Old Enoch and the Elm

Woodworkers losing sleep over the microscopic anatomy of their dovetail joints should spare a thought for old Enoch. In Walter Rose's classic narrative of village carpentry The Village Carpenter old Enoch's work was 'part of the beauty of the countryside' using 'the axe and saw, and a few other elementary tools' to make fence rails, posts and - significantly here - water pumps.
I was moved to remember old Enoch while hollowing this piece of elm for something I'm making. (I hesitate to name the something in case it doesn't work, in which case it will become something else..) Before iron replaced timber, elm was used for water pumps because it resists decay when wet.
Walter Rose recalled when old Enoch and his mate Johnnie would spend an entire week with an auger boring a hole through elm logs which, when assembled, would make a pump reaching to the bottom of a well up to 20 feet deep.
It also fell to old Enoch to be lowered into the narrow confines of the well to assemble the crucial joint between lower and upper parts of the pump. As Rose says, 'It needed to be absolutely air-tight, otherwise the pump would not hold water.' This was achieved by old Enoch carefully sandwiching a fat-soaked cloth between the parts.
'There, poised on an almost upright ladder, in the gloom of the well, the rude steening of which was dank and irregular, old Enoch, with a cauldron of hot fat hanging on a string at his side, and with the ponderous pump suspended by ropes and pulleys above him, executed the important work of sealing the joint.'
Next time I'm bemoaning the difficulty of some unnecessary task undertaken in safe, homely surroundings, I'll think instead of old Enoch and his ilk 'who, throughout their lives, without thought of complaint undertake and perform difficult and dangerous tasks for the convenience and comfort of their fellow-men.'

Quotations in italics are from The Village Carpenter by Walter Rose, first published in 1937 by Cambridge University Press.

The Indispensable G Clamp

Some of my favourite woodworking creations are complete accidents, such as this composite work in wood and iron arising out of a recent reorganization of the bench which left a bunch of G-clamps temporarily homeless beneath where I've been sawing and carving. That said, I'd put these indispensable tools exactly where I wanted them, in easy reach.
But I have to admit I'm not good at keeping the place spick and span. Edge tools, heavy or delicate things are stowed carefully out of harm's way but a modicum of wood, shavings and sawdust lying about the bench spells contentment for me.
Although it might not look like it, I use these old Record clamps a lot - even the two with their little ball-joint feet missing, as I've got custom wooden feet to fit them. And while theses are written on the pros and cons of this or that vice and bench, it keeps things in perspective to know that if you just want to get on with the job there's not much you can't hold solidly with an old G-clamp or two.

Smoothing a Smoothing Plane

Wooden planes are warm, tactile objects whose weight and grain echo the very material which - according to the shapes of their soles and blades - they flatten, round or hollow. Uniquely, they can also repair each other. With soles scored and unevenly worn, these old beech wood smoothing planes had both seen better days. Yet simply by clamping the stock inverted in the vice and planing one with the other, each was restored to flatness. Using a try square at various angles across the sole revealed the ups and downs.  When the larger plane was flat enough, it was the turn of its smaller cousin.