1871 Sewing Machine

Today I thought I'd share an ad I found in a Charleston Newspaper from 1871. The shape of the machine is what struck me as so different.

Handtools

My dad has a great collection of antique hand tools. Someday I hope to photograph them. Which brings me to today's post. It is a simple one giving you a link to another source. Handtools were an important part of our characters lives in the 19th century. Below is a link to the Davistown Museum page on Handtools. There is a good size list of various companies which are hyperlinked to individuals pages with information about the company and the products they produced. Further research can be done by looking for individual images for the company and the tool in question from other search engines on the internet.

Blacksmith's Hammer

Below comes an excerpt from Practical Blacksmithing Vol. 4 by Milton Richardson ©1889

THE HAMMER.*
* * * The hammer is generally known as a rude instrument, but as a matter of fact it is in some of its uses a very refined one, requiring great care and skill in its use. * * *

Time forbids that I should refer to more than a few prominent forms of hammers. The carpenter's mallet has a large rectangular head, because, as his tools are held in wooden handles, he must not use a hard substance to drive them with, or he will split the handles. Wood being light, he must have a large head to the mallet in order to give it weight enough.

The author than goes on to explain a stone mason's hammer, a machinist's hammer.

USES OF THE HAMMER.
In whatever form we find the hammer, it is used for three purposes only, namely, to crush, to drive and to stretch. And the most interesting of these operations are stretching and driving. The goldbeater, the blacksmith, the sawmaker, the plate straightener and the machinist, as well as many others, employ the hammer to stretch ; while the carpenter, the machinist, and others too numerous to mention, use the hammer to drive. Among the stretching operations there are many quite interesting ones. Here in Fig. 3, for example, is a piece of iron, two inches wide, and an inch thick, bent to the shape of the letter u. This piece of wire is, you observe, too short to fit between the jaws, and I will now bend the piece and close the jaws by simply hammering the outside of the curved end with a tack hammer. The proof that the blows have bent the piece is evident, because the piece of wire now fits tightly instead of being loose, as before the hammering. The principle involved in this operation is that the blows have stretched the outer surface, or outside curve, making it longer and forcing the jaws together. If we perform a similar operation upon a straight piece" of metal, the side receiving the blows will actually rise up, becoming convex and making the other side concave, giving us the seeming anomaly of the metal moving in the opposite direction to that in which the blows tend to force it. This process is termed pening, because, usually, the pene of the hammer is used to perform it. It is sometimes resorted to in order to straighten the frame-work of machines, and even to refit work that has worn loose.

Block Planes

Hi all,

My dad has an incredible antique tool collection. I was hoping to photograph these tools to show on my blog but that wasn't possible without taking apart his display. I managed to pick up a couple of his planes and was surprised to find the bottoms weren't all flat.

Okay, some of you probably knew this but I didn't. My dad went on to explain that the various designs in the planes were for different cuttings, in much the same way we use a router today. This made me think back on the numerous door casings I'd seen over the years in older and Victorian homes and gave me a greater appreciation for all the hard work that went into making them. Think of the crown molding, the chair rails, etc. All of those curves were done by hand.

There's an article in American Woodworker Jun 1999 about Hand-Planned Moldings if you'd like to read further. There are a couple of photographs in which you'll see Wooden Block Planes.

I hope to have some photographs in the future but that will be quite a few months away. In the meantime you can search for Wooden Block Planes and find some images. Few show the bottom of the plane, the actual working edge, but you'll get the idea. And the articles gives you a greater appreciation for how the intrigue molding was made.

Wooden Block Planes have been around for centuries, in 1860 a cast iron bodied planes were developed by Leonard Bailey who sold his patents to Stanley Rule & Level in 1869. This design is still produced today.

If you'd like more information about Block Planes there is a great book out there "The Handplane Book" by Garrett Hack, John S. Sheldon, several pages of which are available for preview at Google books.

Here are a couple of pages from the 1894-1985 Fall Montgomery Ward Catalogue in full scan so you can read the details.
Pages 1 & 2
Pages 3

Anvils

The 19th century saw a lot of use of blacksmiths and their tools. I've been researching the types of Anvils that were most commonly used during the 19th century. Wrought Iron was common but in America it was generally cast iron.

The most common iron had a flat top and surface of harden steel. On one end there was a bick (horn or beak) to help mold rounded curves, such as horseshoes. Generally the other end was flat but you could find anvils with two bicks.

Ice Harvesting Tools

Below is a list of tools that were used over the years to harvest ice. This list comes from the book The Ice Crop ©1892

Clearing off Scraper (Snow Scoop Scrapers)
Ice Auger
Measure
Tapping Axe
Field Planer
Marker with swing guide
Field Plow
Swing Guide Plows
Hand Plow
Plow Rope
Line Marker
Cast Steel Saw
Two-Prong Fork Bar
Three-Prong Fork Bar
Four-Prong Fork Bar
Calking Bar
Breaking Bar
Ice Hooks
Elevator Feeding Fork
Chain Scoop Net
Sieve Shovel
Ring Handle Splitting Chisel
Channel Hook Chisel
Needle Bar
Toothed Trimmer Bars, Iron Handle
Toothed Trimmer Bars, D Handle
Jack Grapple
Handle Grapple
Channel Grapple
Wooden Skid
Packing Chisel
Tongs:
Wagon & Loading Tongs
Hoisting Tongs
Drag Tongs
Edging Tongs

Here's a link to Ice Harvesting Tools with a great chart of images of these tools.

Scythe Making

Okay, here I'm going to mention a little something about one of my ancestors. His name was Nathan Putnam. Nathan was a farmer who also had a business of making scythe's, hoes, axes. He was the first to have a trip-hammer to help in the production of the scythe making. His son, Abner, who is in the direct line of my lineage, moved to Ludlow, MA. and continued making scythe's there.

Below is an excerpt from the "History of the Town of Sutton, Massachusetts, from 1704 to 1876" that speaks about this scythe making business. It was an important part of the development of a community, in much the same was as a blacksmith was.

Excerpt:
SCYTHE, HOE AND AXE
making were also carried on at an early date–scythe making in particular. All these were at first beaten out by hand, afterward by the trip-hammers, operated in some cases by water-power and in some by horse-power.

There are several places in town which lay claim to the introduction of the first trip-hammer.

Mr. Oliver Hall says the first was put into operation by horse power by Mr. Nathan Putnam, who had a scythe shop near the house in which Mr. Hall now lives.

Mr. Putnam afterwards erected a building (the foundations of which may still be seen on the stream emptying into Manchaug pond, just below the village of West Sutton, a little west of the road to Manchaug, in which he had a trip-hammer operated by water-power. He forged his scythes in this building and finished them in the shop near his house. Scythes, hoes and axes were made at West Sutton–hoes and axes by Elder Samuel Waters and his son-in-law, Amos Waters, and axes by Cornelius Putnam.

End of Excerpt.

Nathan was b. 1730 d. 1813
The trip-hammer stayed in use throughout the first part of the 19th century. In 1839 the steam-powered drop hammer was invented and patented in 1842. By the end of the century the rolling mill and the adoption of puddling changed the steel industry.

But if you're writing in the early part of the 19th century, a trip-hammer was a mighty fine piece of machinery.

Hammers

Hammers haven't changed too much since the 19th Century however this excerpt from Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary ©1881 gives some great insights in which hammer to use for each job, as well as some historical information.

Ham'mer. 1. A tool for driving nails, beating metals, and the like.
We can hardly admit the statement of riiny that the hammer was invented by Cinyra, the discoverer of copper-mines in the island of Cyprus. Tools of metal, of which the hammer was among the first, must have been in use for many centuries. Tubal Cain, the descendant in the sixth generation from Cain, was an "artificer in brass and iron" ; copper, probably, rather than brass. Brass and bronze are not distinguished from each other, by name, cither in Greek or Latin.

The initial form was perhaps a stone fastened to a handle, and used as a club, A, B, C, D, E. Many such are found in the relics of the stone age, before man had learned the use of metal, the most useful of which, iron, was about the last to be discovered, of those which are applied to the common affaire of life. This stone age is so far in the remote past as to antedate all historical accounts of manners, customs, and appliances. The use of stone, however, in the mode described, still exists among many nations imperfectly provided with a better substitute. In the Bible we read of hammers for nails, forging, and planishing, and for breaking stone.
A B are ancient stone hammers, found in longneglected workings of the Lake Superior copper region, and are identical with those of other parts of the world. It is not necessary to give them an equal antiquity to the "celts," stone axes and hammers of the stone age of Europe, as many of the implements yet in use among the more barbarous North American Indians are of the same general character. See AXK.
Modern hammers are of many shapes and kinds. The parts are the Jiaiullc and head. The latter lias an eye, fact, peen, or claw.
F shows a riveting hammer. Of its parts a is the face, b the poll, c the eye, d the peen, e the helve.
G is a large hammer used by machinists. Between F and G is a claW, which takes the place of the peen of the other hammer. I and J are miners' hammers; K a miner's wedge.
Haininer-making forms a very important part of the industry of the great manufacturing center, Birmingham, and its satellite, Wolverhampton.
The nomenclature of the various kind*, which are numerous, is generally derived from their application, though iu some instances from the form.
File-maker's, sledge, riveting, lift, raising, claw, planishing, gold-beater's, hacking, veneering, may be enumerated among the numerous varieties, as well as tilt and steam hammers.
Hammers employed in engine work are of three sizes, the sledge, flogging, and hand hammers. See
also Miner's Hammer.

Lathe

A lathe is an incredible tool from the past that is still used today. However, today's lathe is powered with electricity during the 19th Century they were generally powered by food. Notice the foot pedal that was the primary power back then.

1891 Pocket Cutlery

Below are five knives from 1891 advertised in Youth's Companion. They were being offered as a gift with the price of a subscription to the magazine. I left most of that information out from their advertisements. However the magazine is available on Google books if you'd like further information. What I find interesting is that pocket knives haven't changed all that much. However, some of the tools within the knives have changed, like the hook for cleaning out horse hooves. Perhaps one of your characters might be in the need of purchasing a knife. Here are some choices.

This first image is of Farmer's English Knife this knife comprises nine distinct tools, --two Blades, a Lancet, Corkscrew, Reamer, Tweezers, Pick, Screw Driver, and a Hook for cleaning a horses's hoof. It is of special service to the farmer.

The next knife is Pearl Handle Boys knife. The Boy's Own Knife is a beauty, but it's more; it's made to cut and to kep its edge. No better-cutting Knife to be had at any price. German Silver Bolster, Rivet and Shield, and best of Pearl Handle

The next knife is a Lady's Pearl Handle Knife. The cut illustrates how our Lady's knife looks. We give the plan of this knife to our manufacturer, and this is the result. Fine English steel, faultless pearl and perfect finish are embodied in the knife. For a lady nothing would be better; for a gentleman, too, will find it a most useful vest-pocket companion. Large blade, nail blade and file, glove and boot-buttoner.

The fourth knife is a Four-Blade Pearl Knife, this is a find knife, --a Wostenholm pattern. It is made only to our order, and expressly for our subscribers. By controlling this special knife ourselves we are able to offer a rare premium at a low price. The cut will show you just how the knife looks, and its exact size. It is made from the best English steel, the pearl is the first quality and the hands is brass lined. The tips are German Silver.

The last knife is the Granger's Knife. The Blades of this fine knife are the best English steel and will cut like a razor. Stag-Handle, double German Silver Bolsters, Rivets and shields are brass lined.