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!
Tags: 17th century house, English carpentry, oak, Peter Follansbee, pitsawing, Plimoth Plantation, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame
when I was not as old & worn-out, Stuart was always my favorite sawing partner. Others were tougher, others were more this-or-that, but he was the best. I wish I had been around to see the return of SB. But someone has to go to mid-coast Maine in July…
Note to Michael: Mouth closed and sou’wester hat are good ideas for the pitman when little Rollie is at the tiller. Glad to see he still has it!
Nose-breathing Pit-men: Good name for a band.
brilliant as always and love the socks–shoes to match–
We’d have been disappointed had Stuart not matched his wardrobe, France.
Pitsawing on vacation sounds good (can I look you up next summer?), but a date involving a crosscut saw just really didn’t work out.
Those crosscuts can be sharp coming and going, John. Be careful out there! We’ll see you in the summer of ’13!
Saw , (saw?) Stuart on an old episode of “Save our History” on the history channel the other day! He looked much younger and did a great job with the show!
That Stuart has his feet in two different worlds, doesn’t he Rick?
I forgot to add…sometimes a “hundred” in the period has 6 score to it…thus 120. so then you get to re-figure your calculations. Just in case.
Thanks for the heads up, Peter. The last time I “re-figured my calculations”, I pulled a hammy…
On the subject of what exactly the price was for a hundred of, I looked up “Sawing” in “The builder’s dictionary, or, Gentleman and architect’s companion” (available from Archive.org at http://archive.org/details/buildersdictiona02toms, which gives a date of 1734). According to this source:
“Sawyers most commonly work by the Hundred, that is, by the hundred Superficial Feet, for which they have various Prices, not only in different Places, but also for different Kinds of Timber…”
Here, incidentally, the cost per hundred square feet for oak is noted to vary from 2s 8d to 3s 6d. Better shop around!
Michael, apologies for the delay in responding–this is an excellent reference and thank you so much for sending it along, as well as the link (archive.org is such a great resource!).
I need to look at the citation more closely: Is “superficial feet” the same as square feet? I’m trying to wrap my head around whether or not the measure “by the hundred” includes thickness (board feet) or if it is just a measure of square feet.
Different prices for different timber is understandable, as they saw so differently one from the other, not to mention the varied uses of sawn stuff. But that wildly different price for the same “hundred” of oak? No wonder the sawyers wanted to form a company!
Some long dead sawyer is spinning in his grave right now wondering what the fuss is all about–
Thanks again, Michael!
I just went to check for other evidence for what was meant by “Superficial Feet”; I found hints in the measuring of floors, the price of painting of surfaces, and the definition of “Area” (“superficial measure”). Then I checked the entry on sawing again and noticed that it continued on the next page with detailed instructions on how to measure the work for pricing (figures I didn’t notice the first time):
“There is no Difficulty in taking the Dimensions [:-)], for they reckon the Depth of the Carf [kerf] for the Breadth, and the Length for the Length.
“The Breadth (or Depth) and Length of a Carf being taken and multiply’d together (by cross Multiplication) gives the Area or Superficial Content of the Carf.”
By that algorithm, it would cost the same to cut off a two-inch-thick slab as a three-inch-thick slab, assuming that the areas cut were equal. I think it seems reasonable that it would be so; the amount of work for the sawyers would be the same in either case. Actually, before reading about these pricing methods I’ve estimated the effort required to rip smaller-scale pieces by hand by this method of calculating the area.
Michael
This is great stuff, Michael. “The Builder’s Dictionary” is going to get some lovin when we get back from the marsh, that’s for sure. I really appreciate you taking a close look at the source. There are several things about pit-sawing that didn’t come out in those couple of posts and we’ll share that, combined with this info, in a future post. Diggin for answers is fun! (I love the phonetic spelling of “carf”–very much in keeping with English dialect of the period–)
More to come. Thanks again, Michael.
I’m glad I could help! I’m looking forward to the next post, too.
Michael
This was an excellent article along with great pics. I too have always wanted to do this as a valuable exercise physically and to use big logs. thanks for documenting
Thanks for saying, Scott. Once you’ve found a dependable sawing mate, there’s a reasonable amount of production–you just have to re-calibrate expectations a bit! If you’re ever in the area, give us a shout and if we have something on the pit, you can take a spin–