Letters

Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc., The, Sep 2000

The Puzzling Dutch Plane, Part 2

Two reactions regarding my query on the puzzling Dutch plane have reached me since the publication of the June issue of The Chronicle, Vol. 53, No. 2, June 2000). One reaction came from Mark R. Christinsen, St. Louis, Missouri, and the other one from Robin N. Wyllie in Nova Scotia. Mark has a plane stamped: I. BIGGELAAR and some of Robin's planes have the same features but there is no mark. These finds appear to tell us that indeed Johannes van den Biggelaar produced planes for the foreign market. Now there is a new question. Recently some planes with the same features that were made at Rotterdam and stamped J. JANSSEN have been found. These Rotterdam planes can be dated between about 1850 and 1875. Can we conclude that more Rotterdam planemakers have produced for the export? It will be appreciated very much when more reactions follow!

Gerrit van der Sterre, The Netherlands

Pipe up! Comments on Pipe Molds

You may have already had comments to this effect, but my thought is that the unidentified plug in Karl West's piece about the Shaker clay pipe mold in the last issue (The Chronicle, Vol. 53, No. 2, June 2000) is a pattern for making a core in order to cast additional molds. The plug would be used as a pattern for making a core out of fine sand, coal dust, and a binder. The core would be hardened by baking and then inserted in the cavity in a sand mold formed by the two halves of the brass pipe mold. The core creates the hollow center in the pipe mold when the molten brass is poured into the cavity around it. Without the core the pipe mold would be solid. Perhaps one of our readers can explain it more precisely

Frank White, Old Sturbridge Village

I am not familiar with molding clay, but if the item was a sand casting, the third piece could be a master pattern used to make the mold itself. It also looks like a master core, because it has core prints, but a core would not have the "rings" on both ends.

C. C. "Cub" Gerow, Claymont, Delaware

Putting on Our Specs to See That Speck

Having just watched The 1900 House on television, I had to read this article to see what life was like in a different segment of society on this side of the Atlantic. I found the second and third lines of the verse a bit confusing, until I read the "fine print" of the ad in Figure 1. In recent decades, a "spectacle" has been only an extravagant show. Undoubtedly some proofreader-human or computer-didn't recognize that the plural form used to mean the device that hangs on our ears and nose to hold corrective lenses in front of our own inadequate ones, and thought that the word needed that extra "k." Interestingly enough, though, my WordPerfect spell-check thinks "specs" is OK, but I'll bet whoever included it was thinking of the abbreviation for "specifications," not for eyeglasses. Also a bit odd is the fact that it accepted the plural form of a noun; usually it asks if I want the singular instead. Now, if I could only afford at least one of those gardeners to pull weeds, and someone to clear away the dust from my stufF and tools without disorganizing whatever project is in progress!

Milford Brown, El Cerrito, Calif.

We're flattered that PBS thought to air The 1900 House to coincide with the publication of "The Maid of Spotless Town." The final reading of The Chronicle is the responsibility of the editor, not the proofreader or the computer. In this respect the editor is just like an editor who may have lived in a 1900 house.

Caliper Not a One-off

Re-reviewing the June 2000 issue of The Chronicle (Vol. 58, No. 2), pages 78-80, I checked my junque and find I have the exact same caliper as Mr. Karl West, with the French inches and centimeters. This should verify that the caliper is not a one-off, but is a production item. That answers one more question. The light colored material is bone, a rather common material in past days.

Ted Crom, Hawthorne, Florida

Just in time for Winter

In previous issues (The Chronicle, September 1999, Vol. 52, No. 3, p. 123 and March 1999, Vol. 52, No. 1, p. 33) there have been discussions about ice axes including a contribution from me in which I completely missed a category that I, of all people, should have been aware of. Mountaineer's ice axes come in many shapes and styles and have a large number of patterns. The major difference between icemen and mountaineer axes is that the blades are at right angles to each other and that generally the hook end on a mountaineer's axe is notched for better handling power. A long handle version (at left) is about 36 inches long; a short handle, like a hatchet, is 16 to 20 inches. There are speciality collectors across the country who find them a very desirable item.

Philip Whitney, Fitchburg, Mass.