Vintage Logging – Saw Filing

Each Saturday morning I review 10 vintage logging, forestry and saw milling photos. This week’s review of vintage logging is about saw filing and the machinery used throughout history.

Men handling a double edge bnad saw blade at the Hull-Oakes Lumber Company in Monroe, Oregon.

1947 A worker watches over sharpening a band saw at Lee Tidewater Cypress Company mill – Perry, Florida.

1908 Sawtooth replacement teeth.

1908 Saw setter tool.

1908 saw blade filer.

1908 circular saw blade sharpener.

This fun illustration depicts a saw filer going about his day, oblivious to the people nearby who cannot tolerate teh sounds being made of the filer’s file passing over the saw teeth.

That’s all I have for historical saw filing photos this week, so here are three more random photos to round out the week.

Photograph shows man next to a large pine tree in a Butte County forest, California.

Rights Information: Feb 28 2019 Special permission granted by the owning institution, California State University, Chico, CA, US, to WoodchuckCanuck.com, for use of this image for historical logging special collection review. http://www.cdlib.org/

Group of people posing near a boiler wagon pulled by six-horse team.

The loggers who cut down trees were called fallers. Using their axes, they cut notches in the trunk for springboards. They then stood on the springboards and felled the tree with a crosscut saw. Cutting above ground level was easier because the trunk was narrower, and there was less pitch to gum up the saws. Even so, it might take two days of hard work to cut down a large tree.

In this photo, two fallers rest on their springboards while cutting a spruce tree. Their crosscut saw and axes are nearby. This photo was taken around 1905 near Gettysburg, Washington.