Figure 30. — 1568: The woodworker's shop from 

 Hans Sachs, Eygentliche Beschrerbung Aller Stande . . . 

 mit Kunstreichen Figuren [by Jost Amman], Frankfurt, 

 1568. (Library of Congress.) 



{Continued from page igg) 



drawn in the 1630's by the Dutchman Jan Van Vhet 

 (fig. 28), an etcher of Rembrandt's school at Leiden, 

 and also the examples illustrated by Porzelius (fig. 

 29) and by Jost Amman (fig. 30). Compare them to 

 Moxon's plate (fig. 31) from the Mechanick Exercises 

 (3rd ed., 1 703) and to the splendid drawing of the 

 bench plane from Andre-Jacob Roubo's UArt dii 

 menuisier, published in 1769 (fig. 32). In all of them, 

 the rounded handle, or tote, and the fore-horn appear, 

 characteristics of both European and English planes 

 of the period before i 750. The similarity ends with 

 the mass production of hand tools from the shops of 

 the English toolmaking centers, principally Sheffield. 

 An illustration from a pattern and design book of the 

 Castle Hill Works, Sheffield, dating from the last 

 quarter of the i8th century (fig. 33), shows the 

 achieved, familiar form of the bench planes, as well 

 as other tools. The use of this form in America is 



^\i <\n 



£ 



I 



wmm 



1^. 6' 



Figure 31. — 1703: Detail of the bench planes from 

 Moxon's Mechanick Exercises. 



readily documented in Lewis Miller's self-portrait 

 while working at his trade in York, Pennsylvania, in 

 1 810 (fig. 34) and by the shop sign carved by Isaac 

 Fowle in 1820 for John Bradford (fig. 35). In each 

 example, the bench plane clearly follows the English 

 prototype. 



The carpenter's brace is another instance of diver- 

 gent design after a common origin. Refer again to 

 Van Vliet's etching of the woodworker's shop (fig. 28), 

 to the detail from Moxon (fig. 36), and from Roubo 

 (fig. 37). All show the brace in a form familiar since 

 the Middle Ages, a shape common to both delineators 

 and craftsmen of the Continent and the British Isles. 

 But, as the plane changed, so changed the brace. 



{Continued on page 2og) 



202 



BULLETIN 24 1 : CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



