Toolemera Blog

18th C. TQC

TQC. Total Quality Control. One of the mantras of modern manufacturing. It's micro-managing at it's ultimate. What did the 18th Century tradesman do to maintain manufacturing quality control? Maybe not all that much.

I've been working on the production of a digital version of Joseph Moxon's famous tome, Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. Published as a complete book as the third edition in 1703 (previously published in bits and pieces), Moxon was the first book of it's kind to really dig into the nitty-gritty of How-To for the trades. Sort of an early approach to socializing information distribution through the printed word. We venerate Moxon as the font from which all trades lore rose. Or spilled. I'm not sure what happens with fonts. But, and there is always a but, in working with this book to produce a PDF, I have found that my veneration of the Master has undergone a change.

To clarify my statement... the content is as amazing as always. The Make, or the way the book was put together sheds a different light on early literature for the trades. We're used to reading modern reprints of the classics. Nice, clean, off-white or slightly yellowed paper, sharp print and clean engraved plates, book jackets and instructional introductions. A table of contents even and maybe an index. Now, back to reality.

Text blocks are all over the place. Off-center, skewed, even different type at times. Some pages show bleed-through from the printer applying too much ink. Other pages display type imprints from the preceding page when too much pressure was applied. Some text is dark and some is light. You can even see the shadow of print on facing pages when someone didn't let the ink dry properly before folding the paper. Paper quality changes throughout the book. Maybe the printer was using up left over stock? The book is bound in nicely blind tooled leather (blind tooling is decoration impressed in the leather with heated irons, lacking gold leaf or other coloration). But. Again a But. The bookbinder didn't seem to care to take time to get the gutters even or correct any mistakes made during printing. At least one page inner edge is torn, folded and bound.

This book was made for hard use and for cheap sales. Neither the printer, nor the book-binder nor the publisher seemed to care to take the time to produce what we seem to expect from 'classic' books. This is like the Sterling Press of book production for the early 1700's. Don't get me wrong, it is an incredible experience to hold in your hands and read an original copy of Moxon, complete with finger smudges, turned edges and darkened corners from work-stained fingers. I now know that this was the Audels Carpentry and Building of it's day, or maybe the Print-On-Demand newsprint copy of Charles Dickens?

When the PDF version is ready for sale, I'll most likely include a package of Dramamine in case anyone gets sea-sick while reading the helter-skelter text. I'm also wondering what the 18th Century equivalent of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich was... there are some finger-prints in there that look strangely Crunchy...

Till next
Gary

Sometimes a Great Notion

Every now and then I come across an image that sticks in my head. Something that causes me to pause, to consider the ramifications of hand tools and the effect they can have on our lives, something that leaves me wondering... why didn't I think of that? Here is just such an image for your consideration. I can't remember just where it came from, but I hope that the originator of the photograph steps forward to claim ownership. Or perhaps not.

Rather than discuss the intrinsic and deeply philosophical implications of this particular image, I will instead leave you with this question for today:

When was the last time you needed to saw a bowling ball in half, and how did you accomplish this task?

Till next
Gary

PS: I checked the Disstonian Institute in order to identify this Bowling Ball Saw. Unfortunately, I could not find it listed. If anyone knows of a catalog that displayed this model, please contact me.

PPS: Seems it's Tom Price recycling bowling balls into black pens. Let's all send Tom our used bowling balls, now that we know what to do with them.

Firming Up On Chisels

Recently a question came up on a forum concerning what is, or what is not, a firmer chisel. I put my foot in my mouth and said that firmer chisels were typically socketed and of heavier build than regular chisels. Afterwards I took a look at some edge tool catalogs on my shelves. Lo and behold, but what did I see, but a whole lot of confusion. It seems that at some point in time the term "firmer" took on a life of it's own and became a marketing gimmick. Why not call your chisels firmers and make them sound, well, firmer?

This particular 1905 catalog from the L. & I. J. White Edge Tool Company of Buffalo, N.Y., features the full line of their products. By and large all of their chisels are termed Firmer. Socketed, tanged, bevel edge, straight edge, gouge, you name it they are all Firmers. The White Company sold primarily to  folks in the ship building, cooperage and timber framing trades, with other tools for carriage makers, butchers and the ice industry. But their primary source of bread and butter was chisels. I guess that naming it a Firmer Chisel meant something special to the trade.

You can guess what's coming next... this is why I like ephemera. No guessing, no assumptions, just the facts. Or at least the facts as the maker wanted the facts to appear as. Don't you just love marketing? The only way to pin down the answer to the Firmer Chisel question would be to sit down with products from a variety of makers and compare them. I have a feeling that by the end of the 19th C, tool terms had a way of becoming general in nature. 

Saws and planes are nice. I think that it's time to give the edge tool makers some air time. I'll be digging up some other edge tool catalogs for posting just so I can determine if I have to keep my foot in my mouth or if it's ok to remove it.

A quick word on the late-great-toolemera-reference-desk. It's no more. I have a few too many pots burning on the stove and had to cut something before the pots melted.

Self-Serving Marketing Note: The L. & I. J. White Edge Tool Company catalog of 1905 is available as a 10 mb PDF over at The Toolemera Press website.

Till next
Gary

.................................News Flash!.........................

Tom asked of the derivation of the word "Firmer". The answer is good enough that I add it here:

Main Entry: fir·mer chisel
Pronunciation: \ˈfər-mər-\
Function: noun
Etymology: French fermoir chisel, alteration of Middle French formoir, from former to form, from Old French forme form
Date: 1823
: a woodworking chisel with a thin flat blade
...............................

So a Firmer Chisel began life as a tool to form something. The name took on a life of it's own and became a bit of marketing to sell the product. That's the danger of relying on advertising... it's advertising even if it is a trade catalog.

Copyright Explained

Every now and then I get a question about Copyright, Fair Use and the Terrors Unto Death.  Chris Swingley. he of Swingley Development, was kind enough to send to me a link to what may well be the definitive resource for clarifying the complexities of the United States Copyright Laws. I present to you, unedited, in full "living" color, Stanford University's take on Copyright and Fair(y) Use. Or for an alternate link try YouTube.
 

WARNING: DO NOT WATCH THIS QUICKTIME VIDEO WHILE DRINKING HOT, COLD OR ACIDIC BEVERAGES. THE TOOLEMERA PRESS WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONDITION OF ANY ELECTRONIC INPUT DEVICES DAMAGED BY THE EXHALATION OF SAID FLUIDS THROUGH NASAL OR ORAL ORIFICES.

Scanning Basics

There have been some questions about scanning ephemera and books. I'll be placing a permanent feature at The Toolemera Press sometime in the near future, but for now, here is a quick and dirty review of what works for me. Keep in mind that I am not an imaging expert, not a digital artist and in fact am somewhat color-blind and have lousy eye-sight.

1. Scanner. Not as important as what scan software you use. That said, I'm a fan of Epson scanners, particularly the Perfection line. Not too fast, not too slow and the output is clear, sharp and color accurate. Plus they don't die as fast as the Canon scanners seem to. I do have a tendency to burn out a scanner each year. That doesn't bother me as it presents me with the opportunity to upgrade and let me tell you, the advances in consumer-level scanners have brought the machines into the realm of what I used to see in pro-level scanners just a few years ago. I also like the Opticbook line from Plustek. A bit expensive and Windows only (plus you have to have an Intel processor to use the software) but the only affordable scanner on the market that will scan to within 6 mm of the inside edge of a book. The design of this scanner allows you to scan without having to flatten the book, a nasty thing to do to a spine. As a last thought, for very high-quality scans, there are the Microtek scanners. Expensive as a rule and slow, but amongst the best in output at the price.
2. Software. The stuff that ships with scanners, as a rule, is bupkis (Yiddish for junk). It's fine for very average work, but falls flat when trying to scan old documents, photographs and books. There are two after-market products that I swear by: Lasersoft Imaging's Silverfast and Hammrich Software's Vuescan. Silverfast is by far the better of the two and the one most professionals will turn to. Vuescan is feature rich but sometimes a little confusing in it's interface, however it's a fraction of the price of Silverfast. As a rule I use Silverfast. The downside is that you have to buy a copy specific to each scanner. Vuescan is a one time purchase that will work with most scanners on the market.
3. DPI versus Image Dimensions. First and foremost, I scan in either 175 dpi TIFF or 300 dpi TIFF. 175 for simply black & white and 300 dpi for color and grayscale. (More on that later under Post-Scan Processing.) This one is always confusing as the two are not the same. A 300 dpi scan of a 4"x5" object will produce a digital image that is many times the measured dimensions of the original. A scan set to 4"x5", without specifying dpi, will turn out a 4"x5" scan with a lower dpi. In the first instance, the dpi setting will simply produce a scan with more dots per inch, resulting in a large on-screen scan. And that's the trick... we are talking about a digital representation of a physical object. When viewed on a monitor, the higher the dpi of an image, the larger it will appear. When printed, the higher the dpi, the larger in physical dimensions the print can be (unless you set your printer to print to a given size). More information IN yields more information OUT. In the second instance, scanning to a physical size without setting dpi, the scan software will choose the resolution setting that will produce the desired image dimensions. Resolution is just another term for how much detail can be found in an image. The higher the dpi, the higher the resolution. Basically. There are lots of exceptions to this rule, but who cares? What we care about is getting the scan to look  the way we want it to. Leave the real technical stuff to the artists, photographers and designers. At least that is what I do.
4. Color, Grayscale, Black & White. Color is easy. If you want your image to be in color, choose color. If you want it to be Black & White, choose that setting. If you want a Grayscale output, get confused. What is Grayscale? Originally intended as a means to digitize halftone prints (think magazine images made up of all those little dots), Grayscale is the Swiss Army Knife of scanning. If you must scan without color, but you have images, or you have an original with varying backgrounds (old stained paper), selecting Grayscale will produce a scan that is accurate to the original... but of course without color. Scanning such an image in Black & White will work but you may pick up lots of junk in the scan from the uneven textures of the background or you may end up with funny wiggles in the graphics (Moire effects from scanning engravings or halftone prints). TRICK OF THE DAY: Set your Grayscale scan to 400 dpi. This setting, for various arcane reasons known only to Harry Potter, will often reduce or eliminate the moire pattern and/or smooth the noisy background of an old piece of paper. You can reduce the image dpi or dimensions afterwards with image editing sofware.
5. BITS. Don't worry too much about Bits. 48 bit, 24 bit and so on. These numbers refer to the amount of data included in the scan. That is a very simplistic way of explaining it, but it really doesn't matter that much unless you are going to get into fine-tuning something like Silverfast. The higher the bit count, the larger in kb's or mb's the end result. The truth is that it's best to experiment with each setting to see what scan looks the best to your eyes and for your purpose. I typically scan at the highest Bit setting and then play around with the image in Photoshop Elements.
6. Optical Character Recognition (OCR). In the realm of scanning ephemera and books, the only reason for OCR is if you want an end result that is searchable. I rarely, if ever, run OCR software on individual pieces of ephemera. I will run OCR on books if the scan is fairly clean and if I feel there is a need for search within the PDF document. OCR software can be time-consuming to run and it usually increases the size of the PDF considerably. In brief, OCR creates a second, hidden image of the document. This hidden image contains text that is searchable but the PDF reading software IF and only IF your PDF software supports text search. Adobe Acrobat Reader does. Some off-brand PDF readers don't. Don't ever bother to try to OCR an 18th Century book as the font will never OCR well, resulting in tons of peculiar search hits.
7. Scanning Fingers and Wrists. What do you do about all those fingers and wrists that show up in your scans? Sometime you can't force the scan software to scan precisely to the object dimensions, or you may be scanning a book. If so, forget about the scanner cover. Remove it or raise it out of the way. Get yourself a piece of dense black cloth (no velvet please, leave that to Elvis). The finer the texture the better. Drape the cloth over the item to be scanned and scan away.
8. Post-Scan Processing. This is where the magic happens. Old documents, photographs and books are never an easy target. You don't have a nice, clean white background. I scan to produce the image that looks closest to the original, at 175 or 300 dpi, with the intent of working on the image in Photoshop Elements. In PE, I can adjust contrast and brightness (always do contrast first, then brightness), run a sharp filter (unsharp mask for photographs, sharpen for black & white images) and reduce the scan to the format and size that I want.
9. TIFF v JPEG v GIF v PNG. Gesundheit. In reverse order, PNG is a fairly new format that I just can't cozy up to. It sounds too much like a National Political party. GIF is fine for simple online grahics such as a banner or logo. GIF is lousy when it comes to complex colors or grayscale. My favorites are TIFF and JPEG. TIFF retains all the original image quality no matter how many times you save the file, while JPEG will lose image quality with each save. But... JPEG files are smaller and more web friendly. So I scan in TIFF and run the image through Photoshop Elements to convert it into a web friendly JPEG. I try to do any image manipulation in TIFF and as little messing around in JPEG.

And that is all that I have to say for now on the Artes & Mysteries of Scanning.

Till next
Gary

PS: I'll do something on PDF creation another time. I tend to work in color, so my work flows reflect that process, but I'll add something on background removal and all that B&W stuff.