Thread: How did they rip scale stock before bandsaws existed?

I just use the tree felling saw with the big teeth.

Or you could ask me real nice, pay the postage and send me your wood (assuming you are not overseas but you did not fill in you location). I dont want to make a habit of resawing wood for folks but I can feed it to my band saw and run it through my surfacing drum sander. I can go anywhere from 1/64 thick to 6 inches.

Originally Posted by cannonfodder

Or you could ask me real nice, pay the postage and send me your wood (assuming you are not overseas but you did not fill in you location). I dont want to make a habit of resawing wood for folks but I can feed it to my band saw and run it through my surfacing drum sander. I can go anywhere from 1/64 thick to 6 inches.

That is a very nice offer.

/hey, someone from dayton. Are you who raids all the antique shops?

In answer to your original question, although the band saw was invented in 1807 (after welding techniques developed enough to close a flat saw into a loop)thin slats were most quickly split with a tool called a froe:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...a%3DX%26um%3D1
The thickness dialed in and the surface was smoothed with a handplane. Master cabinet makers still prefer a planed surface over a sanded one. Of course there have been saws for many centuries but it has always been most expedient in woodworking to use the wood's natural qualities to work for you. Even huge trees were split by a few guys with wedges and mauls.

Brad

Splitting with a froe works great if the wood is very straight grained and if it is of a type that splits. Some species do not split in a useable way.

Originally Posted by cannonfodder

Or you could ask me real nice, pay the postage and send me your wood (assuming you are not overseas but you did not fill in you location). I dont want to make a habit of resawing wood for folks but I can feed it to my band saw and run it through my surfacing drum sander. I can go anywhere from 1/64 thick to 6 inches.

Thanks for the generous offer, but right now I don't have any stock to cut, or any razors to restore. I was asking more from the standpoint of acquiring the skill.

This one was first rived with a froe.

If you consider the difficulty of making a saw from scratch( sand, peat, etc) you will be closer to understanding the magic of a truly great saw.

Johnny, with a good saw you can hardly keep from cutting straight, but you can buy a bandsaw at that price

My experience with splitting mauls leads me to doubt that you can split wood at 1/8". I assume if you use a froe, the wood has to be split at 1/4" and planed down? Is that correct?

Re. saws, Japanese saws sell for about $30. They're small, light, & definitely cheaper than a bandsaw. Maybe worth a try?

Originally Posted by Johnny J

My experience with splitting mauls leads me to doubt that you can split wood at 1/8". I assume if you use a froe, the wood has to be split at 1/4" and planed down? Is that correct?

Re. saws, Japanese saws sell for about $30. They're small, light, & definitely cheaper than a bandsaw. Maybe worth a try?

I have seen demonstrations by woodworkers who specialize in Shaker style crafting and they could split the side pieces for those oval boxes the Shakers used to make. The pieces could be split below 1/8". As Matt321 pointed out, the straighter the grain, the thinner one could split the wood. For the Shakers, they had alot of old growth North American hardwood trees from which to choose and alot of time.

Originally Posted by Johnny J

My experience with splitting mauls leads me to doubt that you can split wood at 1/8". I assume if you use a froe, the wood has to be split at 1/4" and planed down? Is that correct?

Re. saws, Japanese saws sell for about $30. They're small, light, & definitely cheaper than a bandsaw. Maybe worth a try?

Usually by the time you get that thin you use something sharper than a froe, though i guess you could have a specialized froe. Regardless I doubt that razor scales were ever split out on a large scale

Froe, and splitting goes more with axe and adz finish rather than plane; however it is true that one could at times use split out(rived) boards to be finish planed but more often larger pieces were split, then trued to be resawn as in the woodprint above.

OT talk done

One brand (though I have never owned one)that is most often cited as one of the best(maybe the best) machine made saw is Gyokucho
JohnnyJ