Lest you think that the Indian square dug up by Suzanne Ellison this week (see it here) is an anomaly, check out this excellent illustration dug up by Jeff Burks. Yes, we now have dueling researchers (cue the harpsichord rendition of the soundtrack to “Deliverance”).
This gorgeous image is from the British Library and circa 1825. In addition to the square, which appears to be a hybrid form of a miter square and a Melencholia-type square, we also have a curious image of his saw.
The saw looks much like an Egyptian saw that is on its way to Japan to become a backless Kataba. Or perhaps it is Dutch-ish? If you zoom in you can see clearly that the saw is designed to cut on the pull stroke, like an Egyptian saw.
— Christopher Schwarz
Looks a lot like this one…. http://skottbenk.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/hovelmaking/#jp-carousel-809
No mention of his bench height or the leg vise! (Living in cities, and small apartments most of my life, has made me very familiar with this type of working!)
What do you think the long stick with the string and the protractor might be?
That is part of his bow-drill. The bow part, actually.
Next to the square with what might be a handle that extends towards the guys knee is a pickaroon type thing or a holdfast type thing. It looks exactly like the one in the picture from yesterday.
Any idea what this might be?
The backside edge of the square seems to have deliberate angles, not so much the “decorative” curves of the older examples. Could the back edge be designed to layout framing notches or other types of joinery?
Is it me or, perhaps, in another place, another time, this guy is Chris’s twin brother?
Kind of like this ….
The notches in the blade of the square look to be a combination of 30/45/60 degrees, so useful for almost all common angles as well as the standard 90. Definitely an early ‘combination’ square there.