Browse Items (21 total)

A bear trap was used to wound bears (in this region specifically, the American Black Bear). The trap would be set with the metal clamps open. The bear would step on the metal plate beneath it, which would trigger the closure of the clamps around the…

A brick mold was used to shape natural resources into bricks. The tool's user would gather mud and/or clay, as well as possibly hog or horse hair (which acts as a binding agent), and have placed them into the wooden mold. Then the mold would have…

A broad axe is a wood shaping tool. One would use it to get a log flat or square a log off. One side of the axe head is beveled, and the other side is flat (shown). The wooden handle curves away from the flat side to give the tool user's hands room…

A cow bell is attached to livestock so that their owners can locate them. Livestock was often free-range and the only fenced areas were the spaces that you wanted to keep livestock out of. So, if your animal wandered off, you could keep track of…

A double bitted axe would be used for cutting wood: trees, branches, limbs, or logs into their preliminary size before being shaped or smoothed. Both sides of the blade feature a bevel, so that the axe cuts on both sides.

A draw knife is used to shape wood. You hold the handles and pull the blade toward yourself. This might sound dangerous, but that actually gives the user a lot of control, so there was little room for accidents. A draw knife allows the user to get a…

A drill is used to create a hole in wood. The tool's user would place the screw shaped blade at the spot where they would like to create a hole, and turn the wooden handles, sinking the blade into the wood, until the hole is deep enough. Wooden pegs,…

A foot adze is used to shape and smooth wood. The blade is curved so that when swung in front of the user, it will always come back under and be stopped by the user's foot for safety. One would not want to swing an adze toward their body without…

A froe is a wood splitting tool. It is used to make shingles. The tool's user would place the blade into a log and hit the opposite metal end with a mallet-type item to create a shingle. Because the shingles were made by hand in this way, the size of…

A hand adze is used for similar purposes as a foot adze (wood shaping), but on smaller pieces of wood. An adze leaves short, choppy marks on a piece of wood, that would typically be smoothed out later in the process. Dennis demonstrates how to use…