old stuff new menders

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old stuff new menders

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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46188
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 23 7:41 am Post subject: old stuff new menders

what a nice idea

thinking back, all the specialists i have ever employed or worked alongside have got into "old stuff" by chance. ie they looked for a job as a school leaver and "old george's plaster works" needed a brush boy. old george got the job the same way and so on before him back until the 18th C when "old george" set up his mouldings firm in the hamlet of Croydon

ditto heritage moulding makers, they not only had a continuos skill line but they had all the mould tools for every profile from 1840 onwards

taking the chance element of fitting the right apprentice to the right type of skills out of the training process would be a great improvement

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15948

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 23 7:26 am Post subject:

Agree. I am a 'red data book' species as a broomsquire. The Heritage Craft Association has a list of skills that are 'endangered' or 'critically endangered' with practitioners of each skill listed. I don't think the people who do the work are all listed; if they are I know virtually everyone in several crafts.

Flintknapping as a living craft is mainly used for masonry these days, but it is also carried out by a few people for making tools. We used to be involved with a 17th century re-enactment group and one of the women there used flint to trim willow after weaving it. I provided her with the flint as our local stuff is good for that sort of thing, and a number of buildings locally also use it.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46188
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 23 9:28 am Post subject:

i can manipulate stone and use stone tools, i consider it bushcraft and a means to understand unwritten history rather than a "heritage skill"

knife/scraper/drill/arrow teeth etc are easy, a clovis point or 2 edge broadhead with barbs is a bit beyond my basic practical skills
a few days would probably be a decent schooling to practice the fancy stuff enough to make reasonable ones

in a flinty area, if you look you will probably have a chance to notice discarded cores and flakes, often in a place with a view, and in the space where they would fall from a seated knapper's work
industry was an early human development

ditto near hunting camps etc, where the group knapper replaced arrow heads, blades etc using raw lumps or reworking used tools

ferrari level items were traded over vast distances (gifting?)currency?), useful sharp thing tended to be local or diy

you upset the tribe by covering the village in sharp chippings and cuts, so locating a knappers yard a bit away from people and critters homes makes lots of sense

a small lump of flint is a lithic swiss army knife, even in almost unskilled paws

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15948

Posted: Sat Aug 12, 23 8:32 am Post subject:

It can be called either. I regard most of the crafts I do as just skills I have picked up and perfected over the years. A lot of them are not too common these days, but in the past range from the sort of thing any housewife would have done, like spinning, dressmaking and knitting, to others which are a bit more specialised like besom and spoon making. I hope eventually to learn how to make thatching spars as we have the material, and making spars is something that is needed for the thatching fraternity.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46188
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Aug 14, 23 7:21 pm Post subject:
i have a few skills at mending old buildings. what works in one does not work in all the others ditto for "trades folk" and the trades they are ace at best one to learn is when to phone a friend

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15948

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 23 6:52 am Post subject:
Yes, know your limits. Do less damage that way.

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