"Eric Stevens" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 20:12:24 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
(Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:
Eric Stevens wrote:
....snip...

The point is that in medieval times one of the tasks of an apprentice
on his way to becoming a journeyman was to make himself a set of
tools. This included the basic blacksmith work of forming ind
hardening chisel and plane blades.

The set of people who could work iron at a forge in medieval times
and whom might be considered "blacksmiths" would include farriers,
armourers, wheelwrights, shipwrights, alchemists, coopers, ironmongers,
bladesmiths, machineists millwrights and instrument makers.

I'm not exactly sure who the first manufacturer of tool steel was
or whether damascus steel exactly fits that label but the idea of
working metals and their alloys by folding and welding billets of
different steels and hammering them out at different temperatures
until they were properly placed so as to optimize their hardmess,
workability, durability, flexibility, corrosion resistence, etc; and
or percentages of austenite, pearlite, cementite, martensite etc;
must have reached a fairly sophisticated level by the time
the Vikings met the Skraelings.

I don't think its unreasonable that among a ships crew there
would be some with the skills of blacksmith and carpenter
sufficient to make tools from scratch,

As you are demonstrating, the
amount of work entailed is inconceivable to the modern person who is
used to just going out and buying something. It is inconceivable that
someone of that era should take along a collection of planes as part
of their stock of trade goods.

I don't think that follows. Iron and steel were certainly being mass
produced
even in Roman times. Most iron age civilizations could make nails, knives,
hammers, axes, adzes spears, swords, carpenters tools, farming impliments,
barrel hoops, wheel rims, and horseshoes. Most iron age wrecks include
collections of rusty tools.

All it takes to make a plane is a plane iron, a block of wood with a mortise
and a wedge to hold the iron in the mortise so it could bring a shaving
up through the mouth of the plane. All the fancy bits like fences,
mortising grinds, depth stops, handles, and combinations of cutters
and adjustment screws are refinements.

Yet you think they would gladly trade axes.

You equate the manufacture of a plane with that of an axe?

Why not? Actually the axe requires more steel and its the steel
making that is the hard part, not putting a handle on it.

....snip...

That does not mean that planes would never be traded but it would be
traded under special circumstances.

I'm not sure that a finished plane would have been as common a trade good
as a plane iron but judging by the inventories of the makers at Sheffield
and
the cargos of the wrecks of the fur traders who travelled by rivers deep
into
the interior of north america, axes, adzes knives, etc; often came both with
and without handles.

http://www.davistownmuseum.org/bioJamesCam.htm

And when those special circumstance exist, the plane is a trade
item. Since we know they did exist, we know that a plane would
have at times been a trade item.

....snip...

Another thing you have to consider is that that the inuit almost
certainly no tradition of the kind of carpentery which would benefit
from the use of a plane.

This gouge adze is from the Davistown museum in Maine
http://www.davistownmuseum.org/pics/071003na32_p1.jpg

The earliest paleo indian artifacts of the east coast seem considerably more
primitive
than the earliest paleo indian artifacts of the west coast. This raises the
question of
why it is more reasonable to believe that the migration was from west to
east if
that theory requires that the ability to make highly refined lithics could
have
been lost to this degree in so short a period of time.

They had got on very well with the kind of
things they could make from knives and axes. I would expect that they
would immediately have seen the benefit of steel knives and axes - but
a plane? What would they do with it other than rob it of its steel
blade?

The Inuit were and are reputed to be great carvers and boat builders so
while axes, adzes slicks and knives might be the first choice for utility
I would think plane irons and or scappers would have been highly prized
and used in the same tradition as the gouge above.

Well, if you can see that robbing it of its steel blade would be
useful, then you've just shot your other foot off too.

Then they wouldn't value it as a plane. Merely a source of steel. As
trade goods go, nails would be as effective as planes.

Do modern Inuit use and value planes? Why wouldn't their ancestors

....snip...

In regard to the plane itself, the frame for either a kayaq
or an umiaq would be exactly the place where a plane would
be very useful. Clearly we know that shipwrights used planes.

For precisely fitting straight edged joints. For smoothing large
surfaces. Where do either of these depend on a plane in the
constructoin of a kayak?

Because the better a joint fits the stronger and more dependable
the frame is. In a house with huge timbers it may be acceptable
for it to move a little but in a very lightweight frame the tighter
the fit the better.

And clearly we know that cabinet makers use planes. I have
read in other articles that you apparently are quite familiar
with wood working and also with boat construction. Can you
not see the need for a tool or method which does *exactly*
what a plane does if one is going to use driftwood, often
with intricate and precise splicing needed, to construct one
of these frames? They are at least as precision as the work
done by cabinet makers.

First, they are not as precise as the work done by cabinet makers.

This requires a little discussion. Native american arts and crafts are
precise in an organic way being carved to fit but not necessarily
plumb, square, level, straight, parallel, perpendicular or alligned.

Existing bends are accepted rather than sawn straight leaving the
grain in its strongest configuration but allowing there to be
more torgue on the connections requiring them to be lashed
rather than mortise and tennoned or pinned.


Second, all kinds of precise and complex jointing was done with axes,
adzes, knives and chisels. Planes only figured with decorative work.

Early planes tended to be used to make things fair and smooth.

Examples would be the masts, yards, spars, frames deck, ceilings,
strakes and planking of ships which had been roughed out with
axes and adzes, and things that go in houses including windows,
doors, floor boards, tables, chairs, chests, moldings, stair parts, etc;

most complex joinery was done with saws and chisels rather than
axes and adzes which were primarily used to square up timbers.

And of course it happens that Eskimos have always been "gadget"
people. So both the tool itself, and the use it is put to,
would have been just as interesting to them then as it is now.

Many of the things we associate with Eskimos such as kyak frames and
dogsleds
involve long straight strips of small crossection which are lashed together.
Allowing the strips could be split from long vertical grain planks
touching them up with a plane, axe, adze, spokeshave or knive
would have equally effective.

And as you say, if nothing else they would want the blade. A
typical Eskimo tool kit for carving consists of any number of
bladed tools, and there is simply no way that any Eskimo in that
time period would have passed on a chance to obtain the blade
from a plane.

And it would have survived as a blade. The survival of the rest is
debatable/questionable.

For a plane to have survived as a plane it would have had to have been
used as a plane or at least more valued as a plane than as a metal blade.
As metal blades were useful and valuable I'm inclined to think that at least
this one individual had a use for smooth boards.

And of course we do have at
least one such tool that parted company with one owner and went
to at least one other. We also know they were being traded all
over Europe by then, and had been for hundreds of years.

Certainly there would be some degree of trading amongst the craftsman

....snip...

of the period, whether by exchange of tools (my broad chisel for your
plane) or by payment for services in kind. But it is wrong to suggest
that they had become a general item of commerce in the way they are
now. In fact, in parts of Europe it was illegal to own the tools of a
tradesman unless you had been properly indentured and were either a
journey man (or better) or apprenticed to a master.

I'm inclined to think of a plane as being in the set of things that might be
exchanged diplomatically in order to improve relations with a neighbor.

In that sense it might even have been borrowed and not returned
in which case that might explain the iron having remained with
the plane body.
....snip...

Not to mention that you are perfectly willing to allow that a number
of other tools might have been traded, just not a plain old plane.
As if a plane was all that special...

Just try making one.

I never bothered making a plane, though I have diddled a bit
with tool making. I don't see a _simple_ plane as being in the
slightest bit difficult. Certainly figuring out a design to
accomplish certain special tasks would be no mean feat though.

Given a plane iron making a simple plane is not that difficult

I suggest you commit yourself to sitting down in a forest and not
coming out until you have made a plane from what surrounds you.

Making the tools to make the tools is always more work so a blade
of the right size to do a job is a valuable thing. This puts a huge
advantage in the hands of a person coming from a metal working
culture that can trade plane irons to a non metal working culture.

If you want to pressure flake a piece of flint chert or obsidian into a
blade
you need to locate flint chert or obsidian, a lap hide and antler or the
equivalent.
The body can be made from a piece of wood that you have mortised.

If you come from a non metal working culture and you want a steel blade
but don't have the opportunity to trade for it you need to locate a source
of iron ore, cut and split some wood to burn to make charcoal and find
some clay to make an oven to cook it in. You need to make bellows
to get the temperature you need to heat the iron ore and you need the
charcoal to put enough carbon in the billets to make steel, all that
assumes you have the tools to mine the ore and cut the wood
or you have to make them too.


Regardless, whether *I* can make planes is not what determines
if they are all that special. They aren't. They are very common
ancient tools.

Evidence?

"Carpentry. Almost every tool--from the crude to the sophisticated--known to
modern carpenters was used by the ancients: axes, adzes, hammers, mallets,
wedges, chisels, drills, lathes, right- angles (or T-squares), plumb bobs,
compasses, planes, rasps, and polishing agents of various kinds.
Evidence exists for the use of almost every modern technique as well:
mortising, tenoning, treenailing, beveling, gluing, and intricate joining
and inlaying. "

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/wood.html

among others the article cites:

Glanville, S. R. K.
"Records of a Royal Dockyard of the Time of Tuthmosis III," Zeitschrift für
Assyriologie 66 (1931) and 67 (1932).

Lucas, Alfred
Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries. 4th ed., rev. and enl. by J. R.
Harris, London, 1962. See chapter XVIII, "Wood," 429-456.

Meiggs, Russell
Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxford, 1982. The
magisterial overview of the western fringes of the Ancient Near Eastern
world as well as a thorough commentary on both Egyptian and Assyrian timber.

Merhav, Rivkah, ed.
Urartu: A Metalworking Center in the First Millennium B.C.E. Jerusalem,
1991. Hundreds of artifacts which encased or were in enclosed in wood.

Postgate, J. N., and Powell, Marvin A., eds.
Trees and Timber in Mesopotamia. Bulletin on Sumerican Agriculture, Vol. VI.
Cambridge, 1992. The most up-to-date summary of trees, timber, species
identifications including ancient names, wood products, trade, prices, and
wood-use, from the texts and from archaeological excavation.

Shaw, J. W.
Minoan Architectu Materials and Techniques. Annuario della Scuola
Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente. Vol. XLIX. Rome,
1973, especially pp. 135-185 on wood use in construction.

Simpson, E., Spirydowicz, K., Dorge, V.
Gordion: Wooden Furniture. Ankara, 1992. An extraordinarily well-preserved
set of ancient furniture illustrative of the best of the carpenter's craft.
Complements R.S.Young's report.
...
....snip...
The manufacture of a kayak entailed finding and identifying suitable
bones (whether made of wood or not) and using them to construct the
skeleton of a kayak. Almost nothing was quite straight and almost
nothing was rigidly jointed,

How about a dogsled, also built of "suitable bones (whether made of wood or
not)"

I would allow that the frames may or may not have been straight, aligned,
smooth or fair
but my expectation is that each length from joint to joint was still scarfed
or lapped where joined
and that the joints, albeit lashed or sewn rather than pinned and flexible
rather than rigid were
eventually connected to one piece runners which needed to be both straight
and smooth.


Eric Stevens

regards,

steve