Toolemera Blog

The Right Tool For The Job

On one hand there is the Chronicle project. On the other hand there is the Moxon project. On the third hand there is a box of Zomig for migraines. Sometimes I believe that Toby Hall has it right... we should return to letterpress printing. Gutenberg was no fool.

The Chronicle project is moving along. We have a team of 8 volunteers who happily assemble PDF files from the scanned images I provide. I get the PDF files back and process them through Acrobat for OCR, cropping and the like. I was working my way along when the new copy of Acrobat Pro 9 came out. Being the good little Adobe supporter that I am, I upgraded. Then I discover that there are all kind of little quirks that I need to learn about. No bugs really, just the new features, moved features, changes in workflow and so on that come with new software.

Back to square one with the post-scan, post-pdf workflow. Acrobat Pro, being an immensely powerful program, hides all kinds of goodies in it's crevices. Adobe, well on it's way to world domination of the digital document universe, has the typical corporate near-sightedness of failing to give all the information in a timely and clear manner. So I spent some days just working my way through the features to try and figure out how best, or not best, to use them for this project.

There is one new feature called ClearScan. It's a tidy bit of magic licensed, or purchased, or something by Adobe as a third option in OCR. Unlike the usual types of OCR, ClearScan does not create a hidden layer of bitmapped images (don't worry what that is, just imagine trying to read page 4 by looking through page 3 with your x-ray vision). ClearScan actually recreates the text in as close an appromixation as possible. You now have real text, not a bitmapped image of what the OCR engine thinks the text is. The result, tiny files, better contrast in text and usually, untouched graphics. The lack of that hidden layer dramatically reduces file size. A 10 Mb pdf becomes a 2 Mb pdf with full OCR. And this without any file size reduction commands. Reducing file size without messing up text contrast and image quality is the bane of document imaging. But no more.

So that headache was solved. I should say that ClearScan takes a looooooong time, so get it running and go out for a leisurely dinner or two.

Next comes Moxon. Yes, that Moxon, the one I've been hyping for nearly a year. I've tried Apple iWork Pages, Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007. Each in it's own way does ok, but has problems. Pages, which is a page layout program, really doesn't like to handle big documents or lots of graphics. So a book of nearly 350 Mb in size makes it choke. Word doesn't even choke, it just rolls over and dies. And getting Pages to handle the graphic images correctly is one large headache in the making. Supposedly, Pages is designed for graphics... but I now think it's fine for the average newsletter, brochure, meeting notice or even a text only book. But, and I do say BUT... the danged fool Quartz engine thing that drives Mac software is not appreciated by POD companies. By the time I get done with all the footwork necessary to prep a Pages file for POD requirements, nothing looked as it should. And Word? Well, Word does peculiar things to graphics, all of which should be outlawed in all 50 states.

Migraine time.

So I talked to my friendly desktop publishing expert, Patty MacLeish, editor and publisher of the journals of the Early American Industries Association  and the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, and said "HELP". After talking the problems over with her, I decided to order a copy of Adobe InDesign. I'm also considering hiring Patty to create templates for me to work from, to do the whole page layout job, or to tutor me in InDesign.

In the end, you have to use the right tools for the job.

Till next
Gary

Old Tools & Old Tradesmen

Every now and then I take the time to look back through some of the photographs in my collection. It's hard enough finding early images in good shape, let alone those that feature trades and industries. My particular interest is wood, although leather workers creep in there too. Here and there I can turn up an image of a tradesman and the toolchest that held the tools of his trade. Ok, so that last sentence was a bit repetitive.

I thought I would revisit a few images that normally live over at The Toolemera Press website (cheap advertising at it's best). Here are a few that I particularly like. Some cabinet cards, an ambrotypes, a Carte de Visite, a cyanotype..

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do

Till next

Gary

 

The British - Dutch Plane Link?

Recently I picked Early Planemakers of London from my bookshelf for a re-read. Written by Don & Anne Wing and published in 2005, the book is sub-titled "Recent Discoveries in the Tallow Chandlers and the Joiners Companies". This book spoiled me. This is how books should be written. Particularly books that cover an historical subject. From the get-go, the authors state that this is a work in progress, that the material held within the volume is the result of their personal research and that, to the best of their ability, they are relating what they have discovered and will note what questions remain unanswered.

Upon reading, you'll find that the authors stick to their promises. At no time do they state as a fact what is or may be a guess, references to prior works are supplied throughout and new avenues of exploration are proposed with the intent of exciting the imagination of other researchers. This is clearly a work stemming from their personal passions as well as a work intended to spark interest in the history of wooden planes.

The authors have succeeded in taking what could have been a dry, scholarly work and turning it into a page-turner that introduces us to the peculiar and complex world of the British Trade Guilds of around 1680 through 1750. In particular, just how did plane-makers end up as members of the Tallow Chandlers Guild? How did this Guild relate to the Joiners Guild? What prompted apprentice plane-makers to enter the trade, or to leave it?

There are more leads, more open-ended questions and more suberb photographs in this book than can be tolerated. While reading this at work, I wanted to ditch my schedule and hurry home to check on my wooden plane collection. Was there some missing link in there? Some gem I hadn't realized was one?

A comment or two in Early Planemakers of London about the Dutch plane-makers connection intrigued me. British - Dutch trade flourished in the 17th Century. Consider that there are more documented 17th C Dutch planemakers than there are British, it would seem logical to assume that early British tradesmen and ironmongers bought planes and other tools from Dutch makers. There are a few early Dutch made planes in collections that show British characteristics, despite their Dutch origins. Even into the turn of the 20th Century, Dutch tool mongers offered designs of British, United States, French and Dutch origins. This trade catalog in my personal collection, Album Van Schaven En Gereedschappen: Rabots et Outils, Planes and Different Tools: Jos. Harm, Vijzelstraat , Amsterdam, c1900, seems made for an international market of craftsmen. Even this late, we have a Dutch firm offering a variety of tool styles, unlike the more regionally conservative British and US firms who tended to focus only on their own borders when it came to styles and designs.

I had to pull Four Centuries of Dutch Planes and Planemakers from my shelf and re-read that one too. It seems there is, in all liklihood, a direct connection between the early Dutch plane-makers and the British trade. There are similarities in designs... heels look the same although toes differ, wedges may or may not resemble each other, etc. The problem is, in both books there are hints but as of yet, no hard evidence has surfaced. Perhaps in some nearly forgotten archival box, on a shelf in a dimly lit British or Dutch Archives, there sits a toolmongers ledger or an invoice that sheds light on this question.

Or perhaps there is a wooden plane bearing the stamps of both Dutch and British makers/toolmongers? Next time you drool over your collection, take a look to see if there is a connection or two to this particular mystery.

Till next

Gary

The Importance of Chisels

What happens when chisels are sharpened to the end of their usefulness? Or at least what happens when the user thinks the chisel is no longer of use? The chisel gets re-purposed, as modern buzz-meisters are so fond of saying. Turn a paring chisel into a butt chisel, a butt chisel into a sash chisel, a thin sash mortise chisel into a dovetail chisel and so on.

What happens when a skilled and erudite living history craftsperson is found to be out of sync with the prevailing management's vision? Laid off, fired, unemployed, etc. etc. My good friend Stephen Shepherd, he of The Full Chisel Blog, has found himself without an employer. Clearly, the new management of that living history park knows not of where their fortunes lie.

Or, as Stephen puts it: "This will however free me up to spend more time on my blog (and new web site, coming soon) and I will be free to travel and maybe do some workshops, hint, hint.  I also plan on spending time writing, I have some drawings I would like to do, finish my novel and some personal projects I need to finish.  I have a couple of books to finish and a few to have reprinted."

Since entering the world of blogs and websites, Stephen's comments, critiques, ruminations, opinions and expertise have been a boon to the world of the hand tool craftsperson. He shows us what can be accomplished with traditional tools, techniques and outlook. I'm afraid LN never made much of a penny from Stephen. As Stephen looks to where his chosen path takes him, I for one will be following him, if only to see what new bits and pieces of critical, amusing, insightful and downright useful comments and viewpoints come to his mind.

Clearly, Stephen's four years at this living history park represent a fraction of his life experience. It will be fascinating to see where his hands take us next...

Till next
Gary

Two for the money

This past weekend I had nothing much to do. Well, with the exception of rebuilding the opening mechanism on an overhead skylight. A simple job of removing the old non-working chain mechanism and installing a new one. After 2.5 hours of swearing, ladder climbing, sweating and significant grumbling, I had it done. The old mechanism has stripped out and jammed. In the end, I had to take it apart, in place, grease and all, in order to get it to loosen up.

Removing two and three inch screws that have been driven into fir with a screwgun is no fun when you're working overhead, with little hand clearance, with a small phillips head screwdriver. Plus the sun was blazing down through the skylight. Good light for working but bad for the body. In the end, I managed to remove the offending mechanism and install the new one. A little soap on the screws made the installation a lot easier.

All of which has nothing to do with the title of this post. I discovered a new feature of Freeway Pro, the software I use to create and manage the website. iFrame. Normally I avoid Frames like the plague. This little gadget allowed me to embed the Blog in the Website. Nifty. No need for writing Java... which I don't know how to. No need for messing with widgets or security or anything. Just install iFrame (sorry folks, it's a Freeway Pro Action that only works from within the software.), direct the Action towards the Blog and there you have it.

I'm not quite sure how to address the navigation part of things. I added a link in the top level navigation bar under Blog and a note at the left bottom of the Gateway page. That'll have to do until I come up with something spiffy and clear.

Yes, the embedded blog still lives over at it's Typepad home, but now you can avail yourself of my pithy comments twice! For now, I limited the page size in the website which means scrolling some. I might change that but I figured there are yet people out there using 13 screens?

Till next
Gary