When was the table saw brought into common use?
Reason i ask is,
My dentist’s office is in an old building, used to be someone’s house, the dentist says the house is at least 100 years old. And in one room there is a nice fireplace, with raised panels on both sides and going up the wall. The wood has the appearance of age, (this side of the building has sunk a bit and the fireplace seem to be consistent with the rest of the building) but i did notice that the raised panels were clearly cut on a table saw, there are saw marks. I assumed that if the woodwork was 100 years old, the carpenter would have used a raised panel hand plane, but i guess i really don’t know.
so, anybody know?
Replies
Depending on the who you talk to the Shakers invented the circular saw around 1813. How long it took to put one in a table is anybody's guess.
John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
The more things change ...
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC
Buzz or circular saws predate table saws by many years I think they were created by early American clockmakers to cut teeth in wooden clock gears .
(Some of those clocks are still ticking away)
You evidently haven't watched old movies where the screaming (Tho ,silent} heroine
was lashed to a infeed sled and propelled toward a giant spinning toothed blade.
(Oh! The humanity) Steinmetz
Not sure when exactly but Sister Tabitha Babbit is credited with inventing the circular saw blade. It was her idea and it were the Shaker brothers who actually developed it. Supposedly she first suggested it in 1780 and 1810 and 1830 keep coming up as dates it was actually invented. Early American Industries Association, a tool collecting group probably has more information.
I have some old industrial woodworking trade magazines from 1890 and the tablesaw was well established by then.
Edited 6/25/2004 12:38 pm ET by rick3ddd
Table saws as we know them today, were widely in use during the 1880's, possibly earlier. During the industrial revolution there were scores of compnies making all sorts of woodworking machinery. Many of the old cast iron machines were very decorative, but the engineering and design has changed much since then.
According to Dan Batory, considered by many to be the grand dad of old woodworking machinery researcher/writers, the tilting arbor saw dates back to at least the 1890s. Prior to that "modern" saws would have been available with fixed arbors and tables or with fixed arbors and tilting table so it would not be too much of a drift beyond the pale to assume that saw tables would have pre-dated the tilting arbor by at least a decade.
As for the Sister Tabitha myth, Batory cites the invention of the circular saw blade all the way back to the sixteenth or seventeeth century in Holland of all places.
Keith Bohn
Unisaw,
I have no facts but I tend to agree with you. The industrial revolution started in England in the 1650ish time frame....its hard to imagine slicing up wood would not have been mechanized... and then of course chip free melamine blades around 1670...lol
Edited 6/26/2004 5:01 pm ET by BG
Dave Potts, a New Jersey industrial arts teacher, old woodworking machine restorer, woodworker and just plain all around fine human being once posted something on the OWWM forum about the begets of woodworking machines. Trouble is, I cannot for the life of me remember all the parts and pieces other than to say it was quite interesting.
I suppose after going through all of that I maybe oughtta go see if I can dig up something from the OWWM archives?Keith Bohn, who really should have paid attention at the time but...
True as to dates, but every industry was not immediately mechanized. The textile industry was 'first.'
Common use? I'd ballpark the 1860's or so, give or take 10-20 years either way depending on where you are.
U.S Customs or whatever it was called then defined an 'antique' piece of furniture as being one made before 1839....before 1839, most furniture was made primarily with hand tools, after 1839, most furniture was made primarily with powered tools. You can quibble with that, but it gives a rough and fairly accurate guideline. They made that definition in 1939, hence the antique=100 years old rule of thumb, which worked fine...in 1939......technically,in my own opinion, in 2004 an antique piece is still something made before 1839 or so, so the rule of thumb would be 165 years old or older. I see a ton of factory made furniture made in the late 1800's/early 1900's....not antiques to me. I just call them 'old'.cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
That type of plane left the carpenters toolbox long before that work was done!
No later than about 1820. I saw a water driven one near Toledo, Ohio on the old restored canal that was powered by a water turbine, then leather belts. It musta been 20 inches.
Boris
"Sir, I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow" -- WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
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