The worker sat astraddle the high end of the bench, facing the low end, with his feet on the crosspiece of the pivoted arm. Placing a piece of wood on top of the wedge-shaped piece, close to the head of the pivoted arm, he pushed forward on the crosspiece with his feet, thus forcing the head down hard upon the wood, so that it was held as in a vise. The wood could then be shaved down to a required shape with a drawknife or crooked knife without the necessity of holding the work. A long piece was canted on top of the bench so that the finished part would pass by the body of the worker, and, if it were necessary to shape the full length, it could be reversed. Nails and tacks eventually came into use, though they were never used in all phases of the construction of a particular canoe. In the last days of bark canoe construction, the bark was tacked to the gunwales and, in areas where a gunwale cap was customarily employed, the cap was often nailed to the top of the gunwales. The "bucksaw" also came into the hands of the Indians, but the frame of this saw was too awkward to carry, so the Indian usually bought only the blade. With a couple of nails and a bent sapling he could make a very good frame in the woods, when the saw was required. The ends of the sapling were slotted to take the ends of the blade and then drilled crosswise to the slot, so a nail could be inserted to hold the ends of blade and sapling together. With the end of the nail bent over, the frame was locked together and the tension was given to the blade by the bent sapling handle. [Illustration: Figure 19 Bucksaw]