Author: fitz

Hubert Robert – Fountain of Apollo gardens of Versailles – 1774
This painting depicts the rejuvenation of the park at Versailles, begun in 1774 with the cutting down of the trees for sale as firewood (not FORP).

Scieurs de long, (literally ‘the long sawyers’) is the French name for what we know in English, from the British tradition, as ‘Pit Sawing’, albeit with trestles instead of a saw pit. This entry will continue with a set of old French photographs and postcards that show a method of holding the log that utilizes a single trestle or scaffold (echafaudage de scieur de long) to hold the timber in a cantilevered position for sawing.
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Sketch of two sawyers – 17th century – artist unknown
Besançon; Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology

This entry is a continuation of the previous series on sawing lumber. (See also China, India, Japan) These images from Italy, Spain & France depict a once common method of sawing timber that was inherited from the ancient Romans. These images span the years 1180 A.D.- 1829 A.D. The final image shows the Roman version of this technique.
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‘In the Totomi Mountains’ by Katsushika Hokusai (1830-1833)
From the series – Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji

I gave a series of experiments one day in my lecture-room before the governors of the province and a large number of people who came in from mere curiosity. I wanted to show the officials my model saw-mill, having a small circular saw run by a diminutive steam-engine.

I told them it was a pity to see dozens of men and boys with long hand-saws sweltering and working the whole day in sawing boards from a single log, as I had seen them do in building my house, when a modern saw-mill could perform ten times the amount of work in half the time.

They watched my little machine as it cut rapidly through small sticks of wood, and then said it was very wonderful; but, if they were to establish such a saw-mill in Shidzuoka, it would be mobbed or raise a riot among the workmen.

Edward Warren Clark
Life and Adventure in Japan – 1878
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Image from ‘Ackerbau der Morgenländer’ (Agriculture of the Orientals) – 1772

“ The Indian carpenter knows no other tools than the plane, chisel, wimble, a hammer, and a kind of hatchet. The earth serves him for a shop-board, and his foot for a hold-fast; but he is a month in performing what one workman will do in three days.”

“ The sawyer places his wood between two joists fixed in the ground ; and, sitting carefully on a little bench, employs three days, with one saw, to make a plank which would cost our people an hour’s work.”

Robert Mudie
The Picture of India: Geographical, Historical & Descriptive, Volume 2 – 1830
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In China, the sawyer’s, the carpenter’s, the joiner’s, and the sashmaker’s trade are all exercised by the same person. There are no saw-mills, planing machines, or sash factories, and in sauntering about the streets of the cities, at the door of a shop, or new building, may be seen one or two men sawing boards from the logs, and inside other workmen manufacturing them into the different forms for constructing or finishing a house.
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