Handcraft

“ That a clergyman living in a remote village, whose life had for the most part been spent with books, should contrive a machine of such delicate and complicated movements, and at once advance the art of knitting from the tedious process of linking threads in a chain of loops by three skewers in the fingers of a woman, to the beautiful and rapid process of weaving by the stocking frame, was indeed an astonishing achievement, which may be pronounced almost unequalled in the history of mechanical invention. ”

“ One can not but wonder at the perfection of workmanship wrought by stone tools—knives and daggers exquisitely carved out of wood or the bones of the cassowary, bracelets, frontlets, and necklaces of shells, mother-of-pearl, dogs' teeth, and straw braids finely woven. ”

“ The hand tool is frequently a lively and decorative symbol of a society at a given time—a symbol, which, according to the judges at London's Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, gives "indications of the peculiar condition and habits of the people whence they come, of their social and industrial wants and aims, as well as their natural or acquired advantages." [8] The hand tool, therefore, should be considered both as an object of appealing shape and a document illustrative of society and its progress.
Figure 15.—18th century: Cabinetmaker's dividers of English origin. ”

“ The most marked phases of this civilization are found in the development of basketry and pottery, and the exquisite work {202} in stone implements. Every conceivable shape of the arrow-head, the spear, the stone axe and hammer, the grinding board for grains, the bow-and-arrow, is evidence of the skill in handiwork of these primitive peoples. Also, the skill in curing and tanning hides for clothing, and the methods of hunting and trapping game are evidences of great skill. ”

“ As with leather, so with stone, the hand tools and hard labour have not changed in principle since the ancient days. The hammer for breaking, the lever for lifting, the saw for cutting, rubbing-stones and irons for smoothing and polishing, sand and water for the same purpose, the mallet and chisel, and other implements for ornamenting, the square, the level, and the plumb for their respective purposes, all are as old as the art of building. ”

“ Clever in pottery and metal work, making hoes and knives, casting bracelets, anklets, and even bells from the brass rods of trade, beating out brass wire, and ribbon, they strike you at once as being of a superior type. ”

“ Look where we will, we find the hand in time and history, working, building, inventing, bringing civilization out of barbarism. The hand symbolizes power and the excellence of work. The mechanic’s hand, that minister of elemental forces, the hand that hews, saws, cuts, builds, is useful in the world equally with the delicate hand that paints a wild flower or molds a Grecian urn, or the hand of a statesman that writes a law. ”

“ The article to be ground and polished is passed over wheel after wheel, from the coarsest stone to the closest grained leather, until, if it be a blade, it becomes keen and dazzling, or, if it be a handle, it becomes smooth and glossy as glass. And now having seen the blades and handles separately prepared, let us pass on to see them put together.
“But your knife,” says the reader, “has more than blades and handle; it has a file and a button-hook, a gimlet, a corkscrew, a saw, and I don’t know how many more useful tools.” ”

“ Embroidery is done with the needle. The plain seam, the hem, the gather, the back stitch, are simply so many forms of the work of an artist.
Century after century our needle-makers have been improving in the manufacture of this simple but effective little machine. In the complicated civilization of the present time we have an almost infinite variety of needles: the ordinary sewing needle for the making of garments; smaller needles for lace work, the hemming of delicate handkerchiefs and the seam of fine silk goods; and coarse and heavy needles for carpet sewing, bagging, and leather work. ”

“ So of every one who practises, apparently automatically, a long-familiar handicraft. The smith turning his tongs as he smites the iron, the carpenter wielding his plane, the lace-maker with her bobbin, the weaver at his loom, all will answer the same question in the same way by saying that they have a feeling of the proper management of the implement in their hands. ”

“ By 1900, the carpenter's tool chest, fully stocked and fit for the finest craftsman, contained 90 or more tools. Specialization is readily apparent; the change in, and achievement of, the ultimate design of a specific tool is not so easily pinpointed. Only by comparing illustrations and surviving examples can such an evolution be appreciated and in the process, whether pondering the metamorphosis of a plane, a brace and bit, or an auger, the various stages of change encountered coincide with the rise of modern industrial society. ”

“ The work of the hand—as apart from that of the machine—is more and more in demand, and decorative needlework, even in our shops, is becoming more to be desired, for unique and personal characteristics and expression, than it has been for a very long period. ”

“ The days of mahogany and rose-wood were also the days of handicraft of both needle and loom; and many were the beautiful articles of needlework and textiles that added grandeur and dignity to the tester—the chef d’oeuvre of the mechanic’s art. ”

“ What a picture of the influence of tools upon civilization! It is through the use of tools that man has [8] reached the place of absolute supremacy among animals. As he increases his stock of tools he recedes from the state of savagery. The great gulf between the aboriginal savage and the civilized man is spanned by the seven hand-tools—the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the square, the chisel, and the file. These are the universal tools of the arts, and the modern machine-shop is an aggregation of them rendered automatic and driven by steam. ”

“ The tools used are an instrument resembling a chisel and an iron-headed hammer. These tools are of native make, forged roughly by a native blacksmith, so hardly the most suitable for the work they are required to perform. ”

“ The number of artists and craftsmen, in widely different branches of art and manufacture, who were employed to design, turn out, and finish a suit of armour, or a weapon for war or for the chase, was simply legion; and, of course, in the case of enriched suits, or arms, still more were brought into requisition. There is the designer, modeller, steel, silver and gold smiths, carvers, enamellers, inlayers, engravers, repoussé or workers in hammered work, damasceners, polishers, and hosts of other craftsmen, each contributing his quota of industry and skill to one complete whole. ”

“ It imparts and cultivates mechanical dexterity, just as learning to read and write spontaneously developes mental capacity. Therefore, whoever masters a course of Hand-Craft acquires an aptitude for all kinds of material processes. Such an aptitude, while useful and gratifying to the individual, is of the greatest consequence amongst people so deeply interested as the English are in manufacturing pursuits.
Hand-Craft also has strong claims to be cultivated as a recreation, and experience proves that it may be so regarded, with every prospect of becoming popular as such. ”

“ These, with the primitive hammer, formed the principal stock-in-trade of the early mechanics, who were handicraftsmen in the literal sense of the word. But the work which the early craftsmen in wood, stone, brass, and iron, contrived to execute, sufficed to show how much expertness in the handling of tools will serve to compensate for their mechanical imperfections. Workmen then sought rather to aid muscular strength than to supersede it, and mainly to facilitate the efforts of manual skill. ”

“ The labour of using a hatchet, and the material which it wastes, are saved twenty times over by the saw. But when the more delicate operations of carpentry are required—when the workman uses his planes, his rabbet-planes, his fillisters, his bevels, and his centre-bits—what an infinitely greater quantity of labour is economized, and how beautifully that work is performed, which, without them, would be rough and imperfect! Every boy of mechanical ingenuity has tried with his knife to make a [Pg 180] boat; and with a knife only it is the work of weeks. ”

“ At each machine sat a human being working with hand, foot, and eye, watching the flashing needle, guarding the margin of the seams, jerking the cloth hither and thither quickly, accurately, watching the spool to see that the thread ran freely, oiling the gear with one hand while the other continued to push the garment rapidly under the needle, the whole body swaying, bending, twisting this way and that to keep time and pace with the work. ”

“ Our stock of tools is, as I think I have said before, an American axe, an adze, a hammer, and a gimblet—a mighty assortment to take our ship to pieces, and build another one with, if even there was any carpenter or blacksmith among us, which there is not. ”

“ The garments consist of the same gold thread which forms the background; it is simply carried through the whole of the work, [4] with the exception of the head and nimbus, which are worked separately and appliqué to it afterwards. The hands, even, are done over the gold in short satin-stitch. The flesh-tints are coloured strongly but finely, and the shading is put in boldly. The sympathy between design and work is so marked as almost to indicate the same hand ”

“ The Hammers.—Of the multitude of tools used by mechanics, the hammer is undoubtedly the most important one. There was a time when man had only his hands to work with, and from them he must have received his ideas for tools. Three prominent ones which are used extensively at present were most probably imitations of the human hand. From the act of grasping, man could easily have originated the vise or tongs for holding materials that he could not hold with the hand. ”

“ In early and medieval times needlework as an adjunct to weaving and outline work by itself was used with a most perfect artistic effect, done in couched metals or silken cord, or in simple chain-stitch or back-stitch, &c.; while, as for appliqué, many gorgeous vestments may still be seen retaining much of their original beauty, worked in satin on velvet, silk upon damask, &c., Botticelli and other great masters not disdaining to draw designs for such work with their own hands. ”

“ There are various ways by which leather-bound books may be decorated, but tooling, either in gold or blind, is by far the commonest, and it is tooled bindings that we are considering here. “Blind” tooling is the impression of hot tools on the leather. The most satisfactory tools for blind work are those cut die-sunk like a seal. These, by depressing the ground, leave the ornament in relief. Tools for gold work are cut so that the ornament with the gold is depressed below the surface of the leather. ”

“ Persons neither skilled in the use of tools nor interested in technical history will find that there is another response to the common auger, as there was to the upholsterer's hammer, the 18th-century brace, or the saw with the custom-fitted grip. ”

“ Fig. 477.—Ornament derived through the modification of handles.
Functional features.—Functional features of art products liable to influence ornament comprise handles, legs, feet, rims, bands, and other peculiarities of shape originating in utility. Handles, for instance, may have been indigenous to a number of arts; they are coeval and coextensive with culture. The first load, weapon, or vessel transported by man may have been suspended by a vine or filament. Such arts as have fallen heir to handles have used them according to the capacities of the material employed. ”

“ You can see the brass-workers incising the arabesques of their trays; you can see the armorers making arms, the ribbon-makers making ribbons, the jewellers blowing their forges, the ivory-carvers bending over their delicate task. ”

“ The fencer who can transfer his weapon to the left hand, places his adversary at a disadvantage. The lumberer finds it indispensable in the operations of his woodcraft to learn to chop timber right and left-handed; and the carpenter may be frequently seen using the saw and hammer in either hand, and thereby not only resting his arm, but greatly facilitating his work. In all the fine arts the mastery of both hands is advantageous. The sculptor, the carver, the draftsman, the engraver, and cameo-cutter, each has recourse at times to the left hand for special manipulative dexterity ”

“ Iron rules and squares in various sizes, shears, knives, compasses and spring dividers, folders, files, pincers and hammers of different sizes, chisels, gouges, and punches.
The finisher's tools are: Gold cushion, gold knife, scraper, steel; and furthermore, for hand-tooling, letter-box, fillets, rolls, ornaments, and letters, all very fine and very dear tools, which must be kept in special cupboards and boxes so as to protect from possible injury. The higher the class of work done in the shop, the larger must be the stock of these tools. ”

“ For the benefit of those who are interested in the technicality of what is known as ‘tooling,’ we will briefly describe in what it consists. ‘Finishing tools’ are stamps of metal that have a pattern cut on the face, and the shanks of which are held in wooden handles. Such patterns can be complete in themselves, or the single ‘tools’ may have only the elements of a pattern that needs to be built up, for the ‘tools’ must not be too large, or they cannot be worked with sureness of result. The design is composed of these ‘tools’ in combination with gouges which are curved lines. ”