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Although a certain amount of timber was converted in or near the forests, most of the oak and elm was dealt with by the yards. Sawyers retained the right to convert timber by hand as late as the nineteenth century. On the Continent sawmills, driven by wind or water power, or by horse gin, were in common use, but in England the sawyers successfully resisted mechanisation.

For converting large pieces of timber sawpits were permanent features of the royal dockyards. They were oblong pits, deep enough for a man to stand upright, and lined with wood boards (probably elm as it is resistant to rot when wet). Access was by a ladder or set of permanent steps at one end. Sawyers worked in pairs, the pitman in the pit itself, with the second man, known as the topman, on top,

The timber to be cut was laid on baulks, as shown above, and held securely in place with timber dogs - D - shaped iron fastenings with a sharp point at each end, rather like large staples. The men worked as a close team, with the topman drawing the saw and following the line of cut, and the pitman acting as the donkey, pushing the saw along so the sawdust fell in front of him rather than in his eyes.

Other sawyers would have been occupied in sawing smaller pieces of rough or sided timber. For converting timber, sawyers were paid by the 100 - foot run, the highest rate - 3s - being for oak, presumable regardless of thickness. Fresh cut or newly seasoned oak is not particularly hard in comparison with the matured wood, but the work must have been heavy nevertheless. Using oak as a common denominator, Sutherland gives a table showing the comparative hardness and density of different kinds of wood used in shipbuilding and the relative rate of 100 - foot runs.

Oak to elm is in weight as 13 to 9

Oak to fir is in weight as 8 to 5

Oak to beech is in weight as 95 to 93

Oak to ash is in weight as 21 to 20

(1 cubic foot of oak weighs on average 56lb, elm 43lb, and fir 40lb)

Rates per 100 - foot runs:

Oak 3s 0d

Elm 1s 1d

Fir 1s 10d

Beech 2s 11 1/2d

Ash 2s 10 1/2d

The topman, being the more highly skilled of the two, received 1s 8d out of the 3s per 100 - foot run for sawing oak, with the pitman receiving 1s 4d, an equitable apportionment of earnings in the ratio of 5 to 4, To give some idea of the rate at which sawyers worked, in the Christmas quarter of 1756, William Ryecroft and John Reading sawed 14,091 feet of elm and fir; and between 26 October and 31 December in the same year, William Perry and William West sawed no less than 15,265 feet of oak and 545 feet of elm, earning between them £23 11s 6d, which does not seem a large amount for such heavy work.

In general, sawyers were responsible for keeping their own saws sharp, but occasionally a man was employed for the purpose, probably when the saws were owned by the yard, or when the yard was very busy and speed was crucial. There is a note in the Woolwich records that a man was employed in the Christmas quarter, 1756, when a large quantity of timber, especially oak, was being cut, specifically to whet the two-handed saws used in the pits. He was paid 4 1/2d per saw and sharpened 373 large saws during this period

The sawyer's tools are shown here. The frame saw, with its narrow blade supported by a frame, was ideal for cutting futtocks or any other large, curved pieces. It went out of fashion in the 1750s in England, the quality of steel improved, but continued in use on the Continent for a relatively long time. The cross-cut saw was used for cutting across the grain. The pit saw, which was used for cutting long pieces of timber, had a removable box at he lower end so that the saw could be slipped out through the cut when the timber needed adjusting on the baulks so tat the sawing could proceed. The cant hooks were used for canting, or turning, the timber; the dog would have had a rope attached to the hook and was used for hauling pieces of lumber. Other tools included the sawset for bending the saw teeth, files for sharpening, and a drag knife for marking out timber before cutting.