The Technique of FURNITURE MAKING
Saw-milling
Prior to the conversion of the logs into timber or lumber they are cross-cut to length, odd kinks adzed or sawn off, and debarked if the bark is loose or gritty or if hidden nails are suspected (a constant hazard in hedgerow timber).
Treatment of the butt, the side or angle from which it is to be cut, whether it is to be plain sawn to provide waney/wane edge boards, or cut 'billet' fashion for quartered, is at the discretion of the head sawyer, for inexperienced saw-milling can destroy much of the value of a prime butt. The actual 'breaking down' of the log is done either by large circular saws, or more usually by vertical band mills in which only 3/32 in (2.4 mm) is lost in sawdust for each cut, as against 1/4 in (6.3 mm) for the heavy circular ripsaws. Logs are also cut with the horizontal band mill, which is slower but gives a more even cut, as the weight of the plank is downwards and not against the side of the saw.
The primitive method of pit-sawing by hand, in which the log is placed over an open pit with one man on top of the trunk and another underneath to pull the long pit-saw downwards, it still used in native districts where labour is cheap and power facilities not available. The expression "top-sawyer' originated from this method of sawing, for the man on top guided the saw, while his helper below did most of the hard work in cramped and difficult conditions.
Where the cut includes the natural shape of the log without preliminary squaring or trimming then the plank or board is known as waney (or wane) edge, and square edged is obtained by trimming off on either side. If the plank is wide enough the offcuts/cut offs are used to provide narrow boards {short narrows and long narrows), both of which are sound, but correspondingly cheaper. It is obvious that square edge timber/lumber will be more expensive than waney edge, owing to the extra sawing, waste, etc., but the economy in the latter is largely illusory. Imported sawn hardwoods are usually square edge to save shipping space, but some producers export in the form of 'boules' or complete logs totally flat cut, while a fair proportion of African timbers are exported in the round. Very valuable timbers—ebonies, kingwood, blackwood, lignum vitae, etc.— which are of small dimension are exported in log form and sold by weight.
