The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-22
MANILA wooD-woRKERs.
Their Material and What They Do
With It-Primitive Appliances.

With It-PrimitiVe Appliances.
Manila Letter in New York Post.
Undoubtedly, bamboo is the most i'm
portant wood in this country, and yet it
is not a wood at ALL 1t is the material
more used than any other and for a
greater number of purposes. ID is used
tor building houses bridges, fences and
for repairing roads. 1t is made into beds
and chairs and tables, into hats and bas-
kets and mats. IT is used in a thousand
common and uncommon ways 1t makes
q fishing rod or a flag pole, or the Shout
der pole by which the coolie carries his
load. 1t makes water jug or a scaffold-
Ing for the erection of a four-story build
Ing. Ii is a provision of nature for end
less uses and it grows in endless guam
tity, almost at every Filipinos back door,
IL IL does not form the shade of his front
door. or a hedge of forty feet in hight
around his hut.
One may do a good bit of proving
around the Binondo and other districts
Of Manila without realizing the extent of
the woodworking industry Of the place
Courses which We're once streams through
swampy meadow-land are now practical
ly canals muddy and often sewer-like
through the wards of the new city which
sur ounds the walls of old Manila. Certain
stretches of these canals are filed with
logs, bound together, rafC-like. Piles Of
css upon the banks at once suggest to
the observer the presence of sawmills
snd he listens for the buzziog of the saw,
and the sound of the moving carriage as
i runs the log forward against the flying
teeth. But the sounds are not there One
looks for a smoke-stack which will indi-
cate an engine and boiler TO drive a saw.
But here is no stack. Yet there are logs
-saw-logs-up to fifteen and eighteen
inches in diameter. and here and there a
larger one. There are the logs, and in
large, shed-like buildings there are boards,
Elsnks, and joists. There must be a con
nec ion between the two
Somewhere around those buildings YOU
Will find perhaps one, perhaps several of
those logs mounted on trestles some two
feet in hight and strongly bulk. The log
is held in position by pegs driven down
into the top of the trestle. The log has
been cleaned and marked with lines. The
lines are guides for the sawyers, and the
spaces between the lines show the thick
ness of the boards to be cut The saw
ing is done by hand, two men operating a
saw, dragging 1t back and forth. The
saw is light, narrow blade, carried in
rectangular oblong frame. Stand in a
modern American mill equipped with a
bandsaw and a carriage with Shotgun
feed The sawyer moves a lever a few
inches, the carriage shoots forward
b-z-z-z, and q board drops off falling
upon the live rollers which carry ID on
TO the next process, the edging. There Is
a rumble, and the carriage flies back to
repeat the process A slab and perhaps a
board or TWO are cut off, the carriage
men throw up the levers operating the
sharp teeth of the dogs by which the
log is held in position. The powerful
'eteam-nigger," operated by another
lever in the hands of the sawyer, thrusts
It's head up from the floor engages the
log gives In a oil Nd n
bang. The log is turned for further squar-
Ing and cutting. In little more than ff-
teen minutes a huge log is cut into a
measured 200 feet of lumber. In the same
time two Cinnamon in Manila have cut
a board eight feet long and ten inches
wide.
Watch the American edger A platform
and three or four movable circular saws
The operator runs his eye along the board
notes its defects, gives a twist to this
wheel or that wheel Immediately under the
hand the saws on their spindle five var g
away, respond TO the movement Of the
wheels; the board is pushed forward until
II engages the feed rolls; and the operator
turns to receive the next beard from the
"off-bearer" behind the saw. The 1000
feet of lumber has been edged as fast 20
the boards come from the saw, in less time
than two Cinnamon In Manila will need
for the edging of a single board. One can
but wonder what these chaps would say
TO see an American double-band sawmfI
pile up 10000 feet of lumber in a days
work. Board-making is certainly a slow
Sob in the Philippines.
Suppose the wood being cut to be cedar
for the making of cigar-boxes. Hundreds
of thousands are required annually. An
American novelty wood-works would be
fitted with resaws, gang circular saws.
band-saws, table-saws pony-planners, and
6and-papering machines. A rapid and sys-
tema1lC routine would bea loo N n
piles of small pieces of all the requisite
sizes and shapes for tops, sides and ends.
Scores of American Woodworking con-
Germs would make in few months all Of
the millions Of cigar boxes that Manila
would use in years. Here the wood is all
sawed down by tedious hand processes,
and at last one may see half-naked Chi
namen doing as a last process, that which
the American would have done among
the first | stood in a doorway and watch
ed a row of these chaps an work Each
sat on a sloping bench some four feet
long, and dropping from an eighteen-inch
elevation at one end to about twelve
riches at the other, Beside each was an
O her low bench, upon which were little
piles OF pieces sawed down to the sizes
re suired for the different parts Of cigar
box.
These pieces were to be planed. one it,
tie piece at a time, upon both sides The
Chinaman sat at the upper end of the
bench, placed one OF the little STA os againsf
chock on the top of the bench a little
way IN front of him, lifted foot and
clapped his heel upon the piece to keen
II IN position. and scraped away with an
awkward little plane requiring the use
OF both hands. To do this, an arm extend
ed upon either side of the up-bent leg.
underneath which the work was done Ii
was scrape, scrape, scrape until one
ssoe was dressed, and then the slab was