The 17th century toolchest of the Vasa

It is now holiday period in the Netherlands and I thought it might be interesting to show some holiday pictures of our visit to Sweden a few years ago. One of the main attractions was the Vasa Museet in Stockholm. In this impressive museum an original wooden warship from the 17th century is shown (which sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage) including all the related finds.

 This photo does not do justice to the overwhelming magnificence and size of the Vasa.

 

As the Baltic sea consists of brackish water, no woodworm is found. Hence, everything of wood was preserved while most iron items have rusted away. Among the items found in the Vasa are many woodworking tools used in shipbuilding. Also some shipbuilding techniques are on display at the museum. The next series of photos will give you an impression of the ship and its tools, of which many are identical to medieval (and modern) ones.

 A 'small' clamp used in boatbuilding. It is secured with a wedge at the end.

 

A mallet, brace and a moulding plane

 Two different smoothing planes and two rules.

A brace and a pot for something.

 The shipwrights toolchest. The wooden staves are handles for adzes

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 Rule, universal bevel, a mallet, braces and awl handles (the oval things), a grease box.

 Some boxes and a twine spool.

 A square, saw handle, chisel handle, a brace and a smoothing plane.

 Braces and a wooden mallet,. At the end also an auger handle.

  Again, rule, universal bevel, awl handles and mallet.

The following photos are reconstructed tools, based on the finds.

  

 Auger and types of pins used in boat construction.

Saw, squares and compass.

 Several plane types, a chalk line, gouge and compass.

This type of place is typical Dutch and called a 'gerfschaaf'. 

Building of the Vasa was overseen by Dutch shipbuilders.

 

 Adzes and axes.

 Chisels and gouges, a mallet and a brace.

The following photos show some shipbuilding scenes.

 

Set-up for hollowing out the masts. 

 

 The saw pit.

Set up for bending planks using steam or fire.

Turned triangle stool

The turned triangle stools (or schemel or driestal in Dutch) were very popular in medieval and later times, becoming out of fashion in the 18th century. They can be found in many medieval paintings and manuscripts, e.g. the "scupstool" of Rogier van der Weyden (around 1450) in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. However no real medieval examples exist in musea. John Howe has written an article in Dragon 4 of the Company of St. George on medieval seating furniture, containing many different images of triangular stools. Basically these stools appeared in two types: with and without a backrest. The turned triangular stools without a backrest were found in all kinds of sizes, and serving as seating as well as side tables. The seating could be a woven reed mat, a wooden slat or a piece of leather.

 The Scupstool by Rogier van der Weyden (around 1450). Pen drawing on paper.

Robert Campin - Madonna. The triangle stool is used here as a side table.

The construction of these stools is simple: 3 turned round legs are connected to each other with two horizontal turned rails, with in turn are connected with one, two or three smaller vertical turned rails. Turning is rather straightforward; the problem occurs in drilling the holes and connecting the parts to each other. A very good guide to construct them is provided by Tom Retie on his webpage 'Blood and sawdust': - Tryangle stolys for my Lord. 

 All the turned parts together. The ends still have to be sawn off the tenons.

The triangle turned stool I made and finally finished this month is a small, children size one. I chose this size so it can serve as seating for my children, as well as being a small and handy example of such a stool (leg height 36 cm). The triangle stool was turned of seasoned beech (i.e. some parts used to be old square table legs), the seating is a single wooden beech slat (thickness 12 mm). The diameters of the legs, horizontal and vertical rails were 5, 3 and 2.3 cm respectively. I worked on this project once in a while during several years when I had no other project at hand; so it happened that some parts I has turned a year ago had warped to much to be usable, and I had to make these parts again ...

This jig is used to draw a horizontal line across the legs. A similar one was used for the horizontal rails. 

A horizontal line is needed in order to drill the mortises at identical positions.

This jig is used to drill holes in the horizontal rails. The tenons fit precisely in the "U". 

The rail is then secured with two clamps.

As mentioned before, drilling the holes is tricky, especially the holes in the legs have to fit exactly at 60 degrees. I made a jig to fix the legs at the correct position. I used a machine drill with Forstner bits to drill the holes for the rails. Next I used a routing table to cut the groove for the seating slat.

The previous jig now has a part added for drilling holes in the legs

One horizontal rail rests at a 30 degrees angle on the jig, leaving 60 degrees between 

the holes of the horizontal rails. This photo shows a test piece, the next one the actual chair.

The horizontal rails fit at exactly 60 degrees (test piece).

All turned pieces fitted together.

 The stool from above without the seating.

Then the triangular seating slat needed to be chamfered at the underside to fit in the groove. This was done in medieval style by hand with a round moulding plane at the Historic Open Air Museum Eindhoven.

Holdfasts keep the seating in place. The other piece of wood is used as a guide for the moulding plane. 

Note that the seating edges are hollowed out to allow room for the legs.

The next step was to [paint the decorative grooves on each rail using egg tempera with red pigments (These grooves are also used to centre the place for drilling). Then the pieces were put together and fixed with a 4 mm dowel for each mortise - tenon joint pair. Afterwards the stool was finished with two layers of linseed oil. 

 

The decorative grooves on the (horizontal) rails are used as a centre for the other (vertical) rails.

The groove for the seating is asymmetric. It starts halfway the horizontal rail and goes 5 mm upwards. 

This provides maximum support for the seating as well as a minimum edge difference.

The painted triangular stool, with the seating fitted and locked with six dowels in total. 

Only the linseed oil coating remains to be done.

Meeting and eating with the Deventer Burgerscap

Not only did we paint this weekend (see previous post), we especially came to the museum to meet the Deventer Burgerscap. They are a city based re-enactment group like us, and situated as well around the year 1370. Their city of origin Deventer is even in the same Duchy of Gelre as Nimweghen (our city of origin) and both cities belong to the Hanze league. They are very nice people, taking re-enactment seriously, but also in a relaxed manner. We would not mind to do more events together with the Deventer Burgerscap in the future. More on the Deventer Burgerscap (and this day - 28 May 2011) can be found on their blog.

The families with children of the Deventer Burgerscap and St. Thomasguild sitting outside in '1370'.

The feast at the marketplace

Our day together ended with a medieval meal (or a feast). And did we eat at this feast? Well, strawberye' and 'taerten borbonnose', a hearty pie with champignons, smoked eel, several types of bread, sausages and cheeses. For those interested in recipies and the origin of some dishes:

Strayberye (manuscript Harl 279.1.123 - in 'Pleyn Delit' recipe no. 114) consists of thick almond milk, strawberries, sugar and spices, a few currants and a bit of rice flour.

Taerten Borbonnose (manuscript UB Gent 476, recipe no. 72 - in 'De keuken van de late middeleeuwen' - a Dutch cookbook) consists of sweetened cream, butter, egg-yolks and flour in puff pastry. This is a true medieval recipe - no amounts of the ingredients are given in the book!

Painting the pole lathe

Last weekend in the Historic Open Air Museum Eindhoven we started to decorate the large horizontal beam of our pole lathe (which bears the name of our guild) with medieval paint. We chose the colours of Nimweghen (black and red) for the letters and background, surrounded by a green "frame". Actually we only succeeded in painting the red and black parts, but the result is already great. We sure have an eyecatcher now.

Journeyman Bram is painting his pole lathe

Our egg tempera paint was made using the guidelines of Cennino DÁndrea Cennini in his 15th  century book Il libro dell' Arte. In short, egg yolk was rolled dry in the hands, the yolk sac opened with a sharp knife and the fresh yolks mixed with pigments which were ground with a bit of water to form a paste. Bone black was used as black and Venetian red for red, (Jeroen) 'Bosch' green for green pigment. All pigments were obtained from paint-mill 'de Kat'.

Nearly finished, the blank wood will later be painted green.

Sambocade

Last weekend, we were present at the Historic Open Air Museum Eindhoven (the Netherlands) where we did some medieval joinery and turning. But also cooking and eating is part of our daily medieval life. This time of year is especially good for making 'Sambocade', a medieval cheese tart with elderberry flowers, which are abundant available around May in the Netherlands. Elderberry flowers contain a sweet nectar which is transferred to the tart. The recipe originates from 'The Forme of Cury', a 14th century English recipe collection. Our version stems from the book 'Pleyn Delit' by C. Hieatt, B. Hosington and S. Butler (University of Toronto Press, 1996).

 Elderberry flowers

Sambocade

pastry to line a pie dish

400 g cottage cheese

1/2 cup of sugar

4 egg whites

1/2 a cup of elder blossoms

1 tablespoon rosewater (concentrated version available at a 'toko' or oriental food shop)

The elderberry flowers, rosewater and tart filling

It is best to shake the elder sprays first. I found that many miniature insects like the nectar as well. You probably do not want the extra protein in your filling. Leave elder sprays in a glass of water until the crust is prepared, Blossoms discolour slightly if prepared to far in advance. When you are ready to make the filling, carefully strip off the white blossoms, trying not to include the green stems. Blend together all the remaining ingredients. When the mixture is smooth, stir in the blossoms and pour filling in the prepared shell. bake about 45 minutes in a 175 degrees Celcius oven. Serve hot or cold (we did the last). 

 The finished sambocade.

Finishing the sambocade in the Historic Open Air Museum Eindhoven

Medieval toolchest: Hammers and mallets

The hammer and mallet are both tools for hitting /striking others instruments. The hammer has an iron head, while the mallet is made completely of wood.

The medieval hammer used in carpentry is most often seen as a claw hammer, sometimes reinforced with long metal strips along the handle. The hammer is used for striking nails and dowels into the wood. A specialised form is used for closing rivets (riveting hammer). Metal hammers are common finds, but it can be difficult to assign the tool to a specific trade, as also smiths, stone cutters, shipwrights, among others, used hammers. 

 

A 15th century claw-hammer. Image from 'Das Werkzeug des Schreiners und Drechslers' by Gunther Heine.

A clawhammer with a reinforced head and a wooden mallet from the Bedford Hours miniature 

'Building the arc of Noah', 1433, London, British museum, Ms. 18850.

A riveting hammer in the right panel of the Merode Altar by Robert Campin, Metroploitan Museum of Art, New York.

The iron head of our medieval clawhammer is made by Deagrad. The handle is homemade from ash and secured with an wooden wedge. Ash is often used for handles as it has some flexibility

The mallet is used to secure pegs (for instance for the pole lathe), hitting chisels and gouges, hitting the holdfast, wedges and benchdogs. Medieval mallets were constructed either as a square or round block attached to a handle and as (turned) cylinders in the length of the handle. 

The first type of mallet hits with the hard endgrain, and can be used with more force. Large versions of these hammers were used with wedges to split wood into planks or smaller pieces (see images below). A smaller square mallet is shown in another miniature below..Many hammers of this type with a round head are found in the miniature of Noah building the ark in the Bedford hours (see image above).  

A woodcutter (Virich Holzhacker) from the Mendelschen Hausbuch (around 1414) uses wedges and a large mallet to split wood.

 

Two monks are slitting wood with an axe and a large mallet. 12th century miniature from St. Gregorii Magni Moralia in Job. Dijon, City library hs. 170, fol. 5970.

 Eve uses a mallet and chisel and Adam a breast-auger. 

12th century miniature from Homelie de St. Basile.

The cylinder type of  mallet construction ensures that a chisel always is hit evenly with the mallet, whatever manner it is hold. However it hits with the long grain, which is more easily indented. Thus pictures often show these mallets with the cylinder hollowed out, i.e. the very worn out ones. This type is found for instance  in another image of the Mendelschen Hausbuch shown below.

 

A cylindrical mallet used by a medieval joiner (Peter Screiner). Mendelschen Hausbuch  around 1444.

 A 10th century wooden mallet found in the Coppergate deposit in York, UK (no. 8188). The head is willow with a hazel handle. (Image from C.A. Morris - Wood and woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and medieval York)

We have two types of mallets in our toolchest, a square one (oak hammer head with an ash handle), and two turned cylinders made of acacia. (I recently discovered that this is an exotic tree; the first acacia was planted in Europe in 1579 in Castle Doorwerth, the Netherlands, so we will have to replace these mallets in time with ones made of correct wood). The tools are finished with linseed oil.  

The footrest for the strycsitten

This is the final part of the making of a medieval strycsitten and deals with the construction of the footrest. The footrest is not strictly necessary, but is shown in many of the paintings (see my post on the strycsitten of 7 January 2011). It is also a useful piece of furniture in medieval times - it keeps your feet of the cold (stone) floor. Therefore, in my view, it forms an essential part of a medieval strycsitten.

The footrest is usually slightly longer than the strycsitten. The legs of the footrest fall inside the legs of the strycsitten (this means you have to mind where you place your feet if you stand on the footrest!). The footrest is a separate and movable piece of the strycsitten, i.e. when you change the position of the backrest, you move the footrest to the other side of the strycsitten as well. With this in mind, I made the plan of the footrest completely symmetrical as shown below with the form of the footrest legs.

Plan of the footrest legs. The form is more or less similar to the legs of my "Savonarola" X-chair (see next photo).

The savonarola chair: the legs have similar roundings.

The plank of the footrest was planed to the same thickness as the seating of the strycsitten and rounded off at the edges. The legs were roughly sawn using a band-saw and then finished by hand with a chisel. Also the tenon was cut out using a chisel. I used the tenons to mark the mortises in the footplank, which were cut out as well. The three legs were attached to the plank with two small (6 mm) dowels through each mortise and tenon joint.

Four legs of the footrest; one is a spare. The tenon is not yet cut out.

The still square footplank attached to the legs for testing the fit of the mortise and tenon joints.

The leg with the mortise and tenon joint.

The mortise and tenon joint shown from above.

The joint fixed with a dowel.

The complete footrest.

A footnote for the footrest:

Now, in modern times, the footrest proved to be a nuisance. The strycsitten is part of our dinner table seating and we kept stumbling against it. Besides, with our modern flooring we do not suffer from cold feet, so the functionality is lost as well. The footrest now occasionally appears in the living room to show the complete set.