tools – Page 14 – Peachey Conservation

May 26, 2015May 31, 2015

Cady Automatic Hand Micrometer

I would have to rank the Cady Automatic Hand Micrometer as one of the most beautiful and well made tools I own. The E.J. Cady company is still in business, making this exact model which looks like it has not changed in design or construction since the 1950’s. It would not be out of place on the dashboard of a Bentley.

Like most people, I have a number of dial micrometers, or dial thickness gauges as they are sometimes called. A deep throat Calati is perfect for measuring in the center of large sheets of paper. A super accurate Ames #2 (.0001″) with a 6oz. weight on top is great for obtaining standardized results with slightly compressible material, like leather. A portable, hand held Mitutoyo is small and lightweight, perfect for taking on the road.

Since I only use micrometers these a couple of times a year, the batteries in the digital ones always seemed to be dead. The digital versions are handy, though, if you use them a lot, or need to easily convert between English and Metric systems. The mechanically geared hand on the dial face has a definite nostalgic attraction for me, like the VU meters on a stereo amplifier.

micrometer5 — Meet the Family. Left: Calati, Middle: Ames, Right: Mitutoyo

December 9, 2014December 29, 2016

An Ugly Hunk

Image: Ref 1996.8.1

Any guesses what is pictured in the above image?

I’m really happy museums are collecting this kind of thing.

It is from the Maritime Heritage East, and it is a hunk of beeswax that sailors waxed their whipping cord with, much like traditional bookbinders do with sewing thread. Looking at this, I can see how someone pulled the thread through it, likely holding it in one hand between their thumb and forefinger and rotating it 90 degrees occasionally to prevent the thread from cutting through. In fact, the museum notes that Harold Scot, an orphan sailer, received this wax in 1933 when he was 16, and used it for the next 66 years. It is unusual to have this type of provenance concerning tools and craft materials.

So what? Why does this ugly hunk of beeswax matter? Because here we have a physical record of technique, seemingly frozen in time. We can interpret the technique from this object, and it is an interesting object because it is a material that acts like a tool. The thread is shaped the wax, somewhat like a potter’s rib shapes clay. It is difficult to know, from this isolated example, if this was a common technique or waxing thread, a local custom, or possibly novel. It would be interesting to compare other examples of beeswax, possibly from other trades. Was this hand sized square of wax a common size?

We do know that using beeswax to prevent kinking and reducing abrasion of sewing thread was common in many trades, including bookbinding. Yet materials like this are not commonly passed on when a bindery is sold. The use of beeswax seems to be waning, because of concerns about acidity and the fact it is not really necessary if the needle is the right size, and the thread properly relaxed. In fact, the sewing thread of most early bindings I’ve examined does not seem to be waxed.

Image: <http://www.achildsdream.com/sewing-beeswax-in-holder/>

A 20th century “innovation” in beeswax is the plastic holder pictured above, which is marketed to bookbinders and other sewing related crafts and even sold at Walmart. I suspect that one motive was to sell more tiny disks of beeswax, and the holder encourages waste because only part of the wax can be used. To be fair, the holder does keep the beeswax and the workers hands clean. But unless you are very careful, it is easy to abrade the thread on the sharp plastic edges, in contrast to the advertising claim that this device “strengthens” the thread. What does the holder, with its regulated placement of the thread imply about the marketing and deskilling technique in modern craft? Is the holder akin to training wheels?

Since the history of craft technique is generally unwritten, it is the responsibility of craft practitioners and conservators to interpret—or at least preserve and draw awareness—to these physical traces of past technique.

November 19, 2013November 19, 2013

Tools for Reading

“Tools that once were the common stuff of everyday life are tools of a different sort to us. They no longer are the implements we use routinely to sustain ourselves; instead, they are tools we can use to understand the past.”

Gaynor, James M. And Nancy L. Hagedorn. Tools: Working Wood in Eighteenth-Century America (Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg, 1993) xii.

I often think of this quote when I am looking at old tools for sale. It is hard to shake the idea that a tool should be restored to the point it can be used or functions, and a common practice among dealers is to restore a tool to the (imaginary) point it left a craftsman’s hand.

But books are tools. A fairly broad definition of a tool: a device held in the hand to perform a specific task. Which sense of a tool that Gaynor mentions are books?

Questions quickly arise about the reasons for fixing a book. Is it necessary to return function—the original use—to a book if it no longer needs to function in the way it once did? If a book is restored to some point in its history, is its use for understanding the past compromised? How much of its history is erased? How does the physical movement or tactile function of book help us understand the past, if it is no longer used as a tool for reading? Too many questions, but maybe this is a fundamental difference between conservation and restoration: conservation asks a question about an object, restoration gives an answer.