Meaning of old sawmilling terms

[mrburnsnh]

The Lewis and Clark National Forest is doing an oral history and is transcribing a taped conversation with one of their original Forest Rangers, who worked in the sawmilling industry in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan before moving to Montana.  On the tape he mentions a number of lumbering terms that I am not familiar with, including cherney bows, bowing shield dogs and buggy stays, the quote is below (although there may be some garbling in the translation):

"I had the job of cutting bows, making what we call 'bowing shield dogs.'  (sp.?) Cut them to the proper length, thickness of the stays, we made bow stays and buggy stays and cherney (sp.?) stays, everything, just on an endless chain."

If anyone could give me some insight on these terms I'd appreciate it.

[WIwoodworker]

If it had to do with wood or woodworking I think he may have been saying "staves".

A bow stave is a piece of wood an archer's bow is made from. A barrel stave wood be pieces of wood barrels are fashioned from. I would suppose a buggy stave would be the same.

[Fla._Deadheader]

Could they be "Bows" as in, what supported the canvas above the wagons ??? 

  Buggy stays might be the spindles that supported the top, and the Bowing Shield Dogs, might be the sockets the Bows went into ???  All just guesses.  : : ;D

[KnotBB]

The pieces of wood that hold the canvas up on a military truck are still called "Bows", so I'd too guess that the bows he's refering to would be for wagons with canvas covers

[WIwoodworker]

Now there everyone goes making sense.   8)

[adrean louis]

some of these terms sounds like what i once heard from my dad, a blacksmith for 40+ years, i bet some blacksmithing books could tell you a lot, they built all these thing many years ago.

[timberfaller390]

I have many blacksmithing books including one with complete instructions on building a wagon from cutting the tree to the finished product. I'm also a farrier by trade and know a great deal about wagons and harness and the only thing that I know of that has anything to do with "stays" are stay chains which are part of the harness and often refered to as "stays" but they are metal not wood. As far as the "stave" question goes the word "stave" is unique to the coopers trade (barrel maker) so I don't think the old sawyer meant "buggy staves" either. I'll keep digging I'm sure I can come up with something somewhere  Any chance you can post an audio link of the recording?