Cutting Huge Redwood Logs with a Band Saw, California.
But only God can make a tree.
--Joyce Kilmer: "Trees."
Some people dislike to cut down a tree and poems have been written to express this feeling. Others feel that the many things made from the wood of trees contribute so much to man's welfare that it is all right to cut them down.
This enormous log was once the trunk of a stately tree such as we have seen in other views. It took hundreds and hundreds of years for it to grow to its present size. Now it is being cut up into boards. These boards or lumber, as it is called, will next appear in our homes as furniture, as playthings for children, as fuel for heating, as material for building houses in which to live, or for boxes in which goods are shipped all over the world. Thus these trees can serve many purposes in the world.
This saw is what is called a band saw. It is like a steel belt with sharp teeth in one edge. It runs over and around two pulleys that are revolving very rapidly. The log is on a carrier or platform that pushes the end of the log against the saw, and so on through the entire length of the log. Notice how wide that board is by comparing it to the height of the man on the right. These band saws work more rapidly and are easier to keep in shape than the older type of circular saw. A circular saw large enough to cut a log like this would have to be approximately 12 feet in diameter.