Graphical Construction Glossary >> Woodwork. >> >> Saw Milling

Saw Milling

The act of sawing wood in an industrial application.

Sawyer

A person with the trade of sawing wood

Sawmill

A factory where where logs of wood in the rough are sawn into usable sizes for the construction and woodworking industries.

Slab Sawn

Lumber or timber sawn vertically straight out of the log. This is the cheapest way of sawing up logs into planks

Quarter Sawn

Wood logs sawn into quarters to maximise the quality of the finished planks.

There are different ways of sawing a log into lengths of usable timber. The log being large, would if it was left to season on it's own would take a long time to reach the correct moisture content all the way through.

So the logs are milled to size while they are still relatively green.

Above is a sketch of how a log is cut up using the quarter sawn method. This is labour intensive but produces the best results in terms of the finished timber. It will be more stable.

Above is the sawing process known as slab sawing. A log is fed though a gang saw and it is finished in one pass. This is faster and cheaper ans it is used the most.

At the right is one of the neither the best case or the worst case pieces from a slab sawing. It will still have a tendency to shrink but not al bad as the timber in the photo below.

Slab sawn softwood planks Photo thanks to Morguefile, and : ronnieb

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