Toolemera Blog

Review-A Rural Carpenter's World

"Professor Franklin has picked up one shaving from the shop floor and used it as a sort of prism, glimpsing not only the board on which the plane worked but also the tree from which the board came - and most signicantly, the hand, the eye and the mind that guided the plane shaping the board from rough lumber." John Stilgoe, from the Preface to:

A Rural Carpenter's World: The Craft in a Nineteenth-Century New York Township (American Land and Life Series) by Wayne Franklin. Franklin, a Professor of English and American Studies at the time this book was written.

I happened to pick up a copy of this book some years ago in a used book shop. Yes, once in a while I step foot inside a used book shop. Surprising, isn't it? I picked this book from my shelf this week for a refresher in carpentry as it was. What sets this book apart from most academic efforts is the author's ability to cross over from scholarship to Good Reading Material. Sure, there is quite a lot of detail held within the book that only a scholar could love. Franklin succeeds in melding scholarship with humanity.

A Rural Carpenter's World is an examination of the 1869 diary of a carpenter/farmer of upper New York State, one James C. Holmes. Mr Holmes' notes are not your typical diary. Most diaries were simply account books holding numbers and obscure annotations. Mr. Holmes added brief comments and notations to all of his entries. These notations, taken in full and in the context of a mid-nineteenth century farming community in Otsego County, New York, provide a rare window into the life of a typical carpenter / farmer.

Holmes was clearly a carpenter by trade and by skill. He farmed as did most residents of his community. But it was his skills as a carpenter that set him apart. Not just an individual tradesman, Holmes supervised the construction of varioius local houses, provided saw sharpening services to the community, held numerous religious and town posts of responsibility and trained young men in his chosen trade.

Franklin offers to us the full content of this diary of 1869, along with the results of his considerable research into Mr. Holmes and his times. The table of contents reads:

Part One: Craft

1. The World of John Holmes
2. The Holmes Diary for 1869
3. The Major Jobs of 1869

Part Two: Context

1. Carpentry in Otsego County in the Nineteenth Century
2. The Carpenters of Westford
3. Conclusion: Skill and Responsibility

General Notes

1. Appendix 1. Westford in 1869: A Biographical Guide
2. Appendix 2. The Carpenters of Westford
3. Appendix 3. The Holmes Memoranda

By the time you finish reading, you will feel as if you have stepped into the world of John C. Holmes, experiencing his daily life along with all of his successes and sorrows. Besides, it's an Out of Print title now, so you can buy it for a reasonable price.

Till next
Gary

Chronicles of The Chronicle: 3

When last we visited The Chronicle  project, the problem was: How do you edit, convert, process, &c, &c, &c 4000 odd pages of scans?

I really didn't want to do things in this fashion, but there was no choice but to request of the imaging service that all the scans be provided as individual image files. Not complete PDF documents, which would have made life so much easier. Unfortunately, there is no way to edit an individual page within a PDF document short of exporting the page as a Jpeg or TIFF image file and working it over with your truncheon. You would then bring the edited image back into the PDF, run OCR again and hope that all goes well. Plus, there will be an increase in size of the PDF as a direct result of your nefarious machinations.

Not wanting to pull a Nosferatu on these poor, innocent, unsuspecting PDF documents, I had no choice but to deal with the scans as individual image files. TIFF or Jpeg? Each time you 'Save As' a Jpeg file, the file loses some detail. That's why it's called a Lossy image file. Not because The Others are out to get it, but because with each save there is a small amount of data discarded. TIFF files do not suffer from this data rot. However, TIFF files tend to be humongous in size. In addition, for reasons that I cannot explain, Jpeg images converted into PDF files tend to look better than do TIFF files. Really, I can't explain this. I've seen it happen over and over again, so much so in fact that I have decided to accept this peculiarity as a Fact of Life. Ipso Facto.

Two factors have to be dealt with: Moire Patterning and Contrast. Ok, so Moire is missing the accent over the 'e'. This is Typepad, not MS Word or Apple Pages. I could finagle the HTML, but I am much to lazy to do that. Here is another Fact of Life: if you scan an engraving, the little bitty lines that make up the engraving will go kerblooey when you view the image on a monitor. Once again, there are myriad technical reasons for this that I will not go in to at this time, even though I do understand about half of them (that's why they're also called Halftones).  The usual TRICK to overcoming Halftone Moire'ring in viewed images is to scan your image at 400 DPI and as close to the viewed size as possible.  Playing around with Contrast will also help to overcome this ailment.

Ch.. Ch.. Ch.. Changesss

With apologies for a lack of royalty payments to David Bowie, I've made a few minor navigational changes to my blog and website that I see fit to trumpet to all and sundry. It was good enough for Stephen Shepherd's Full Chisel Blog, so it must be good enough for me. Categories.

I added a side bar item for Categories. It could be said that this feature was added to make it easier for my readers to find old blog posts. Or it could be said that my aging brain cells couldn't remember where various posts were. Either way, there is now a Categories section, including subheadings explicit, implicit and vague. If you come across something that really should have it's own category, has been miscategorized (sic) or whatever, please drop me a line. Is it possible to 'drop a line' when you are using email?

In the Further Changes Department, I added an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed to The Toolemera Press website (you think I'ld miss out on an opportunity for cross-promotion?). The feed can be subscribed to at either the website or the blog. If you haven't looked yet, it's in the upper right hand corner of the blog side bar and in the middle bottom of the website Gateway page. Eventually I'll figure out how to add it to the nav bar of the website. The whole purpose of an RSS feed is for the author to be as self-congradulatory, self-aggrandizing, and self-promoting as possible. I trust my goal is reached.

Till next,
Gary

1835 Shop Inventory

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Come all present to witness the inventory of the worldly possessions of one Robert Yetton, late of Shelby County of the great state of Indiana!

Stephen Shepherd, over at the Full Chisel Blog, has offered up for our enlightenment and pleasure, a reading of the inventory of an early 19th Century craftsman by the name of Robert Yetton. Most likely a probate inventory, we have here the worldly goods of a farmer / craftsman of some experience. Not the usual farmers array of tools, this inventory includes lathe, cooperage, cabinet or joinery and even cobblers tools. Quite a varied assortment of tools, equipment, farm animals, farm equipment and oddments!

The other possibility that comes to mind is this was the assortment of tools and skills the above-average settler needed to setup a homestead. Self-sufficiency at it's best seems to describe the wide array of tools and skills the late Mr. Yetton brought to his venture. Or not? You be the judge. Read through this inventory and try to imagine Mr. Yetton at his chores. No Big Box stores, no online ordering, no Collectible Stanley Tools.

Perhaps Mr. Yetton provided his skills to the local community as services in return for goods? Will the real Mr. Yetton please stand up and tell us who he was?

Till next
Gary

Chronicles of The Chronicle: 2

Just when you think it's safe, things happen. I sent some sample issues over to the imaging service for trials. The size of the project required scanning on a commercial ADF scanner. Scanning on a flat bed scanner would take too much man-power and way too long. Scanning on a Planetary Scanner was an option, but most bureaus who use these tend to charge big bucks. Once again, the relatively small size of this project excluded us from some of the better local bureaus.

The first sample came in. Problems. Figuring out why there were problems was the first problem. Here is a sample of the cover of one of the issues when full color was introduced. This sample came through very washed out, with quite a bit of moire effect within the reproduction of the painting. I spoke quite a few times to Jennifer as we tried to figure out the how's and why's. The scanning service tried a variety of different settings to no avail.

I thought back to problems I had had with another job. The elements we dealt with here were:

Scanner>Scan Software>PDF software

Each element brought in it's own particular take on the project. The ADF scanner, as with most of it's ilk, would not go above 400 dpi. Some ADF scanners will go to 600 dpi, but there is really no appreciable difference when it comes to PDF production. The Scan Software has it's own mind. Various levels of compression, image conversion and what-not are sifted into the scanned image. Manually tweaking the software is possible, but only to some extent. Why?  Because the scan software is designed to work with a particular ADF scanner and tough luck on us. Then there is the PDF production software. This beast wants to apply further compression, OCR and so on. By the time you get to the final product, all sorts of hardware and software gremlins have had a field day with your beloved Chronicle.

As is my wont, I exported the PDF images as TIFF files and opened them in Photoshop Elements (no, not Photoshop CS. I'm both too cheap and too chicken to tackle that monster). Examining the TIFF files told me something that had not occured to me before, even though it should have. The original color journal cover was a halftone. Duh. Of course it was and what was I thinking?

Scanning halftone images is my bane. Particularly scanning halftone images with an ADF scanner. Briefly, halftone images are measured in lines per inch (LPI). Scanners scan in a linear path. If there is any deviation between the halftone image and the scanner's mechanical and software controlled path... you guessed it, you get moire patterns messing up your image. With flat bed scanners, it's possible to scan at 400 dpi and almost eliminate the patterning. Many halftone images were created with a grid equal to or approaching a 400 dpi image. It's a half-baked trick that can work if all the astrological signs in the heavens are in order.

We couldn't change the scanner or the scan software. I even tried creating a PDF in Acrobat Pro 8 instead of the particular PDF software the bureau used. A little better, but not good enough. Returning to Photoshop Elements, I was able to produce this image. Not bad. The final trick was increasing Contrast first, then Brightness second. I know... in the Photoshop pull down menu, Brightness is always placed before Contrast. When dealing with recalcitrant old photographs and scans of old stuff, adjust Contrast first, then Brightness. Trust me. It works.

Paul Womack will most likely be able to explain this in all kinds of technical detail, but I can't. All I can say is by playing with Contrast and Brightness, you can artificially defeat the moire effect.

The next problem was, how do you handle this adjustment with nearly 4000 pages of material?

You guessed it... you'll have to wait until Chronicles of The Chronicle: 3

Till then
Gary