The first time that I remember hearing the term journeyman applied to any particular trade was about twenty-nine years ago, at which time I was quite a youth. The word was employed at the end of every verse of a somewhat lengthy song, called the “Journeyman Tailor.” The real meaning of the word, or why it was applied to trades, became to me a vast and not over lucid problem.
Feeling anxious to learn its exact meaning, I applied to my maternal author for a definition of the term. After receiving the answer, that it applied to all tradesmen or mechanics that had finished their apprenticeship, I felt as much enlightened as before.
The word journey, I knew, related to travel; the combination only was a puzzle. How a carpenter, or smith, or tailor, with steady employment and a permanent domicil, should be styled or called a traveling mechanic, was more than my comprehension could fathom. To arrive at the solution of this problem was ever my great aim. Numberless times have I asked of master mechanics its true meaning, and in the end invariably found myself no wiser than before. (more…)
“Do not condemn the cutting qualities of a new tool until you have ground it more than once, as invariably you will find a perfect edge on the second if not the first time grinding.”
— Charles Buck, of Buck Bros., in “A Few Points on Sharpening to Users of Wood Working Tools.” For more on “decarb,” see this old post I wrote.
Charles Reade has asserted that workmen are a dirty set and a reckless set. Is this true of American workmen? His observations have been confined to English workmen; would he have occasion to modify the general character of his statement were he to visit and inspect American shops?
Candidly we must say there would be too much in the general want of cleanliness and order in our workshops to justify the assertion. The shops in which cleanliness and order prevail are rather the exception than the rule; and the individual workman who, in the midst of all the carelessness which prevails in this regard, maintains a scrupulous care for personal cleanliness, order in the arrangement of tools, and method in the performance of his work, may be regarded as a rising man. (more…)
In 1838 I was 14 years of age, and then in the wilds of Maine. My father lived four miles from the city of Bangor, and his farm, then nearly all covered with forest trees, bordered on the banks of the Penobscot, a stream with many old-style sash saw mills, all run by water power. My father’s land was well covered with fine timber. The rift timber my father would fall, and with a cross-cut saw we made it into blocks, which we hauled into a back shed, where we split it into shingles with a froe, then with shingle-horse and drawing-knife my father shaved the shingles smooth. My own business then was to rive (that is, split) the bolts up for shingles, and keep up a light by throwing shavings on the fire in the old fireplace.
About two bunches was a good evening’s work for winter. I also bunched the shingles ready for the market. Each bunch was 22 inches wide, 22 courses high, and four of these bunches made 1,000 shingles. These we hauled to market and sold for about $2 per thousand. In the other room my mother was either spinning wool on the large wheel, or weaving wool cloth on the old loom that set up in one corner of the room, or on her little wheel for spinning flax, the sound of which, whiz, whiz, whiz! I imagine hearing to this day. Then there was the old fireplace with the andirons and the rock maple or yellow birch back logs. With these good-sized back logs, a fore-stick, and wood piled on to make a roaring fire, here were my happiest days. (more…)
Campaign seating is one of my favorite furniture topics. Roorkee chairs, X-stools, Fenby-patent chairs etc. are all interesting because they are portable, mechanical and (duh) chairs.
Jeff Burks recently turned up a number of fascinating Civil War photographs by James F. Gibson in the Library of Congress that have convinced me that there could be a whole book on Civil War seating. It would sell four copies, and I would buy three of them (thanks in advance mom, for buying the fourth).
Still, take a look at these photos and tell me these wouldn’t be fun to build.
Look at the photo at the top of this entry. This photo is from a series by Gibson of men playing dominoes at a mess table in 1862. First off, love the leather bucket and the tree-trunk table. Now check out the two stools. They are so crude that they are basically dowels. If you get the super hi-res image you can see the grain run-out on the legs and the seat fasteners. These stool were from sawn stock, though the grain is quite straight.
Next is a bunch of stool and X-chairs being used by secret service men. This image is a bit blurry, but you can see a bunch of three-legged stools and some X-chairs, which are being used correctly. (I don’t know how many moderns I’ve seen sitting on these 90° and getting their buttocks rightly pinched.)
The legs to the three-legged stools look somewhat tapered, but that could be perspective.
This is an awesome photo. Three kinds (maybe four) of seating. On the left is somewhat of a folding director’s armchair with turned and detailed legs. I’ve seen these in British catalogs. There’s a folding sling chair that looks like it might have cowhide on it – another common sight in the Army & Navy Catalogs of the day. A three-legged stool. What could be an X-chair. And another sling chair.
Only the director’s chair looks like it has any finish on it.
Here are more in the series for those that are as obsessive as I am.
As always, thanks to Jeff Burks for turning up these photos. More pieces like this are in my book “Campaign Furniture,” but you probably knew that already.
