Art Martin: Will the real logger please stand up...

[demographic]

Here's a thread thats been on the go over on The Arborist site for quite some time.

Its about the life and times of a man named Art Martin who won many logging competitions and during his life saw many changes in that industry. There's photos on the thread of absolutely HUGE redwoods being cut down with axes and handsaws. If you can't see the pictures on the thread it really is worth joining just so you can.
Thread HERE
Here's a couple of posts by the man and as far as I'm concerned its worth searching his informative and interesting posts on that thread out.

I would like to give a little insight on the tools that the choppers depended on. The double bitted axes were their main tools. The axes had a cutting edge of about 3-1/2" across on each side and the length from bit to bit was approximately 12". The head weighed about 3-1/2 to 4 pounds. The handles were usually second growth hickory and were 40 or more inches in length. The handles, before being attached or mounted, were bent at the lower area above the eye of the head. The handles were steamed so that they could be bent and were left in that position while they cooled so they would take a set that would become permanent. The reason for the approximate 15 or 20 degrees bend was so that the choppers could chop the "scarf" which was the upper angled part of the undercut, without hitting their knuckles when standing inside the undercut itself. When they made a hit on the bottom portion of the undercut, they would just flip the axe over automatically and that would allow the bottom bit to be flat against the bottom of the undercut without bending down. This would be similar to the curve of a golf club that allows the head to be level with the ground and yet the golfer stands erect. The choppers all had a flat, round stone in their back pocket that would leave an imprint similar to a snuff can. They would hone the edge in a circular motion, any time the axe started to make scratches on the wood. They were real particular about the smoothness of their cut and their accuracy was unbelievable. If you ran your hand down the "scarf" it felt smooth as if it had been planed. It took me quite awhile before my side looked as good as my dad's. Thank goodness for chainsaws.

Art Martin

Once the high climber completed his initial, dangerous task of topping the tree, he descended down the topped tree to prepare for the next phase: rigging.
When he reached the ground, he put his axe and saw aside and took a small 15-20 pound pulley, a steel cable strap and a small, long hoisting cable and started up the spar pole. When he reached the proper height, he attached the pulley to the pole and ran the small steel cable through the pulley and lowered the end to the ground. By the means of this small cable, the rigging crew on the ground started sending up the necessary equipment to begin to rig the pole. First the ends of the half dozen steel cables went up and were looped around the top of the pole. Then the other ends of these cables were attached to available stumps in locations where they would come from different directions. After these upper cables were secured, additional cables were raised to the mid-way of the pole. The ends these secondary guy lines were also looped around stumps coming from different directions. These mid-way were necessary to prevent the pole from buckling when enormous strains were subjected to the pole when the steam donkey began to raise the heavy load.
Once the mid-way cables were secured, the high-lead block was hoisted up and attached with a heavy strap at the top of the spar pole. This large pulley weighed as much as a ton, with an outside casing measuring around three feet in diameter. The axis was run on self-lubricating bearings. The reservoirs for the oil on each side of the pulley could hold up to 15 gallons of oil and could weigh about 150 pounds each. The main cable strap, that held the heavy pulley in place, was thicker than the guy line cables. An extra strap was attached to the pulley and to a guy line in case the main cable supporting the pulley broke. This allowed the one ton pulley to slide down the guy line instead of falling straight down and injuring the crew working near the base of the spar pole.
It took two to three days to rig the spar pole. Then the main hauling cable, which was 1-1/2” in diameter would run down to the donkey drum and through the high-lead pulley at the stop of the spar pole and from there to the logs. A smaller cable was run along the ground to a smaller pulley on a stump and then doubled back to the main line to haul back the main line to the starting point after it had brought the logs in.
There have been many stories about these brave high climbers who were fearless and perhaps somewhat foolish but the prestige that went with the job was apparently worth it. They had to have a good knowledge of falling trees, splicing cable, and rigging procedures as well as be real strong and with a lot of endurance. They were well paid and had to be available at all times to fix any problems that might arise. The companies couldn’t afford to have a large crew sitting idle for very long. There wasn’t much competition for the high climber’s job.

Art Martin

There was yet another chapter in the continuing saga pertaining to the “old logging days” and this was the cross cut filing shack. Here the saw filers had their saw vises that were usually made out of two pieces of 2”X10” Douglas fir 7 feet long. The tops were curved to match the contour of the saw. They were also tapered along the faces to allow the filer to get the proper angle when filing by allowing him to get closer to the saw. There were usually five bolts that went through the vise about midway. These bolts would support the saw, by holding the saw to expose a large portion of the tooth to allow the filer to set it at a correct position. Since fallers and buckers weren’t experienced in the art of filing saws nor did they have the time, they would bring the company owned saws to the filing shack whenever the saw got dull. Of course, some filers were betters than others, so the men using the saws would try to have their favorite filer to do their saws.
The saws were first checked for any kinks that may have bent the saw by a dropped log or some other object. The saw was hung on a nail and a long straight edge was held against each side of the saw. The filer could easily see if there was daylight coming from under the straight edge. If he saw a kink, he would wet his finger with some saliva and scribe a reference mark where the kink was. He would then take the saw down and lay it on a heavy piece of flat metal and used a cross peen hammer to remove the kink. It took a lot of experience to master this step.
The filer would then put the saw in the vise, and he would “joint” the saw, making sure that all teeth were the same height along the curve of the saw. This was done with either a Gibbs or Atkins jointer that was 16” in length. The two ends had floating sled runners and the middle had a place for a 4” piece of file attached to it. As the jointer was slid across the arc of the saw teeth, the filer would take off only the tips of the highest teeth. The filer would do this several times until he saw that the file had touched each tooth. Now he had a perfect arc from which to start filing. If a person had lain one saw after another on a flat surface, end to end, the arc would have formed a circle of about 40 feet in diameter. So a 7-foot crosscut saw is actually a section of a large circle.
When the jointing was done, the filer would then work on the rakers. There were usually four cutting teeth and raker in the sequence on the saws used in the Redwood region. There was a large gullet on each side of the raker to allow the chip to be curled up inside it and brought out of the cut with the back and forth motion. These rakers were swagged to form a slight chisel to remove the chip that had been severed by the longer teeth. These rakers were set about .025” below the teeth with a gauge made for that purpose. It is something like a depth gauge for a chain saw chain. Once the rakers were lowered and swagged, the filer would file the teeth to a very sharp point. Once all the teeth were filed, then a set was put in them. This process was done by using an anvil held against the back of the tooth and hitting the front of the tooth about ¼” down from the point to bend the tooth over about .012”. There is a small, four-legged measuring devise called a “spider.” It has one leg .012” shorter than the other three. Some of the spiders were .012” and .015” and so more set could be put in, depending on what the person, who used it, preferred. On a flat surface it “rocked.” This spider was held at the top of the tooth with the other two legs supported by the neighboring teeth. When the shorter leg, was held against the top side of the sharpened point and when it no longer rocked, that tooth was done so the filer would skip a tooth and repeat the process on that tooth and so forth until the entire side was done. Then he would turn the saw around and do the other side the same way. Every other tooth is set one way and every other tooth is set the other way. Then the saw was then ready for the fallers and buckers to use for the next week or so. The filer spent about three to four hours to do a saw.
That is a day at the filing shack.

Art Martin

 

[mayobushcraft]

Very interesting thank you.

 

[Retired Member southey]

Phlipping heck! if people want to moan about the ads here they should try that site, I cant even get the page to stop loading!

 

[superc0ntra]

Awesome thread

 

[demographic]

Awesome thread

Just a thought but your username? Contra being a Stihl 070 if I remember right.
Is that why you chose that username?