Woodworking Tools 1600-1900

Excerpt: ...States. (Original patent drawing 51,660, U.S. Patent Office, Record Group 241, the National Archives.) The carpenter's brace is another instance of divergent 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. The standard form of this tool as it was used and produced in the United States in the 19th century can be seen in another plate from the catalogue of the Castle Hill Works at Sheffield (fig. 38). This English influence on American tool design is no surprise, since as early as 1634 William Wood in New England's Prospect suggested that colonists take to the New World All manner of Ironwares, as all manner of nailes for houses . with Axes both broad and pitching . All manners of Augers, piercing bits, Whip-saws, Two handed saws, Froes ., rings for Bettle heads, and Iron-wedges. Figure 45.