How I Spent The Holidays

Ahhh, back from a nice, two-month blogcation.
But don't think for one minute that I didn't keep busy during my time off.

I got plenty done. P-L-E-N-T-Y.

Music: "You're the Cream in My Coffee" by Colonial Club Orchestra

Extended Holiday

I'm planning to take November and December off from the blog.

It's been 3 years, 2 months, and 418 blog posts since I started it and there are things I need to do that I've put off during that time.

Vacuuming comes to mind. The dust bunnies have morphed into dust rhinos.

Yardwork is another. A machete makes a handy appliance as you navigate the terrain to our front door.

And there are other things I've neglected. Like home repairs, cleaning out my business files, balancing my checkbook. Flossing.

Plus, I want to put some thought into VC 2.0. Maybe things will look a little different in two months. Maybe I'll write about things other than handtools. Like ball bearings. Or knitting.

Who am I kidding. I hate change. Things will look exactly the same as how I left it.

Anyhoo. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, group hug, and see ya next year!

Harvest Days, Part II

Harvest Days at the Landis Valley Museum is the best traditional, hometown country fair I have ever attended.

Artisans in period costume showed patrons how things were made by ordinary people a century and a half ago.

It's a fantastic place to bring kids, where history walks and talks and shaves wood right in front of them.

Doug Shaw, who makes hayforks, rakes, scoops, ladles, and shovels, carved spoons at his shaving horse.

And Claire Garman, the on-site cabinetmaker, chatted with me in the woodworking shop.

As a young boy, Claire remembers visiting the Landis brothers on their farm and in the very woodworking shop where Claire volunteers today. "They were characters" he said of the brothers. "If they needed something, they just built it."

The Landis brothers were inventive, resourceful, and lifelong bachelors. And in 1925, they invited the public into their lives by turning their homestead into a museum.

During the two-day event, you can dance to live bluegrass music in the yellow barn and in front of the old hotel, eat homemade apple dumplings, ride in a horse-drawn wagon, watch pies and bread being baked in open hearths (and then sample them!) and tour the historic buildings on the 100-acre farm.

I can hardly wait until next year.

Hypothetically Speaking

Let's pretend that you've built a PA German sawbuck table, and the last time you knocked it apart and put it back together, the top refused to slide onto the rails.

Rather than waste time trying to figure out what might be wrong, because it had never given you trouble before, you reach for your mallet and persuade the table top to slide home.

*Snap!*

That was the sound of the dowel portion of two spindles—which hold the rails to the leg assemblies—breaking in half.

No wonder antique sawbuck tables are frequently missing their pegs; impatience is not a character flaw exclusive to the 21st century.

Upon discovering that the ill-fitting table top was the result of one of the leg assemblies having been inadvertently turned around while putting the table back together, you are faced with the task of repairing or recreating two spindles.

The dilemma is, you really, really, REALLY do not like to use the lathe.

So you decide to make new dowels by hand using a block plane to rough-shape the pegs, and a metal dowel plate to finalize it.

Photos one and two show a rough-shaped dowel and a finished one (in the foreground). Notice the smoothness and shininess of the finished dowel. You sanded and waxed it, right? Nope.

You discovered by accident that (after using the dowel plate—photo 4), if you tap the "wee-bit-too-tight" dowel through the peg hole a few times to compress the fibers, the endgrain that lines the hole burnishes the facegrain of the dowel.

You think to yourself, if you need for a dowel to slide easily upon removal, you can always bore a slightly smaller hole in a scrap piece of wood and tap the dowel back and forth through it to compress the fibers even more. (In theory, 'cause you haven't actually tried it.)

Now all you need to do is bore a hole in the handles of the two broken spindles and glue the new dowels in place.

But let's imagine that you haven't gotten that far and haven't quite figured out how to do it yet.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Nuns in the Workshop

I found this video, thanks to Sean Hellman, who posted other videos on his site. Enjoy.

NUNS LEARN WOODWORK

Harvest Days, Part I

I've already marked my calendar for next October's Harvest Days at the Landis Valley Museum.

This was the first year we attended and it was worth every penny (and not just because Turkey Hill was handing out free ice cream).

During the two-day event, various 19th-century reenactors showed what life was like in a small country village.

It didn't take long for me to spot a woodworker—Jack Stone, the cooper.

Jack learned to make buckets and piggins using traditional methods from the John C. Campbell Folk School. Since then, he's been making coopered items to sell as a part-time business.

His butter carriers, which are lidded buckets (photos 2 and 3), have an interesting locking mechanism where one end of the handle is slid into a mortise, and the other end is locked in place with a pin.






Jack makes hoops from white oak or metal with brass rivets, and staves from sassafras. The wooden hoops take quite a while longer to make, but they add a certain homespun detail.

Check out the other photos to see Jack's unique ways to rout the groove for bottoms and shave the staves to final width. And check out his website to see a short video about his wooden hoops.

Googly Eyes

Why on Earth have I wasted money on cosmetics all these years when all I needed was a set of jeweler's magnifying glasses to make my eyes look bigger and my nose look smaller?

I started working on the little cooper carving and decided to invest in a pair of these* in the hopes that I could achieve a higher level of precision than my current capabilities. (That's the roundabout way of saying that my 46-year old-eyes don't see as well as they used to.)

The carving isn't much to look at yet, but the progressive shots in the group photo give you an idea of the magnifying capabilities of the four lenses that are included in the box.

Powers of magnification include 1.2x, 1.8x, 2.5x, and 3.5x—more than enough for my use. A tiny light that runs on batteries will probably stay in the "off" position (unless I take up coal mining) because I keep a task light attached to my bench.

The headband is adjustable and comfortable, and the instructions are lots of fun: "Under sunshine, please do not put it at window or at the focus of combustibles."**

So far, I'm well-pleased with my purchase.

And, while I don't want to get so wrapped up in details that I never complete the project, I am hoping that the lenses will help me become a little more accurate.



Oh, and the other cool thing about these glasses? They add a bit of pizazz to my Steampunk ensemble.

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*Note: I am not advertising for this company and I do not benefit in any way from sales of this or any of their products.
**I do not mean to offend non-English-speaking individuals. I think the turn of phrases within the instructions is charming.

There are other visors/magnifiers on the market, but these are the only ones I've tried. If anyone has had good luck with another brand, feel free to let everyone know in the comments.

Jerusalem Mill

Jersalem Mill, a Quaker village established in 1772, is located in Maryland's Harford County.

Business partners Isaiah Linton and David Lee set up several grist mills along the Little Gunpowder River in the second half of the 18th-century. Buildings sprang up over subsequent years to create a village surrounding Jerusalem Mill.

A gun shop, located behind the mill, is believed to have produced muskets for the Maryland militia during the Revolutionary War. In later years, the building was used for coopering, housing, and rental space.

The blacksmith shop is across the street from the mill, a general store is just a short walk away, a springhouse is tucked away in a nearby field, and Jericho Covered Bridge is an easy quarter mile walk down the road.

A few other buildings in the restored village are privately owned and are not open to the public.

The mill ceased operations in 1961 when the property was purchased by the state of Maryland. It then became part of Gunpowder Falls State Park. Extensive renovations to the mill, gunshop, and blacksmith shop, all of which had fallen into disrepair, brought them back to life.

We visited the village on Colonial Craftsmen Weekend, where reenactors pitched tents, demonstrated traditional crafts, and sold handmade products.

I learned that walnut hulls cooked in water create a natural stain. Yellow is the easiest color to achieve with natural ingredients and green is the most difficult.

When making lye soap, the consistency is correct when an egg will float with just a quarter size section of its shell showing above the liquid.

And I learned that wax must be cooked at just the right temperature—not too hot and not too cool—in order for it to adhere to the string that's dipped into it to form a candle.

The two men who were working in the woodshop were very friendly and were happy to talk with another woodworker.
If you plan to visit, you can find Art Benser, the master woodworker, in the shop every Sunday, unless Christmas falls on that day.