WOODWORKING.
EARLY MACHINES OF SIR SAMUEL BENTHAM--EVOLUTION OF THE SAW--CIRCULAR
SAW--HAMMERING TO TENSION--STEAM FEED FOR SAW MILL CARRIAGE--QUARTER
SAWING--THE BAND SAW--PLANING MACHINES--THE WOODWORTH PLANER--THE
WOODBURY YIELDING PRESSURE BAR--THE UNIVERSAL WOODWORKER--THE
BLANCHARD LATHE--MORTISING MACHINES--SPECIAL WOODWORKING MACHINES.
Surrounded as we are in the modern home with beautiful and artistic
furniture, and installed in comfortable and inexpensive houses, one does
not appreciate the contrast which the life of the average citizen of
to-day presents to that of his great-grandfather in the matter of his
dwelling house appointments. A hundred years ago most of the dwellings
of the middle and poorer classes were crudely made, with clap-boards and
joists laboriously hewn with the broad ax, and the roof was covered with
split shingles. Uncouth and clumsy doors, windows and blinds, were
framed on the simplest utilitarian basis, and a scanty supply of rude
hand-made furniture imperfectly filled the simple wants of the home.
To-day nearly every cottage has beautifully moulded trimmings, paneled
doors, handsomely carved mantels and turned balusters, all furnished at
an insignificant price, and art has so added its æsthetic values to the
furniture and other useful things in wood, that beautiful, artistic and
tasteful homes are no longer confined to the rich, but may be enjoyed by
all. This great change has been brought about by the sawmill, the
planing machine, mortising and boring machines, and the turning lathe.
Pre-eminent in the field of woodworking machinery, and worthy to be
called the father of the art, is to be mentioned the name of Gen. Sir
Samuel Bentham, of England, whose inventions in the last decade of the
Eighteenth Century formed the nucleus of the modern art of woodworking.
_The Saw_ was the great pioneer in woodworking machinery, and the
circular saw has, in the Nineteenth Century, been the representative
type. Pushing its way along the outskirts of civilization, its
glistening and apparently motionless disk, filled with a hidden, but
terrific energy, and singing a merry tune in the clearings, has
transformed trees into tenements, forests into firesides, and altered
the face of the earth, the record of its work being only measured by the
immensity of the forests which it has depleted. It is not possible to
fix the date of the first circular saw, for rotary cutting action dates
from the ancient turning lathes. The earliest description of a circular
saw is to be found in the British patent to Miller, No. 1,152, of 1777.
It was not until the Nineteenth Century, however, that it was generally
applied, and its great work belongs to this period. The preceding saws
were of the straight, reciprocating kind. The old pit-saw is the
earliest form, and in course of time the men were replaced by machinery
to form the “muley” saw, the man in the pit being replaced by a
mechanical “pitman,” which accounts for the etymology of the word. With
the “muley” saw the log was held at each end, and each end shifted
alternately to set for a new cut. The first development was along the
lines of this form of saw, and to increase its efficiency the saws were
arranged in gangs, so as to make a number of cuts at one pass of the
log. This type was especially used in Europe, but on the up stroke there
was no work being done, and hence half of the time was lost. This and
other difficulties led finally to the adoption of the circular type,
whose continuous cut and high speed saved much time and presented many
other advantages. A representative example of the circular saw is given
in Fig. 241.
[Illustration: FIG. 241.--PORTABLE CIRCULAR SAW.]
With the increased diameter and peripheral speed of the circular saw,
however, a grave difficulty presented itself. The saw would heat at its
periphery, and its rim portion expanding without commensurate expansion
of the central portion, would cause the saw to crack and fly to pieces
under the tremendous centrifugal force. This difficulty is provided for
by what is known as “_hammering to tension_,” _i. e._, the saw is
hammered to a gradually increasing state of compression from the rim to
the center, thus causing an initial expansion or spread of the molecules
of metal of the central parts of the saw, which is stored up as an
elastic expansive force that accommodates itself to the tension caused
by the expansion of the rim, and prevents the unequal and destructive
strain, due to the expansion of the rim from the great heat of friction
in passing through the log.
Mounted upon a portable frame, this machine was put to its great work
upon the logs in the forests of America, and for many years this type of
sawmill held its sway, and an enormous amount of work was done through
its agency. Among its useful accessories were the set-works for
adjusting the log holding knees to the position for a new cut, log
turners for rotating the log to change the plane of the cut, and the
rack and pinion feed, by which the saw carriage was run back and forth.
Following the rack and pinion feed came the rope feed, in which a rope
wrapped around a drum was carried at its opposite ends over pulleys and
back to the opposite ends of the carriage, which was thereby carried
back and forth by the forward or backward movement of the drum.
[Illustration: FIG. 242.--DIRECT-ACTING STEAM FEED SAWMILL CARRIAGE.]
The greatest advance in sawmills in recent years, however, has been the
steam feed, in which a very long steam cylinder was provided with a
piston, whose long rod was directly attached to the saw carriage, and
the latter moved back and forth by the admission of steam alternately
to opposite sides of the piston. This type of feed, also known as the
_shot gun_ feed, from the resemblance of the long cylinder to a gun
barrel, was invented about twenty-five years ago, by De Witt C.
Prescott, and is covered by his patent, No. 174,004, February 22, 1876,
later improvements being shown in his patent, No. 360,972, April 12,
1887. The value of the steam feed was to increase the speed and
efficiency of the saw, by expediting the movement of its carriage, as
many as six boards per minute being cut by its aid from a log of average
length. An example of a modern steam feed for sawmill carriages is seen
in Fig. 242. With the modern development of the art the ease and
rapidity of steam action have recommended it for use in most all of the
work of the sawmill, and the direct application of steam pistons
working in cylinders has been utilized for canting, kicking, flipping
and rolling the logs, lifting the stock, taking away the boards, etc.
[Illustration: FIG. 243.--METHOD OF SHAPING AND HOLDING LOG FOR QUARTER
SAWING.]
Beautifully finished furniture in quartered oak has always excited the
pleasure, and piqued the curiosity of the uninformed as to how this
result is obtained. Fig. 243 illustrates the method of sawing to produce
this effect. The log is simply divided longitudinally into four
quarters, and the quarter sections are then cut by the vertical plane of
the saw at an oblique angle to the sawed sides, which brings to the
surface of the boards the peculiar flecks or patches of the wood’s grain
so much admired when finished and polished.
[Illustration: FIG. 244.--AUTOMATIC BAND RIP SAW.]
The _Band Saw_ is an endless belt of steel having teeth formed along one
edge and traveling continuously around an upper and lower pulley, with
its toothed edge presented to the timber to be cut, as seen in Fig. 244,
which represents a form of band saw made by the J. A. Fay & Egan
Company, of Cincinnati. A form of band saw is found as early as 1808, in
British patent No. 3,105, to Newberry. On March 25, 1834, a French
patent was granted for a band saw to Etiennot, No. 3,397. The first
United States patent for a band saw was granted to B. Barker, January 6,
1836, but it remained for the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century to
give the band saw its prominence in woodworking machines. That it did
not find general application at an earlier period was due to the
difficulty experienced in securely and evenly joining the ends of the
band. For many years the only moderately successful band saws were made
in France, but expert mechanical skill has so mastered the problem that
in recent years the band saw has gone to the very front in wood-sawing
machinery. To-day it is in service in sizes from a delicate filament,
used for scroll sawing and not larger than a baby’s ribbon, to an
enormous steel belt 50 feet in peripheral measurement, and 12 inches
wide, traveling over pulleys 8 feet in diameter, making 500 revolutions
per minute, and tearing its way through logs much too large for any
circular saw, at the rate of nearly two miles a minute. A modern form of
such a saw is seen in Fig. 245. Prescott’s patents, Nos. 368,731 and
369,881, of 1887; 416,012, of 1889, and 472,586 and 478,817, of 1892,
represent some of the important developments in the band saw.
[Illustration: FIG. 245.--MODERN BAND SAW FOR LARGE TIMBER.]
When the band saw is applied to cutting logs the backward movement of
the carriage would, if there were any slivers on the cut face of the
log, be liable to force those slivers against the smooth edge of the
band saw, and distort and possibly break it. To obviate this the saw
carriage is provided with a lateral adjustment on the back movement
called an “off-set,” so that the log returns for a new cut out of
contact with the saw. Examples of such off-setting are found in patents
to Gowen, No. 383,460, May 29, 1888, and No. 401,945, April 23, 1889,
and Hinkley, No. 368,669, August 23, 1887. A modern form of the band
saw, however, has teeth on both its edges, which requires no off-setting
mechanism, but cuts in both directions. An example of this, known as
the telescopic band mill, is made by the Edward P. Allis Company, of
Milwaukee.
A saw which planes, as well as severs, is shown in patents to Douglass,
Nos. 431,510, July 1, 1890, and 542,630, July 16, 1895. Steam power
mechanism for operating the knees is shown in patent to Wilkin, No.
317,256, May 5, 1885. Means for quarter sawing in both directions of log
travel are shown in patent to Gray, No. 550,825, December 3, 1895. Means
for operating log turners and log loaders appear in patents to Hill, No.
496,938, May 9, 1893; No. 466,682, January 5, 1892; No. 526,624,
September 25, 1894, and Kelly, No. 497,098, May 9, 1893. A self cooling
circular saw is found in patent to Jenks, No. 193,004, July 10, 1877;
shingle sawing machines in patents to O’Connor, No. 358,474, March 1,
1887, and No. 292,347, January 22, 1884, and Perkins, No. 380,346, April
3, 1888; and means for severing veneer spirally and dividing it into
completed staves, are shown in patent to Hayne, No. 509,534, November
28, 1893.
_Planing Machines._--While the saw plays the initial part of shaping the
rough logs into lumber, it is to the planing machine that the
refinements of woodworking are due. Its rapidly revolving cutter head
reduces the uneven thickness of the lumber to an exact gauge, and
simultaneously imparts the fine smooth surface. The planing machine is
organized in various shapes for different uses. When the cutters are
straight and arranged horizontally, it is a simple _planer_. When the
cutters are short and arranged to work on the edge of the board they are
known as _edgers_; when the edges are cut into tongues and grooves it is
called a _matching machine_; and when the cutters have a curved
ornamental contour it is known as a _molding machine_, and is used for
cutting the ornamental contour for house trimmings and various
ornamental uses.
The planing machine was one of the many woodworking devices invented by
General Bentham. His first machine, British patent No. 1,838, of 1791,
was a reciprocating machine, but in his British patent No. 1,951, of
1793, he described the rotary form along with a great variety of other
woodworking machinery.
Bramah’s planer, British patent No. 2,652, of 1802, was about the first
planing machine of the Nineteenth Century. It is known as a transverse
planer, the cutters being on the lower surface of a horizontal disc,
which is fixed to a vertical revolving shaft, and overhangs the board
passing beneath it, the cutters revolving in a plane parallel with the
upper surface of the board. The planing machine of Muir, of Glasgow,
British patent No. 5,502, of 1827, was designed for making boards for
flooring, and represented a considerable advance in the art.
With the greater wooded areas of America, the rapid growth of the young
republic, and the resourceful spirit of its new civilization, the
leading activities in woodworking machinery were in the second quarter
of the Nineteenth Century transferred to the United States, and a
phenomenal growth in this art ensued. Conspicuous among the early
planing machine patents in the United States was that granted to William
Woodworth, December 27, 1828. This covered broadly the combination of
the cutting cylinders, and rolls for holding the boards against the
cutting cylinders, and also means for tongueing and grooving at one
operation. The revolving cutting cylinder had been used by Bentham
thirty-five years before, and rollers for feeding lumber to circular
saws were described in Hammond’s British patent No. 3,459, of 1811, but
Woodworth did not employ his rolls for feeding, as a rack and pinion
were provided for that, but his rolls had a co-active relation with a
planer cylinder, or cutter head, in holding the board against the
tendency of the cutter head to pull the board toward it. A patent was
granted to Woodworth for these two features in combination, which patent
was reissued July 8, 1845, twice extended, and for a period of
twenty-eight years from its first grant, exerted an oppressive monopoly
in this art, since it covered the combination of the two necessary
elements of every practical planer.
Following the Woodworth patent came a host of minor improvements, among
which were the Woodbury patents, extending through the period of the
third quarter of the Nineteenth Century, and prominent among which is
the patent to J. P. Woodbury, No. 138,462, April 20, 1873, covering
broadly a rotary cutter head combined with a yielding pressure bar to
hold the board against the lifting action of the cutter head.
In modern planing machinery the climax of utility is reached in the
so-called _universal woodworker_. This is the versatile Jack-of-all-work
in the planing mill. It planes flat, moulded, rabbeted, or beaded
surfaces; it saws with both the rip and crosscut action; it cuts tongues
and grooves; makes miters, chamfers, wedges, mortises and tenons, and is
the general utility machine of the shop.
In Fig. 246 is shown a well known form of planing machine. Its work is
to plane the surfaces of boards, and to cut the edges into tongues and
groves, such as are required for flooring. This machine planes boards up
to 24 inches wide and 6 inches thick, and will tongue and grove 14
inches wide.
[Illustration: FIG. 246.--24-INCH SINGLE SURFACER AND MATCHER.]
_Wood Turning._--To this ancient art Blanchard added, in 1819, his very
ingenious and important improvement for turning irregular forms. A few
efforts at irregular turning had been made before, but in the arts
generally only circular forms had been turned. With Blanchard’s
improvement, patented January 20, 1820, any irregular form, such as a
shoe-last, gun-stock, ax-handle, wheel-spokes, etc., could be smoothly
and expeditiously turned and finished in any required shape. In the
ordinary lathe the work is revolved rapidly, and the cutting tool is
held stationary, or only slowly shifted in the hand. In the Blanchard
lathe the work is hung in a swinging frame, and turned very slowly to
bring its different sides to the cutting action, and the cutting tool is
constructed as a rapidly revolving disk, against which the work is
projected bodily by the oscillation of the swinging frame, to
accommodate the irregularities of the form. In order to do this
automatically, a pattern or model of the article to be turned was also
hung in the swinging frame, and made to slowly revolve and bear against
a pattern wheel, which, acting upon the swinging frame carrying the
work, caused it to advance to or recede from the cutting disc exactly in
proportion to the contour of the model, and thus cause the revolving
cutters to cut the block as it turns synchronously with the model, to a
shape exactly corresponding to said model.
[Illustration: FIG. 247.--BLANCHARD LATHE.]
In Fig. 247 is shown a perspective view of Blanchard’s lathe, as
patented January 20, 1820. H is a swinging frame, carrying the model T
of a shoe last, and a roughed-out block U, partly converted into a shoe
last. A sliding frame, fed horizontally by a screw, carries a pattern
wheel K, that bears against the pattern T, and a rotary cutter E, acting
against the roughed-out block U. The revolving disk-shaped cutter E is
rotated by a pulley and belt from a drum, which latter is made long
enough to accommodate the travel of the frame. The pattern T and block U
are advanced to contact respectively, with pattern wheel K and cutter E
by the swinging action of frame H, and as the pattern T and block U are
slowly revolved, the travel of T against K is made to react on frame H
and regulate the advance of U against E, with the result that the rough
block U is cut to the identical shape of the pattern T.
Among modern developments in this art may be mentioned the patents to
Kimball, No. 471,006, March 15, 1892, and No. 498,170, May 23, 1893, the
latter showing ingenious means whereby shoe lasts of the same length,
but varying widths, may be turned. A polygonal-form lathe is shown in
patent to Merritt, No. 504,812, September 12, 1893; a multiple lathe in
patents to Albee, No. 429,297, June 3, 1890, and Aram, No. 550,401,
November 26, 1895; a tubular lathe in patent to Lenhart, No. 355,540,
January 4, 1887; and a spiral cutting lathe in patent to Mackintosh, No.
396,283, January 15, 1889.
[Illustration: FIG. 248.--MORTISING MACHINE.]
_Mortising Machines_ have exercised an important influence in mill work
in the joining of the stiles in doors, sashes and blinds, and in the
making of furniture. The Fay & Egan machine is seen in Fig. 248. The
self acting mortising machine was among the numerous early contributions
of Gen. Bentham in woodworking machinery, and was described in his
British patent No. 1,951, of 1793, a number of them having been made by
him for the British Admiralty. Brunel’s mortising machine for making
ships’ blocks is another early form described in British patent No.
2,478, of 1801. As representing novel departures in this art, the
endless chain mortising machine shown in Douglas patent, No. 379,566,
March 20, 1888, may be mentioned, and reissue patent, No. 10,655,
October 27, 1885, to Oppenheimer, and No. 461,666, October 20, 1891, to
Charlton, are examples of mortising augers.
_Special Woodworking Machines._--Of these there have been great numbers
and variety. No sooner does an article become extensively used than a
machine is made for turning it out automatically. Indeed, machines for
cheaply turning out articles have, in many cases, led the way to popular
use of the article by the extreme cheapness of its production.
Among various automatic machines for making special articles may be
mentioned those for making clothes pins, scooping out wood trays,
pointing skewers, dovetailing box blanks, cutting sash stile pockets,
cutting and packing toothpicks, making matches, boxing matches,
duplicating carvings, cutting bungs, cutting corks, making umbrella
sticks, making brush blocks, boring chair legs, screw-driving machines,
box nailing machines, making cigar boxes, nailing baskets, wiring box
blanks, applying slats, gluing boxes, gluing slate frames, making
veneers, bushing mortises, covering piano hammers, making staves and
barrels, making fruit baskets, etc.
It is impossible to give in any brief review a proper conception of the
immensity of the woodworking industry in the United States. It is
estimated in the Patent Office that about 8,000 patents have been
granted for woodworking machines. Besides this there are about 5,000
patents in the separate class of wood sawing, about an equal number for
woodworking tools, and these, with other patented inventions in wood
turning, coopering, or the making of barrels, wheelwrighting, and other
minor classes, give some idea of the activity in this great field of
industry.
The exports of wood and wooden manufactures from the United States in
1899 amounted to $41,489,526, of which $15,031,176 were for finished
boards, $4,107,350 for barrels, staves and heads, and $3,571,375 for
household furniture, but this is only an insignificant portion, for with
a prosperous country, an abundance of wood, and a thrifty and ambitious
nation of home builders, the home consumption has been incalculable.