Browse Items (26 total)

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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.

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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…

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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,…

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Figure 4 "Dovetail or Box Corner" from "Building with Logs." "Building with Logs" was published in 1944 by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, and is considered a gold standard in cabin building. This diagram demonstrates how…

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Four men work on the first story of the reconstructed Vance house. The two men to the right appear to be sawing logs, and the men to the center-left appear to be placing those logs. The original fireplace is visible to the left.

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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…

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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…

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