Barnwood Saw Marks?

[fred everett]

I have barnwood from a barn in Newtown Pa that dates 1820's. The timbers were obviously hand hewn with an adze, but the underside of the floorboards appear to have both pit sawn marks AND machine marks. Have you seen anything like this?

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[Art Mann]

That beam was sawn with a circular saw mill. You can tell from the arc shape in the cut lines. I saw those kind of marks all day every day when I worked at a saw mill some 45 years ago. I don't see any evidence of pit sawing.

[Andrew Hughes]

That’s a good looking board even with the knot on the edge.
Three or four of them together would make a great look table top.

[fred everett]

That beam was sawn with a circular saw mill. You can tell from the arc shape in the cut lines. I saw those kind of marks all day every day when I worked at a saw mill some 45 years ago. I don't see any evidence of pit sawing.

Agree, but if you look to the left side you can see the crossing "V" pattern indicative of pit sawing.

[Jim Becker]

That's really nice materials...and from only a few miles south of me, too. You may very well find materials that have been used and re-used over time that will exhibit different methods of cutting in many structures in this area. Some of the floor joists in the supposedly 250 year old portion of our home were at some point replaced by material that clearly came from somewhere else...one even has a beaded edge.

[fred everett]

That’s a good looking board even with the knot on the edge.
Three or four of them together would make a great look table top.

And that's not even the nice stuff. The adze hewn timbers are old growth white oak with stunning rays throughout. Also, Power Post Beetles added some great character. Im lucky enough to have a friend that has a Wood Mizer mill so he cut the timbers to 4/4 and 6/4. I'm doing 2 end tables and plan to somehow feature the m & t's and the marriage marks cut into the wood. The photo is the "veneers" of which I have 8. These are be-bugged and free of nails etc. I learning as I go.....next step is to machine enough to build furniture but not destroy the character.

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[Joe Wood]

I've never seen checks running across the boards like that! But then I mostly work western softwoods.

[fred everett]

That's really nice materials...and from only a few miles south of me, too. You may very well find materials that have been used and re-used over time that will exhibit different methods of cutting in many structures in this area. Some of the floor joists in the supposedly 250 year old portion of our home were at some point replaced by material that clearly came from somewhere else...one even has a beaded edge.

I think you're probably correct regarding disparate methods. The barn was restored with the exception of a smaller section. The small section was basically cut off and kicked into a pile of timbers, siding and floor boards. The restoration was done by an Amish group of 4 carpenters who did an amazing job....all traditional methods used while adhering to historical society requirements. The barn is 8k sq ft.....frankly I was blown away by it. The hand hewn main beams must be 18" inches square....incredible.

I got to pick through the already picked through scraps, but I'm grateful for what I was able to bring home. I have material that was hand made by woodworkers 2 centuries ago......may sound corny, but I want to honor them by creating something amazing.

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[Andrew Hughes]

I've never seen checks running across the boards like that! But then I mostly work western softwoods.

I don’t think they are checks Joe. They look like tool marks from a Ax.
If Fred can make some tables and keep the tool and saw marks that would be awesome.
Recreating them would be difficult.
Good Luck Fred

[Art Mann]

The planks in that second photo are just extraordinary. What character! I would love to build some furniture using those pieces.

[Darcy Warner]

Not sure when the Daniel's style planer was invented, but that was a rotating disc style head with a moving bed and fixed planing head. They leave an interesting pattern as well.

[Tom M King]

Yes, the "tooth" marks seem too close together for a circular saw blade that large in diameter to make that radius. I'm thinking something besides a circular saw too.

[Darcy Warner]

Not 1820s, but all you need to know about early planers.

http://vintagemachinery.org/MfgIndex/detail.aspx?ID=238

[Tom M King]

What is the 1820 date based on? Having Dendrochronology done on some of the old structures I've worked on has shown that any dates, not verified by a newspaper story, or such, are sometimes off by a few decades.

Being hewn on one face, and sawn on another (possible reason for some Pit saw marks, even though those are more of an angle than any others I've seen), was very common. My theory is that they squared up the timbers in the woods where the trees were dropped, and then smaller pieces sawn out of those. The hewing in the woods would have left all the mess where it wouldn't have to be disposed of, and the part they wanted to save much easier to move.

One 1850 house I worked on has parts about 2-5/8"x8", whereas older ones typically have 4x8's. The 4x8's are hewn on one side, and sawn on the other of every piece. The 1850 house has 2/3's of the joists hewn on one side and sawn on the other, and 1/3 sawn on both sides.

[Dave Mount]

The arc of the machine marks clearly show they were made with a rotary machine and not a pit saw. In addition, pitsawn lumber does not have that regularity in spacing or parallelism. Also, pit sawn boards generally have saw marks that at slightly different angles, because both the top and bottom man tend to pull downward toward their feet, and cut on slightly different angles as a result.

The marks running opposite the dominant scratches are made by a circular mill if the board is dragging across the back side of the blade. You've probably seen similar marks off your table saw if you're cutting a warped board or one that has tension and closes on the kerf. Unlike table saws where we want the path of wood travel to be exactly parallel to the saw blade, circular sawmills are aligned with "lead" (pronounced "leed") wherein the blade is slightly out of parallel with the cutting path, with the trailing edge farther from the log, and thus, the cut board can drag on the back edge of the saw leaving additional marks in the opposite arc as it passes. Note that the angle and arc of the marks are symmetrical relative to a perpendicular across the board, which is what you get from the back edge of a circular blade.

The periodicity (spacing) of the marks is unusual for a modern circular mill. Modern mills use inserted teeth, so they are very precisely positioned relative to the saw plate. As a result, saw marks come from blade wobble, and as such they have a frequency of one per revolution. That usually means that pattern repeats every 1-2 inches, depending on the diameter of the blade and how fast the sawyer is feeding the log. In your first picture, the shallow arc of the marks shows the blade was large diameter, yet the marks are close together which means there were multiple scratches made on each revolution, not just one per revolution as in blade wobble.

However -- given the vintage, it's likely the sawblade was not inserted tooth blade, but rather hand filed and set from a single plate of steel. Thus, the alternating pattern can come from the tooth set -- the teeth were bent to one side versus the other to create kerf (and thus clearance for the saw plate), as in a cross-cut hand saw. This would create many scratches per blade revolution, as seen in your picture.

The marks in the other planks are definitely from hand hewing -- that is done by making stopping cuts perpendicular to the grain, followed by strokes parallel to the grain to remove the chips. Sound wood doesn't check perpendicular to the grain.

Best,

Dave (and yes, my family has a circular sawmill)