What is your definition of “whip” saw? I’m wrestling with the use of the term “pit” saw for hand sawn lumber. From what I have seen here and overseas, it would appear two man hand rip sawing is typically done on a trestles (tall saw horses) which makes more sense. I wonder if the terminology may be a bad translation, or worse a Sloanism?

 

Pit Saw / Whip Saw  =  all the same thing where I come from.  

The only variations in the tool being whether the saw blade is stretched taught in an external timber frame of left free to flex with only a handle at each end.   In the latter, the top handle is keyed and bolted fixed to the saw blade, while the lower handle is pinned to allow ossilation of the pulling motion.   I often wondered if the term "whipsaw" suggested the free blade version, but in the local historic practice of identification in photos, advertisements and census records the terms are interchangeable, with whipsaw being the more common here in the pre 1900's early settlement time.   They were still whipsawing lumber as family businesses here until 1910, and broadaxing ties for the railroad well into the 1930's, even though some big steam powered sawmills had been working since the 1890's.

 

The choice of pit or trestle prop was just one of landscape.  The pit was just like a modern auto lube shop.  If the lumber industry gets any worse here, we can always use those shops to saw logs.    An easy digging situation and flat land made a pit a dream because the logs could just be rolled on to supporting timbers layed on the ground and over the pit, and you could have access to saw the entire log length with only minor adjustments of the log when you got to a support.   The trestle or tripod arrangement was handy if there was a natural bank on which to prop one end of the saw log to help get it up in the air, with the tripod near the middle of the log and the sawing end cantilevered out into space above the "pit man".   With the trestle system, you have to turn the log around to saw the other half or raise and lower the oposite ends like a teeter-totter.   I love this "sawmill" picture for the clear inginuity of rock balance weights.

 

 

As far as the popular myth about the awful state of the pit man because of all the sawdust falling on him, forget it.   I would take the bottom job any time.   The top man has to always pull up on the saw from a bending position.   Even though the cutting action is lighter on that stroke, the back really feels it pretty quickly.  The pit man gets to pull down and just put his weight on the saw, a very comfortable action with a staight back.   The saw is at an angle of about 20 degrees, so the chips fall in front of the pit man.   The only drag would be a breeze, but a well oriented pit or trestle accounts for that, and the sawdust should not be a great problem.   Also, a well set and sharpened saw makes nice chips and not little nasty saw dust.

 

and:

 >>The strapping for a cedar shake roof from 1877 that I recently replaced with new shakes, only had one set of nail holes before my new (square) ones went in. <<

 Do you mean cut (rectangular cross section) or wrought?

Cut nails after the mid 1800's.   You can still buy them from Tremont Nail Co. in Conneticut and a place in Argentina, still making nails with century and a half old equipment.   So many public historic sites rely on the picturesque blacksmith making nails, but the reality was that as soon as industrialization hit, mass produced cut nails were shipped everywhere, even out here in pack-horse pioneer gold-rush times.   Heck, when there was gold to get, no one had time to make a damned nail.     Visitors are always so disapointed to hear that.   They long for "the good old days" when, in their minds, reality was quite different.   David Lowenthal wrote a great book about it all called "The Past is a Foreign Country".

 

Just curious as I said. Sounds like you’re living it, while so many of us are wishing it.

Living it is a gas!   Actually, the best parts are riding my Penny Farthing to work each day and holding up my pants with suspenders.   On the other hand, sounds like so many of you are making money while I am just wishing for it.

 

Rudy

cp in (green) bc