A while ago, (it seems like in in another lifetime now) I used to have an interest in a small sawmill. We had a truck with a powerful hydraulic crane fitted and we salvaged trees from roadworks, housing estates and so on.
We cut them on a old 4 man saw bench. This is 1950’s technology with a 1200mm saw blade spinning in a cast iron bench. You man handled the logs onto the bench then power rollers fed them through the saw to cut boards.
It was an incredibly dangerous piece of equipment and very hard work but somehow we both survived with all limbs still attached.
A legacy of this is that today I still have a good stock of sawn and now 25 year old air dried hardwood. The best for boat building is spotted gum, and I have been machining some of this up.
Machining the wood involves first running it through a thicknesser to clean up the surfaces and make the two broad faces of the length of wood parallel.
I hear the rhythm of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping at my roof and walls
Woodstack. The color coding is for different species
Machined timber and lots of wood chips
A nice length of machined spotted gum. Still needs to be straightened
When a board is cut in a saw it is not always exactly square. As it dries it might go further out of shape as moisture leaves the fibres and they shrink and dry.
Before it can be used in building a boat it must be squared up and re-cut to whatever size is required. Thicknessing is the first step that gets 2 faces parallel.
I actually have a thicknesser – jointer, that machines the wood to a uniform thickness underneath, and can be used to straighten an edge on top.
And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I
Cutter blades on the thicknesser. Watch your fingers
And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without belief
The only truth I know is you