Biddle?

Leave it to the 17th century to vernacularize (new word?) thatching tools. During my research of what we needed to thatch one of the houses in the village I first found that a biddle was a thatching ladder that hooks into the roof. This was all well and good...that was until I found that certain groups of people also called the paddle used for beating the thatch a biddle. Most of you will know this tool as a Legget, if you know it at all. Further still I have seen one source referring to this paddle as a Dutchman, referring to the Netherlandic (another new word?) pattern used.

This is half the problem doing research on work-ways in the period. Everyone calls similar items by different names, and even worse, different items by similar names. If that isn't enough, even when you know the name for something you might not spell it the same as they did back in the day.

For instance, I have seen these thatching paddles called: paddles, battles, liggets, dressers, baddles, biddles, leggets, beetles, bats, and...yes...even Dutchman. On a side note, beetles are also large wooden mallets used for splitting pale and persuading timbers, leading to an even more convoluted set of tool terms.

This is all academic minutiae of coarse and the only thing that matters is that leggets are very real things, even if they do exist in two places at one time. On to the build!

To start off, I found a white oak crook with just the right proportions and angles. Five minutes at the shaving mare and I had a very respectable looking handle. I also took a nice clear pine log (possibly Eastern White, but I can't be sure) and split it up to make a rough bolt. Five more minutes with a hatchet and I had a reasonably flat and square hewn board. Good enough for me!

The blank pieces before any joinery. Saw, hatchet, and draw knife.

The geometry of a legget is pretty simple, step off the board into equal segments, scribe parallel lines, and then mark the end grain with 45 degree angles. Next it was as simple as letting in the lines with a rip saw and paring the waste using a sharp chisel. I used a flat sided firmer chisel just to see if I could use the tools a farmer-carpenter might have available, but a bevel edged paring chisel would have made the whole thing a breeze.

Half way done, using my new carpenters bench...but that is a different story

After establishing the ribs on the front, I flipped the board over and scribed the handle onto the back to make a socket. This is real rough work...but also real precise work. It needs to fit as snug as possible so it stays tight after lots of abuse, but it is a tricky irregular notch, so there is room for some wiggle, I just used my judgement and a small 3/4" chisel.

The X was scribed on the back to find the center. The handle was placed by eye.

Finally was clenching the paddle onto the handle. I have the distinct advantage of working with two great blacksmiths, so I had hand made wrought iron nails to use. If you wanted to do something like this, or have another project in mind, the museum's blacksmith Mattheo does some great commission work, so check out his shop!

The handle and paddle joined.

I used four long nails that I clenched in alternating directions which will hopefully lend strength to the connection. The fifth nail was driven at a slight angle into the handle. Don't ask me why I did this...it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Some selective carving was done to allow for flat faces for the nail heads.

We only have two sizes of wimble and bits at the museum, nail and spike. Turns out the nail bit is slightly larger than the nails, as it should be when installing pale and clapboards, but it was a little looser than I would have liked on this project. Luckily I alternated the holes, and these wrought iron nails are great for clenching, so I feel like I got a nice strong connection.

This tool has a simplistic beauty that is unmistakable.

By May this legget should have one thatched roof and several cap repairs under its belt, so I will have to give a status report then. Overall I am really happy with the result, it feels super stable, has a great sweep to the handle, and is probably the most work-manly thing I have made to date. Total build time was about 4 hours from log to legget.

Did the settlers care about ergonomics, because this legget has it in spades!

Biddle

We are ramping up to thatch the new frame in the village, and to prepare I have been diligently researching the period tools necessary for traditional thatching. We will be thatching in the public eye, so authenticity is an absolute must. So first on the docket is the precursor (at least in my humble opinion) to the modern hook ladder used for slate roofing, the biddle.

Basically, a biddle is a short ladder with some iron hooks that pierce through the thatch and hook onto the lath on the roof. This gives a nice versatile working platform that you can move around at your leisure. I started with a bow of Sassafrass and hewed it on four sides. Working such a small piece of wood was a nice change of pace. I didn't even score to my line, just started hewing with a hatchet, and within the hour I had a relatively squarish timber.

I love the sweet smell of Sassafras while it is being worked

Next, I bored holes through the piece. I think I did every 12", but it is more important to be consistent than to hit an exact number. These holes will accommodate the rungs of the biddle, and are about 7/8" diameter. It is best to auger the holes before ripping the stiles apart, that way you don't have to bother with that shop math that always seems to go wrong to line up all the holes.

Two squares keep me boring plumb

Before the comments start flowing in, I know a screw auger is not 17th century accurate, but unlike the Brewster Chair, no one will know I used it because these are through holes. Sometimes efficiency trumps authenticity, especially when no one is the wiser (I think I just blew my cover).

Next was ripping the small timber into stiles. Luckily I learned the Tao of Saw Sharpening from the always helpful Saw Wright, Matt Cianci, so I had a newly sharpened rip saw waiting in the wings.

Using a wedge keeps the piece from pinching

This biddle will be used on roofs up to 30 ft in the air, so I wanted it to be as robust as possible. This lead me to put mortised rails on the top and bottom to hold the whole thing together. I chiseled the mortises with a 3/4" chisel, and cut the tenons to fit.

It is easier to fit the tenon to the chisel, than fit the chisel to the tenon

Keeping with the "I don't want to fall off the roof and die" mentality I also draw bored the mortise and tenons for a nice tight assembly. For the pegs I used bone dry riven white oak and noisily banged it through a dowel plate.

Dog holes in the bench are perfect places for the pins to be blasted through the plate

Remember my note on screw augers above? Yeah...refer to that in regards to dowel plates.

In addition to the draw bores, I also made all of the rungs with stopped shoulders and tiny little wedges to secure them into the stiles. Note to self, there is a reason they didn't wedge ladder rungs...it makes construction about twice as long. Now all I needed was a mallet and earplugs to knock this bad boy together.

Tap, Tap, Tap

I got a little carried away knocking the whole assembly together and it fell right off the bench, but it didn't self destruct, so that is reason to be happy.

It is easy to get giddy when approaching the end of a new, exciting project

The last piece to be dealt with was making the tiniest stupidest through tenons I will probably cut in my life. These were for the iron hooks that our blacksmith made for me. The mortises were 3/16" x 3/4" and went through the whole 3-1/2" piece of Sassafrass, and they had a stepped shoulder to boot.

A tight fit now ensures a tight fit later

Clenching the biddle hooks is pretty much the same as clenching nails...except you use a sledge hammer and swing as hard as you can.

There is a fine line between clenching and splitting with these bad Larrys

Finally, I step back and admire my hard work, not bad if I do say so myself. Total hand tool construction, all the way from felling the tree with an axe. Next on the list of thatching tools is a biddle (that is not a typo...but it IS a story for another time).

I need to get The Boss to take better pictures for me...

17th Century Hatchets

Being that at least half of my carpentry work is done in front of the public in a 17th century context, it is essential that my tools are as historically accurate as possible. The big problem with this ideology is that historical tools from this era are a little bit hard (aka damn near impossible) to come by, and when we do find them, we try to preserve and study them rather than smash them against pieces of wood.

As a work around, the blacksmiths at the museum reprofile modern axes to better impersonate these actual historical artifacts. My new hatchet started its life as a Wetterlings broad axe (that's right, us badass pilgrims use broad axes as hatchets, but I digress).

Stock Wetterlings Short Handled Broad Axe #190

The pattern that my new hatchet is based on is from Martin's Hundred and dated to around 1621. It was found in the ground along with various other tools, most likely buried there to prevent the native populations from repurposing the metal into tools and weapons.

Archeologist's sketches of a Martin's Hundred hatchet

The Wetterlings head is hack sawn away to the same profile as the Martin's hatchet, removing a lot of the weight from behind the eye and reducing the bit length by several inches.

The hacked up head...luckily this was not my job

Next I reground the bit into a nice fair curve, filed it for a convex bevel, sharpened it with whetstones, and stroped with a piece of leather charged with rouge polish. Finally I helved the hatchet with a white oak handle (remember these are English settlers in 1627, they probably don't know the wonderful qualities of Hickory as handle stock).

The finished hatchet. I like a nice healthy fauns foot for power! 

Overall this is a beefy hatchet with one hell of a bite. You can see how thin the historic hatchet is right in front of the eye, but the Wetterlings is quite thick, giving it much more mass. After four hours of trimming lath, I appropriately nicknamed this hatchet "Wrist Breaker."

Check out all that iron in front of the eye.

In order to protect the edge, and lessen the amount of sharpening I need to do, I made a nice wooden blade guard (note that this is not historically based on anything).

An ash blade guard with some hemp rope to hold it on.

The Dregs of Society

A lot of change is happening at work recently and as a result we are cleaning out spaces and finding fun toys...I mean tools...to play...I mean work...with. On top of that, our tractor is currently out of service, but work must go on. Luckily we found (what we thought was) a Dreg in one of the storage sheds.

A modern Dreg with spindly wheels.

Flash forward a week and we needed to move a log from the hewing bocking to the saw pit. The log was a wet piece of white oak 10"x10" 13 feet long, so it was waaaaay heavier than four men wanted to lift, what a great time to try out our new set of wheels.

Rope makes pulling and steering a lot easier.

What an easy job it was! If it wasn't for pulling the log up an icy hill we could have easily handled this thing with two men. Looks like a 17th century Dreg just topped the project list. It will make timber handling a fantastic exhibit rather than a dirty little secret we do before visitors arrive.

I get the easy job of taking pictures.

My new mistress, Mary Rose

In the words of Buddy the Elf.

"I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!!!"

That's right inter-world I have found a new mistress, and her name is Mary Rose. She is from the UK, loves the water, and looks pretty darn good for her age. We met at the museum and it was love at first sight. Before The Boss gets too nervous over my new affair I should mention that Mary is a 500 year old, 700 ton warship that sank over 400 years ago, 1545 to be exact.

Thankfully someone had the good sense to spend an inordinate amount of money excavating the remains of the ship from the bottom of the sea and documented every artifact that was found aboard. As far as I can tell, the Mary Rose is the single best collection of Tudor Era....stuff...that has been discovered in one place.

A second fantastic idea by The Mary Rose Trust was to publish a book covering in detail most of the artifacts found aboard the ship. Before the Mast; Life and Death Aboard the Mary Rose is by far at the top of my recommended reading list...in fact most of my coworkers are probably sick of me with my nose stuck in this book stopping only to show off a new picture, tidbit, or tool that I come across.

This book is far larger than any of my Engineering textbooks....but WAAAAAY better

Of particular interest to me (being a 17th century carpenter philosopher) is the amazing catalog of 16th century tools that were found in and around the ship carpenter's cabin. Rules, planes, chisels, chalk reels, mallets, grinding wheels, braces...I could go on and on. The archaeologist's descriptions and assumptions for some of the artifacts are suspect at best...but their drawings and documentation are top notch.

So if you love historical tool reproductions then stay tuned because I am currently working my way through this book in whatever tickles my fancy. However, if you cant stand historical hand tools and work ways, you should probably find a different blog, because this is totally my jam.

Nature Does it Best

I could have found definitive proof from a 1620s English woodcut of a pitchfork.

I could have designed small yet strong joints that could withstand years of bad weather.

I could have spent the afternoon dressing my stock and fussing to make sure everything fit tight.

Or...I could let nature do its thing, and take care of all the tough stuff for me.

My Mallet is Still Cooler than Yours

Still fightin' words, but once again I am confident that this statement is true...plus I now have two cool mallets that could absolutely beat up yours in a fight. On top of other ridiculous goings on at the museum, I am able to make my own tools in traditional manners. As I was making some gluts out of really nice straight grained hickory I noticed that this was some really choice wood...and I could really use a carpenters mallet.

I did some quick research and found some great wood cuts and engravings, as well as Moxon's description of a carpenters mallet. So based on these overall proportions and shapes I made myself as traditional a mallet as I could (of course beech would have been the ideal choice of wood). I limited myself to only hand tools, and even used a wooden plane to smooth the faces and fair the top curve (a lot tricker than metal planes, but really satisfying). The mortise is not as tapered as I would have liked, so I added a couple pegs to keep things nice and snug.

Heart wood and sap wood are just as useful in Hickory.

The Schwarz-Follansbee Complex

A few months back Chris Schwarz posted a string of blogs (here, here, and here) about "Roman Style" workbenches. I initially passed them off as a novel form of workbench, and figured it would be interesting to see what he did with his ideas of reviving these early workbench vernacular forms (that's right, I bought a thesaurus).

Pompeii Workbench, circa 50AD

Flash forward to last week and Peter Follansbee tells me that he is making some benches out of the oak flitches we had left over from some band sawing we had done for the "Big Fence" Project. I again thought nothing of what Peter had said...that was until I saw what the benches looked like.

A very familiar looking form

Instantly I thought back to the spindly legged workbenches that Chris had written about with slab tops and holes for holdfasts and planing stops. The two forms, deriving from two seemingly opposite origins, shared a shockingly similar appearance, in fact, they were so similar that I almost grabbed a brace and bit, bored a couple of holes in Peters bench, and took it for a test spin.

Needless to say I did not actually go through with this plan, for starters Peter would not be too happy to have me putting holes in his benches, and secondly I need to do some hardcore research into 17th century work holding and whether or not the "Roman" form was still in use by agricultural societies...like English planters in New England...say around 1627. Off to the archives!

Research will probably look something like this...

PS. I am pretty sure Chris and Peter are in cahoots. Kind of the ebb and flow of the hand tool world. They pretend as though they butt heads, but really they are masterminding the greatest renaissance since....well the renaissance. St. Roy probably has something to do with this as well.

Curse You Internet!

The casting is clean, and Hock Tools has teamed up to make an Iron for the kit.

I was perusing Joel's blog over at Tools for Working Wood and he had a post about a great little smoothing plane kit that is based off an old Work magazine reprint. The kit comes from Sturnella Toolworks and seems to be a unique project that is hard to come by these days. I have always wanted to do an infill smoother (with compound dovetailed sides and sole), but this kit seems to offer a similar end result while actually having the prospect of getting finished, plus the price is right. Now all I have to do is convince The Boss that I need yet another tool kit...wish me luck.

PS. I am starting to think I should rename my blog to "The Clueless Iron Monger"...but it just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Too Many Tools, Too Little Time

For my birthday I received several awesome gifts from my very supportive friends and family. I asked for a set of joinery backsaws (dovetail and sash) and they delivered.

Looks like I will be practicing my saw wright skills in the future.

The only problem is that none of them have handles!!! Luckily my in-laws also got me a handle maker's rasp (I must talk way too much about my hobby at parties). Unfortunately I am starting my new job as a Plimoth Plantation Artisan, so I am extremely limited in time. This means that I will have to put off handle making for some time, or use the saws handleless getting my greasy mitts all over the nice bright blades.

Hand Stitched rasp made specially for shaping totes. It is toothed on the curved side and smooth on the back.

PS. I am very lucky that my job as a hand tool carpenter is getting in the way of my hobby of hand tool furniture construction, I guess I can't really complain.

PPS. As you can see from the photographs these tools came from Tools for Working Wood and their Gramercy Tool Line. This is my favorite hand tool company and I can't recommend them enough."