II. Материалы для самостоятельной работы

1. HISTORY OF LOGGING

History of axe

The first heavy axe was just a crudely sharpened stone. Such a tool (its history, according to different sources, dates back to 800 to 400 thousand years ago) was used as a hammer, chisel, scraper or weapon. If we believe that a handle is a necessary requisite of a hammer, this invention will get a lot younger. Axe-handle is only 30 thousand years old. Axe is the first two-part tool. Actually, to connect two elements turned out to be quite a complicated engineering task. This is why they were initially tied together with animal tendons or leather strips. As soon as the mankind mastered the art of melting metals, people started making copper axe-handles.

Among such first inventions there is a toothed axe with a narrow oblong blade oriented across the handle. Man started using an axe to fell trees considerably later, in the late 8th century. Rapid development of European civilization brought about the need for clearing large areas covered by dense forests. The Middle Ages saw the invention of a curved handle. This feature made an axe an even more popular loggers’ tool.

Mass production of axe as a felling tool started in the United States in 1830s. The Collins brothers’ axes, whose blade’s weight was equal to the weight of a handle, had dominated the market till 1880s, when they were essentially superseded by a power saw.

History of saw

It is believed that saw had been invented before any historic records were made. Among the earliest specimens, there are stone pieces with notched edges. They were mostly used for making an ornament on a bone or a soft stone.

For many years of their history, people have been successfully using bow-saws. In our country, it was still possible to find them in the post-war period. Their thin blades made from alloyed steel had an interesting feature — the back thicker than its cutting part with a complex teeth profile.

Band saws. The first band saw consisted of an endless steel band with teeth set along one edge, the band saw form was patented in Great Britain in 1808. However, band saw came into use in logging industry only in the last quarter of the 19th century. Nowadays, various types of band saws are used all over the world, starting with a thread-thin ones and finishing with immense saws with a length of fifteen meters and width of one-third of a meter, rotating on pulleys with a diameter of two and a half meters and a speed of five hundred revolutions per minute. Such saws possess excellent technical characteristics and can saw logs with a high speed. Modern band saws are fitted with teeth on both sides and can saw in both directions.

Gasoline saw.However, among the most popular there were power saws with gasoline engines, which in the course of time practically superseded electrical ones. Usually, an engine was placed on the one side of the saw chain, and a strainer with a lubrication system — on the other. The main advantage of gasoline saws in comparison with electric saws was in their autonomy — they did not depend on an exterior power source and did not need a supplying cable. Even nowadays, legendary Drouzhba (Friendship) gasoline saw, which was named in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the Union of Ukraine and Russia, is widely used in rural areas. Being simple and reliable, this saw has become for many years the main tool of our loggers. Later, it was superseded by a more efficient and powerful Ural power saw, the main composition of which was in many ways similar to Drouzhba saw.

History of saw-mills

One of the first saw-mills appeared in Germany in 1322. It was a saw-millof a hydraulic type. Soon, similar saws started to be used in Holland. In English-speaking countries, saw-mills came into use with difficulty. The first saw-mill mounted by Germans on the British Isles in 1633 awaited a gloomy fate — it had been destroyed by insurgent loggers. They called tools developed as a result of a technological progress the devil's invention since they threatened their wages and well-being.

Unlike in England, the first American saw-mill built in 1631 on the Salmon Falls river (now South Berwick, Maine) did not meet such resistance. The saw-mill in Maine, as well all the successive ones built in the course of two centuries, was of a reciprocal type.