‘pit-sawing’ Category

If you give the artisans an oak tree…

December 8th, 2012 by Rick McKee

…they’ll want to build a house with it.

And if they build a new house, they’ll need to take the old one down first.

Making a new house reminds them that they’ll need a plan.

So they’ll meet with old friends, and they’ll open books and make drawings.

Once they have a plan, they’ll want to hew round logs square.

And to hew round logs into timbers for building, they’ll need the right ax.

So their blacksmith will make them one.

They’ll need charcoal to bring iron and steel to a great heat.

For that they’ll build a collier’s pit and burn the earth and the wood inside.

And if they build a coal-pit in a field, they’ll need to mow tall hay with a scythe.

Once they have the field, the pit, the charcoal, and the ax, they can hew the oak.

When they’re finished hewing one, they’ll want to hew another.

And another.

And another.

And when they’ve squared enough timber,

they’ll pit-saw some of the big pieces into smaller ones.

They’ll start pit-sawing.

The work will remind them of old friends they used to saw with.

Some will even come to saw with them.

Soon, they’ll have enough timber to frame a cottage.

And if they build a house, they’ll probably want to put a roof on it.

So they’ll put down their axes and go to the marsh to gather thatch.

And after they go to the marsh for thatch, they’ll need a place to dry all of it.

When the thatch has seasoned and been put away, they’ll want to return to the frame.

They’ll scratch their heads and pull their beards & carefully lay out the oak timbers.

To cut the joints, they’ll need sharp chisels and saws.

When they start joining parts together, they’ll want to share their labors

with people who are interested in what they do.

When enough timbers are ready, they’ll need to clear the lot,

and dig holes for the corner posts.

They’ll join the squared oak pieces together on the ground.

And because the oak is heavy, they’ll invite some friends to come help them raise the frame.

After two posts are put in, they’ll all want to put in two more,

and set them firmly in the ground.

And having so many friends there to help, they’ll want to carry over big timbers

to put on top of the posts and beams.

And chances are, if they build a house where the old one once stood…


…they’ll want an oak tree to help finish it.

 

photos by Marie Pelletier, Peter Follansbee, and Sally Rothemich

 

 

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Posted in blacksmith, building materials, charcoal making, hewing, oak, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame | 19 Comments

Last kerf

November 24th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Well, another interpretive season is in the books. Time to lose the beards and drop the regional English dialects. Time to exchange our pipkins for coffee cups and our canvas for carhartts.

If we may say it, we finished the year in fine fashion, introducing thousands of museum guests to the unmitigated joy that is Plimoth Plantation’s saw-pit. Each Thanksgiving, we wrap up the year with a bonanza of pit-sawing–it’s our version of Thanksgiving football.

'tis like unto x-box, only different.

Several notable guests took turns joining us in the pit, including Mark’s son, who shows some promise as a pitman. Old friend and former artisan Rick C. happily took a turn below and he didn’t miss a beat. Bob Reimel, who’s runs a portable saw mill and does some amazing work, stopped by because, we assume, he wanted to see some “real” sawing. He had never pit-sawn before, so we convinced him to give it a try. Bob rocked the pit with an unorthodox but effective full-body technique. He even did a little steering on his own accord when we started trending off the line. Very impressive! This man understands sawing and wood-grain in any century and with any saw.

Some enthusiastic young people helped us carry the newly quartered oak away from the saw-pit, much to the delight of their parents. I’ve never seen a 4 x 4 x 8′ walking  to its destination with so many shuffling feet. Many hands make light the labor. It was a fitting way to conclude our public season.

Prognosticators say the coming winter will be snowier and more “winter-like” than last, whose mild temperatures led to dandelions in January. Que sera sera–our off-season checklist is extensive, and includes standing up the Cooke house frame in addition to much-needed maintenance of existing houses. Through it all, we’ll keep you posted.

We haven’t said it in a while: Thanks for your readership and support of The Riven Word! Thanks for subscribing and commenting on our posts and for keeping us honest and on-point. It’s a journey of discovery and we’re tickled to have you along for the ride!

Send us off with a flourish, Keegan!

 

 

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Posted in building materials, maintenance, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House | 7 Comments

Cooke House, part 3: Leveling, layout, and lotsa museum guests

November 3rd, 2012 by Rick McKee

Some centuries you feel like a bubble level, some centuries you don’t…

The details are in the level.

After our near miss with Hurricane Sandy last week, the weather has been mild and calm here at Plimoth Plantation for the past several days. Just right for leveling, plumbing, and squaring a post and beam bent and laying out its joinery. After we set up the beam on a cribbing of pine and fire-damaged former Cooke House parts, we planed a flat on it to make a reference mark. This will allow us to double check our level, even if the timbers are accidentally moved. We are using a sweet and highly functional scrub plane which Peter Follansbee and Mark Atchison made for us last year.

We literally wrap our plane in a napkin 'ere it goes into our tool basket. Swaddled scrub.

As workmanlike as we hew and saw our timbers, such large pieces inevitably have some imperfections as a result of hand-work and seasoning. There’s always room for a little straightedge help.

Averaging out the hewn face with a 6' straightedge. The oak has weathered some, but it's still quite green.

Here’s another way to even out an unevenly hewn or sawn face: Michael sights down the leg of the square to the post bottom to average out hewing’s imperfections before marking square.

Thy square is but a landsman's cross staff. Those knots our rocks! Put the tenon hard to larboard!

Nothing beats a sharp chisel to pare down a few shims to help level timbers.

There's always last minute paring when cutting house frames.

It just so happens that some of our most focused work on the Francis Cooke House frame began on a day when over 2000 deliriously happy school children came to our museum for a visit! We were able to concentrate on our layout because Goodwife Eaton and John Alden answered questions as we pulled our beards and tweaked the frame. Interpreting to our museum guests can be both verbal and visual.

Fundamental concepts of geometry, botany, and physics explained by 17th century interpreters. But it's a lot more fun than it sounds.

Posts were set on top of the beam, and once they were squared and leveled to it, we began to layout tenons and mortises. Dropping a plumbet allows us to transfer the irregularities of the hewn or pit-sawn face of the timber to the tenon’s shoulders as well as the mortise on the underside of the beam.

Long moments of focused intensity are exhausting. Who's up for wiffle ball?

We prick our marks with an awl. No pencils here! Some marks are emphasized with a tail.

3 Faces of Eve(ning): Hewn post on top of pit-sawn beam, marking on planed surface. We love oak!

Our day wound down and so we’ll leave the joint cutting for next time.

Followst thou me. I knowe ye way to Goodman Hopkins his secret ale-house.

 

Photography by Marie Pelletier

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

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Posted in hewing, oak, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame | 14 Comments

Cursed Old Scratcher-Return of the Prodigal Sawyer: The Video

August 5th, 2012 by Rick McKee

7 minutes and 15 seconds of real-time sawing. 331 strokes. Lots of bad jokes. Welcome to The Pit.

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Posted in building materials, oak, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House, video | 2 Comments

The Return of the Prodigal Sawyer

July 28th, 2012 by Rick McKee

What do you think of when you think of vacation? Sunny climes and fruity drinks? Hiking above the tree line? Lighting votives in an incense-infused space and listening to A LOVE SUPREME by John Coltrane until your vinyl melts? It’s all of it, good.

How about, pit-sawing?

The saw's gullets carried most of the dust down to the pit, to the chagrin of the pit-man.

As you’ve likely guessed, dear reader, the bubble in our spirit level is just a wee-bit off. And in that off-center spirit, we include many of Plimoth Plantation’s former artisans who just can’t get enough of the sweat and dust that is pit-sawing.

Why hit the gym when you can work your cardio AND make scantling for a timber-framed house at the same time?

Old friend Stuart Bolton and his lovely family were up for a visit from the DC-area and via several texts and calls, Stuart made absolutely clear his interest in jumping on the pit.Wait–you’re on vacation amidst some of the most sublime beaches on the east coast during the full flower of summer and you want to go do work in our stinky and dank saw pit? Sure, ok!

Stuart's flawless technique begins and ends with those blindingly white knee socks.

Sawyers work best when they share a similar mental and physical aptitude for the work–their pace, the saw’s angle, their relative height to one another, and a consistency of stroke. If the pit-man is an olympic distance runner and the tiller needs a smoke, they may be somewhat out-of-sync. If the tiller has T-Rex arms and cannot bring the majority of the saw’s teeth through the kerf leaving the pit-man without a full extension, it may lead to early-onset exhaustion

Stuart and Michael, however, proved a sawyers’ match made in heaven–or at least Devon.

Sawdust tastes exactly like it looks.

Oh sure, it was a little awkward in the beginning, getting the saw to start plumb in the end grain of the red oak, a few tentative starts and stops, awkward silences followed by talking over one another…is this going to work? Is there enough set in the saw? Does he even like me? Then, like a cascade of arpeggios coming out of the bell of Trane’s tenor, the work all at once clicked and the two made the saw sing with a long run.

Like traveling on winter roads, a little fishtailing is not unexpected. Turn into the skid!

As in any relationship, however, there are inevitable rough stretches. A small amount of steering was required to keep the saw on line. Stuart and Michael’s almost plumb approach to the work made it easier to twist and “throw” the saw back on course because there’s less steel to drag in the kerf.

We hew the log square before sawing.Plumb lines are scratched onto the grain at each end as reference.

So while Justin and I ran interference, driving the occasional wooden wedge in the kerf behind the saw and documenting the work for posterity, Stuart and Michael sawed on. And on. And while we forgot to count the actual number of strokes in their run, we did mark the start and end points and we kept time.

A nice olympian run. Pit-sawing as Olympic event? Vote?

Tale of the tape

Sawing an 8×10 & 1/4″ x 16′ red oak into one 7×8 beam and one 3×8 sill.

  • Stuart and Michael cut 160″ (13.3 linear feet) of 8″ thick oak in 50 minutes, real time.
  • That equals 25.6 square inches of cutting/minute.

“Real time” included moving the timber to another position over the pit as the kerf progressed as well as a small rest about halfway through the run.

From the pace of 25.6 square inches of sawing per minute over 50 minutes, we can extrapolate the real time sawing average over an 8 hour work day:

  • 12,288 square inches of sawing or 128 linear feet through 8″ stock of red oak

These are very rough estimates, to be sure. There are a host of variables to consider. From E.B. Jupp’s, An Historical Account of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, (London, Pickering and Chatto, 1887), we have a 1655 record of sawyers’ wages (thank you Peter Follansbee):

“for oake by the hundred 2s 8d”

The record gives different wage rates for oak, elm, fir, and deale boards. These are a day’s wages and, presumably, the standard amount of material which 2 sawyers can process in that time. The question is, what is a “hundred”? Is it a measure of board feet (1 foot wide x1 foot long x 1 inch thick)? If this is true, then a sawyer in the period is expected to saw aprox. 34.5 square inches of material per minute, which is somewhat more than our rate.

How sketchy are these estimates? Very sketchy. The Riven Word stands ready to be corrected. And more delving is needed. Just what is “sawing by the hundred” anyway? Regardless, such sawing runs give us valuable insight–not to mention house parts–and, we hope, puts us in the same ballpark as our pit-sawing forefathers.

The characteristic split grain at the end of a kerf. Well done, gentlemen.

These pieces are going into the new Francis Cooke House frame. All in all, it has been a pleasant “vacation”. Outstanding work, Stuart and Michael. And thanks for your time, Mr.Bolton. So while some folks want an umbrella in their glass–others prefer sawdust in their mug.

Into the great wide open.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

Editor’s note: This was the second day of sawing for Stuart and Michael. Two days earlier, The Riven Word caught a streamlined 8-minute run on video in real time.

Watch a pitsawing music video by The Dinghys!

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Thank you for reading!

 

 

 

 

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Posted in building materials, oak, Peter Follansbee, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame | 18 Comments

See Saw

June 28th, 2012 by Rick McKee

There's just no substitute for pit-sawn material. It leaves such a distinctive mark upon board, plank, and timber that it simply cannot be replicated with machine, however sophisticated the process.

This is a post about the marks that saws leave behind…

…not handsaws or thwart (bucking) saws, that’s another post–but the big, ripping variety which turn trees into timbers and planks and boards. With a little practice, a discerning eye can learn to tell the difference between a board made by a portable band saw, one made with a chain saw mill, and one which is made by a water-powered sash saw. When you visit the recreated English Village at Plimoth Plantation, you will find boards made in a variety of ways–not all of which we wish to have prominently displayed or interpreted. That said, we are slowly but inevitably replacing the old boards processed with modern machinery, with new boards made using ancient techniques. See if you can spot the difference…

Above is a standard board lately come from the saw mill. Such “rough-sawn” material is the kind you can find at great local mills like Gurney’s Sawmill  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gurneys-Saw-Mill-Inc/224333047596021 Rough-sawn material from the mill has very characteristic arcs across its face, which are the product of a large diameter circular saw and some amazing deftness on the part of the saw’s operators. It’s the raw material for do-it-yourselfers making garden beds or building a shed. But here in Pilgrim-Towne, it makes our eyes bleed! There was no circular sawing in our period. Such saw marks in the pilgrim village are the equivalent of Myles Standish wearing Chuck Taylor High Tops–it just doesn’t fit the milieu.

Through the years, efforts were made to improve the overall appearance of sawn stuff in the pilgrim village. This led to various attempts at replicating pit-sawn material, using everything from portable band saws to chain saw mills. (I’ve even heard of some old gaffers taking a couple of teeth off of their band saw blades to simulate the irregularities of hand-sawn work, though I’m not sure whether or not this is apocryphal). While neither method leaves characteristic circular arcs, they are still not pit-sawn, and to the discerning eye, they leave marks which are just as anachronistic as Chuck Taylors on The Captain.

Occasionally, when we have a high demand for boards and planks, we will hire our friend Bob Reimels to band saw up some of our stock. This material, expertly processed by Bob, is never used in our new houses. It’s typically used for repair of the fort floor (a building sub-contracted in the 80′s and whose timber was processed via machines) and for palisade repair. We strive to keep such machine processed material to a minimum in our recreated village.

Bob Reimels at work. Note the pile of sawdust to his left.

The band saw leaves a subtle mark on the face of the material, which is, from a distance, difficult to discern from pit-sawn stuff.

 

 

The marks are shallow, closely spaced, and regular. They are also uniformly perpendicular to the material. Chain saw milling, on the other hand…

Chain saw milled oak.

The marks left by a chain saw mill, a filling-loosening, hand-numbing endeavor, are more irregular than a band saw and leave much deeper hollows between the upright marks:

Straight edge placed on chain saw milled board to reveal its deep, characteristic furrows.

There was a time when we’d fire up a chain-saw mill fairly regularly. We used it to saw out hundreds of rails for our palisade. As the user walks the saw along the timber, he will sometimes vary the the angle of the saw to the stock, to give it some irregularity, a-la the pit-saw. The weathering of the timber, as in the example below, tends to soften the mechanized appearance of chainsaw-milled stuff:

A rail holding up pale sans nails.

Materials from water driven saw mills, specifically sash-sawn stuff, have their own unique appearance, but they’re still not pit-sawn and such mills didn’t begin to show up locally until the 1630s. I visited Michael Burrey the other day and took pictures of some salvaged 18th century sash-sawn boards he had in his yard.

Michael Burrey with salvaged sash-sawn board.

These particular boards, reclaimed from an 18th-century house in Bridgwater, MA, were covered with limewash pigmented pleasantly yellow with ochre.

One of the tell-tale marks left by a water-driven sash saw is the distance between the raking vertical cuts–a half inch plus, in this case.

The vertical marks also tend to march along more consistently than on pit-sawn stuff. This method, however, is still a step removed from the sweat and dust of a saw-pit.

For a little primer on water driven sawmills, check out: http://www.ledyardsawmill.org/sawmill-history

Back to pit-sawing:

The deeper furrows on the left hand side are characteristic of steering while pitsawing. In this case, the tiller (top) man steered more than the pit man.

There are really no viable ways to replicate pit-sawn material using machines. And that’s just as well. It is indeed labor intensive, and it takes a real investment of time to bring a novice up to speed, but once we’ve developed some proficiency, we can actually be fairly productive.

Joist, summer beam, and floorboard have a meeting. Note the edge of the joist is hewn while the bottom face is sawn--part of a larger hewn piece sawn into scantling. The summer beam has been planed after hewing.

Pit-sawn marks can vary greatly, depending on who’s sawing. The tiller man (top man) will sometimes angle the saw back towards himself as much as 20 degrees. Other sawyers will saw almost upright. Marks can also vary when sawyers are going through a knot, or if they are steering the saw. Our pine saw has a greater set than our oak saw, and that tends to leave a rougher surface. Compare the bottom pit-sawn face of the oak joist in the picture above to the pit-sawn pine floor boards.

Split grain angle at top right.

Perhaps the single most distinctive characteristic left by pit-sawing is the angle of split grain (above) when the sawyers come to the end of their kerf. The timber is supported above the pit by bauks which, of course, cannot be sawn through. We saw until the saw is just about to touch the bauk then angle the saw to continue cutting down the end grain of the log while not sawing through the bauk. Self-preservation was not invented in the 20th century!

I’ve often wondered if this split grain at the end of a sawn board or timber is one of the “irregularities” that Moxon meant the adze to take off in his chapter on house-carpentry:

“It is most used for the taking off the Irregularities on the framed Work of a Floor, when it is framed and pin’d together, and laid on its place…”

(Mechanic Exercises or the Doctrine of Hand-Works by Joseph Moxon)

Occasionally, a split–or riven–pale will look almost circular sawn (below) from the ripple effect of its natural grain. Grasses and weeds will also sometimes leave graceful, arcing marks across the face of split stock making it look uncannily like it had newly come from the mill. Don’t be fooled!

Weathered or knot.

We’ll be in the pit again over the next few weeks sawing out rafters, purlins, sills, and other scantling for the new Francis Cooke House. Not only are we getting that much closer to framing the house, but we’re also producing that many more appropriate saw marks in the pilgrim village.

And for a musical diversion for those of us of a certain vintage, hit the following link and all your questions about planks–and the 70′s–will be answered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F1z76mqjzBQ

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Work basket from Dunbar Gardens

Mingus! Paws up!

Great work on our new, period-appropriate willow work basket, Katherine Lewis of Dunbar Gardens! We plan on using it to lug many pounds of edged tools all around the 17th-century and we know it’ll be up to the task!  http://www.dunbargardens.com/ We’ll post more basket action shots in the future. Props also to Malka Benjamin who made some serious, yet comfy straps!

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Posted in building materials, pit-sawing | 18 Comments

Songs From The Sawpit

March 20th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Pitsawing has very deep roots in the English tradition and is still practiced in parts of the world today. It’s an essential part of our work re-creating the 17th century English village. We make all of our boards for doors, shutters, and floors at the sawpit. We also saw oak scantling for joists, studs, and rafters for our frames.

It’s always a workout at the pit, especially when you’re breaking in a new guy. Sometimes, when the work drags on and the saw needs just a little whetting, maybe it helps to hum along to a song like Froggie.

The video is a musical mashup of Froggie Went a Courtin and our work in the sawpit. It features music from The Dinghys–a local group of several ex-Plant-patriates who are making some great music while having a blast doing it: http://www.thedinghys.webs.com/

We’ll post more about the historic particulars of pitsawing in the future, but for now, enjoy the video!

(Michael and Tom are superhuman, though video speeds may have been tweaked just a wee bit to keep in time with the song…)

 

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Posted in building materials, music, pit-sawing, timber frame, Uncategorized, video | 4 Comments

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