Lumber
History

The basic understanding of lumber, or "sawn planks", came about in North America in the seventeenth century. Lumber is the most common and widely used method of sawing logs. Plain sawn lumber is produced by making the first cut on a tangent to the circumference of the log. Each additional cut is then made parallel to the one before. This method produces the widest possible boards with the least amount of log waste.

Lumber manufacturing globally is determined by the preferred style of building; areas with a "wood building culture" (homes were built from wood rather than other materials like brick) are the countries with significant sawmilling industries. Historical wood-frame home building regions are: Europe, North America, Japan. Different areas of the world are recognized as significant timber suppliers; however, these areas (Indonesia, Sarawak, New Guinea, etc.) are exporters of raw logs and do not have a significant domestic lumber producing industry.

The largest lumber manufacturing regions in the world are: China (18%); United States (17%); Canada (10%); Russia (9%); Germany (5%); Sweden (4%).

In early periods of society, to make wood for building, the trunks of trees were split with wedges into as many and as thin pieces as possible. If it was necessary to have them still thinner, they were hewn, by some sharp instrument, on both sides, to the proper size. This simple but wasteful manner of making boards is still continued in some places.

Otherwise, logs were sawn using a two-person whipsaw, or pit-saw, using saddleblocks to hold the log, and a pit for the pitman who worked below.

In 1420 the island of Madeira – an archipelago comprising four islands off the northwest coast of Africa and an autonomous region of Portugal – was discovered. King Henry VI sent settlers to Madeira and the settlers started clearing the huge expanses of forest in order to grow crops. Felled trees were made into planks by water-powered mills and the timber (cedar and yew) was shipped to Portugal and Spain. About 1427, the first sawmill in Germany was built.

Cornelis Corneliszoon (or Krelis Lootjes) was a Dutch windmill owner from Uitgeest who invented the first mechanical sawmill, which was wind-powered, on December 15, 1593. This made the conversion of log timber into planks 30 times faster than previously.

The circular saw, as used in modern sawmills, was invented by an Englishman named Miller in 1777. It was not until the nineteenth century, however, that it was generally applied, and its great work belongs to that period. The first insertable teeth for this saw were invented by W. Kendal, an American, in 1826.

Logging in the American colonies began in 1607 when the Jamestown settlers cut timber to build the first settlement in the new world. America's first sawmill was built at the Falls of Piscatauqua, on the line between the Province of Maine and the Province of New Hampshire, in 1634. Unauthenticated records, however, claim that as early as 1633 several mills were operating in New Netherland.

The American colonies were essential to England in the role of supplier of lumber for the British fleet. By the 1790s, New England was exporting 36 million feet of pine boards and at least 300 ship masts per year to the British Empire. The timber supply began to dwindle at the start of the twentieth century due to significant harvest volumes, so the logging industry was forced to seek timber elsewhere; hence, the expansion into the American West.
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