At one time slab wood was a commodity. The question was ask how was slab wood cut, to answer that we need to start at the sawmill. When the log enters the mill the first step is to place it on the carriage. The carriage is on rails and has a means of fastening the log down and moving it over toward the saw in increments. The carriage is moved back and forth past the saw in the head rig. The first step is to cut a slab off the log then turn the log over ninety degrees on the flat side then proceed to make cuts, turning the log as required to get the best quality lumber.
After the slab is cut off the log it then goes down a set of rolls to a cut off saw. The operator of the cutoff saw had a series of pedals that he could push, each connected to a stop that was raised on the far side of the saw. If the piece was to be cut at twelve feet he would push that pedal, the stop would raise, he would make the cut, release pedal the board would move on down the rolls for the next operation. In the case of slab wood it was always cut at four feet. After cutting, the four foot piece fell between the saw and the next roll into a conveyer where it went out toward the burner. The burner was where all trash was burned. Along the conveyer was a walk way where a worker would pick out the useable slab wood and pile it on the edge of a dock. The slab wood for home use was usually taken to a wood yard, piled in eight foot high stacks, maybe several hundred feet long, bark side up and left to air dry.
Wood for home use came in severl grades. The lowest grade was slab wood, nasty stuff with lots of bark slivers, if green fresh from the mill in the winter it was what Dan Markoff calls Death Wood. The best wood was plainer ends it was usually dry, clean, no slivers and buned well but rather small pieces. What Dan called Atomic wood came from the box factory, it was really kindling, I called it Gun Powder.
I grew up in Eugene Oregon, a sawmill town. Before WW2 everyone burned wood for fuel, after WW2 nearly everyone bought a Spark oil heater. I remember the grade school I went to every fall had a two or three rows of slab wood each a hundred feet long. The janitor would haul it in to the furnace room and stoke the huge old furnace. I never saw a coal stove until I was in the Army at Ft Jackson South Carolina.
Jim
