Toolemera Blog

Soap, Wax, Masts, Sails & Phillips

The Art Of Soap Making: A Practical Handbook Of The Manufacture of Hard And Soft Soaps, Toilet Soaps, Etc. by Alexander Watt (with) An Appendix On Modern Candle-Making. 1896

No where near as complex as Cristiani's A Technical Treatise On Soap And Candles: Henry Carey Baird, 1881, Watt's has "endeavoured to fill a void in English technical literature." Unlike the more technical works on the subject, Watts wrote his book for the practical Soap maker. What I didn't realize is that the Candle Maker is but an cousin of the Soap Maker. With one you get the other. Neat.

While I won't pretend to be any sort of expert on the subject, I'm sure that by the time I finish reading Watt, I'll have an abundance of new words to use in Scrabble.

All About Wax Craft: It's History, Production, Adulteration, And Commercial Value; by W. W. Cowan. F.L.S., F.G.S., F.R.M.S., F.E.S., &c., Chairman British Bee-keepers Association blah blah blah for another six lines of accomplishments. 1908. Cowan knew his bees. In researching 19th Century books on bee keeping, I came upon this title by Cowan, he of the many letters after his name. I take it he was a fellow of many associations. While I haven't read this one yet, I am sure that once I have, I will wax poetic upon it's contents.

Rudimentary Treatise On Masting, Mast-Making And Rigging Of Ships, Also, Tables Of Spars, Rigging, Blocks, Chain, Wire And Hemp Rope, &c., &c., Relative To Every Class Of Vessel Together With An Appendix Of Dimensions Of Masts And Yards Of The Royal Navy Of Great Britain And Ireland; by Robert Kipping, N.A.; 1853-4. Once again, knowing little to nothing of the masting of ships, I had to have a copy of this book. Who knows when I will be called upon to rig a Bark? When next the Tall Ships arrive in Boston Harbor, I have no doubt I will be wholey conversant in all the jargon of this speciality.

Sails And Sailmaking With Draughting, And The Centre Of Effort Of The Sails; Also, Weights And Sizes Of Ropes; Masting, Rigging, And Sails Of Steam Vessels, Etc., by Robert Kipping, N.A., Sailmaker Quayside, Newcastle. 18th Impression. Originally owned by Arthurh Beale, Sail Maker, London. Obviously, as I now have a copy of Kipping's treatise on Masting, I had to have a copy of his work on Sail Making. True, the math is well beyond my ken but that doesn't matter. When Armageddon arrives, I'll be prepared to build my own ketch.

Phillip Phillips. Let's return to the present day for a moment. Phillips is the American Idol contestant who, in my very not humble opinion, should win. He is himself and not a stamped out pop star. He is a musician as well as a singer. He plays with the band not in front of the band. The band clearly likes to play with him. He is the only contestant to tackle a Dave Mathews song and rip it all the way through.

Or, he should not win because the winner gets trapped by a foolish contract. If he comes in second he has more freedom to be who is his. What a conundrum.

Till next, Gary

The New England Economical Housekeeper, 1845

New to my shelves is The New England Economical Housekeeper And Family Recipe Book by Mrs. E. A. Howland, 1845. It's the Stereotype edition, if that matters to you.

One of the things I love about getting a book is checking out the marginalia the book seller didn't bother to note in the description. In this case, the inside front cover is signed:

Flora M. Berry, Sutton, Vt.

The next page is signed:

Mary Jane Berry, Sutton, Vt, Orleans County Steam Mill

And the next page is signed:

Mother's Book (Father is crossed out. He must have done something wrong).

The cover holds the price of 1/6.

At the end of the book there are a variety of recipes pinned to the various end papers. Lacking modern staples, pins were the modus operandi of the time.

Puddings, pies, custards, tarts, chicken and meats. Whoever said these New England Yankees lived a spartan life? Just reading this makes me hungry, clearly an occupational hazard.

There is a delightful frontispiece engraving displaying a hearth scene chock full of hearth activity. Take a moment and tally up what you can see happening here, the food in preparation, the cooking appliances, the furniture and the clothing. For one small vignette, there is a lot going on!

At only 108 pages, this little book offers a lot of punch (no apologies for the pun) from Montpelier, Vermont.

Best of all, no tool chests, no campaign chests, no anarchy and no philosophical debates of any sort other than why a certain recipe is good for dyspepsia. Oh! The Joy Of It!

If you can't wait for the reprint, Google Books has an eBook version.

Till next, Gary

Book Review: Furniture In The Southern Style

As promised, we're back to the proper focus of books, craft and books. I recently received my copy of the new book by Robert Lang and Glen Huey, entitled: Furniture In The Southern Style from Shop Woodworking. Lang and Huey are two woodworking authors whose writings I never overlook.

Both men bring the unique perspective of the professional and the amateur, by which I mean they have the experience of working to the rigors of turning out goods at a professional pace while maintaining an appreciation of the attention to detail the amateur (e.g., non-professional) woodworker might desire in making furniture. Having worked in both arenas at different times in my life, it's a distinction I appreciate in reading a book of woodwork plans. I point this out as there are some professional crafts people whose plans and directions are so clearly intended for the production of multiples as opposed to the one-off furniture maker.

Vernacular furniture really needs more attention from publishers. I admire high end classic American and European furniture. At the same time, there is a friendliness and warmth to vernacular furniture that pleases me such that I hope this is not the last book of it's kind. More regular people furniture books please? There is nothing low-class or common in the interpretation of a small town turners version of a table leg. Rather there is the definite sense of home that attracts me.

Lang and Huey, along with the cooperation of the Museum Of Early Southern Decorative Arts are to be congratulated for the putting in time and effort involved in pulling this book together. Working to a time limit is tough enough. Working within the limits of a museum environment is even more confining. You can't simply pick up the object, pull it apart and measure as you wish. There's always some curator looking over your shoulder. That Lang and Huey produced the measurements and drawings they did is quite the feat.

I'm not a huge fan of SketchUp, but in this book, I like the drawings. They don't have the impersonal CAD feel I see so often. I can get the feel of the piece of furniture from reviewing the various views even without checking out the exploded "3-D" version.

A few critiques, none of which are for the work from Lang and Huey. Putting my book guy hat on once again, I'd recommend to the Popular Woodworking Books people that more time and editing is needed in book production to keep production quality in sync with content quality.

1. The Foreward by Mack Headley, Jr. could use serious editing for formatting. Headings should not be tabbed to match paragraph starts. Page notes need periods. Books referenced should be properly numbered and referenced at the end of the Foreward. These are the sort of small details a quality reference book should have corrected before it hits the presses.
2. The gutters throughout the book are in need of serious adjustment. While the outside margins are, mostly, set to 5/8 inch, the inside margins (gutter) vary quite a bit. It would appear that little allowance was made for the variations in binding that can occur. A wider gutter should have been supplied to ensure a readable and balanced gutter throughout the book.
3. More Photographs Please! My one big complaint is the lack of interior photographs providing construction details. Drawings are nice, but photographs are the best way to demonstrate how a piece of furniture was made. I would gladly have paid more for a larger book to get more photographs of each piece of furniture. To only provide one per piece was a mistake on the part of the publisher.

Till next, Gary

Today's Old Book: Mechanics And Mechanism by Robert Scott Burn, 1858

During the 19th century, books on mechanics and mechanism were a popular subject. Fill them full of images of things going round, gears doing geary things and horses doing a man's job and all was good. Typically intended to teach the student what was up and what was down, these were the reference books of the day. Five Hundred And Seven Mechanical Movements was one of the popular titles in this genre. Why 507? You'll have to ask Mr. Brown if you choose to read the Google Books version, which as always is complete with tape. Maybe even a finger tip or two.

Robert Scott Burn was a mid 19th Century author and editor whose area was, ta da! everything mechanical. He wrote on the subjects of carpentry, steam, mechanics, you name it. He edited a variety journals and books of similar ilk. You can peruse his work over at the Internet Archive.

I h ave a few of his works but my favorite is a little one entitled: Mechanics And Mechanism: Being Elementary Essays And Examples For The Use Of Schools And Students. Third Edition, 1858.

Intended for the younger set, Burns illustrated, or borrowed some illustrations from the various journals he edited, with images and descriptions sure to engage the attention of those Dickensonian rapskalions sitting at their school desks, flipping whatever they flipped in the 19th Century at each other.

If you were working on a problem of center of gravity, would you consider using a load of hops as an example? I think not. At 125 pages, Burns wisely kept the book bried enough to maintain the attention of his chosen audience. He even kept my attention, a feat worthy of mention even today.

Till next, Gary

Book Review: The New Traditional Woodworker by JimTolpin

I've never met Jim Tolpin but I would like to. True, he does live a fair distance from me, more than a days drive and longer than a walk as the crow flies but still, there it is. The New Traditonal Woodworker is a pleasant surprise. Coming from a machine woodworking background, I half expected Tolpin to either present with a glowing tribute to the wonders of hand tool woodworking or a studied description, tempered by the need to turn to his machines to complete a project. Not so.

Tolpin understands that both machines and hand tools are woodworking tools. He describes his turn to using hand tools as his primary method for working wood while not negating the sense and sensibility of machinery for some processes. The sub-title of the book really says it all: From Tool Set to Skill Set to Mind Set. Tolpin takes the reader through the process of understanding what makes hand tools work, why you would select a particular tool for a task or why not, how to apply the tool in the making of a project that, in the end,  teaches you how the tool operates. Did you think I wouldn't fit a run-on sentence in here somewhere?

Tolpin covers The Shop and Tools in the first 69 pages of the book, providing well thought out and realistic descriptions of types and applications. The remaining 100 pages are devoted to shop equipment projects such as bench hooks, sticking boards, try square, etc. that teach the use of the hand tools while leaving you with the shop devices you need in every day operations. Don't for a moment think these are your every day shop gadgets. They're all well thought out, nice to look at and excellent teaching tools too.

A combination of text, photographs and line drawings successfully balances this book in a pleasant manner. That's saying a lot. I have a thing about woodworking books and photographs. The photographs are a crutch. Tolpin combines all three in a manner such that each compliments the other and that is no easy task. I found myself reading, looking, examining and understanding what point he was making without the usual visual skipping back and forth from page to page, turning pages while trying to find the image referenced in the text. That takes a lot of work on the part of the author, the editor and the book designer and in this book, it works.

The New Traditional Woodworker works to uphold it's title. Full of practical tips from an experienced woodworker, you can do no better whether you're a novice, intermediate or advanced woodworker. My only complaint is that I can't get to Port Townsend to take a class or three with him.

Till next, Gary