Rather than attempt to explain the specific details of French style trestle sawing, I have attempted to translate two the of the best primary French sources on sawing timber. The translations are not polished, but they will begin to help explain the methods used to mount heavy timbers on the chevalet type sawing trestle.
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There are some men in London who have not travelled far, nor seen many workshops, whose ideas of the importance of the Metropolis and the excellence of everything done in it might be corrected by hearing the opinions of master craftsmen in the quiet towns of England and Scotland. There are men in the provinces who have a strong suspicion that furniture made in London has not been well made: it may be fashionable, they admit, but it is likely to be flimsy; it may be cheap, but it is not durable; for they know that good material cannot be procured at the price, and cabinet makers in the country do not work for nothing.
They smile when you tell them that large transactions can pay for the great rents charged for warehouses and workshops in the City, and ask you if living is cheap, and what percentage is given for commission. They put their hands in their pockets and say, We can buy wood in the same markets with your manufacturers, we employ no middle-men, our rents are not so high, our profits are not too great, and we cannot compete with you in cheapness.
They may be too polite to hint that London furniture is dear in the long run. They confess that they have a personal interest in the welfare of their friends; they dislike accidents, and nurse a strong prejudice against chairs that need repairing in twelve months and tables liable to paralysis in the legs. Their customers do not believe that everything excellent comes from the Metropolis; and as they desire solidity and durability, they are prepared to pay a fair price to cabinet makers in their own town. A good reputation is the best advertisement in the country; for friends tell their neighbours where they can have value for their money.
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Let any farmer or person of moderate means look round his house and make a careful minute of all the odd jobs he will find which require to be done. Let him take paper or a memorandum book and note them down. He will find at least twenty little matters requiring repair or amendment. The plank-way to the well or yard; the fence round the garden; a garden gate that will open easily and close itself; repairs to the box protecting the well or cistern; mending tools, harness—and in short almost innumerable small matters all wanting to be done, either on wet days or at some leisure time.
Every one who is not a natural sloven is fully aware of the necessity of attending to these matters, but the great difficulty is he has no tools. His experience goes to show that the last time he tried to do anything of the kind he had to go to a neighbor and borrow some tools to work with. The saw was too close, and very much otherwise than sharp; the chisels were all too large or too small; the bit-stock had lost its spring and would not hold the bits in their place, so that he could not withdraw them, and perhaps broke some and had to buy new ones to replace them. Nothing was fit to use, and hence what he did was wretchedly done.
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This machine is specially designed for felling trees. It is well known that in chopping down trees with an ax, two or three feet, according to the size of the tree, of the most valuable part of the lumber is lost. By this machine the tree is felled within five inches of the ground; and by removing the soil sufficiently to avoid dulling the saw, it can be cut as low as desired. Four men can do the work of ten men with axes in the forests.
It will be recollected that the butt must be squared, or cross-cut, before the log is ready for the mill; but the single operation of felling the tree with this machine leaves the log already squared. The land is left smooth, thus facilitating cultivation, and greatly increasing its value. The surface of the stump being left flat and level, is porous and spongy, so that by the action of moisture and air it soon decays; but when cut by the ax, its pores are sealed up and its surface rendered smooth, and the stump will not soon decay, but remains for years an unsightly and inconvenient object.
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A business man, speaking of one of the most pushing and active men in his employ said to me recently, “He does a lot of work but spoils much of it. He will work like a tiger to get a lot of things done, to make a record in output, but he botches so many things that the net result of his work is not nearly so effective as is that of others who do not make half the splurge, the push and noise that he makes.
Now to have to do a lot of work in order to make a big show does not amount to anything. Lack of thoroughness, of completeness, makes it worse than useless. People who make a splurge, young men with spasmodic enthusiasm, spasmodic effort however great, however spectacular, do not get the confidence of level-headed men.
It is the man who does everything he undertakes just as well as it can be done; who takes a pride in putting the hallmark of excellence upon everything that passes through his hands; the man who does not have to do his work over and over again, but who starts well and does everything to a finish, who is quiet, energetic and industrious, this is the sort of a man that comes out best in the end.
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