Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 63.--1870: THE METALLIC VERSION OF THE PLOW PLANE later produced by Stanley and Company was patented by [Charles] G.

Miller as a tool readily "convertible into a grooving, rabbeting, or smoothing plane." In production this multipurpose plow gained an elaborate decoration (fig. 51) nowhere suggested in Miller's specification. (Wash drawing from U.S. Patent Office, June 28, 1870, Record Group 241, the National Archives.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 64.--1867: THE DRAWING accompanying B.A. Blandin's specification for an "Improvement in Bench Planes" retained only the familiarly shaped handle or tote of the traditional wood-bodied plane.

This new shape rapidly became the standard form of the tool with later variations chiefly related to the adjustability of the plane-iron and sole. (Wash drawing from U.S. Patent Office, May 7, 1867, Record Group 241, the National Archives.)]

Collins and Company of New York City had been given commendation for the excellence of their axes; through the end of the century, Collins' brand felling axes, broad axes, and adzes were standard items, as witness Hammacher, Schlemmer and Company's catalogue of 1896.[24] Disston saws were a byword, and the impact of their exhibit at Philadelphia was still strong, as judged from Baldwin, Robbins' catalogue of 1894. Highly recommended was the Disston no. 76, the "Centennial" handsaw with its "skew back" and "apple handle." Jennings' patented auger bits were likewise standard fare in nearly every tool catalogue.[25] So were bench planes manufactured by companies that had been cited at Philadelphia for the excellence of their product; namely, The Metallic Plane Company, Auburn, New York; The Middletown Tool Company, Middletown, Connecticut; Bailey, Leonard, and Company, Hartford; and The Sandusky Tool Company, Sandusky, Ohio.[26]

An excellent indication of the persistence of the Centennial influence, and of the tool catalogue as source material, is seen in Chandler and Farquhar's ill.u.s.trated pamphlet of 1900. Their advertis.e.m.e.nt for Barber's improved ratchet brace (fig. 66), a tool much admired by the Centennial judges, amply ill.u.s.trates the evolution of design of a basic implement present in American society since the first years of settlement. The Barber brace represents the ultimate sophistication of a tool, achieved through an expanded industrial technology rather than by an extended or newly found use for the device itself. It is a prime example of the transition of a tool from Moxon to its perfected form in the 20th century:

These Braces possess the following points of superiority: The Sweep is made from Steel; the Jaws are forged from Steel; the Wood Handle has bra.s.s rings inserted in each end so it cannot split off; the Chuck has a hardened Steel antifriction washer between the two sockets, thus reducing the wear. The Head has a bearing of steel b.a.l.l.s, running on hard steel plates, so no wear can take place, as the friction is reduced to the minimum. The Brace is heavily nickel-plated and warranted in every particular. We endeavor to make these goods as nearly perfection as is possible in durability, quality of material and workmans.h.i.+p, and fineness and beauty of finish.[27]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 65.--1900: AMERICAN PLANEMAKERS had been cited at the Philadelphia Centennial as having introduced a dramatic change in the nature of the tool. Although wood-bodied planes continued to be used, they were outdated and in fact anachronistic by the close of the 19th century. From the 1870's forward, it was the iron-bodied plane, most frequently Bailey's, that enlivened the trade literature.

(Catalogue of Chandler and Farquhar, Boston, 1900. Smithsonian photo 55798.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 66.--1900: FEW TOOLS SUGGEST MORE CLEARLY the influence of modern industrial society upon the design and construction of traditional implements than Barber's ratchet brace. It is not without interest that as the tools of the wood craftsman became crisply efficient, his work declined correspondingly in individuality and character. The brace and the plane, as followed from Moxon through the trade literature of the late 19th century, achieved perfection in form and operation at a time when their basic functions had been usurped by machines. (Catalogue of Chandler and Farquhar, Boston, 1900. Smithsonian photo 56626.)]

The description of Barber's brace doc.u.ments a major technical change: wood to steel, leather washers to ball bearings, and natural patina to nickel plate. It is also an explanation for the appearance and shape of craftmen's tools, either hand forged or ma.s.s produced. In each case, the sought-after result in the form of a finished product has been an implement of "fineness and beauty." This quest motivated three centuries of toolmakers and brought vitality to hand-tool design. Moxon had advised:

He that will a good Edge win, Must Forge thick and Grind thin.[28]

If heeded, the result would be an edge tool that a.s.sured its owner "ease and delight."[29] Throughout the period considered here, the most praiseworthy remarks made about edge tools were variations of either "unsurpa.s.sed in quality, finish, and beauty of style" or, more simply, commendation for "excellent design and superior workmans.h.i.+p."[30] The hand tool thus provoked the same value words in the 19th as in the 17th century.

The aesthetics of industrial art, whether propounded by Moxon or by an official at the Philadelphia Centennial, proved the standard measure by which quality could be judged. Today these values are particularly valid when applied to a cla.s.s of artifacts that changed slowly and have as their prime characteristics anonymity of maker and date. With such objects the origin, transition, and variation of shape are of primary interest. Consider the common auger whose "Office" Moxon declared "is to make great round holes" and whose importance was so clearly stressed at Philadelphia in 1876.[31] Neither its purpose nor its gross appearance (a T-handled boring tool) had changed. The tool did, however, develop qualitatively through 200 years, from a pod or sh.e.l.l to a spiral bit, from a blunt to a gimlet point, and from a hand-fas.h.i.+oned to a geometrically exact, factory-made implement: innovations a.s.sociated with Cooke (1770), L'Hommedieu (1809), and Jennings (1850's). In each instance the tool was improved--a double spiral facilitated the discharge of shavings, a gimlet point allowed the direct insertion of the auger, and machine precision brought mathematical accuracy to the degree of twist. Still, overall appearance did not change. At the Centennial, Moxon would have recognized an auger, and, further, his lecture on its uses would have been singularly current. The large-bore spiral auger still denoted a mortise, tenon, and trenail mode of building in a wood-based technology; at the same time its near cousin, the wheelwright's reamer, suggested the reliance upon a transport dependent upon wooden hubs. The auger in its perfected form--fine steel, perfectly machined, and highly finished--contrasted with an auger of earlier vintage will clearly show the advance from forge to factory, but will indicate little new in its method of use or its intended purpose.

Persons neither skilled in the use of tools nor interested in technical history will find that there is another response to the common auger, as there was to the upholsterer's hammer, the 18th-century brace, or the saw with the custom-fitted grip. This is a subjective reaction to a pleasing form. It is the same reaction that prompted artists to use tools as vehicles to help convey lessons in perspective, a frequent practice in 19th-century art manuals. The harmony of related parts--the balance of shaft and handle or the geometry of the twist--makes the auger a decorative object. This is not to say that the ancient woodworker's tool is not a doc.u.ment attesting a society's technical proficiency--ingenuity, craftsmans.h.i.+p, and productivity. It is only to suggest again that it is something more; a survival of the past whose intrinsic qualities permit it to stand alone as a bridge between the craftsman's hand and his work; an object of considerable appeal in which integrity of line and form is not dimmed by the skill of the user nor by the quality of the object produced by it.

In America, this integrity of design is derived from three centuries of experience: one of heterogeneous character, the mid-17th to the mid-18th; one of predominately English influence, from 1750 to 1850; and one that saw the perfection of basic tools, by native innovators, between 1850 and the early 20th century. In the two earlier periods, the woodworking tool and the products it finished had a natural affinity owing largely to the harmony of line that both the tool and finished product shared. The later period, however, presents a striking contrast.

Hand-tool design, with few exceptions, continued vigorous and functional amidst the confusion of an eclectic architecture, a flurry of rival styles, the horrors of the jigsaw, and the excesses of Victorian taste.

In conclusion, it would seem that whether seeking some continuous thread in the evolution of a national style, or whether appraising American contributions to technology, such a search must rest, at least in part, upon the character and quality of the hand tools the society has made and used, because they offer a continuity largely unknown to other cla.s.ses of material survivals.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] W.M. FLINDERS PETRIE, "History in Tools," _Annual Report Smithsonian Inst.i.tution_, 1918, pp. 563-572 [reprint].

[2] JOHANN AMOS COMENIUS, _Orbis Sensualium Pictus_, transl. Charles Hoole (London, 1685), pp. 130, 143.

[3] JOSEPH MOXON, _Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works_, 3rd. ed. (London, 1703), pp. 63, 119.

[4] MARTIN, _Circle of the Mechanical Arts_ (1813), p. 123.

[5] PETER NICHOLSON, _The Mechanic's Companion_ (Philadelphia, 1832), pp. 31, 89-90.

[6] _Catalog_, Book 87, Cutler and Co., Castle Hill Works, Sheffield [in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London]; and _Ill.u.s.trated Supplement to the Catalogue of Bench Planes_, Arrowmammett Works (Middletown, Conn., 1857) [in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution Library].

[7] York County Records, Virginia Deeds, Orders, and Wills, no. 13 (1706-1710), p. 248; and the inventory of Amasa Thompson in LAWRENCE B.

ROMAINE, "A Yankee Carpenter and His Tools," _The Chronicle_ of the Early American Industries a.s.sociation (July 1953), vol. 6, no. 3, pp.

33-34.

[8] _Reports by the Juries: Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851_ (London, 1852), p. 485.

[9] U.S. patent specifications cited in this paragraph may be found at the U.S. Patent Office, Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

[10] In 1865 George Parr in his application for an improved screwdriver stated categorically that the scalloped blade served no purpose other than decoration. See U.S. patent 45,854, dated January 10, 1865.

[11] Francis A. Walker, ed., _United States Centennial Commission, International Exhibition, 1876, Reports and Awards, Group XV_ (Philadelphia, 1877), p. 5.

[12] Ibid., p. 6.

[13] Ibid., pp. 9-10.

[14] Ibid., pp. 11-12.

[15] Ibid., pp. 14, 44, 5.

[16] Ibid., p. 13.

[17] Restored patent 4,859X, August 24, 1827, National Archives, Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

[18] U.S. pat. 16,889, U.S. Patent Office, Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. The numbered specifications that follow may be found in the same place.

[19] Walker, ed., _Reports and Awards_, group 15, p. 13.

[20] Ibid.

[21] _Tools_ (Boston, 1884), p. 54 [in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution Library].

[22] _Tools and Supplies_ (June 1900), no. 85 [in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution Library].

[23] Walker, op. cit. (footnote 19), p. 14.

[24] _Tools for All Trades_ (New York, 1896), item 75 [in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution Library].

[25] See _Baldwin, Robbins & Co.: Ill.u.s.trated Catalogue_ (Boston, 1894), pp. 954, 993 [in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution Library].

[26] Walker, op. cit. (footnote 19), p. 14.

[27] _Tools and Supplies_, op. cit. (footnote 22).

[28] _Mechanick Exercise_ ..., p. 62.

[29] Ibid., p. 95.

[30] Walker, op. cit. (footnote 19), pp. 31-49.

[31] _Mechanick Exercises_ ..., p. 94.