My trip to a spectacular museum
I recently went to a museum about a forgotten job that went around for a century in my country. I don't know how it would be called in english, but these women and men harvested some types of plants (reed, cattail, rush, sedge and prickly rush), processed them into all kinds of goods.
From stylish bags for women, chair seats, shoes, roofs etc.
But the coolest part of the museum (for me at least) were the impressive amount of old, vintage carpentry and woodworking tools.
This is an old workbench in the european style (or scandinavian if you prefer) with Roubo influences (look at the dovetailed tenon of the right leg).
It features a humongous leg vise with a pin board as fulcrum. Look at the impressive amount of toolmarks. This bench was used everyday for decades!
The tail vise is an engineering work on itself. The farthest part of the bench moves on its own with just a turn of the handle.
It doesn't look mass produced, it looks to me like the work of a carpenter/woodworker and the drawer tells the story.
It's beautifully dovetailed (and it's still gap free) with a nail jammed to strenghten the joint.
Next, there was another piece of Roubo craftmanship. A gigantic saw in the Roubo style. It looks like white oak, but it was too far away to properly identify. This saw was used to re-saw large boards in thinner boards, crucial for maximizing the material without wasting any with scrubbing.
There was also a part dedicated to green woodworking:
This is an adjustable shave horse to use along with a draw knife.
A collection of chisels, screwdrivers and awl.
All dated from 1920 to 1940.
This is the last picture that I want to show you. This is part of a very old chair.
To me, what's amazing is seeing the layout lines to establish the length of the mortise on the chair's leg. These layout lines are easily 100+ years old and tell a wonderful story of craftsmanship and utilitarianism.
The piece were requested and it had to be intensively used. So the woodworker quickly worked down the stock to the proper size, laid out the joinery, fit everything together, even with some gaps, slapped some boiled linseed oil on it (there is no trace of varnish or shellac) and sold the piece, without even planing off the pencil marks.
These marks traveled a century to reach us and tell us a story of a man in need of money and a client in need of a chair. It didn't need to be perfect, it's far from it. It needed to be functional and it clearly is since it reached us in 2025.
I loved immersing myself in the past and in the days of old craftsmen, it humbled me and encouraged me to make more stuff, following the old ways, because if a piece of Ikea furniture manages to stay in a home a few years before reaching the landfill, while these pieces are able to outlive generations, it means that the old fellas knew something that we forgot.
And it's probably the ability to properly value their time, life and money.
#woodworking #grownostr
It features a humongous leg vise with a pin board as fulcrum. Look at the impressive amount of toolmarks. This bench was used everyday for decades!
The tail vise is an engineering work on itself. The farthest part of the bench moves on its own with just a turn of the handle.
It doesn't look mass produced, it looks to me like the work of a carpenter/woodworker and the drawer tells the story.
It's beautifully dovetailed (and it's still gap free) with a nail jammed to strenghten the joint.
Next, there was another piece of Roubo craftmanship. A gigantic saw in the Roubo style. It looks like white oak, but it was too far away to properly identify. This saw was used to re-saw large boards in thinner boards, crucial for maximizing the material without wasting any with scrubbing.
There was also a part dedicated to green woodworking:
This is an adjustable shave horse to use along with a draw knife.
A collection of chisels, screwdrivers and awl.
All dated from 1920 to 1940.
This is the last picture that I want to show you. This is part of a very old chair.
To me, what's amazing is seeing the layout lines to establish the length of the mortise on the chair's leg. These layout lines are easily 100+ years old and tell a wonderful story of craftsmanship and utilitarianism.
The piece were requested and it had to be intensively used. So the woodworker quickly worked down the stock to the proper size, laid out the joinery, fit everything together, even with some gaps, slapped some boiled linseed oil on it (there is no trace of varnish or shellac) and sold the piece, without even planing off the pencil marks.
These marks traveled a century to reach us and tell us a story of a man in need of money and a client in need of a chair. It didn't need to be perfect, it's far from it. It needed to be functional and it clearly is since it reached us in 2025.
I loved immersing myself in the past and in the days of old craftsmen, it humbled me and encouraged me to make more stuff, following the old ways, because if a piece of Ikea furniture manages to stay in a home a few years before reaching the landfill, while these pieces are able to outlive generations, it means that the old fellas knew something that we forgot.
And it's probably the ability to properly value their time, life and money.
#woodworking #grownostr