Just saw a great show on Woodwright. Last year (2007) but still good. I know, a little late.
Roy did a show on the Moravian influences and a lot on the Benches. From the early Germanic with the heavy tail-vises to the later addition the shoulder vise and on to face vises. Complete with hand forged screws, taps for wooden ones and great old hand forged iron dogs. Roubo,s etc. If you get a chance to see it, it’s one of the better historical perspectives. Great Woodbutchers!
(even had a poufy sleeved docent)
On a lighter note with an Olde Frothingslosh, watched a Norm and his Table saw how-to series. Interesting to see his dado blade wobble. Not not the stacked blade, but the whole thing. You gotta look close but it does!
Like watching the intake on a jet when the turbine cover is purposely graphic’d to be out of balance as a warning.
and No, it was not the Frothingslosh.
BB
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Unfortunately you're a bit far away to make a visit, but if you're ever in NC, go by Old Salem for a visit. The guys that Roy was talking to are very eager to shoot the breeze about traditional woodworking, and you can walk right up and examine the tools/benches in their collection. They're a lot less fussy about that than the museum docents are about the furniture that those tools produced!
I would if I were back there.I went to a Schwenkfelder school and studied at desks made by Moravian woodworkers in the heart of the original Moravian area. There used to be a lot those examples when I was back in the Pennsylvania Moravian area near Bethlehem,Pa. (Lititz, Emmaus) Some great examples on Staten Island. Still more examples as you follow the movement's progress south to Old Salem, The upper Piedmont etc. Most of the master woodworkers who built Biltmore House were Moravian as were most of the Vanderbilts themselves.If I only knew then...Side bar- The Schwenkfelders are still in existence but most famous for two people. A guy who put up spirits in a small jug (glass) named W.M.Booze from Pennsburg, Pa and a certain California mill owner named John Sutter who while on his immigrant journey from Baden lived briefly in Intercourse.BBEdit spelling
Edited 8/31/2008 7:42 pm by boilerbay
Hmm - Intersting history lesson. I knew the Moravians at Bethabara and then Salem came from Pennsylvania and points North, but didn't know about the connection to the Biltmore house. I've never been to the Biltmore (european extravagance is not to my taste), but I really can't imagine what it must've took to build the place in the days before portable circular saws and diamond stone cutter's bits.
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