THE DISSTON CRUCIBLE Redwood-(Continued from Jan. Issue) Redwood is frequently referred to as one of the lightest in this country. Its weight per cubic foot, oven-dry, is 26.2 pounds. On the same basis, white pine is 24, southern white cedar 20.7, northern white cedar 19.7, and bigtree 18.2. There are woods in Florida lighter than any of these. Redwood is very soft, yet it dulls tools quickly. It is moderately strong, a little below white pine; it is brittle, again ranking below white pine; it splits and works easily and polishes well. Few, if any, woods surpass this one in splitting properties. Boards twelve feet long and a foot wide may be rived from selected logs, and they present surfaces nearly as smooth as if cut with a saw. However, curly and wavy redwood is not uncommon, and that, too, splits well, but the surface is not smooth. The width of annual rings varies, usually wide in young timber and narrow in old. The bands of summerwood are narrow and clearly defined. The surface of redwood lumber absorbs water quickly, yet, for some reason, creosote and other preservatives can be forced into the wood only with the greatest difficulty. Fortunately, it is not necessary to treat this timber to prevent decay, for, in almost any position, it wears out before it rots. Shingles and window and door frames of the old barracks buildings at Eureka, California, remained in place until fifty years of wind and driven sand wore them away. Railroads use the wood for ties until they wear out, not until they rot out. Farmers near some of the California railroads gather up the rejected worn ties by thousands and use them for fence posts. When redwood is employed as city paving blocks it is wear and not decay that puts them out of commission. The medullary rays of redwood are thin and very obscure, but numerous. Few woods show them to less advantage in quarter-sawing. The lack of luster in the surface of polished panels is well known. The wood's beauty is in its sameness and richness of color. Except curly specimens and burls, the wood may be said to have no figure, though in planks cut tan (Continued on page 14) A Saw Mill of the Orient These two photographs are doubly interesting from the fact that they come from the opposite side of the world. They have travelled a long way since they were taken on an island in the far-off Indian Ocean. They were sent by one of our foreign sawmill friends from Sinabang, North West Sumatra. Here American Saws (DISSTON, by the way) and American sawmilling methods are being rapidly introduced in lumbering and sawing. The upper photograph shows the mill, which will soon be replaced by a larger one that is now under construction and being fully equipped with the most up-to-date American machinery and will be operated under the most approved American methods. At the bottom of the page appears a trainload of teak logs, on their way to the mill, which will give a good idea of the timber Disston Saws are successfully felling and cutting up. gentially, the contrast of spring and summerwood displays some figure in a modest way. It is possible to wash much of the coloring matter out of the wood, if it is first chipped fine. It washes from the surface by ordinary exposure to weather. Red rainwater runs from a roof of new redwood shingles, and weatherboarding, posts and picket fences fade perceptibly in a few months. This coloring matter when washed out in large amounts in the process of paper making has been manufactured into fuel gas. A complete list of the uses of redwood is not practicable, for this material goes into most of the large wood-using factories of this country, and much is exported— nearly 60,000,000 feet annually going to foreign countries. It has been much employed in California cities and towns for picket fences, and as posts for wire and plank fences. It is, next to western red cedar, the most important shingle wood of the Pacific Coast. One western railroad alone had in its tracks 12,000,000 redwood ties at one time. Builders of tanks, flumes and water pipes procure some of their best material, and large quantities of it, from redwood sawmills. Few woods are more universally found in furniture factories. SAW DUST NO TELLING BRITISH OFFICER (to a raw recruit trying to ride)—"Where the deuce are you going to?" RAW RECRUIT (vainly trying to control his steed who is making a bolt for the doorway of the riding school) -"Don't know, sir. But the horse's home is in Canada!" ONE FOR PA "Tommy, your master's report of your work is very bad. Do you know that when George Washington was your age he was head of the school?" "Yes, pa; and when he was your age he was president of the United States." A REGULAR CHEER "I hear," said a member of the church to the young parson-“I hear that you have an offer from another church." "Yes," the minister replied, "I have a call offering four thousand dollars a year." "And what," the friend inquired, "are you getting now?" "Nine hundred." "And you call the other a call? I should think it was nothing short of a yell."-Country Gentleman. BEYOND POLITENESS A pleasant lady customer was looking at tea kettles. The patient clerk handed down large tea kettles and small tea kettles, aluminum, porcelain and copper. Finally the pleasant customer said, "Well, thank you very much. I was just looking for a friend." "Wait," said the patient clerk, "here is one more. Perhaps you'll find your friend in that!"-Exchange. SOME NIGHT! JONES (who has called round to see if his friend has recovered from a wild night)-Is Mr. Wuzzy up yet? LANDLADY (sternly)-Yes, he got up an hour ago, drank his bath, and went back to bed.-London Notes. HAD HER TRAINED THE BACHELOR-"So you are married, eh?" THE BENEDICK-"Yes; been married for nearly six months." THE BACHELOR-"Got your wife pretty well trained by this time, I suppose?" THE BENEDICK-"That's what. I've got so I can make her do anything she wants to."-Indianapolis Star. AMEN! I wish't I was a little rock I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't drink But set and set a thousand years And rest myself, begosh. MILL'S SCARECROW The new arrival from the North had noticed a scarecrow in an Isle of Pines vegetable patch. "My father once put up a scarecrow so ugly that not a crow was seen in the vicinity for a whole year," he boasted. "Huh, that's nothing," declared Wm. J. Mills, "I put out a scarecrow in a potato field in Watertown, N. Y., once that was so ugly that " here he paused for emphasis, "that the next day crows brought back five bushels of potatoes they had already stolen."-Exchange. |