Ancient Tools - The Plumbline Scroll 4
"As cunning as a fox who has just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University”(Blackadder)
This is the culmination of my series of posts about ancient tools. If you have not read the previous posts, Scrolls 1, 2, and 3, this one should still be interesting, but it will be more informative if you read them first.
The Plumbline Level
The next tool we will examine in this series of posts on Ancient Tools is the Plumbline Level. This tool is literally older than the bricks of Babylon. Indeed, physical examples have been found in Egyptian tombs. I think the principles that make it work are clear from the attached images and do not require a detailed explanation.
The most ancient and easiest-to-make type is the triangle plumbline level, also known as the A-level. My grandfather was a plasterer, and used one very similar to this throughout most of his working career.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2e...q9OohTvDsF3dHA
Triangle level from the tomb of Sennedjem
Nineteenth Dynasty, c. 1300 BC
painted wood
The Egyptian Museum, Cairo
It has been suggested that the Egyptians used the triangle level as an optical level too. No physical examples actually exist.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Zm...icjupTupAZ8_gU
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/BK...IWZdutTKpRr1tg
Detail from the base of the Four crowned martyrs at the Or San Michele church in Florence, Italy, showing a triangle level. This marble was made around 1370-1421 by Nanni di Banco and was commissioned by the guild of stonemasons and woodworkers.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ZF...aYmSLFkclU9hQo
Miniature of the apostle Andreas from the Book of Hours of John the Fearless, between 1406-1416. The illumination shows an triangle plumbline level and low-angle block plane, with smaller versions of both tools in the background. Planes were the personal symbol of John the Fearless of Burgundy and can be found in other illuminations on his clothing. Ms lat novv acc 3055, Bibilotheque Nationale, Paris, France
If the triangle’s legs are long, it can span some distance. The legs can also span obstructions
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qT...74bnFT4rLzzzjw
Screw that stuff. Why not just stretch the beam of the Apostle Andreas’s triangle plumbline level as in the image below? Not sure what the boys in powdered wigs in the drawing below called it, but it looks useful to me.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Vr...jLqiLTOnLobyGU
Clearly, the idea was not new to stone masons in the year 1415.
A one-legged chair? That’s one way to keep from falling asleep on the job.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/JL...Ark6kw6NFdj4uU
Cunrad (Steinmetz), a stonemason from the Hausbuch of the Mendelschen Zwolfbruderstiftung in Nurenberg, Germany. Died before 1415. His tools of trade include the typical long A-like level used by stonemasons, as well a a square and a template. He sits on a one-legged chair.
And then there are the examples of plumbline squares. Imagine that...
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Qw...cLnZHZDul8EWec
A plumb square from Cassells’ book titled Carpentry and Joinery
Don’t forget combined plumbline squares and plumbline levels. Fiendishly clever.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Ns...Y-UhxLkWeyA3Pg
Two types of levels, the A (figure a) and the inverted T (figure b), as well as a plumb bob with a wooden holder (figure c). Image from the book Das werkzeug des Zimmermans by Hans-Tewes Schadwinkel and Gunther Heine.
From what I can tell looking at old drawings and pictures of these tools, a small bob was used, and a cutout was made in the tool to provide clearance for the bob so the line would fit neatly into a groove in the tool’s vertical leg. When the tool was level, the line would be centered in this groove, and any difference in the gaps to the each side of the plumbline would be easy for the naked eye to detect.
While references to “sharpening” have been few in this series of posts (it took herculean self-restraint to not mention diamond paste) I just have to show you a flea-market treasure. It combines a triangle level, and two square levels into one tool.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/8y...uhNQtkjdi7WPLg
Check out figures 18 and 19 in the engraving of carpentry tools below. The level is beautiful. I need to make one for myself, with some modifications to the head and diagonal bracing of course, if only to put on the wall over my workbench. Perhaps with some gothic touches like Apostle Andreas’ level. Any suggestions?
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/gs...vGWbnNxhA8s8XI
It is interesting how this tool, which was once as common as cats, has been utterly replaced by the spirit level.
Allow me to end this series of posts with some sound advice:
“Speak the truth but leave immediately after” (Slovenian Proverb)
Stan Covington
