The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
These 2-foot, 2-fold slide rules are endlessly fascinating.

Timber merchant's (?) rule by James Tree

Last updated 2 July 2008, David Green

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This is a rule made by James Tree. It is a sort of carpenter's rule on steroids. It has the normal four Gunter scales (A, B, C and D) with D as a girt line. It also has an ivory slide and six tables, which are
. load table (cost per 50 cubic feet in pounds, shillings and pence),
. SQR SCANTLINS TO A LOAD,
. THICK STUFF 12 INS BROAD,
. PLANK,
. TREENILS,
. ASH LOAD,

The tables get progressively more obscure.

So what trade was it made for and how old is it?

How old?

Annotation is: J. TREE MAKER 22 CHARLOTTE ST BLACKFRs RD LONDON

According to Peter Hopp's book [Ref 7 p76],
  James Tree & Co 1850-1895
  1850-1851 22 Little Charlotte St, Blackfriars, London (as James Tree)
  1851-1895 22 Little Charlotte St (as James Tree & Co)

I have one other rule made by Tree, and it is indeed annotated "& CO"
  J. TREE & CO MAKERS CHARLOTTE ST BLACKFRs RD LONDON

If Tree consistently inscribed his rules "& Co", perhaps this rule is 1850-1851?

The rule has a 50 cu ft load table. Philip Stanley [Ref 8 (p168)] says "these tables are only found on English rules, and indicate a date prior to the middle of the 19th century"

Supports the notion that this rule is 1850-1851?

Load Table

load table



ie. (L S D)=D*50/240 where D = pence/cu.ft. and (L S D) is pounds, shillings and pence.

Looks like standard table of the cost of 50 cu.ft. loads, and it appears to be correct. The table runs from 18 pence to 30 pence.




SQR SCANTLINS TO A LOAD

Scantlins table

(IN)*(IN)*(FEET IN)/144 gives 50 cu.ft.

This is a strange table. Some entries are to the nearest quarter of an inch, where others are to the nearest foot. (Is there a special reason for this?) The table contains some more-or-less serious errors. Of course, my 'corrections' have the benefit of a calculator. They would have used a pencil and paper in 1851, (or maybe a slide rule?)

Scantlin is not in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Wikipedia, or Wiktionary. The meaning here seems just to be "a length of timber". Presumably it is jargon/slang/early form or misspelling of scantling?

    Wiktionary says scantling (plural scantlings) is
  1. (especially in plural) The set size or dimension of a piece of timber, stone etc., or materials used to build ships or aircraft.
  2. (archaic) A small portion, a scant amount.
  3. A small, upright timber used in construction, especially less than five inches square.

William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine [Ref 1], gives
SCANTLING, (echantillons, Fr.) the dimensions of any piece of timber with regard to its breadth and thickness in ship-building.

So a possible ship-building connection?

THICK STUFF 12 INS BROAD

Thick stuff table


Calculation is IN*(FEET IN)/12 = 50. Looks like a table to look up what length constitutes a 50 cu ft. load. Contains three mis-punched characters and two possible omissions.

PLANK

Planks table


The Plank table seems to be a continuation of the Thick Stuff table, with LO.D (load, in ft?) column replacing (FEET IN)column. Then calculation is (IN*LO.D/12)=50. D is the number of IN in a foot, but why would you need it? For strapping lengths together? And what is N?

TREENILS

Treenils table


Calculation: IN1*LOAD + IN2 = 48000. This works perfectly if we assume 15 and 12 are punched in the wrong rows. But what does it mean? Why do you need to know the remainder from the multiplication? And what is the purpose of the last row. It looks wrong but I can't see an obvious correction. The table could continue:

  • 11 4363 7
  • 10 4800 0
  •  9 5333 3 etc
    The load of 4320 implies a treenil eleven and one ninth inches long, ie. 11.111111... which is interesting but not enlightening.

    One way to explain the table is to make the following three assumptions: (a) treenils are cylindrical dowels, (b) their diameter d is 1.5 inches and (c) pi is approximately equal to 3.2 (no calculators in those days).
    Then using 30 inch treenils as an example, each treenil has a volume of 30 x pi x d2/4 = 30 x 1.8 = 54 cu. ins. or 54/1728 cu. ft. and a load of 1600 of them has the volume 1600 x 54 /1728 = 50 cu. ft.

    Treenils is not in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Wikipedia or Wiktionary. But assumption (a) above pretty well confirms it is a local or early spelling of treenail. A treenail is a wooden peg that is used to fasten timbers in shipbuilding; water causes the peg to swell and hold the timbers fast.

    William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine [Ref 2], gives
    TREE-NAILS, (gournables, Fr.) certain long cylindrical, wooden pins, employed to connect the planks of a ship's side and bottom to the corresponding timbers. The tree-nails are justly esteemed superior to spike-nails or bolts, which are liable to rust, and loosen, as well as to rot the timber; but it is necessary that the oak of which they are formed should be solid, close, and replete with gum, to prevent them from breaking and rotting in the ship's frame. They ought also to be well dried, so as to fill their holes when they are swelled with moisture. They have usually one inch in thickness to 100 feet in the vessel's length; so that the tree-nails of a ship of 100 feet long, are one inch in diameter; and one inch and a half for a ship of 150 feet.

    Another possible ship building connection?

    ASH LOAD

    This table probably refers to loads of various items made from ash wood. One reference enthuses: "As a timber tree, the Ash is exceedingly valuable ... for the toughness and elasticity of its wood, in which quality it surpasses every European tree. The wood is heavy, strong, stiff and hard and takes a high polish; it shrinks only moderately in seasoning and bends well when seasoned. It is the toughest and most elastic of our timbers (for which purpose it was used in olden days for spears and bows) and can be used for more purposes than the wood of other trees.

    Ash timber ... is ... in endless demand in railway and other waggon works for carriage building. From axe-handles and spade-trees to hop-poles, ladders and carts, Ash wood is probably in constant handling on every countryside. It makes the best of oars and the toughest of shafts for carriages. In its younger stages, when it is called Ground Ash, it ... matures its wood at so early an age that an Ash-pole three inches in diameter is as valuable and durable for any purpose to which it can be applied as the timber of the largest tree." [Ref 3]

    Ash Load table


    What are these things? Are they commodities that will fit into 50 cu.ft.?

    Notes

    1. Jim Willemin has suggested that fells may mean felloes, "parts of the 'rim' of a wooden wheel and often made of ash, I believe". This seems very plausible. "*Felloe (also Felly or Fellow)* (pronounced 'felly'). The curved, outside parts of a wheel rim into which the spokes are set. Each felloe supports two spokes." [Ref 6]
    2. "The woods in this area (South Oxfordshire) provided timber for the construction of the wheels. Beech was used for felloes, often called 'vellys' locally. ... Ash was sold to wheelwrights and was another wood used for felloes and sometimes spokes. Locally a trunk of ash was usually referred to as a 'stick' - certainly I have never found any other timber so described, although in a dictionary of woodland terms it is stated that a stick is a felled trunk, with no specific tree mentioned (5). In the Cane End accounts, 43 sticks of ash were sold to Thomas Green, a Caversham wheelwright, for £9.5s." [Ref 4]
    3. "In 1776 at Cane End there is an account, presumably of a wheelwright, of various felloes: '1300 coach vel' and '135 long vel'. They appear in a general account book along with various other items such as 'extrees' which can be presumed to be axle trees, and others which are unknown but are probably local names for parts of wheels. If anyone knows the origin of some of these terms I would be grateful: 100 quarters (there is a reference to '03 quarterns of quarters' in the Cranfield inventory), 100 wood mongers, 300 clefts (these might be the result of splitting oak for spokes as apparently the spokes were from oak cleft in the wood from the heart of the oak where the timber is strongest and the grain straightest. Others were 456 randmers, five sharpes, seven pulleys and 4360 touchplanks (these may be used in the construction of the body of a wagon)". [Ref 4]
    4. These days, plow is the American spelling of plough. When this rule was made, it may have also been a valid English spelling. The following comments are from an American web site: The *heavy plow* was known in antiquity. Pliny described a heavy wheeled plow as having been in use in Asia Minor. The plow was often mounted on wheels, which allowed the plowshare to be matched to the furrow being plowed. The plow was pulled by several oxen harnessed in tandem, or, later, by horses in tandem. The sketch of a heavy plow below is from a 13th century Lincolnshire manuscript. In typical medieval fashion, the perspective is not usual for us. The handles (1), the draw pole (8), and yoke (9) are actually parallel to the ground while the rest of the plow is perpendicular to the plow. The numbered parts are: (1) handles, (2) plowshare, (3) mallet, (4) plow beam, (5) coulter, (6) plow foot, (7) draw chain, (8) draw pole, and (9) yoke. (The mallet (3) is a separate tool used to break up large clods of earth). [Ref 5]

      Lincolnshire plow

    5. For what its worth the following wheelwrights' terms are mentioned in [Ref 6]: (COPS ?) *Copse*. An iron stay keeping the outrave in position; (STAND ?) *Standard*. A strip of wood used to resemble panelling on a vehicle body's sides.; (TRANS ?) *Transom*. The two main cross members of the fore-carriage to which the forepart of the perch is fixed and which support the fifth wheel. [Ref 6]
    6. Pole is one of the few familiar words in this table. We would understand it now to mean something like 'a long, thin, rounded piece of wood', as in flag pole, punt pole. In the table it clearly has a more specific meaning, but what? Some candidates (none of which may the right one) are (a) "an Ash-pole three inches in diameter" [Ref 3]; (b) "A long straight timber connected to the front of the vehicle to which a pair of horses are attached. [Ref 6]; (c) "An alternative name for the perch in wagon construction. [Ref 6].

    REFERENCES

    1. SCANTLING: William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine © Derived from Thomas Cadell's new corrected edition, London: 1780, page 257, 2004 at http://southseas.nla.gov.au/refs/falc/1139.html
    2. TREE NAILS: William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine © Derived from Thomas Cadell's new corrected edition, London: 1780, page 298, 2004 at http://southseas.nla.gov.au/refs/falc/1396.html
    3. A Modern Herbal, by Mrs. M. Grieve, 1931, at http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/ash--073.html
    4. Pat Preece, South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group web site at http://www.soagarch.org.uk/wheelwrights.html
    5. Paul J. Gans, The Medieval Technology Pages: The Heavy Plow, at http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/heavyplow.html
    6. Wheelwright's Terms, by the Editor, Guild of Model Wheelwrights' web site at http://www.guildofmodelwheelwrights.org/newsite03/techniques/terms1.html
    7. Peter M Hopp, "Slide Rules - Their History, Models and Makers", Astragal Press, 1999.
    8. Philip E. Stanley, "A Source Book for Rule Collectors", Astragal Press, 2003.