Bentwood-Boxs-art - 2/9/20
"Boiled - Exploration of the History and Construction of Bentwood Boxes" by HL Alasdair Mac Roibeirt.
NOTE: See also the files: wood-bending-msg, wood-msg, wood-finishes-msg, woodworking-msg, Sharpng-Tools-art, wood-msg, wood-utensils-msg, coopering-msg.
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This article was added to this set of files, called Stefan's Florilegium, with the permission of the author.
These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
Copyright to the contents of this file remains with the author or translator.
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Thank you,
Mark S. Harris...AKA:..Stefan li Rous
stefan at florilegium.org
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Boiled - Exploration of the History and Construction of Bentwood Boxes
by HL Alasdair Mac Roibeirt
Table of Contents
Introduction and Background
Materials
Tools
Research
Researching the Process
Researching the History
Shapes and Decoration
History of Construction in Estonia
Putting Research into Action
Part One -Box 8935
Initial Experimentation
Project Build
Part Two - Working Green Wood
Part Three - Assembly
Future plans
Conclusions
Bibliography
I attempted woodworking within the SCA several years before I really got started as a woodworker. My first few attempts at making boxes and tables were more charging in and seeing what happened than having any real plan and results showed it. In 2005 I decided I needed a nice chair, no more modern folding ones. I invested in some tools, had a plan someone else wrote up, and strong determination to make it work. In the end I did have a useable chair, but it wasn't quite right, so I tried again, and again.
After the chairs, I built a range of things for my camp. Tables, beds, chests, more tables, different boxes, different beds, looms, lucets, whatever looked interesting or people asked me about building. In 2012 I discovered an article entitled "The Norwegian Tine" that discussed bending wood to make boxes. I was fascinated and began to try my hand at creating them.
The remains of such boxes have been found from the Neolithic period on into modern time. Excavations have found them in in England as well as scattered about Europe. They are called Svepask and Tine in Scandinavia, as well as wedding boxes, chip boxes, bride boxes and snap boxes in other areas. Some were found or depicted with lids, other were decorated in such a way as to imply they did not have a lid. Illuminations from the 14th century show that oval ended boxes on shelves and under tables, mostly closed but sometimes with sewing supplies or similar small items in them. The farther I look the more I find images and evidence of bentwood in day to day life.
Box currently in the Viking Museum Haithabu, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
By persevering and with luck I have been able to find more information on the history of Bentwood Boxs. They are simple in appearance, but construction would require some knowledge, skills, and tools that would be the domain of a skilled Craftsman.
Over the years I have used a variety of different woods for the boxes. Some were successful, like white oak and ash, some less so, such as bubinga and bloodwood. My more recent working is in exploring the properties of green or air dried of late as it is local to my area and more easily obtainable. Despite surviving examples of Bentwood out of hardwoods in the thesis Helena Aberg (Åberg, 2008) list a tradition of using pine in her research into bentwood boxes in her native Sweden. I have yet to try bending pine but have added it to my ever growing list of things to explore.
Ash, quarter sawn oak, birch and lacing used for boxes
The material used for the bindings is not well documented, rushes, strips of thin green wood, leather and even thin roots have been suggested but nothing has been proven. For the majority of the bentwood boxes I have made, including those made for this paper, I have used a paper base material used for cane chair making.
Hand plane, chisel and bending form used during process.
Most of my process had been reliant on modern power tools, and for production for use, still is, but I have started working with more period or at least plausibly period tools as research and experimentation open options to me. Due to a lack of knowledge and available tools I had been using a jointer to flatten and square, thickness planer to ensure the faces were parallel. Moving to the table saw to cut the blanks from a larger board, then drum sander to make sure they are flat and even. Recently I have begun experimenting with splitting out from a log with maul and wedge, and then hand planning down to thickness. The water trough for heating is powered by propane, primarily for safety and convenience. The lacing holes were drilled with a cordless electric drill, I have since moved to using a reproduction spoon bit. The bases are cut on a band saw, then filed to be a tight fit to the exterior of the box. A rabbit is cut with a plane to allow the box to slip down onto the base prior to pinning the sides to the base. Once removed from the water the bodies are held together with a style of clamp depicted in Woodworking in Estonia (Viires, 2016) consisting of two flat pieces of wood attached with a cord at the base and then lashed shut at the top. This method is primarily useful for round boxes only. For oval boxes I am still relying on plywood cauls and spring clamps to keep the lathe tight on the bending form while it dries. I am unsure if the lathes would have been only laced shut or if they would have been also glued. I lace as well as glue for stability. For comfort and to reduce the chance of splitting the inside edge of the body, and top edge of the base are lightly beveled with knives and planes, as are the inner and outer edges of the top of the body.
What tools would have been used is not known for certain but my current speculation is based on green[i], wood[ii] In a green woodworking situation it is possible that the wood was split with a froe and mallet and then smoothed with either a plane or an axe. However as I looked further I find no reference to the use of a splitting froe, while the use of wooden wedges is referenced in splitting planks for boat building. Using a drawknife and a shaving horse to further flatten and reduce the thickness would be the following step, I have used a drawknife but have yet to produce a shave horse and instead rely more heavily on a hand plane. Heating in a trough of hot water before bending the hot and pliable wood around a pre-shaped core and allowing to dry. Once dry I auger with a small spoon bit to bore the holes to lace the body closed. A base would have been split out as well also then trimmed to fit the base with a small axe. Once the base was trimmed to shape holes for the pegs would have been bored through the walls into the base. Preparing the base of the body as well as the top of the base would have followed as I have done with knife and plane.
Using a combination of file and plane to bring the base flush with the sides, but leaving an overhang for the top.
Small Tine similar to the style in Anderson's article.
In 2012, I was taking a class on cabinetmaking, focusing on skills of use for SCA furniture. The class itself was on cabinetry and other architectural woodworking, but the building shared space with a boatbuilding class as well. While looking at all of the things I wanted to build I happened upon an article in Popular Woodworking By Jim Anderson entitled "The Norwegian Tine" (Anderson & Balazs, 2012). A Tine, pronounced "Tiner" is made of a single layer of thin wood that was wrapped around to lace itself into the body of a small box. It was amazing! The box had dragons carved on it, and graceful lines, and it was a historical design. I had to know more, and I had to make one. Reading the article Mr. Anderson gave good instructions and a pretty good set of pictures to follow so off I went. The first thing I needed to figure out was how to get the wood to take the proper form without breaking. Mr. Anderson's article suggested using a trough of boiling water to loosen the lignum in the wood to make it pliable but I decided to try going a different route and started to use the steam box that the boat builders used for bending timber for the hulls they were building. I started with very thin, approximately 1/8" slats of walnut an steamed until they were starting to flex. I very quickly found that I needed to steam them much longer as my first several attempts proved to still be too stiff and broke. I kept trying, using longer and longer times until I found I could get the boards bent around the form after about a 10 minute steam if I moved fast and clamped as I went.
My first form was built out of several layers of MDF, MDF is an acronym for Medium Density Fiber board a very flat, very stable form of product found in woodworking fields. If you have never seen it before it is basically sawdust and glue compressed into a board. It's heavy but not very sturdy and is often used for templates and patterns. I glued layers of the MDF together and then used a router to cut a groove into the top and bottom ½" away from the edge of the form so my spring clamps could hold the wood tight to the form. I would steam the slat of wood for 10 minutes, then quickly remove the wood from the steamer and clamp an end to the form, then press the form down against the floor as I rolled the slat around the form to force it into shape and clamping about every inch. My first attempt met with about a 25% success rate. I can document its origin back no earlier than the 18th century. The form of the box known as a Tine, or a snap box is an oval with an inset base and a lid that overhangs the body and is attached by two upright pieces of wood that fit into slots cut into the lid. The upright pieces are cut so they have a lip that is pressed against the top of the lid keeping it from lifting off of the box when you lift the lid by its handle. When you pull the uprights away from the box, the body flexes allowing the two ends to pull away and the lid can then be removed. To close you put the lid between the uprights and gently push down, the lid forces the uprights away until it is below the lip and the uprights then "snap" back into place. It can be a bit unsettling to people the first few times, leaving them sure they broke the box.
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Looking into bending wood led me to several different sources, one of which was a book from Fine Woodworking Magazine on bending wood (Fine Woodworking, 1985). In this book I found a number of pieces of advice and several different methods of bending wood. One method was using multiple thin pieces of wood, glued up in a form to achieve a complex shape, an interesting technique but not of use to me as it would leave the body to stiff to flex. Another was dry bending over direct heat. By applying an electrical current to an iron pipe and wetting the wood I could get a very directed and precise bend. I found it was not a preferred method for me due to a tendency to burn the wood and the overall application of technology beyond my targeted time period. Aberg (Åberg, 2008) shows lathes being bent by holding them close to a fire while still green and working them by hand to produce a bend, a method I have yet to attempt.
Some information I pulled from the fine woodworking book, were of a great deal of use to me.
❖ The species of lumber: In retrospect it seems obvious that some woods would naturally bend better than others. The original article had instructed me to find straight grained lumber with the grain as close to parallel to the base of the box as possible, but it was a good reminder.
❖ How the wood was dried and if it was dried: Most commercially available lumber is kiln dried, that is to take lumber cut straight from the tree, cut it to a nominal size, and place it into a giant temperature-controlled oven to remove the excess water from the wood. Drying the wood making it more stable and less prone to moving or warping based on temperature and humidity. Kiln drying is faster than air drying and brings the moisture content lower, but it also lightly cooks the wood making it more brittle for my applications. By using air dried wood, I could reintroduce moisture to the board by soaking it, helping to both transfer and retain heat to the wood, as well as soften it to reduce breakage in the bending process.
❖ Using a backer against the wood as I bent it: A thin flexible strip of metal to compress the wood and help prevent tear out proved to be very helpful.
With the new information, wet air-dried wood, suitable species, soaking, and a backer I went from 25 percent success to 75 and remained constant there for several years.
The uprights I was using were nowhere near as elaborate as those produced by Mr. Anderson in his article but are more in keeping with the examples I was seeing. I started with small pieces of wood that proved to not have enough size for purchase to open the box easily. I made my uprights larger and put a slot down the middle to allow it to straddle the side of the box. The overall shape hit a good point and became fairly stable as I still use it to this day
Illuminated depiction of a bentwood box with a handle
I had an overall successful design that I was able to reliably produce in several sizes after roughly 5 years of trial and error. What I did not have was any proof they were used inside the SCA time frame. Examples I have seen pre 17th century have all been of bentwood boxes with fitted lids, usually with a less sever bend to the ends. One find that was particularly exciting was an illumination found in the Virtual Manuscript Library of Sweden. The illumination depicts the first bentwood box with a lid and handle that I have found dated prior to the 17th century (33b, 1420 - 1440)
In 2017 I was asked to produce a bentwood box accurate to the styles seen in 15th century illumination. A box with a lid that was fit over the top but was not intended to be carried. I began looking closer at illuminations and came across two books that helped immensely. The first was entitled Domestic Wooden Artefacts in Britain and Ireland from Neolithic to Viking Times (Earwood, 1993) that I obtained through interlibrary loan.
Still Life with Shells and a Chip-Wood Box
By Sebastian Stoskopff – Late 1620s
It had information on a great many items and I highly recommend it. This book detailed the sizes and shapes of bentwood containers and offered me a greater insight in how the boxes were put together. The second book is Woodworking in Estonia (3) and contained detailed history of the tools and practices of the woodworkers in Estonia from the 19th to 20th century. While this falls outside of my target time period many of the tools used were virtually identical to those found in my target zone.
Most relevant to me was the section on bending wood and the items that were made from doing so. Most of the items shown would not have looked out of place in a 9th through 16th century home.
One box found in a Danish grave has been dated to 1380 and does not appear to have been painted (Vester Vamdrup, "Guldhoj", ca. 1380 v. Chr., 2011). There are also numerous surviving example of painted bentwood boxes from that time period. In addition, there are paintings from 19th century artists of unpainted boxes identical to those seen in earlier illuminations.
Boxes pictured in the illuminations are shown primarily as round ended, however some oval ended are seen. The boxes are often shown with a shallow lid on or near them and laces or lashings of some sort piercing the front. Excavated and post period examples show that the overlapping ends of the body are laced together, often with a flexible reed or strip of bark. The bottom and top are both connected by either small dowels going through the sides or in some cases stitched on similar to the construction of the body.
Perhaps the biggest turning point in my research of late was through a discussion with Kate Fox, an instructor at the Northwest woodworking studio and a member of the SCA known as Drusa Saturnina. A chance meeting at Kingdom A&S 2016 led to a conversation and the information she also was interested in Tines and taught a class on them. Further discussion at June Faire 2017 about success and failure in the bending process led me full circle to the process of bending wood with hot water just as the long-ago article by Mr. Anderson had shown.
In the book "Woodworking in Estonia" (Viires, 2016) a process used for construction similar containers is described. In the description there is a differentiation between boxes, usually less than 7 ¾" diameter and 4" in height, and hampers at 11 3/4" diameter and up to 7 ¾" in height. Boards were always worked green, while they were at the most flexible and least likely to crack. Additionally, boards were created by splitting the log, not sawing, so as to keep with the grain of the wood to minimize cracking and chipping.
To begin a tree would be felled and then be cut to the required length and split in half with wedges. Each half would be further split into thirds or halves depending on the height of the container being made. The resulting wedges would then be split to produce two boards useable for producing boxes. The boards would then be scraped with an axe to remove thickness and sharp edges to begin bringing the board down to final thickness, while the bark is removed from the outside. Final thickness was approximately 1/8".
For this project I chose to attempt a recreation of artifact labeled 8935 from the 16-22 Coppergate excavation (Morris, 2000), focusing on the physical properties of the box without the decorations. Box 8935 is a circular box caricaturized as being constructed from radially split ash for the body and radially split oak board for the base. The walls were overlapped and sew together with two vertical rows of an unidentified organic stitching. The rows were separated with a rectangular section of decorative carving. The base was secured by means of four equally spaced pegs and a fifth peg through the middle of the overlapping section.
This box is consistent with similar boxes excavated in England and Europe dating from the 6th through the 14th century.
Diagram of Box 8935 from Coppergate excavation (Morris, 2000)
Box 8935 is diagramed as having a 20cm diameter, translating to 62.8cm circumference. The height is shown as 8cm with the base inset and not visible from the outside. The lathe walls are listed at 4mm thick.
Measurements based off the illustration show an overlap of 12cm.
My initial approach to this project was with white oak, a material I have had experience and success bending in the past. I wanted to attempt to bend the boards free hand without a form or backer board which I had used in the past. I had very mixed results with this attempt. A number of the boards split horizontally in the body of the walls, I suspect this was due to the temperature of the water being to high. When I bent the lathes they came out oval, not the round I was hoping for. I clamped the overlap and then pressed in on the sides to attempt to round the bodies. The final form was closer to round but very irregular. This lead me to discard my theory of no bending form or core. I also decided to reexamine my plan and use materials as close to the historical example as I could get.
Images showing the inconsistency of the unsupported hand bent form (left) and cracks in the lathe from excessive heat (right).
I chose ash for the body, selecting lumber that appeared to be quarter sawn as the closest to radially split that I was able to acquire. Due to some confusion in my notes, I initially ended up with birch for the base unlike the original oak (Morris, 2000). As the main focus of the project was the actual ash walls of the box I didn't feel that the substitution of the birch would affect the functionality of the box or substantially change its strength or stability. I did acquire white oak for my final box.
I began by taking my board and ensuring I had flat sides perpendicular to each other through the use of modern power tools . Once I was assured of flat and square edges cut the board to slightly larger than 1/6" thickness on my table saw and then progressed to the drum sander to smooth as well as even out the resulting lathe. I then returned to the table saw to cut the lathe down to final width and length. Out of a single board approximately six feet in length and six inches in width I was able to construct eight laths dimensioned at thirty inches long and four inches height. These lathes were then places in a trough with water for forty-eight hours prior to heating. Prior experimentation had proven to me that too high of a temperature would make the boards more prone to drying brittle, so I began with a lower temperature and heated the boards until steam had risen from the water for approximately twenty minutes but not allowing the water hot enough to boil. When I removed the first slat from the water and attempted to bend it by hand it rapidly took on an elongated shape, due to the large overlapped flat section. When I secured the two pieces with spring clamps and attempted to hand compress the shape to be rounder it proved not to work equally, and lathe cracked.
Images of the lathe cutting process
With the bodies failing to attain an even enough circle, I reverted back to making a round block I could secure my lathe to so that it would dry in a more correct circular form, and also further lowered my water temperature until it was as low as I could get my burners without going out. The resulting water temperature was similar to the hottest temperature coming from the faucet in the kitchen.
Using the form and the lower temperature I was able to achieve success with 3 initial bodies. Once dried for twenty-four hours I removed the bodies from the form and used spring clamps to maintain the circular form. I used a drill to put a set of evenly spaced holes vertically near the edge of the overlap one the outside, also a second set of vertical holes near the internal edge of the overlap.
Lathes soaking in warm water (left), attempt at bending lathe by hand resulting in elongation of form and cracks (center), lathe secured to circular form.
The slightly domed shape of the inner face of the base on the original box confused me at first; it seemed to serve no purpose. When I marked the base and began to cut it I found I was angling the saw slightly and rotating it as I went. When I reached final thickness on the edge, the center had a domed look similar to the example.
I proceeded to lace the box shut with an artificial paper-based material that is used for chairs in place of reeds. Once the body was laced closed I copied the interior shape onto my birch board and cut it out on the band saw, smoothing the edge with a bench sander. I then used a knife to put a small bevel on the edge of the top face of the base, as well as bottom inside edge of the body to assist in assembly.
Once the base and body fit snuggly I drilled a total of five holes, per the original, through the sides of the lathe into the base and secured the pieces together with the use of small wooden pegs.
Lathe prepared for lacing (left), Securing the lathe with lacing (center), Final assembled box (right).
During the spring and summer of 2018 I continued my exploring of the process of bending wood in a several areas. First was managing to acquire a small supply of air dried ash that I was able to use to prepare a number of lathe blanks for bending. I took a number of them with me to June Faire and used them as part of a public demo on bending wood. Out of the blanks I took to June Faire I only had two failures both resulting from knots in the wood. In addition I was able to employ a copy of a method of clamping depicted in Woodworking in Estonia (Viires, 2016). While not documentable period the idea is well within the technology of the time. I also acquired a replica of a period spoon bit to use in boring holes for the lacing.
Top: Initial splitting the log with wedges
In the Fall of 2018 I was afforded the opportunity to acquire two sections of maple that were felled and then split within hours. I used a mixture of wedges, a splitting maul and a froe. In keeping with a doctoral thesis titled "Exploring historical craft knowledge through cleavage and sweeping technology" by Helena Åberg (Åberg, 2008), I attempted to split wedges out as both a cross section similar to Quarter sawn, as well as splitting quarters from the log and then attempting to split lathes from those sections by following growth rings for a strong grain with expected good bending characteristics.
Bottom Left: splitting with Froe, Bottom Middle: a flat sawn piece, Bottom Right: Split by quarters
The thesis is in Swedish and I have been unable to find any reference to English translation availability. I have begun attempting to translate the document myself, first through google translate, and later through trying to find translations that fit individual words based on context. I have found in my reading that much of what I have discovered elsewhere is consistent with information presented in the thesis, as well as both confirmation of several of my thoughts and some new avenues to explore.
In the winter of 2018 I processed two of the quarter split pieces, first by hand planing them down to flat and parallel boards, then using a power planer to take the bulk of the material out and speed up the process.
Smoothing the rough blank by drawknife and plane
In keeping with information obtained from Åberg's (Åberg, 2008)I placed a number of the pieces I had split out into water to soak. I have one piece that soaked for approximately three months that I have planed down by hand to see how the soak affects the wood as opposed to both air dried lumber and fresh felled.
Left; Dried lumber ready to work, Right; Cross section,
I was able to get a piece that was approximately twice the thickness I was trying to achieve before distortions in the grain made the wood to weak to be used and I moved on to another piece. I am finding that lumber selection is incredibly difficult and availability of fine, even grained lumber is not as plentiful as I would hope. Any significant deflection of the grain of the tree such as old injuries to the tree or branches makes for a weak spot when planing or bending.
Left; Board after initial Drawknife, Center; Beginning to flatten with hand plane, Right; Initial hand flattening complete.
Left; Wooden hand plane used for further flattening, Right; The plane in use.
Left; End view of board being brought to thickness, Right; Continuing to thin the lathe.
Two areas of interest addressed by Åberg's (Åberg, 2008)are the use of forms for bending and who would have produced bentwood boxes. Åberg states that the use of forms to bend on was regional. "Even the bending of the sweeps has been done in many different ways. With or without a template, using different fästpinnar or directly to a ready Bones" (Åberg, 2008) By context my interpretation is that method of bending, IE steam, water, direct heat, varied from place to place as well as if the body was created by use of clamps alone of affixed to a form to dry.
Aberg's (Åberg, 2008) research indicated that in the Scandinavian area, bentwood boxes were mostly constructed at home and for home use, but that special boxes were purchased. She also goes on to state that as time went by, production for sale instead of home use increased and that it was an industry primarily supplied from those to whom it was a secondary industry. I would speculate that farmers who and crafters who had reason to prepare wood for other uses would set aside prime pieces of wood that were either to small of other uses or had the perfect characteristics for a successful bending lathe to be processed at a later date for sale.
One area I have looked at and discarded for the time being is the idea of sawing lathes. Andre-Jacob Roubo wrote a number of treatises during the 18th century detailing fine woodworking from his experience and knowledge of furniture making. Some of his work has been translated and republished in a book entitled "To Make as Perfectly as Possible" (Roubo, 2013). Roubo describes the production of producing veneers for marquetry, a decorative art used in furniture in which small pieces of thin wood are curt and fit to form a pattern or design and then affixed to the top of a piece of furniture to add decoration and beauty apart from the functionality of the object. In the book Roubo describes the making of veneer materials to be a specialized skill apart from general construction of milling. He describes the process as performed by two men with a frame saw standing on either side of a specialized bench and vice. The wood that was used to produce the veneer was sawn in half from the middle, then sawn again and again. Roubo stats that if one was to attempt to saw a veneer strip from the edge instead of the middle, the different pressure would tend to force the saw to veer to the thinner side and thus ruin the veneer. Two men were employed so that each could ensure they were following the line and creating a straight and uniform cut. Though this method is post period it produces a finished product perfectly suited to bentwood boxes. The need for two people as well as a specialized table, and saw seems to not be in keeping with the contact of a home based industry.
Once I had a flat and reasonably even lathe I turned my eye to completing a box. I heated the maple blank and decided to experiment with a passage I found in the Aberg (Åberg, 2008) thesis. Reference is made to finding a number of bent and stitched lathes inside a round form.
My initial form was the body of another box. I had wrapped it around a round for and clamped it, leaving it to dry, then gluing as normal. When it came of the form it was slightly out of round. When I put the new, hand flattened, lathe inside and allowed it to dry, I was rather astonished to see that the box, originally round, had taken to the more commonly seen oval which is similar to some of the boxes found at dig sites and in period illuminations.
Left; lathe soaking, Middle; lathe after heating in form, Right; clamped after drying in form.
I took the now dry lathe and clamped it with my conjectural clamps as based on examples in the Estonia book (Viires, 2016). I then used a spoon bit to bore holes for lacing. I decided to forgo the material I had previously used for lacing and used artificial sinew. While no more period than the paper material I had used, the artificial sinew allowed more pressure to be exerted to bring the sides closer together. I am still looking for references to a period material.
Left; Clamping the lathe, Middle; Boring lacing holes, Right; Laced box
Once the body was laced I turned to the base, using another piece of the air-dried maple I had used previously for the body. I marked a piece of sufficient length and then cut it off with a frame saw. After I had my smaller piece to work with I used a draw knife to roughly flatten the face, removing the bark and loose bits before flattening the bottom with a hand plane and then marking final thickness. With final thickness marked I began removing material with an axe.
Far Left; Frame saw, Center Left; After the drawknife, Center Right; Scribed thickness, Far Right; Post axe
After the axe I went again to the drawknife to remove material quickly, then planed to final thickness.
With the final thickness achieved I scribed the outline of the body to the base, darkening with pencil to make it more easily seen, before once again turning to the axe for fast material removal.
Left; Scribed base, Right; Removing bulk with an axe
Once both sides were trimmed to close fit with the axe I went back to a combination of hand planning, drawknife, and chisel and mallet to bring it as close as I could before going to rasps and files to get a closer fit. When I achieved a good dry fit, I fit the base in and pegged it to the walls.
Overall I am happy with the final box, despite the change of shape. I was able to learn a bit more about the shaping of the body and possibly why the oval shape came to be. In addition, it allowed me to employ an axe and drawknife, both period tools, to bring me closer to a good understanding of how bentwood boxes were made as well as evolved.
One of the things I have come across is a lack of evidence in period of a tool like the splitting froe. I am once again looking for a tool that would provide for splitting out fine, long lathes for use. One suggested approach is to use a wider, thinned splitting wedge as opposed to the modern metal wedges I had available.
I have had some of my ideas and theories test out to work, how correct they are may be something I never truly know but it does leave me feeling I am on the right road. Some of my assumptions, such as the froe, have proved to be unsupportable with the information I have. Finding the Aberg Thesis has given me a new list of sources and ideas to track down and explore. My possible upcoming trip to Sweden to hopefully get a better look first hand at some of the surviving examples is another avenue of exploration open to me. I feel confident that what I produce in my attempts is a good likeness to historical examples and look forward to further refining the process and end results in the future.
33b, M. R. (1420 - 1440). Kriegstechnik. Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, Zurich.
Åberg, H. (2008). Exploring historical craft knowledge through cleavage and sweeping technology. Essay for the graduation of Master of Arts in Conservation. University of Gothenberg.
Anderson, J., & Balazs, C. (2012, March 14). Norwegian tine. Popular Wood Working Magazine.
Earwood, C. (1993). Domestic Wooden Artefacts in Britain and Ireland from Neolithic to Viking Times. Exeter: Liverpool University Press.
Fine Woodworking. (1985). Fine Woodworking on Bending Wood. (J. Kelsey, Ed.) Newtown: The Taunton Press, Inc.
Morris, C. A. (2000). Craft, Industry, and Everyday Life: Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York. Dorchester: Dorset Press.
Roubo, A.-J. (2013). To make as Perfectly as possible. Fort Mitchell: Lost Arts Press.
Vester Vamdrup, "Guldhoj", ca. 1380 v. Chr. (2011, September 9). Retrieved from http://www.archaeoforum.de/">www.archaeoforum.de: http://www.archaeoforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=9&;t=4418&p45800">http://www.archaeoforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=9&;t=4418#p45800
Viires, A. (2016). Woodworking in Estonia Histoical Survey (English Language ed.). (M. Aru, Trans.) Fort Mitchell, KY: Lost Art Press.
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Copyright 2019 by Holland Cooley. <AMRWoodCraft at gmail.com>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publicationsovided the author is credited. Addresses change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.
If this article is reprinted in a publication, please place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.
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i Green woodworking is a term used to describe using wood that is freshly felled and has not been allowed to dry. ii Seasoned or dried wood has been allowed to dry, modern methods employ a kiln to speed up the process. Wood that has been dried prior to working has less movement due to temperature change and is more stable,