What
kinds of tools or equipment will Uncle Cyrus need as a lumberjack?
A
lumberjack had to buy his work clothes and spiked boots. He also had to furnish his own mattress
and blankets because the logging company did not furnish those things. The lumberjack did not need to buy his tools
because they were owned by the logging company. The lumberjack kept the tools
clean and sharp so they would give him the best performance possible.
A
lumberjack used these tools:
Springboard: Fir and cedar trees often grew to be 13 feet
thick. Their trunks spread wider at the ground, and were dripping with
pitch. It would have been impossible to
try to saw through a tree at ground level.
Instead, the lumberjacks built a framework of poles and planks called a “scaffold” around
the tree. They climbed ten to twenty
feet above the ground on the scaffold and cut notches into the tree’s trunk.
Then they inserted a platform called a springboard into the
notches. Two lumberjacks stood on the
springboard, one lumberjack on each end. They chopped and sawed through the
tree, ten or twenty feet above the ground.
Up there the wood was soft and the pitch was only in pockets.
Long-handled falling axe: An axe with extra long handle was able to
cut deeper into thick trees than an axe with short handles. Lumberjacks started cutting with a long handled falling axe, and then they finished cutting through the
trees with a crosscut falling saw. This
was the quickest way to cut through the huge fir and cedar trees. The falling axe had a thinner bit
that helped for cutting springboard holes. It had a longer handle that helped
in cutting large trees.
Crosscut falling saw: The crosscut falling saw cut through the giant Douglas fir and cedar
trees. Falling saws could be as long as
18 feet. The saw blades were narrow and thin, to slice through the wood more
easily. Two men used a falling saw, one
man at each end.
5-foot crosscut bucking saw: The 5-foot crosscut bucking saw cut trees into logs.
Broad
Axe: This 7-pound axe was
used for squaring the ends of the logs.
7-foot
crosscut bucking saw: The 7-foot crosscut bucking saw was used to cut logs into
firewood.
Wedge:
Steel wedges were
jammed into the saw cuts by wooden sledgehammers, to keep the saw blades from
jamming up in the saw cuts. The wedges kept the saw cuts open and helped the
saw blades to move freely. Sometimes loggers squirted kerosene into the saw
cuts, to thin the sap so that the saws wouldn’t stick.
Sledgehammer: A
sledgehammer was used to drive the steel wedge into the saw cuts, to keep the
saw blades from jamming.
Peeling
Iron: Sometimes a peeling iron was used to
peel bark from a tree.
If you would like to
know what kinds of tools and equipment were used by loggers who had other types
of logging jobs, visit this web site!
Image Credit: Microsoft
ClipArt Gallery
Black and white photo courtesy of Galen Biery
Historical Collection, Whatcom Museum
of History and Art
Color photos courtesy of Lynden’s Pioneer Museum and British
Columbia’s Forestry Museum