How did they do it?

They eye-balled it and used thier gut instinct…. :)

-- Frank, Little River/Academy, Texas , http://www.allthingsrustix.com

I guess that’s kind of how I do it. lol.

-- bbqKing, Lawrenceville

This is purely a guess as I’m not a woodworking history student by any means. But I’m guessing they had some sort of “story stick” they used as a gauge of sorts. I would think each shop had something similar. You’ve got me wondering now. I’ll have to google it and find out when measuring sticks as we know them came into being. Seems like an interesting topic to look into.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

They actually used what is called a thickometer. It was held in the air above the lumber about 10 inches and every 15 seconds or so it would measure the thickocity by sending a pulse of ionized bee-ess through the lumber. The sawers would then measure the time it took the bee-ess to travel through the lumber, out the other side and into a trap callled a fuloshit.

No, that was all a lie. I have no idea.

-- Sometimes when I am building something and it is out of square, I just bend my square.

???

-- Frank, Little River/Academy, Texas , http://www.allthingsrustix.com

King, I believe the term “top dog” came from the sawers in the saw pits. A pit was dug & a log was positioned along it’s length. Two men would use a crossut saw to saw flitches of even thickness. One man at the top (top dog) one man in the pit (bottom dog). The one in the pit had the lousy end of the stick (LOL) & copped all the sawdust.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

Grumpy- I’m with you on your comment. If I remember correctly, the bottom dogs often had short lives from the sawdust eating and breathing. bbqKing.

-- bbqKing, Lawrenceville

King, I guess being a bottom dog was not a healthy occupation.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

I believe they first flattened one side, straightened the edges, and then used a marking gauge run around the edge to set a common thickness. If the wood was thick, they re-sawed it with a hand rip saw or panel saw, and then planed the sawn side to the thickness line. If the wood was close enough, they went directly to the planing for the second side.

Go

-- Go http://ncwoodworker.net/pp/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=730