They Simply did not Do It

I’ve spent almost ten years looking at furniture that I could place in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was an era of part hand tool and part machine work. I adopted some of that work for my own use. I tend to use hand tools but I do own power tools and have in the past owned many more from jointers to shapers, mortisers, and sliding table saws.
What I believe is that in the era I’m referring to they simply tried to stay away from as much of, what we call, drudge or grunt work. Even though they had power tools, saws, jointers, and planers for sure they used them somewhat sparingly.
They seemed to stay away from long rips and rough planing in particular. I’m somewhat sure that this saved materials and time. Some of this is a guess on my part but much comes from just looking at average types of furniture not necessarily high end pieces.
My take is like this. If it wasn’t going to be seen or touched in normal use it was left in what I would call Jack planed or machine marks left. Things like stretchers or drawer kickers may not be the same thickness or width. Drawer runners were done up to slide well and that’s all. For these parts substandard materials were commonly used. Even the drawer outsides have bandsaw marks showing.
the two photos are of a maple piece that I own and has been in the family for close to a hundred years. Take note of the side panel. Pieces are not equal width. Could have just been planed or straightened on a jointer glued up and 1 long rip. Dovetails appear to be hand cut. Lipped drawer, varying size and some patch ups. There was a whole set with a dressing table, a high dresser and two twin bed frames. I know the set was from the era I mentioned because it was in my room as far back as I can remember and I know where it was prior. I’ll be 76 this year. The pieces were finished with a semi transparent stain and shellac to even the color originally.
So now I do the same kinds of things. If it can’t be seen or touched I don’t worry over it.
Jim

Interesting post James. The bandsaw marks are obvious. Not sure if the dovetails are hand chopped. Did they have a machine to do it 100 years ago?

Hi Mark
If you look close at the dovetails they vary a lot in size and angle. You can see some chisel over cuts at the baseline. They are also on a lipped drawer face. I’m sure they were experimenting with machine cut at that time. You can also see some fixes if you look close. There is no evidence on the inside of machine cuts. It was a time of machinery experimenting.
Jim

Looks like Sycamore for the drawer side. At maximum zoom, checking with a scale it looks like machine work to me. We have a doppelgänger of that dresser with a remarkably parallel back story.

Levels of quality have been with us as long as we have been doing things. Just because something is old doesn't mean it is carefully made. I'm sure there was one guy in the camp that did better flintknapping than someone else long before we named the process. The effort we put into a piece is our own choice. The parts that are important to us are likewise a personal thing. Do your thing; have fun. No judgements here ;-)

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Originally Posted by Mark Rainey

Interesting post James. The bandsaw marks are obvious. Not sure if the dovetails are hand chopped. Did they have a machine to do it 100 years ago?

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yeah, around that

My guess is that those were machine made, and the marks are from a belt sanding machine cleaning up the pins.

Lot of factory furniture has little attention to grain matching as there is a heavy spray finish applied, which is sometimes stripped by subsequent owners.

Around the early 1800's furniture factories started using powered machines to do a lot of the work. The machines were often powered by a belt from shafts overhead. I'm fairly sure that they had machineds that would do dovetails even back then.

I would think that by the early 1900's factory furniture was mostly machine made.

Mike

There could be machine work on this piece. The dovetails vary in degree by as much as ten degrees and in width by an eighth. There is also no curve on the inside of the sockets. Not that that means no machine use. To me this is more about what was done not how.
Jim

40 years ago I restored a dresser with this type of drawer.

Attachment 490533

My research reveals that the Knapp machines were first in the mid to late 1800s. There were saws, planers, molders, and band saws. There were also some kind of veneer saws early on. There were some peddle driven cutters that could have been adapted to power as a shaper.
Jim

It would be interesting to see some of those old machines, or better yet, make one of them go! The base of our kitchen table came out of a pre electric factory. Best I could make out was a horizontal boring machine. The belt came up through the floor, around some pulleys and back down. It had a foot pedal that had at least two stages of function. Wish I knew more about what it was... There is an image in a post from a year ago.

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Originally Posted by Maurice Mcmurry

It would be interesting to see some of those old machines, or better yet, make one of them go! The base of our kitchen table came out of a pre electric factory. Best I could make out was a horizontal boring machine. The belt came up through the floor, around some pulleys and back down. It had a foot pedal that had at least two stages of function. Wish I knew more about what it was... There is an image in a post from a year ago.

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Almost all tools (machines) were on line shafts on ceilings or under floors until the 1920s when electric motors started in. Even today things like table saw arbors are just small line shafts to change speeds. The line shaft ran at a constant off steam or water wheel. Pulleys were used to change machine speeds. Fascinating story in itself.
Jim

Again it’s been about 10 years ago when I started on this path. I had realized that I spent a lot of time working on one part of a board. For instance, one end of one drawer side. You may make one cut to get it from a longer board. Than you square up a face and an edge. You then go back to the same end cut it again to square it with your edge. You then cut board to length. Then to the shooting board if you do that. At that point you probably mark the baselines, the most critical measurement. If that is off its back to a plane, shooting board or cutting a new side. You finally cut your tails. After the glue up you are back once again with a plane to clean up the same end of the board. This is what I am meaning “They simply did not do it”. I really believe that in the past they tried not to work on the same end so many times. I think that is why we see things like overcuts on pins and the like.
Jim