Alex Reed
Shawn Baker
Art as Industry
Final Report
This class has stimulated an investigation into the functions of craft, work and industry for both of us. We are interested in the history of craft and work in our country and have chosen to look specifically at the crosscut saw and a local saw mill operation, Eddy Lumber Co. to examine more closely the functions of handmade tools, manual labor, and current evolutions of the now antiquated techniques of harvesting raw materials thatfounded our society. Natural resources are crucial for the development of any society and are thereby elemental for the development of art, craft and work within civilizations. Wood has played an important role in the foundation of our society and still today proves to be a tremendously important resource. Here we will look at the history and importance of the crosscut saw and discover a local saw mill operation that is unique and valuable for this area.
Martin Eddy: Okay, well we mostly saw lumber. Timber management is how we started, cutting trees and then selling them. We didn’t have a good market for some of the lower grade stuff so we gradually got into this. We made railroad ties; we still wholesale some of the hardwood logs. All the softwood and lower grade stuff goes through the mill, we don’t wholesale any of that.
Shawn Baker
Art as Industry
Final Report
This class has stimulated an investigation into the functions of craft, work and industry for both of us. We are interested in the history of craft and work in our country and have chosen to look specifically at the crosscut saw and a local saw mill operation, Eddy Lumber Co. to examine more closely the functions of handmade tools, manual labor, and current evolutions of the now antiquated techniques of harvesting raw materials thatfounded our society. Natural resources are crucial for the development of any society and are thereby elemental for the development of art, craft and work within civilizations. Wood has played an important role in the foundation of our society and still today proves to be a tremendously important resource. Here we will look at the history and importance of the crosscut saw and discover a local saw mill operation that is unique and valuable for this area.
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Modern researchers believe that saws have been in use for over 5,000 years. There are records of cross cut saws being used in the Roman Empire. While they have existed for thousands of years the crosscut saw came into wide usage in Europe in the 15th century. The wood cutting saw has proven to be integral in facilitating the development of man kind. In terms of wide reaching development, saws provide the means by which raw goods and materials can be processed on a very basic level to then be used to build products, housing, and infrastructure etc. Months ago Alex and I discovered a large two man saw in the Hornell Antique Store while perusing the store for home furnishings. The straightforward design of malleable steel and unfinished wood compliments nicely the overwhelming sense of work, industry, economy, and development that the saw displays in its worn state. We feel that this saw not only holds an interesting history of its own genesis but also a compelling and pertinent connection to work, development, and creative design that has greatly affected our culture.
The symmetrical saw measures about 66 inches in length from handle to handle. The steel saw blade is about 1/8 of an inch thick, about 6 or 7 inches as its widest point in the center, and 3 or 4 its ends. The back of the saw blade is cut straight while the toothed edge is a broad convex form. The saw takes the shape of the area within the line of a chord of a large circle. The teeth follow a repeating pattern that resembles what is called the “champion tooth” design. This arrangement consists of a set of two triangular cuttingpoints, a deep U shaped well called a gullett, and a split tooth that is called a raker tooth. The thickness of the saw blade at the teeth is slightly greater than that of the back edge. The handles appear to be turned cylinders of a light colored hard wood, maple, maybe ash. The handles are cut flush to fit the back of the flat tapered toothless segments at each end of the saw. The handles widen ever so slightly towards the butt of the rounded end to create a generally ergonomic form. The handles are attached only with a metal U fastening about ¼ of an inch in diameter that loops over the blade and is hammered like a rivet into the a small metal fitting set between the blade and handle. The saw probably weighs about 7 lbs in total. The saw has clearly seen its fair share of use as the handles are no longer firmly attached and the entire surface of the blade is veiled by skins of orange-brown rust.
After conducting visual research and analyzing the saw as we could understand it we began to research its possible history and origin. We found that our saw is a crosscut saw and that there are two general types of these saws: symmetric and asymmetric. Given the form and structure of the saw we determined that it is a manual symmetric crosscut saw used by two men for making cuts cross grain, horizontally through a trunk. There are felling crosscut saws and bucking crosscut saws which differ mostly in weight with the former bring a bit thinner and lighter for the easier use out on the trail. It is unclear whether this saw is a bucking saw or a felling saw but if pressed to guess we would assume that it is a felling crosscut saw because of its weight. This type of saw was an important tool for subsistence logging and local production in the 17th 18th and the 19th centuries. Felling crosscut saws were used to harvest timber to build camps and housing at the start of colonization. Axes and saws served as the primary tools for building the wood framed housing that began colonial society. The beginnings of logging culture were rough times for all of the men involved. Men venture out into the wilderness to set up camps in which they would all live and sleep in the same shelter. At times large numbers of men would have to sleepunder one roof sharing one long blanket. Oxen were used to drag timber to the nearest waterway to then be floated down stream and sometimes directly to the building site. But in order to begin the logging these saws had to be manufactured or shipped into the new lands.
There is a lot of work that goes into the creation of such a large and specialized tool. Crosscut saws are more complex and efficient than axes and require a high level of skill to produce. The steel must be forged in order to maintain strength and flexibility. The saw blade itself is filed by hand with a number of different files and engineered very specifically to make cutting efficient. The creation of a saw involves strategy and trial and error. By examining the sawdust or shavings from a saw one can determine if the raking and cutting points are not filed at the right angle or correct height above the gullet. The form of the tooth design serves two major functions. One is to cut the wood fibers and rake across the cuts to collect and remove the material. This is obviously extremely important for any saw but the saw dust removal is equally as important a function to consider. The deep U shaped gullets in between the sets of cutting and raking points serve as a space for sawdust to collect and be removed.
There hundreds of U.S. patents filed pertaining to crosscut saws, some dating back to the 1800s. Many of these types of saws must have been hand made by aquiring forged steel and hand filing the teeth. We searched over our saw and could not find any type of serial number or authorizatoin of construction which leads us to believe that this saw and saws like it were probably made locally and on a small scale. It was not long before the logging industry took off and hydropowered saw mills became prominent. Though crosscut felling saws remained important for havesting until the invention of the motorised chainsaw in the beginning of the 20th century. Still today the saw and methods of transportation are the most crucial tools to any timber harvesting operation. We furthered out research by speaking to the owner of Eddy Lumber Co., Martin Eddy, who explained to us the importance of his tools, his market, and the forest management industry.
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Interview at Eddy Lumber: Martin Eddy
Alex: To establish where we are, could you talk about what your whole operation entails?
Alex: The softwoods are all retailed from this location?
Martin Eddy: Yeah, we used to have a kiln here for kiln-drying but now we send wood to Whitesville to be kiln-dried and then bring it back here. We cut what grows around here. That pile there is the edging we take off of the ripped lumber (points to large pile of long skinny cuttings) and the Alfred Ceramics College uses it, that is one of the by products of our operation.
Shawn: When the sawmill started, was your family using chainsaws to fell trees locally?
Martin Eddy: Yeah that’s what we did. Actually, my grandfather and uncle own a sawmill right on the next hill over there, it’s on the same farm.
Shawn: And you’re cutting off of your own property?
Martin Eddy: We have some property of our own and we also manage property. Some property we have managed for 30 or 40 years, my dad cut some of the same forests we are cutting now.
Alex: Do you manage any state land?
Martin Eddy: I used to do a lot of state land but lately they have gotten very…picky…about how they want it run. They don’t have the personnel to take care of their land anymore. Just today they are cutting a bunch more of their forestry employees. I used to do a bunch of state projects. The thing is now you may have to put up a $150,000 bid for a project. The private ones are smaller and I don’t have to put up that kind of money, that’s the best part.
Shawn: This whole operation is fairly small scale compared to the majority of logging happening in the U.S., how big do other operations get?
Martin Eddy: Well take Baldwin Forest Products for example. They are outside of Wellsville, they had a fire a month or two back but they had around 100 people there working for them. I have three or four guys that work for me, this is more of a family operation.
Shawn: I was curious about tree harvesting. Like you said, you have been managing the same land for 30 or 40 years, how is the industry self destructive versus planning for the future of wood harvesting?
Martin Eddy: Timber management was some of the first few words I said. When you go into the woods to manage it you have several kinds of trees in the area with diseases so you have to get rid of those trees, when I started it was elm. So we cut down the trees that are mature, take down the junk trees, and let the younger healthier trees grow back so next time we have a higher grade product and a healthier forest.
Shawn: These Red Pines that you’re cutting down, how old are they?
Martin Eddy: Mostly around 50 or 60 years old. I have a few plantations with trees that are mostly around 40 years old, some of those trees you cut. It’s a huge investment. The problem with those plantations is that hardwood will take over because it is more local to the area than pine. I’ve made several cuttings over the past 10 years on some pine forests that I used to own and the hardwoods will come right back in. If you take too many red pines out and get an area too thin as soon as the wind blows the trees will just fall over because the soil structure is so bad in this area. They aren’t designed to be out by themselves; they grew up on a plantation. The white pines are more natural to the area and don’t have that problem quite as bad. There isn’t as much of a market for red pine around here, I actually have acres of it just dying. I’m not really sure why, I think its some sort of fungus or beetle. There is a pine just past my dads cabin over there that fell over in the last windstorm from sort of rot at the base of it. So a lot of times if you go into the woods and there is a problem, a wet area or something dying, you try and resolve some of that. You also have to go for the money, you have to cut some good trees or you can’t afford to be there. You have to be in timber to make money, but while we are there we try to do some of the clean up work so you can go back in next year. The sawmill aspect of the company was supposed to be a sideline but now we do more here than we actually do in logging.
Alex: Are most of your customers contractors?
Martin Eddy: Contractors and local people building their own. This guy that just came through wanted to build some new cabinets. Craftwork. A lot of farmers buy wood from me, when I started 80 percent of my customers were farmers putting up barns or building fences but now its much less, farmers are hurting. We also have a guy here, Sean, who does timber framing. He works here three days a week and is also working on a house he is building up on Sherman Rd. We would really like to get into more log frame custom housing projects. I built a few custom houses a while back and by the time I was done I didn’t know if I made any money on them or not. I made wages but as far as the big profit, I couldn’t see where it was.
Shawn: How does your companies practice differ from the large scale logging companies in the Pacific Northwest? Are those plots auctioned off?
Martin Eddy: Well, a lot of those plots are so steep that the trees cant be replanted. Down South they’ll clear cut a 100-acre lot then come in with and slash the whole lot, then replant everything and in 20 years do the whole thing over again. Out West things are so steep and so inaccessible that they will install what is called a yarder, which brings the logs down the mountain on a cable. The trees are so big out there. The plots may be several hundred acres so while they’re cutting that one the next plot over is growing. It’s a matter of how the federal government manages it, if they don’t manage it then you cant replant it. Its different, I’ve had to do some clear cutting, we are doing one plot right now near Alfred State. I’ve clear-cut some plots for housing, it was all red pine on a 50 or 100-acre plot. Those trees have all grown back now. Some of the places out west have to deal with fire hazards all the time too, we are lucky here we don’t have worry too much about forest fires. We are very small scale and have struggled the past few years with the economy, it has really changed our business. We used to sell a lot of framing but now construction has slowed down so much. Zoning restrictions have become stricter too, which has influenced our sales of building materials. I don’t like a lot of restriction but that’s what zoning is for, to prevent messes and guys thinking they can get a bunch of rough cut lumber and put up a barn in a weekend with a few six packs of beer. I don’t mind selling lumber to the guy twice.
Alex: So would you say the economy is the biggest challenge facing your business right now?
Martin Eddy: Yeah, its one of the biggest ones right now. You can’t do a lot of planning ahead, we have work and have been fairly busy the last 6 months of this year. The past two years have been tough though, we had a lot of inventory, we did different things, people who were buying timber would but it on credit, we would hold things for people until we could give them a better price. We worked for a guy who wanted to build a rough-cut cabin and had a hardwood timber lot. So we cut that up and sold it for him, which paid for the cabin. He also bought a lot of lumber from us and was able to build a really nice place. Doing it this way was good because he didn’t have to borrow anything.
Martin Eddy: We normally don’t cut any tree down under 16 inches in diameter unless there is something wrong with it. So sometimes crews will come in after us and cut down 14 inch trees, then we wont have anything for 30 years and it wont be high quality, it will be full of knots. So with the economy being what it is its getting harder.
Shawn: Has OSHA affected your work much?
Martin Eddy: Yes it has, in different ways. The paper work takes up a lot of our time. They think that I have a full time secretary. I don’t. I cant afford someone to be even a part time secretary so we do it ourselves, my wife does it and I do it. We cant justify all that paperwork. I’ve been doing this for 30 something years now, I’d like to continue but its getting harder and harder. We got through this last bit because we had a few different things to fall back onto. Well, we’ve used all that up. So yeah, the economy is a big deal.
Alex: What state organization is in charge of the land here?
Martin Eddy: NYFA, region nine. The cuts that the government is doing are cutting 20 guys out of region nine. Last year their sale, including hunting and timber and everything was 13 million dollars. So with fewer guys the forests will continue to get worse through mismanagement. I agree that [fiscal] cuts need to be made but this division is a moneymaker. There are thousand acre plots right across the road with no one to manage them. They [the state] have shut down all the trails, where loggers could get in closer and the recreational trails. They don’t want people to tear the trails up because there is no money to fix or maintain them. The state has a lot of restrictions on who can come onto their land and cut, a guy has to work for me for three years before he is allowed to come onto state land to cut. I have guys working for me much longer than that but its hard when you need to hire a new guy to work in the woods and they cant. A highly qualified guy who worked for me made $26,000 last year, he used to be self employed and will probably get back into logging for himself, he cant survive on that salary. There are lots of comp. laws that I have to know about and follow. I had a labor audit this year, I was doing most things right but the guy said I was doing a few things wrong. I was trying to be right but sometimes that stuff really takes the enthusiasm out of it. I love to cut trees, heck my dad still loves to cut trees, he is 83 years old and still needs to cut down 8 or 10 trees a year to feel okay. He just loves the work.
Alex: How old is this barn, did you build it or did your dad?
Martin Eddy: It is pretty recent, we were originally near Wellsville until we sold out over there and moved here.
Shawn: What is the most important tool you use here?
Martin Eddy: The log loader, the saw, the chainsaw. The most modern thing we use is the chainsaw. I could go out and spend $500,000 on a new track and saw but I cant see where it makes sense. We deal with local people on a small scale so if I did that I would have to start wholesaling lumber and the price of the final lumber goes up. It’s like the dairy farmer; he gets next to nothing for his milk then goes down to the store for a gallon and its incredible. That’s what happens when you start wholesaling lumber. I used to wholesale some lumber but we try to retail, sometimes we make more than we need and sometimes for a while we can’t keep wood in the lot. This here is basswood lumber; lots of local woodworkers use it for window frames and trim instead of pine. It’s nice to deal with the general public who wants to build something for themselves. We are kind of an old fashion operation here now, there aren’t that many head-saws like that around anymore. Most people use a bandsaw now.
Shawn: Did anyone the region use rivers to transport logs?
Martin Eddy: Well the trucking industry happened. I think a few groups locally used to use rivers but I don’t know too many details. The predominant tree around here used to be elm, now that’s heading by the wayside, along with beech.
Shawn: How far does your company drive to cut down trees?
Martin Eddy: We used to go a lot farther. We now have about a 25 or 30-mile radius. I used to sell a lot of lumber around Seneka Lake, I used to cut black walnut up there. They had to use a lot of white oak up there because they weren’t allowed to use treated lumber. Luckily we don’t have to drive as far anymore, we just cut around here. Sometime people want us to come up and do work for them but I cant see where the profit is for me. I want to be fair but sometimes I am too fair, that’s not being a good businessman when you sell yourself short. Then you’re not there next year when they need you. A customer came in last week that is close to 90 years old and is still farming so I try to treat those guys fair.
Shawn: So you feel an inherited responsibility to maintain the forests along with other people’s well being?
Maritn Eddy: That’s the way I feel about it. They have laws now in the industry about renewable practices but its really just common sense and morality. A lot of what they come up with we do anyways and have always done it that way. So the laws haven’t really affected us as much as some other people. Now you are supposed to be able to take a board or tree and be able to see its history from who the guy was that cut it to what state it came from and how it got to the store. That board has been stamped for the beginning. That’s what they want us to do now, that gets into the record keeping part. There are things that I do anyways but I don’t have those kinds of records. I used to be proud of living in New York State but I don’t know about that anymore. Some of the people in the regulation process have the right idea but in general they don’t know how things actually work. I’m not trying to be negative, but that’s why I’m not putting more money into the tools. I lost more money staying here and staying open than I would have from playing golf all year.
Alex: Do you have any children interested in the business?
Martin Eddy: No. I had a stepson I worked with for a few years but he married a girl and went to work on her fathers golf course. I wouldn’t ask anybody to go into this business, its too hard. I have a grandson that wants to but his mother and grandmother aren’t to happy with that. He is interested but you can see that he has the ability to do more. This wouldn’t hurt him. It is satisfying to do the work here but after a couple of weeks of doing it going back to school sounds good. I’v had people with a really good education come here and work for me because they really enjoy the work but as far as doing it for a living I don’t know. There are a lot of people with masters’ degrees doing just about anything these days.
Shawn: Are you apart of any unions?
Martin Eddy: No, we are a part of a lumber association. It looks after the employees in a lot of ways a union would. Medical and workmans comp.
Martin Eddy: [watching his partner lift boards alone] Well I should probably go to work.
Shawn/Alex: Thanks so much for your time. Have a good one.
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The interview with Mr. Eddy of Eddy lumber was enlightening. I savor talking about work with people in different fields than myself for the bits of ‘shop talk’ that naturally come through in the conversation and for the wide variety of subjects that are addressed in a healthy meandering conversation. Through re-reading the interview, the idea of perspective kept coming up in my thoughts. As a student and consumer, my first view of Eddy Lumber was of a fairly large scale and financially sound enterprise. This may be true to some extent, but compared to the huge tree felling and cutting operations in the world Eddy Lumber is miniscule. Furthermore, the idea of Time crept into the conversation through notions of the old fashion, the outdated, and out-moded. Like the two man crosscut saw, Mr. Eddy’s business is basically a novelty at this point in time. He uses outdated equipment because he is having a hard time seeing the business continue past his own lifetime. Eddy’s use of sustainable practices, before it was marketable to do so, is a function of foresight and common sense that is inherent to the business and life of a timber man.
The idea of perspective is a particularly interesting one in this case because there is a stark divide between producers and consumers in our culture. When speaking with Martin one of the very first things he mentioned was that Eddy Lumber is forest managment operation. He explained to us the care and planning that is necessary to manage and harvest forest to run a safe and responsible loggin operation. Many people view logging as a terrible industry that is responsible for destroying our earths most precious resources, our large natural forests. It is absolutely true that deforestation has devastated valuable species, bioshperes, ecosystems and the global environment but not all logging operates on such devastating levels. But timber is one of our most valuable natural and sustainable resource and if managed properly and responsibly timber harvesting can serve as a rational, responsible and low impact industry with potential benefits for our environemnt. Martin explained that the small scale timber industry requires forethought and rationality, almost a resistance to market pressures at times, because unecessary harvesting would undercut prices and potentially delay or harm future harvests. Martin explained that there is a general responsibility and ethical ground that is absolutely crucial for any logging operation because there is a delicate balance between the raw materials and the processes by which they are havested. He has truthfully told customers of his that he would not cut in specific cases in order to maintain a healthy forest for the future. This type of work ethic holds true as Martin told us that he is harvesting from plantations that he and his father harvested when he was a boy. Our interview with Martin was extremely helpful and interesting. For me it is refreshing and respectable to see the type of work being done at Eddy Lumber Co. We encourage everyone to support your local business men and women because their futures are tied to yours.
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The idea of perspective is a particularly interesting one in this case because there is a stark divide between producers and consumers in our culture. When speaking with Martin one of the very first things he mentioned was that Eddy Lumber is forest managment operation. He explained to us the care and planning that is necessary to manage and harvest forest to run a safe and responsible loggin operation. Many people view logging as a terrible industry that is responsible for destroying our earths most precious resources, our large natural forests. It is absolutely true that deforestation has devastated valuable species, bioshperes, ecosystems and the global environment but not all logging operates on such devastating levels. But timber is one of our most valuable natural and sustainable resource and if managed properly and responsibly timber harvesting can serve as a rational, responsible and low impact industry with potential benefits for our environemnt. Martin explained that the small scale timber industry requires forethought and rationality, almost a resistance to market pressures at times, because unecessary harvesting would undercut prices and potentially delay or harm future harvests. Martin explained that there is a general responsibility and ethical ground that is absolutely crucial for any logging operation because there is a delicate balance between the raw materials and the processes by which they are havested. He has truthfully told customers of his that he would not cut in specific cases in order to maintain a healthy forest for the future. This type of work ethic holds true as Martin told us that he is harvesting from plantations that he and his father harvested when he was a boy. Our interview with Martin was extremely helpful and interesting. For me it is refreshing and respectable to see the type of work being done at Eddy Lumber Co. We encourage everyone to support your local business men and women because their futures are tied to yours.
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A portion of the mornings work involves unloading new shipments of timber to then section off and mill. The milling operation involves two men operating an electric circlar saw installed within a sliding track with braces that hold the timber.
Here timbers lay ready to be rolled onto the track for an initial rough cut. These pieces of lumber are loaded onto an old flatbed parked half way into the mill to be move and remachined at a later time. There are various grades of lumber which vary in type of wood and cleanliness of cut.
A lot of time is spent managing and moving the raw materials. The sheer size and mass of the material makes this industy a relatively hazardous one. Many safet precautions are necessary to operate the heavy machinery necessary to run a saw mill operation.
Supplementary Information:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/77712508/toc.htm
http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/htmlpubs/htm88232601/saw.htm#cross
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/04232822/page04.htmhttp://www.history.org/almanack/life/tools/tlsaw.cfm
http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/htmlpubs/htm88232601/saw.htm#cross
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/04232822/page04.htmhttp://www.history.org/almanack/life/tools/tlsaw.cfm
