VeritasSmall Router Plane - reviewed *LINK*

Re: Good question

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>I can imagine that a sawyer would charge per kerf, but somebody had to get paid to get the log to the sawmill. They would need the same pay whether the log was sawed into eight 8/4 boards or fourteen 4/4 boards or twenty four 2/4 boards. So part of the cost was the volume of wood and the thinner boards would have to be somewhat cheaper.

Follansbee and Alexander both mentioned that in New England oak was often riven while white pine was sawed. There were something like 400 sawmills in New England before 1700, more than in Old England. I don't think white pine rives nearly as well as oak or cedar. The Jersey cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) grew in only small patches over the river in Philadelphia county and was not found in other areas in Pennsylvania. For some reason the cedar did not renew itself after being cut and probably became scarce as the 18th century wore on.

The drawer bottoms were not terribly important to 18th century cabinetmakers and I agree, Adam that cheap and easy was the way. I suspect that you can find examples of riven, pitsaw, sawmill, and resawn bottoms, in a number of different woods, whatever was nearby or at hand.

How would they have gone about riving these?

Patrick Gibbons, Uncertain, TX

>

Re: Good question

Adam Cherubini

>right, but i don't think of it so much as tradition as the cost of the stock. Keep in mind the price of a steel pitsaw in the 17th c*. They may well have had work hardened iron saws in some instances, so that might have driven their choice of stock to saw.

The hand saws in the Plumley inventory tied with the plow as the most expensive tool in the shop. We talking about a $500-$800 hand saw in our dollars.

Adam

Cost of lumber in the 18th c.

Adam Cherubini

>In the John Head account book, the sawyer was paid for "feet of bord". Head paid someone else for "horlen" the log to Burlington city (NJ)from Philly and back again. What we don't see is the price of the log. I think the log may have been free, possibly cut on one of Head's properties.

I divided the "feet of bord" prices by the number of feet and came up with a fairly consistent .7d/ft as memory serves. I asked the sawyers in Williamsburg and Underhill for how many feet could be sawn in a day through a 12" log (hoping feet could relate to board feet). The answer produced 2-5s/day per sawyer. That gave me a fairly warm feeling that the entries in the Head account really do relate to the movement of the pitsaw and that a decent living could result for the sawyers (journeymen pay was typically 5s/day throughout the century- Masters charged 8, carvers, interestingly enough WARREN, charged 10!)

Non-domestics, mahogany specifically, were quite a bit more expensive- sometimes several times more. My understanding is that these pieces were sawn by slaves in the West Indies and shipped in the holds of ships supplying Philly with slaves for its burgeoning slave markets, sugar, rum, and fruits that contributed to Philly's unique cuisine.

Another interesting tidbit, if my numbers are correct, they were paying a bit less than $4/bdft for lumber. People often say lumber was virtually free then. If my numbers are correct, when the log was free, boards cost then more or less what they cost now. The price of the board then and now is based on the cost of labor.

Adam