Maple for Mr. Oerter

[spgordon]

I stumbled across this record today, which, if I understand it correctly, documents the maple wood that the Christian's Spring sawmill produced for Christian Oerter in 1772. This daybook from the Christian's Spring sawmill is at the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth, Pa.

The columns on the left read (from left to right): log/block; pieces; length (in feet); width (in inches); thickness (in inches). The right-hand column is headed "Sawn" and then, most of the way toward the bottom, you can see "for Oerter). Seems like the mill sawed eight logs for Oerter.

Enjoy!

[JTR]

Now that's very cool!
Thanks for posting!
John

[Shreckmeister]

Great little slice of history. Thanks

[Eric Kettenburg]

Very interesting stuff.  Also interesting that the slabs were sawn at 3" thick, just to get technical I assume they were adjusting for drying shrinkage and some warping because he certainly didn't need 3" dried blanks for those rifles.

[Tim Crosby]

 Yes, thicker for shrinkage while drying makes sense, thicker was probably easier to cut but it shows 1" pieces. I wonder if that was with a two man saw or water powered?
 Interesting stuff, nice job on the research.

  Tim

[spgordon]

I think all of the planks going to Oerter were 3 inch? There were thicker and thinner planks (1 inch and even thinner) going to others for different uses.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Yes it appears all of his were 3", which makes sense with rough-sawn, air-dried slabs.  They surely had to allow for shrinkage and potential slight warping.  Any 'classic' (i.e., signed) Oerter rifle can be built w/ @ 2.25" stock, so 3" would allow @ 3/4" of leeway after shrinkage, a jointer plane, layout etc.

[spgordon]

Eric:

So, from one of these planks--most are about twelve to fifteen feet long, about a foot wide, and all 3 inches thick--how many gunstocks do you think one could draw on the plank or expect the plank to yield?

I understand that some of the planks may have issues, but let's imagine one without any issues...

[Eric Kettenburg]

I would estimate 4 stocks each given the dimensions you mention, assuming blanks to handle 42-48" barrels and assuming he wasn't getting hung up on grain flow through the wrist which - judging by his surviving work as well as most period work - is much more of a modern consideration.  They may have been able to cram another or two in there as well, depending upon total length and whether these were 'live edge' or not, as well as just how oblivious they were being to wrist grain as well as just how close to a finished side profile they were cutting (some of this depends upon saw kerf and the type of recut saws being used). 

Trying to get grain flow through the wrist out of a slabbed plank, if it's not root flared, yields a lot of waste unless you are making a lot of pistols (also without too much grain consideration).

[spgordon]

So maybe 130 or 140 blanks, give or take, depending on their priorities and the quality of the cut maple (knots or whatever).

The daybook records additional "deliveries" to Oerter:

8 March 1773, 4 pieces, each 9.5 feet by 13 inches by 2 3/4 inches.
11 March 1773, 3 pieces, each 6 feet by 12 inches by 2 3/4 inches.

Then another big delivery on 17 April 1773: 7 logs cut into 30 pieces.

Can we assume that, given these deliveries in March/April 1773, he had exhausted the supply from April 1772?

This is the first document that I know of that may offer a glimpse at how much work Oerter was doing--since it is impossible to tell the volume of production from the annual inventories.**

But surely the shop (Oerter and a single apprentice) was not doing that much work?


[**That is: if an 1775 inventory lists 10 rifles, does that mean the shop produced 20 in 1775 and 10 were left over? Or 50 in 1775 and 10 were left over? Or 10 in 1775 and none sold? Or none in 1775 and the ten were carried over from the previous year?]

[backsplash75]

Very interesting stuff.  Also interesting that the slabs were sawn at 3" thick, just to get technical I assume they were adjusting for drying shrinkage and some warping because he certainly didn't need 3" dried blanks for those rifles.

Yes it appears all of his were 3", which makes sense with rough-sawn, air-dried slabs.  They surely had to allow for shrinkage and potential slight warping.  Any 'classic' (i.e., signed) Oerter rifle can be built w/ @ 2.25" stock, so 3" would allow @ 3/4" of leeway after shrinkage, a jointer plane, layout etc.

GREAT THREAD. I am ignoring the urge to post George Costanza shrinkage clips here...

Collection: The South Carolina Gazette
Publication: The South-Carolina GAZETTE
Date: October 9, 1762
Title: JOHN DODD
Location: CHARLES-TOWN

ACQUAINTS his friends and Customers that he is removed a little higher in the same street. near the White Meeting, at the sign of the guns and pistols, where all gentlemen that please to employ him will be faithfully served, and with quick dispactch.

N.B. He has the best new spare barrels to suit any gun, and the best of curled walnut for stocks, and hopes for the continuance of his friend's favours.

SC Gazette Sat Feb 18, 1764

JOHN DODD, Gunsmith, Has imported in the Heart of Oak, Capt. Henry Gunn, an assortment of the following articles, viz.

BEST Dutch rifles, with moulds and wipers, flat rifle locks, from 20 sh. to L 5, round ditto, brass mountings for ditto, a variety of smooth bore barrels, which with sundry other articles in the gunsmiths way, he will sell cheap, at his shop in Meeting-Street.

N.B. Said Dodd is in want of 4 or 500 feet of WALNUT PLANK, from two inches and a half, to three inches thickness, for which Nine pounds per hundred will be given, delivered at any wharf in Charles Town.[/i]

[flinchrocket]

Considering all of this wood would have to be air dried, at a rate of 1 year per inch, it would be 1776 before it could be used for stockmaking.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Scott - there is no way that I believe that Oerter and a *single* apprentice were doing that much work, even if 12-14 hr days and this raises other issues of lighting etc., especially in PA this time of year through March or April.  You or Bob would know much better than I:  is there a possibility that Oerter was contracting portions of work, or was somehow in some way working with 'strangers' perhaps "off the record" or something?  There is clear evidence in the NC records translated by Fries that the Moravians there were using outside laborers in quite considerable quantity.

[spgordon]

Eric, thanks for the reply.

There is zero chance that Oerter was working off the books with non-Moravians. Remember, the church is supplying this product to a church owned gunshop, and the church takes an inventory of the stock/value of the shop each year. Also, he lives in a tiny community that, like the larger one at Bethlehem, is (literally) watching everybody at all times to assess one's spiritual state (and behavior overall). Oerter cannot leave Christiansbrunn without informing authorities (when anybody does, it is recorded in the diary), and nobody can enter without permission. We would find the lack of personal freedom intolerable and would not last a day.

Bob reminds me via email that there were always 200-400 gun stocks on hand in the shop. But it is only a daybook such as this, with a delivery for 1772 and a similarly-sized delivery for 1773, that puts those 200-400 gun stocks on hand in a useful context. If there was a flow of 150 gun stocks into the shop annually, say (and the daybook does not show that except for 1772 and 1773) and consistently 200 on hand, then 150 are being consumed in some way.

Or maybe I am missing something here. Very likely. But that's what it seems to mean to me. How they were consumed or used is a total mystery to me.

[Eric Kettenburg]

So why were non-Moravians accepted in NC ca. 1760s, but not in PA?  Serious question.  I think it was simply a matter of survival - just a personal interpretation - but I've never seen anything documented other than that in NC, non-Moravians were practically welcomed.

[Eric Kettenburg]

The other half of the puzzle would be to investigate not merely stocks, but barrels and locks likewise.  I.e., if we believe 150 stocks are being consumed, does this line up with a new number of locks and barrels?  Of course some 'new' stocked pieces were based upon restocks of broken, damaged or otherwise complete or nearly complete hardware suites, so 150 stocks would not necessarily mandate 150 locks or 150 barrels.

I still do not in any way believe two guys in the CS shop were whacking out 150 guns per year, regardless of work ethic.  Maybe, if they were almost all 'schimmels' and those two guys were working themselves ragged.

[spgordon]

Moravians in Bethlehem (early on) also hired non-Moravians for labor. They caused trouble and so authorities resorted to purchasing enslaved men and women. They also continued to employ non-Moravians, but a small number. Later, when William Henry II wanted to expand his operation in Nazareth and indicated that to do so he would need to hire non-Moravians (with specialized skills), he was not permitted to do so.

I did not mean to say that Moravian communities in PA would not have, at times, used non-Moravian labor. I meant to say that it would not have been "off the books." It would have been discussed by various committees & approved--as it was in NC. That's why it appears in those NC records. When non-Moravians are employed elsewhere in the "system"--or somebody proposes to do so--they show up in the records, their housing is discussed, etc.

I think you are exactly right that it was a matter of "survival." Moravians preferred to employ only Moravians; if they had to, they would hire non-Moravians. I'd think you'd need to assess the needs and the available labor source in NC versus PA to understand in more detail the particular needs of those communities and the choices that they made.

There is no indication that the gunshop at Christiansbrunn employed non-Moravian labor or, for that matter, that it had an urgent need for them to meet its needs.

I'm not suggesting, either, that Oerter + apprentice produced that many guns a year!

[Eric Kettenburg]

Gotcha!  But they must have been doing something with all that wood.  I assume they weren't forerunners of the popular TV show, "Hoarders!"

[spgordon]

Right, they must have been using it for something--or seriously stockpiling it. (Pun intended, I guess.)

But even what we knew before--that in 1762 the shop possessed 316 gunstock blanks; in 1763, 283 gunstock blanks; in 1764, 233 gunstock blanks; in 1765, 193 gunstock blanks; and in 1766, 173 gunstock blanks--indicates a lot of wood on hand!

Though, to repeat, it is hard to make those numbers speak to production or usage levels. While the difference of twenty gunstock blanks between the 1764 and the 1765 inventory might have resulted from the consumption of twenty gunstock blanks, the shop was probably producing additional gunstock blanks in these years. If it produced fifty additional blanks, for instance, the difference of twenty blanks from 1764 and 1765 would have resulted from the consumption of seventy gunstock blanks. Indeed, in May 1767, the shop possessed 240 gunstock blanks, which shows that in the six months since Albrecht had departed Oerter had produced at least sixty-seven gunstock blanks.

Scott

[Eric Kettenburg]

"...which shows that in the six months since Albrecht had departed Oerter had produced at least sixty-seven gunstock blanks. "

Which perhaps coincidentally or perhaps not, works out to @ 140 or so over a year which is also very close to the theoretical 150 over a year we're discussing.

I just don't believe in any way that this number represents completed gunstock projects whether new stocked, restocked or otherwise, in a shop with two guys unless others were somehow involved.

Hope you realize I'm not being argumentative, just thinking out loud based upon my own experience and opinion!  At least, I think I'm not being argumentative.... 

[spgordon]

I just don't believe in any way that this number represents completed gunstock projects whether new stocked, restocked or otherwise, in a shop with two guys unless others were somehow involved.

I agree with you entirely!

[Dan Fruth]

Considering all of this wood would have to be air dried, at a rate of 1 year per inch, it would be 1776 before it could be used for stockmaking.

I assume the stocks were blanked out shortly after the boards were sawn, and put up to season. Do you believe they used blanks that were "greener" than we do today, since you also mentioned they didn't get all hung up on grain flow either?

[Eric Kettenburg]

No way to know about "greener" stocks, but I would tend to doubt that at least in terms of actually stocking up the gun with greener wood.  I do remember the old article Wallace wrote in JHAT 1 I think it was in regard to stock blanks being roughed-out and tapered closer to shape than we generally use today (possibly to speed up drying rate?), but trying to actively stock up the rifle (barrel inlet, furnishings etc) with the wood being wetter than it should be is just a giant pain in the rear because it will continue to shrink and affect the inletting.  We have enough problems with that here in PA - stocks swell in the summer humidity and shrink in the winter in even a mildly heated shop, not to mention the typically drier winter air.

[sqrldog]

Keep in mind the Oerter gunshop inventory had a fairly substantial inventory of gunstocks over 250 at one time in 1768 so I would say wood having time to dry or having a stock blank to use wasn't  a problem.

[spgordon]

Data from the inventories of the Christiansbrunn shop over a 15 year period (Oerter died in 1777):

1762: 316 gunstock blanks
1763: 283 gunstock blanks
1764: 233 gunstock blanks
1765: 193 gunstock blanks
1766: 173 gunstock blanks
1767: 240 gunstock blanks
1768: 260 gunstock blanks
1769: 260 gunstock blanks
1770: 260 gunstock blanks
1771: 350 gunstock blanks
1772: 400 gunstock blanks
1773: 450 gunstock blanks
1774: 400 gunstock blanks
1775: 400 gunstock blanks
1776: 300 gunstock blanks
1777: 300 gunstock blanks