Jigs for sharpening, jigs for slicing off thin bits of wood. .

Bosh !

This isn't how the West was won or Louis XV got his furniture made.

be a man - learn to do without the props.

Axe and adze made the wooden walls of England and discovered America. 
Slicks removed the splinters from the floors and jointed the beams of the 
Great Halls and Barns. 

Aye!  Axe, adze, slick, saw,  drawknife  and auger.   All else is wussy 
city dweller stuff. 

Richard 
Going to extremes of long ago.

But when you think about it, all manner of ideas stem from the notion of 
'jigs' - they allow less skilled men to carry out work to a standard, but 
you need enough capital to have some of it lying around tied up in jigs. 
Capital meaning not only cash outlay but the opportunity cost of making 
jigs when you could be doing paying work.  There's no rosy view about the 
skilled men who used 'sharp on a stick' and nothing else - they were 
equally tied to production, and their 'capital investment' was the huge 
amount of time it took to become proficient enough to produce, say, the 
likes of a Robert Thomson table top from nought but an adze.   I've seen 
and used a Thomson table, and could sit there and *look* at it and marvel 
at the skill that produced it - but at what cost in time.  Time is 
nowadays money, instead of being something that goes by as you produce a 
piece of highest quality.   Consider that a widespread adoption of the 
'planing jig'  would have led to flat surfaces, where before all surfaces 
rippled, and caught the light, and reflected it back now in one place, now 
in another.   Doubtless many thought the dead flat surface was so boring 
and machine made.  "These new fangled planing jigs have taken the life out 
of our furniture" they would say - "It's not near as good as it were in mi 
Dads day - no character" 

and so on down the ages until now we invest huge amounts of effort in a 
factory full of jigs that produce flat pack furniture direct from ground 
up reconstituted tree with barely a human hand in site. 

Methinks it behoves us of the Galoot turn of mind to choose carefully when 
we select tools and consider jigs - not turning away from the means of 
simplfying or speeding up our work, but ever conscious of the need to 
acquire the skills to differentiate our work from the output of the flat 
pack farm. 

A galoot Yorkshireman having a bit of a rant. 

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DQoNCg==

Excellent thoughts on a subject very dear to my heart. Whether tailed or
tailless, there are so many gadgets out there to be bought or made that
one has to wonder where could all of that be kept in such an order as to
be immediately retrieveable as one or the other is needed.

Seems that every one of the mags has a new article every month on making
the ultimate this or that jig that every shop must have in order to
accurize or speed up your work. And every mag every month has an article
on the newest must have jig or apparatus costing in excess of my
mortgage payment which, after hours of set-up time, can help you create
the perfect M & T, or wonderfully easy DTs or what-have-you.

And the forums are full of folks touting the great benefits of this new
gadget they just spent the baby's milk money on that effortlessly
sharpens this or that, or makes setting up a tool to within thousandths
of an inch of accuracy to cut material that can change in tenths of an
inch overnight given a good rain storm, or a hot dry day.

Now, I've bought at least my share of gadgets over time in an effort to
by-pass the learning curve toward being proficient with one or another
tool, and have found them to produce well below what was expected. Now,
with the exception of a few jigs that get a whole lot of use, set-ups,
what there are, are one-off things done with scrap and clamps, which are
disassembled after use to be recycled into the next one-off set-up.

But I guess there are enough folks out there with the time, space, and
money to support a market for the store bought gadgets. As for me, I
would rather spend those resources on making stuff.

Jerry

Hmm
Colonial Dick Hucker wonders about Noah. . . 

Putting aside the religious baloney touted as fact, and looking at, say 
Egyptian artefacts of that period, it is quite popssible for bronze tools 
to have been in use for dealing with major timbers.   Holes can be 
produced  using bronze tools of the flat bit configuration.  For 
drawknife, you could read 'knife' though again, a bronze implement would 
be possible. 

The notion of a huge wooden ship constructed on mediaevel lines which is 
the one painted in the story books so often would be inappropriate for the 
period. 

I wonder when mankind *did* first start making and using something the 
size of a boat - the investment in time for even a dug out canoe, built 
with fire or tools, must have been enormous.  And what would you do with a 
hollow log anyway=3F 

"hey - you seen what crazy Eddy is doing over there - taking all the 
middle out of that log - been doing it all summer "

"haha  - he reckons its going to carry him over the river - as if a 
regular log doesn't do that. . ."

- Well, something like that anyway.. 

> But if Noah built the Ark as we are told. .
>. . what tools did he use some 4000 yrs. ago=3F
 

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own virus checks before opening any attachment.

I resent both of these statements.  Are we going to allow this=20
on this list?

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard.Wilson@s... [mailto:Richard.Wilson@s...]=20
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 11:39 AM
To: oldtools
Cc: oldtools@c...
Subject: Re: [oldtools] Sharpening jigs (short)

Putting aside the religious baloney touted as fact,=20

But if Noah built the Ark as we are told. .

---------------------------------------------------------------------

For information on Christian Salvesen PLC visit our website
at www.salvesen.com.

The information contained in this e-mail is strictly confidential and
for the use of the addressee only; it may also be legally privileged
and or price sensitive. Notice is hereby given that any disclosure,
use or copying of the information by anyone other than the intended
recipient is prohibited and may be illegal. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender immediately by return
e-mail.=20

Christian Salvesen PLC has taken every reasonable precaution to
ensure that any attachment to this e-mail has been swept for viruses.
However, we cannot accept liability for any damage sustained as a
result of software viruses and would advise that you carry out your
own virus checks before opening any attachment.

>I wonder when mankind *did* first start making and using something 
the 
>size of a boat - the investment in time for even a dug out canoe, 
built 
>with fire or tools, must have been enormous.  And what would you do 
with a 
>hollow log anyway? 

I believe it was the Greeks. They even went so far as to build there 
own navy. They were sorta the Stanley Tools of their time
http://www.showgate.com/medea/ships/grkship1.gif

Regards
Jonathan

Jim chides
>I resent both of these statements.  Are we going to allow this 
>on this list=3F

>>Putting aside the religious baloney touted as fact, 
>>But if Noah built the Ark as we are told. .

My apologies Jim

I had *no* intention of offending anyones religious beliefs, or any other 
sort of beliefs. 

and no, we don't allow inflammatory talk of that sort on this list.  It's 
the friendliest, most courteous place on the internet, and I'll do a week 
of spitoon duty (no posting)  to keep it so.. 

Richard 
humbled in Northants. . 

"Bramel, Jim" <jbram00@e...>
06/05/04 18:06
Please respond to "Bramel, Jim"

 
        To:     "oldtools" <oldtools@c...>
        cc: 
        Subject:        RE: [oldtools] Sharpening jigs (short)

I resent both of these statements.  Are we going to allow this 
on this list=3F

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard.Wilson@s... [mailto:Richard.Wilson@s...] 
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 11:39 AM
To: oldtools
Cc: oldtools@c...
Subject: Re: [oldtools] Sharpening jigs (short)

Putting aside the religious baloney touted as fact, 

But if Noah built the Ark as we are told. .

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and or price sensitive. Notice is hereby given that any disclosure,
use or copying of the information by anyone other than the intended
recipient is prohibited and may be illegal. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender immediately by return
e-mail. 

Christian Salvesen PLC has taken every reasonable precaution to
ensure that any attachment to this e-mail has been swept for viruses.
However, we cannot accept liability for any damage sustained as a
result of software viruses and would advise that you carry out your
own virus checks before opening any attachment.

Accepted.  Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard.Wilson@s... [mailto:Richard.Wilson@s...]=20
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 12:13 PM
To: Bramel, Jim
Cc: oldtools@c...
Subject: RE: [oldtools] Sharpening jigs (short)

Jim chides
>I resent both of these statements.  Are we going to allow this=20
>on this list?

>>Putting aside the religious baloney touted as fact,=20
>>But if Noah built the Ark as we are told. .

My apologies Jim

I had *no* intention of offending anyones religious beliefs, or any
other=20
sort of beliefs.=20

and no, we don't allow inflammatory talk of that sort on this list.
It's=20
the friendliest, most courteous place on the internet, and I'll do a
week=20
of spitoon duty (no posting)  to keep it so..=20

Richard=20
humbled in Northants. .=20

> I believe it was the Greeks. They even went so far as to build there
> own navy. They were sorta the Stanley Tools of their time
> http://www.showgate.com/medea/ships/grkship1.gif

Somewhere in Homer's _Odyssey_ there is a passage about shipbuilding,
with references to tools and construction. The _Odyssey_ as we know
dates from early in the Classical Greek period (600-800 BC), but much of
the material is considerably older.

The Greeks probably learned about ships from the Minoans (c. 1400 BC).
There was also extensive sea commerce in the eastern Mediterraean
(Cyprus, Phoenicia, etc.) about that time.

IIRC, the Egyptians were importing timber from Lebanon even earlier.
That must have been carried by ships.

Glenn McDavid gmcdavid@c... http://www.winternet.com/~gmcdavid

 Yes, apparently the egyptians were making boats of bound
papyrus around 4000BC.  Cheops' pyramid (2500BC) has two
big lebanese-cedar boats about 50m long buried beside it.

a

> IIRC, the Egyptians were importing timber from Lebanon even 
> earlier.  That must have been carried by ships.
> 
> Glenn McDavid

>Somewhere in Homer's _Odyssey_ there is a passage about
>shipbuilding, with references to tools and construction.
>The _Odyssey_ as we know dates from early in the Classical
>Greek period (600-800 BC), but much of the material is
>considerably older.

Here is the only passage I could find--searching through a
database of Greek texts, not actually reading the Odyssey,
which I haven't done since high school.  I also am NOT verifying
the accuracy of this translation, since relearning Greek,
which I last studied in the late 80s, is not high on my to-do
list right now.  Maybe after I finally build my bench!

To recap:  Odysseus (Ulysses) has been shipwrecked and is held
hostage by the beautiful nymph Calypso on her island.  Finally,
Zeus intervenes and convinces Calypso to let him go, because he
would rather return to SWMBO (Penelope) than have a nymph sugar
mamma .

"As soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, straightway
Odysseus put on a cloak and a tunic, [230] and the nymph clothed
herself in a long white robe, finely woven and beautiful, and
about her waist she cast a fair girdle of gold, and on her head
a veil above. Then she set herself to plan the sending of the
great-hearted Odysseus. She gave him a great axe, well fitted
to his hands, [235] an axe of bronze, sharpened on both sides;
and in it was a beautiful handle of olive wood, securely fastened;
and thereafter she gave him a polished adze. Then she led the way
to the borders of the island where tall trees were standing,
alder and popular and fir, reaching to the skies, [240] long dry
and well-seasoned, which would float for him lightly. But when
she had shewn him where the tall trees grew, Calypso, the
beautiful goddess, returned homewards, but he fell to cutting
timbers, and his work went forward apace. Twenty trees in all
did he fell, and trimmed them with the axe; [245] then he
cunningly smoothed them all and made them straight to the line.
Meanwhile Calypso, the beautiful goddess, brought him augers;
and he bored all the pieces and fitted them to one another,
and with pegs and morticings did he hammer it together. Wide
as a man well-skilled in carpentry marks out the curve of the
hull of a freight-ship, [250] broad of beam, even so wide did
Odysseus make his raft. And he set up the deck-beams, bolting
them to the close-set ribs, and laboured on; and he finished
the raft with long gunwales. In it he set a mast and a yard-arm,
fitted to it, [255] and furthermore made him a steering-oar,
wherewith to steer. Then he fenced in the whole from stem to
stern with willow withes to be a defence against the wave,
and strewed much brush thereon. Meanwhile Calypso, the beautiful
goddess, brought him cloth to make him a sail, and he fashioned
that too with skill. [260] And he made fast in the raft braces
and halyards and sheets, and then with levers forced it down
into the bright sea." (from book 5--translated by A.T. Murray)

This Calypso doesn't sound too bad to me!  How many of you
(other than possibly Todd) have had a nymph give you a polished adze?

Before you ask, one commentary suggests that the trees used
were dead but still standing.

Have a great weekend.

Brian Welch
Worcester, MA