Shingle weaver

A shingle weaver (US) or shingler (UK) is an employee of a wood products mill who engages in the creation of wooden roofing shingles or the closely related product known as "shakes." In the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, historically the leading producer of this product, such shingles are generally made of Western Red Cedar, an aromatic and disease-resistant wood indigenous to the area. The use of the term "weaver" for a shingle maker related to the way in which the workers fitted the shingles together in bundles but the meaning has extended to anyone who works in a shingle mill.

During the late 19th and early 20th Century, the production of wooden roofing shingles was an extremely dangerous process in which the shingle weaver hand-fed pieces of raw wood onto an automated saw. Despite the danger of the profession, the industry was a large one throughout Washington and Oregon and by 1893 Washington state alone had 150 mills which converted Western Red Cedar into shingles and shakes for the roofing and siding of American homes.

The craft of shingle making demanded a high skill level and considerable manual dexterity. It was this nimble motion of the hands of the around the spinning blade of their saws that provided the origin of the term "weaver" for the maker of shingles — the woodworkers being likened to skilled operators of looms.

Sunset magazine described the job of the shingle weavers for its readers:

"The saw on his left sets the pace. If the singing blade rips 50 rough shingles off the block every minute, the sawyer must reach over to its teeth 50 times in 60 seconds; if the automatic carriage feeds the odorous wood 60 times into the hungry teeth, 60 times he must reach over, turn the shingle, trim its edge on the gleaming saw in front of him, cut the narrow strip containing the knot hole with two quick movements of his right hand, and toss the completed board down the chute to the packers, meanwhile keeping eyes and ears open for the sound that asks him to feed a new block into the untiring teeth. Hour after hour the shingle weaver's hands and arms, plain, unarmored flesh and blood, are staked against the screeching steel that cares not what it severs. Hour after hour the steel sings its crescendo note as it bites into the wood, the sawdust cloud thickens, the wet sponge under the sawyer's nose fills with fine particles.

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Wikipedia