The common way to saw on the smaller sawmills is to 'box the heart'. This allows the cutting of logs that are too large for the sawmill to cut straight through the middle. Slabs are cut off each of four sides, making a square. This square is then through-sawn from both sides, leaving the 'dog board' (the board cut through the center) as a waste piece. This contains the heart, and has vertical grain on each edge. You can rip through the center of the dog board to make two quartered boards. But the fact that the log was squared first means that the boards are narrower than they would have been if the log had been quartered.
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