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A Brief History of Wood-Splitting Technology, Part 2: Saw Pits

If you want to turn a bunch of logs into boards, it might not occur to you to start digging a trench first. But that’s exactly what the Romans did, as they developed a log-splitting method very different from the Vikings and their system of riving. The results of the Roman method more closely resemble what we’d see coming out of a modern-day sawmill, but it was backbreaking work.

The Romans would dig what was known as a saw pit. The log would be suspended over this pit. Two sawyers would then use what was called a whipsaw, and one guy would get in the hole and grab the bottom of the whipsaw while the other sawyer had the other end, up top. The top sawyer’s job was to guide the cut and pull the saw back up after each pass, while the bottom man worked with gravity to pull the saw down on the cut stroke.

As for the whipsaw itself, early versions had the blade bound within a frame in order to place tension on it. Later, as metallurgical advances were able to produce better steel, frameless “open” saws could be produced that were sturdy enough not to buckle.

There are records of saw pits existing in what is now Italy in the 1300s, and the technique spread across the continent—and was eventually stolen by those thieving Pilgrims—in the following centuries. 

Sometimes trestles were built rather than digging a pit, presumably because the aforementioned thieving Pilgrims had stolen all of the shovels.

While saw pits were used to produce lumber for everything from flooring to housing, it was the shipbuilding industries of coastal nations that dominated demand. Unbelievably, naval power England maintained saw pits throughout the 19th Century, even after steam power had become commonplace.

As you can see in the photo, wedges prevented the kerf from closing. But there’s no way they avoided wedgies with those pants.

As you can imagine, when pitsawing, being on the bottom totally sucked. You’re basically just getting a faceful of nice, fresh sawdust to stick to your sweaty mug on each stroke. That’s probably why the senior man was always up top and the new guy was on the bottom. Here’s what it looks like in practice:

Not very thrilling work, but it’s made a bit more manageable with British narration:

As slow as this was, it was faster than riving, though it didn’t yield exclusively quartersawn boards. And as countries like England, France and the Netherlands sought to ramp up their naval production, pit-sawing gained prominence.

Until, that is, a certain brilliant Dutchman came along. We’ll look at his revolutionary invention next.