pieces. The Government compensated the owner for his loss, as was just. Some of the roiters also were convicted and imprisoned. A new mill was then built, which was allow- ed to work without molestation, and proved so profitable that others were soon introduced. In no part of the world, probably, has the saw been more minutely and curiously devel oped than in Great Brilain, where they have saws so fine as to cut diamonds, and circular saws nine feet in diameter and a quarter of an inch thick. They have have also veneer saws so accurately adjusted as to cut 18 slices of veneer from a rosewood plank an inch thick. In London they will put a log of mahogany upon the mill and cut it into slices so thin that the sawdust weighs more than the veneer. Yankees have beaten this performance. They take a piece of mahogany or rosewood, I soften it by steam, and cut it into veneers with a knife, without making a grain of saw- dust. Daniel Webster tells us that his father had a saw mill after his removal to New Hampshire, at the source of the Merrimac river. Daniel, who was by no means fond of labor at any part of his life, liked nothing better in his boyhood than to attend this saw mill, be- cause when he had put his log in position and started the saw, he had 16 good minutes for rest or reading before the business required further attention.—Journal of Progress. SPRUCE FOR MAKING PULP. A very large quantity of logs, both spruce and poplar, are now coming into use for grind- ing up as pulp for newspaper work, cardboards and the like. When the first paper was made from wood pulp it was thought that poplar was the best and perhaps the only wood which could be used, but during the last few years it has been found that spruce wood made better and stronger pulp than poplar. Poplar will always be a much cheaper wood than spruce, because it grows very rapidly and has but few economical uses, outside of the grinding up for pulp and the making of excelsior. Poplar never grows very large but grows quite rapidly. A growth of poplar 16 to 18 inches through at the butt is considered very good growth, although some few specimens may be found of larger growth. After reaching that size in the average New England soils, it seems to lose vitality and finally die. Those who cut poplar for pulp wood cut down some very small trees, even down to few inches in diameter. It is commonly cut into four-foot lengths and sold by the cord, New Hampshire lots fetching from $4 to 15 gf.r cord, probably averaging about $4 per cord. Spruce logs cut up in four-feet lengths are selling at the same time at from $6 to $6.50 per cord, delivered on the ears in var- ious parts of New Hampshire. It is claimed by some that spruce wood does not make 60 white pulp as poplar, and that the chemicals for bleaching are somewhat more expensive in the case of the spruce, but it is much sought for on account of the strength of its fibre and the better character of the wood. Lumbermen are quite ready to get out a certain percentage of spruce for the wood pulp grinders, because they will take s^ae seamy trees, where reason- ably clear and of good growth. Such seaoiy trees are not profitable for sawing into any kind of lumber. There is a great difference in the color of spruce, that which is very white being much more desirable for the wood-pulp people. Trees of the same variety seem to differ in whiteness or color, probably owine to the soil upon which they grow. Hence some lots are really worth a dollar a cord more to manufacture into wood pulp than other lots, while both might be worth equal prices for manufacturing into ordinary lumber. The pulp business is destined to grow more rapidly in the future even than in the past, for the users of pulp and paper and cardboard are becoming multiplied every year. The inventive genius of the Yankee discovers many new ap- plication for a product like this almost every day, and the time is rapidly drawing near when a large quantity of spruce and poplar will be required to meet the demands of wood pulp grinders.—Manufacturers' Gazette. MAKING ESTIMATES. Powis Bale, in "Saw-mills." gives for cross cutting soft and medium woods a speed of 10.000 feet per minute at the points of the teeth and says he has yet to be convinced that any speed in addition to this serves any useful pur- pose, or is in any way necessary or desirable. In sawing very hard woods the speed of both the saw and the feed of the wosd should be re- duced, the former about one quarter and the latter one-half, or even less. He further says suppose a circular saw. say 30 in. diameter and 12 gauge, be put on a spindle and the speed gradually increased till it reaches at the peri- phery say 12,000 ft or 13,000 ft per minute, it usually will become wavy and pliant, and run untrue ; it therefore follows that not only is the extra speed entirely vinnecessary, but it is posit- ively detrimental, as more power is consumed, and more heat engendered in the bearings, spindle, and saw plate, extra lubrication is re- quired, and the belts deterior ate more rapidly. The value of planed and fiuished lumber, sash, doors and blinds, sent from the United States into Manitoba, during the year ending June ?0th, 1885, was but §72.000 and the value of undressed lumber was but §22,000.

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