|
Title: |
1895 Article-DuQuoin Iron Works, Rotary Scale Board Cutting Machine |
|
Source: |
Industry Magazine, May 1895, pg. 283 |
|
Insert Date: |
12/12/2012 8:47:05 PM |
On this Coast, and we may add all over this country, there is a waste of timber that must for economic reasons cease in the near future. In speaking recently to a mill owner we mentioned this waste, to which he replied, “We only make a kerf of ‘six sixteenths’ with our circular saws." Some years ago we measured the kerf behind circular saws at Portland, Oregon, that was seven sixteenths, which in sawing boards one inch thick reduced nearly one half the timber to sawdust. This was explained as a result of dear labor and cheap timber, which is wholly fallacious. Cheap labor has nothing to do with such a method of sawing, or has but little to do with it, because this same timber could have been cut at the same rate by roller gang mills, using No. 12 saws, making less than one third the kerf. This waste of timber increases as the boards become thinner until the kind of stock called scale boards or thin stuff represents only a part of the original stock, sometimes a third of it. Such stock should be cut instead of sawn, and by far too little attention is given to cutting processes in this country. In cutting the timber by knives there is no waste. The balk is revolved by powerful machinery in contact with a long knife, that peels off a continuous sheet or web, perfectly smooth on one side, and of uniform thickness. The drawing shows what is called a Blakeslee machine. for cutting scale boards, made by the Duquoin Iron Works, at Duquoin, Illinois, that will cut up to 20,000 feet of stuff in a day of ten hours, thick enough for slack barrel staves, or thin enough for veneering on cabinet furniture.
These machines are constructed in a heavy substantial manner, and automatic in action after the rate of feed or thickness of the board is adjusted, and are preferable in every way to the reciprocating type, such as are extensively employed in Europe. |
|
1895 DuQuoin Iron Works, Rotary Scale Board Cutting Machine
|
|