Replies

1. 
   RickL | Feb 08, 2008 02:03am | #1

   A type of backsaw...
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw

1. 
   AdamCherubini | Feb 08, 2008 05:45am | #2

   I made some corrections to that wiki page. No carcase saw has ever been longer than tenon saws.A carcass saw is a dovetail saw designed for the thicker material used in case furniture. Period craftsmen in America and England chose very thin woods for drawer components. So a finer toothed, shorter, and lighter saw was required for these dovetails.The saws in the Seaton chest give a good sense for standard late 18th c cabinetmaker's saws. Going from memory, I think Seaton's carcass saw was 11" long, his dovetail was 9".WIKI had some mistakes in the Pit saw entry as well. The top man, called mysteriously "topman", but also "tillerman", and probably sometimes "boss" or "father", probably had the harder job of the two. He had to lift the saw, the weight of which hangs away from his body (via the tiller). Open saws are difficult to push. But pit sawing is an aerobic activity, not a strength activity per se. The most important mistake was the ascertain that our ancestors always dug pits to saw boards. We know this happened, but far more typical was the use of trestles. While it can be tricky to wrestle logs on top of 5 or 6' trestles, it can be doubly so to wrestle logs 5 miles away on to your saw pit! The use of pits probably became more prevalent in the 19th and especially in England where roads were developed such that logs could be more easily transported to the lumber yard's pit. Where I live, near Philadelphia, logs were floated or barged up and down the Delaware. A favored sawyer was 25 miles North of the city in Burlington NJ. Logs were floated up river and lumber was barged back. The price of hauling was separate from the cost for sawing the wood.Adam