Last year we discussed the work of 19th century British photographer William Henry Fox Talbot. A print attributed to Talbot circa 1844, known as ‘Carpenter and Apprentice‘, may be the oldest surviving photograph of woodworkers.
The subject of this blog entry is the work of Eadweard Muybridge, known to many as the man who provided photographic evidence that a galloping horse could have all four hooves off the ground at the same time. You have probably seen his photographs whether you recognize his name or not. Many are not aware that Muybridge also photographed woodworkers. His studies may contain the oldest images of woodworking in action.
Muybridge had a penchant for photographing his models in the nude. His woodworking images depict semi-nude and fully nude males. If you have a problem with nudity, or are browsing this blog from work, you might want to skip this post.
The industry under consideration is peculiarly American. It is representative of a class of establishments that have given our manufacturers a world-wide reputation for goods that are both cheap and reliable. This success is mainly due to the system of manufacture inaugurated here some years since, and which seems to thrive better in this country than anywhere else. But for the special machines, the system of inspection, and assembling we should still have the old-fashioned tools, with the defects consequent upon fitting one piece to another, and the prices would be far higher than the more perfect machine-made article now demands.
The Miller’s Falls Company, of Miller’s Falls, Mass, manufacture a great variety of useful tools, most of them being of the smaller sort, such as are of the most general utility. A few of these, shown in the title page engraving, will be recognized by most of our readers as familiar objects. Among these are breast drills, bench drills, Barber’s bit brace, the ratchet brace, parallel vises, the miter box, the screw jack, all of which are so well known as to need no special description. (more…)
This machine is specially designed for felling trees. It is well known that in chopping down trees with an ax, two or three feet, according to the size of the tree, of the most valuable part of the lumber is lost. By this machine the tree is felled within five inches of the ground; and by removing the soil sufficiently to avoid dulling the saw, it can be cut as low as desired. Four men can do the work of ten men with axes in the forests.
It will be recollected that the butt must be squared, or cross-cut, before the log is ready for the mill; but the single operation of felling the tree with this machine leaves the log already squared. The land is left smooth, thus facilitating cultivation, and greatly increasing its value. The surface of the stump being left flat and level, is porous and spongy, so that by the action of moisture and air it soon decays; but when cut by the ax, its pores are sealed up and its surface rendered smooth, and the stump will not soon decay, but remains for years an unsightly and inconvenient object. (more…)
A Russian architect who is traveling in this country to study American building methods was greatly interested in the elevator which he saw used for raising brick in the construction of a great apartment-house. He even photographed the device, in order that he might have visual evidence of it to show on his return home. In his country no other method of hoisting brick is in use than the primitive one of carrying them aloft on the shoulders of men.
Such incidents are of common occurrence. Many of the labor-saving devices in use in America are unknown elsewhere. Our own countrymen traveling in Europe, and more especially in Asia, are astonished at the slow and toilsome methods there employed.
A failure to make use of labor-saving contrivances is not always due to lack of enterprise. Many of the inventions most useful to us “would not pay” where labor is cheap. Efforts to introduce the trolley-car for passenger and freight traffic in the West Indies encountered an obstacle which the American promoters had not foreseen.
The ten cents for which the company would carry a package five miles or more—a rate that would insure generous support here—did not seem small there, for the simple reason that many a native could find no easier way to earn ten cents than by walking the five miles and carrying the package on his head.
If “a workman is known by his chips,” he is also known by his tools. High-priced men do their work with high-priced machinery. The engineer of the mammoth locomotive which is pulling hundreds of people across country in a fast express-train is well paid; the poor Oriental, dragging his single passenger in a jinrikisha, gets barely enough for his support.
Not only does the high-priced worker create the necessity for mechanical improvements, but the mechanical improvements in turn augment productiveness. The lesson, then, for nations and for individuals is to make themselves worthy of good tools. Human muscles were made for something better than the work which a few lumps of coal under a boiler will do more easily.
Dial Planes are of two Sorts; firſt ſuch as are made on the Wall of a Building; or ſecondly, ſuch as are drawn on the Tables of Wood, vulgarly called Dial-Boards.
The firſt Sort, if they are made of Brick-Work, is done by plaistering on the Wall with Lime, Sand and Hair, mixed; this muſt be well drenched with Linſeed Oil, after it is dry, i.e. as long as it will drink any, and then painted with Oil and White-Lead, that it may be durable.
But a better way is to temper the Lime, Sand and Hair with Ox Blood, which will be no great Charge, but of great Advantage; for this Mixture will equal in Time the hardneſs of a Free-Stone, and keep the Surface as free from Injuries of Weather; but you muſt afterwards paint it white. The following Method is ſtill preferable. (more…)
