SECTION VIII.
Saws and Files.
This is Mr. Frothingham's heading, and his statistics
are: 24 establishments; 8161,900 capital; 302 hands;
$97,647 wages; $90,718 material; $249,805 annual pro-
duct. The census office assumed that there was but one
saw manufacturer in Brooklyn (there were three at that
time), remanded him to the miscellaneous industries,
and inserted Files, 12 establishments, $25,750 capital,
76 hands, $29,192 wages, $21,9iO material, $68,509
annual product. Both entries are hopelessly wrong, and
only illustrate the folly of meddling with statistics,
which the officials of the census office were incapable
of understanding. The two branches of business, which
are intimately connected, have been carried on with
many vicissitudes, but the annual product of the two is
not now less than $500,000, though there have been
several failures within the last two years. The number of
hands is probably now not far from 400.
But, as the processes of manufacture differ
materially, and the saw manufacturer need not be, and often
is not, a manufacturer of files, we will treat of saws
first, and afterwards of file-making.
The manufacture of saws and files is not an old
industry anywhere in this country. It is not yet fifty years
since the English file manufacturers declared that the
Yankees would never be able to acquire the art of
making files; that the skill required had passed from
generation to generation, and that no American could ever by
any possibility acquire the sleight of hand necessary to
cut files evenly and perfectly. It is about forty-five
years since the manufacture commenced, and for more
than a score of years past the American files have
ranked as high as any of English or French manufacture.
The saw manufacture has passed through a similar
experience. The Sheffield manufacturers thought they
had reduced their business to a system and perfection
which defied competition. The tempering, toothing,
grinding and finishing a saw were each processes
requiring long practice and training, and it was not to be
supposed, for an instant, that a people who had had no
experience in such a manufacture, could compete
successfully with the English saw works and their skilled
workmen. But stranger things than this have
happened, and it has come to pass that, while we
manufactured about $1,000,000 worth of saws in 1880, we
imported in that year only $11,475 worth, and exported
in the same year $37,271 worth, and about $11,000 of
this to Great Britain and its colonies.
There are now, according to the census of 1880, 89
saw manufactories and 179 file works in the United
States, and 18 of the former and 37 of the latter in the
State of New York. We have no positive knowledge as
to the first manufacturer of saws in this country, but
among the earliest, as well as the largest, was the firm
of R. Hoe & Co., who afterwards embarked so largely
in the production of printing presses. The early saw
and file manufacturers found it desirable to import
skilled workmen, saw-makers, saw-grinders and saw-
handlers from Sheffield, to train their apprentices and
young workmen in the difficult processes of the
manufacture; and in 1848 they invited a father and two
sons by the name of Peace, experienced and skillful
saw grinders, to come over and manage their saw-
grinding department. They came, and their work
gave ample satisfaction. The elder son remained with
Messrs. Hoe for thirteen years, and in that time made
himself completely master of all the processes of the
trade, something very rarely attempted in that business.
In 1861 the two brothers commenced business for them-
selves, at first in small quarters in Centre street, New
York; after a little, they removed to Johnstown, N. Y.;
but in 1863 settled finally in their present location at
Tenth and Ainslie streets, Brooklyn, E. D. Here they
have, or a t least the older brother has, built up a fine
business, the establishment being the largest, with one
3r possibly two exceptions, in the United States. Mr.
Peace confined his industry t o saws alone; but of these
be makes every known variety.
The steel used is principally of Pittsburgh manufacture,
and while its quality is excellent, Mr. Peace complains
that two of his competitors, who manufacture
their own steel, are enabled to use steel which costs
them only about one-half the market value, while he is
obliged to use steel purchased at the market price, and
is thus handicapped at the very beginning of the race.
Mr. Peace is a believer in a tariff with a fair degree of
protection for manufactures, but he does not believe
that it should be such a tariff as will discriminate
against the manufacturer.
The steel used is rolled at the rolling mill to the proper
length, width and thickness. The steel for carpenters'
saws is in square sheets, which are divided diagonally,
each sheet making two saws. Being cut into the de-
sired shape, the future saws are toothed and filed while
the steel is in the soft state. The teeth, which are of a
great variety of forms, according to the purposes for
which they are designed, are, except in the more
complicated forms, cut by automatic machinery, the ma-
chine for cutting the teeth of the carpenters' saws making
1,200 teeth per minute. The burr, or roughened edges,
raised by shearing and toothing, are next knocked or
rolled down. They are then hardened in oil, and
tempered (a difficult and delicate process), a particular
shade of color being required for the requisite temper.
After the tempering, they go into the hands of the saw
makers, to be hammered on an anvil as true as possible;
they are then taken to the grinding shop, where each
saw is ground for the purpose for which it is to be
used. Most of the saws are ground on a machine,
the saw passing between rollers to the grindstone, and
passing out between other rollers on the other side.
The jig and compass saws are ground by hand, the
grindstones, in all cases, being driven by steam power.
The saws go next to the polishing shops, and, after
polishing, are blocked (straightened by being hammered
on a hardwood block), and, as the processes through
which they have passed have somewhat impaired their
elasticity, this is restored, if need be, by heating t o the
required color. They are next set, filed, etched and
oiled, when those saws which do not require handles
are finished, ready for packing. The carpenters' and
cross-cut saws are transferred to the saw-handler's
department, and the blades are punched to receive the
screws for the handles; and in one pattern, which is
patented, a portion of the upper part of the blade is cut
out by a die, and the handle fitted to match this
exactly, and, like the other handles, is secured firmly in
its place by screws. The handles are made of beech
and apple wood principally, though mahogany, rose-
wood, cherry, and black walnut are used to some extent.
The logs of these woods are first sawed into boards of
the proper thickness, and then thoroughly steamed and
dried. The handles are then marked out by pattern,
and sawed out by band or jig sans, burred and filed
into shape, smoothed by sandbelts and sandwheels, oiled
and polished, and finally slit and bored ready to receive
the blades.
In the manufacture of saws, the division of labor
is carried to a remarkable extent, not in the
production of different kinds of saws, as might be expected,
but in the different processes required in the
production of the saw. Each process is a trade by itself,
and hardly ever does a mechanic pass from one to
another. The usual divisions are saw-makers, saw-
grinders, saw polishers and finishers, and saw-handlers;
but even these are sub-divided; the man who
hardens and tempers the saw has no knowledge of the
processes of toothing and filing, nor of the smithing and
hammering; so that there are three distinct trades
under the head of saw-making; in saw grinding, the man
who grinds the saws on a machine cannot be
transferred to the work of grinding them by hand. In
the polishing department, the polisher cannot do the
setting, filing, retempering or etching. He might do
the graining, which is effected by passing the polished
and finished saw between hardwood rollers.
The saw-handlers have also several subdivisions. It
is very rarely the case that a man has made himself a
master of all the processes, as Mr. Harvey W. Peace
has done, and is capable of superintending and
directing each effectively. This is to be regretted, because
it is a business which can only be conducted success-
fully by a man who is thoroughly familiar with every
department of it, and who has, at the same time, the
executive ability needed in the buying and selling, and
the financial management of a large business, and the
power to control large bodies of men successfully.
Without these qualifications, failure in the end is
inevitable. There have been many sad examples of this in
Brooklyn, and the successive disasters have left the
Harvey W. Peace Company, Limited, practically alone
in this industry, their only competitors now being some
small shops which make only one or two descriptions
of saws, and from their limited means, the quality even
of these lacks uniformity.
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