This Tool was forgot to be deſcribed in Joinery, though they uſe Hammers too, and therefore I bring it in here. Its chief Uſe is for driving Nails into Work, and drawing Nails out of Work.
There is required a pretty skill in driving a Nail; for if (when you ſet the point of a Nail) you be not curious in obſerving to ſtrike the flat face of the Hammer perpendicularly down upon the perpendicular of the Shank, the Nail (unleſs it have good entrance) will ſtart aſide, or bow, or break; and then you will be forced to draw it out again with the Claw of the Hammer. Therefore you may ſee a reaſon when you buy a Hammer, to chuſe one with a true flat Face.
A little trick is ſometimes uſed among ſome (that would be thought cunning Carpenters) privately to touch the Head of the Nail with a little Ear-wax, and then lay a Wager with a Stranger to the Trick, that he ſhall not drive that Nail up to the Head with ſo many blows.
The ſtranger thinks he ſhall aſſuredly win, but does aſſuredly loſe; for the Hammer no ſooner touches the Head of the Nail, but inſtead of entring the Wood it flies away, notwithſtanding his utmoſt care in ſtriking it down-right.
Joseph Moxon
Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works – 1683
The core “Virtuoso” team is currently returning to a normal orbit after the fourth (and ostensibly last) pilgrimage to the Studley tool chest. As Chris has described elsewhere, after this visit I can finally check off a nagging item on my “Virtuoso” to-do list: getting the tool chest off the wall.
Writing up a list of to-dos has preceded every single trip to the tool chest, (which, if you’re wondering, is located on floor 7–1/2 of the ACME Corporation headquarters in West Alahampshiresippi). For our first visit, the tasks were largely centered on achieving as much breadth as possible with a brute-force documentary survey of the chest and every single item in it. Subsequent trips focused on specifics such as joinery or inlay, the bench and its vises, specific tool groupings and “non-documentary” photography.
The list for this last trip may have featured the fewest number of things to get done, but the list was perhaps the most logistically ambitious. The to-dos for this trip included getting the chest off the wall, photographing the closed chest at 45° rotations, staging various “ensemble” shots of the chest and its accompanying bench and shooting a video. I also brought a new, higher-resolution camera this time and wanted to redo a select number of shots from earlier trips just to have a few more pixels to work with.
In 2.5 days we set up four or five distinct “sets” for still photography and video, captured views of the chest that very few people have ever seen, and then packed everything up. As with every trip to North Texassourington, we left exhausted, exhilarated and inspired.
While we’ve posted many informal videos since we began this project, the video footage we shot this time will be released in concert with the book (details TBD). The video will feature the wealth of knowledge and some of the stories that Don has accumulated in his research on Henry O. Studley, his tool chest and his bench. I also spent some time in front of the camera droning on and on about the approach I took to the project and my perspective on the chest as a designer, woodworker, and photographer.
My favorite parts of the video footage, however, involve Don and I ’fessing up about which single Studley tool we would “keep” were we not the fine, upstanding individuals that we are. We had different answers that won’t be revealed until the video is released, but feel free to guess. There are only a few hundred to choose from.
A few weeks ago (Sept. 20-21) I attended the annual Open House event at Bob Van Dyke’s Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking in Manchester, CT. This year’s open house was combined with the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event for two full days of woodworking demonstrations.
The centerpiece of the open house is a gallery of student work. This year CVSW was involved in a project with the Windsor Historical Society to build accurate period furniture reproductions for the 1758 Strong-Howard House. During the event, three tables were selected to furnish the interactive rooms at the house museum.
CVSW instructors were on hand in the main workshop to showcase projects and techniques from the school class schedule. Local tool makers and craftsmen were demonstrating their wares. On Saturday there was an outdoor flea market for antique hand tools.
I put together a photo gallery of the event for those who were unable to attend. Phones and tablets should be redirected to mobile version of the gallery.
A hoosier, on a visit to Cincinnati, a few days ago, called on a business at a planing machine establishment in the Third Ward. The planing department had not yet been started but a small circular saw, which was set nearly at the edge of the bench, and projected a scant inch above its surface, was in full blast. Mr. Green, as the hoosier may be called, looked around, but finding nobody visible, concluded to seat himself on the bench while awaiting somebody’s appearance. Neither noticing nor mistrusting anything, he squatted plumb upon the saw—one spring nearly to the ceiling, and a pitch forward to the floor, indicated his astonishment at finding an incision of six inches in the length of his seat. His cries brought assistance. Dr. Eaton closed the flesh wound, and a skilful tailor that in the pantaloons.
Saw Setter or Harmonic Scarecrow Music hath charms to sett the teeth on edge.
SAW, an instrument which serves to cut into pieces several solid matters, as wood, stone, ivory, &c. The best saws are of tempered steel ground bright and smooth: those of iron are only hammer-hardened: hence, the first, besides their being stiffer, are likewise found smoother than the last.
They are known to be well hammered by the stiff bending of the blade; and to be well and evenly ground, by their bending equally in a bow. The edge in which are the teeth is always thicker than the back, because the back is to follow the edge.
The teeth are cut and sharpened with a triangular file, the blade of the saw being first fixed in a whetting block. After they have been filed the teeth are set, that is, turned out of the right line, that they may make the fissure the wider, that the back may follow the better. The teeth are always set ranker for coarse cheap stuff than for hard and fine, because the ranker the teeth are set the more stuff is lost in the kerf. (more…)
