Quick Review-Shepherd Tool @ Popular Woodworking

Re:Shepherd Tool @ Popular WWing-addendum

Bernie Kremer

>Re-reading my post, I realized I would be remiss if I didn't add a thumbs up for Chris Schwarz's contributions in helping arrange the night and his handtool focus in the magazine's reviews and projects. Righteous!

Popular Woodworking and Shepherd Tool

Ted Owen, Pittsburgh

>It was delightful to meet everyone. Chris, Steve, Dave, and all the crew at Popular Woodworking were generous hosts. It's so nice to see the magazine offering more advice, guidance, and discussion regarding hand tools and how they best fit into a furniture or cabinetmaking shop. IMHO, they're now publishing a--perhaps the--premiere hand tools magazine, and I'm pleased to be a new subscriber.

I have little metal working experience, and the thought of trying a Shepherd kit and screwing it up was scary. After seeing Doug in action, I see it's much easier than feared. In fact, it's just plain easy. Now, I have to try one--but should it be the panel plane or jointer? Hmmm.

And Ben was a fascinating source of plane history and development. For example, did you know the term "gun metal" comes not from a specific type of metal but from its source? When the British navy captured other vessels and returned them to port, the guns were melted down and the metal sold--gun metal.

We've got to talk these folks into attending Five-Barns.

Great fun. Thanks, Christopher, for your efforts and for including me.

Best, Ted

Re: Popular Woodworking and Shepherd Tool

joel

>"And Ben was a fascinating source of plane history and development. For example, did you know the term "gun metal" comes not from a specific type of metal but from its source? When the British navy captured other vessels and returned them to port, the guns were melted down and the metal sold--gun metal. "

I would be really interested to hear Ben's sources.

Guns have been made of iron and steel since before the industrial revolution. Bronze guns are pretty unusual and any ship captured would have at best only a few guns of the hundreds made of any bronze alloy.

The primary use of Gunmetal in the navel is because it's not corroded by seawater and is great for metal parts in general - EXCEPT for guns.

Also no founder of any quality would be able to use a miscleaneous alloy avaialble in uncertain quantities to produce consistant castings.

It is far more likely (and I can't look it up as I don't own an OED) that the term first shows up as a specfiication for bronze for Royal Navy contracts.

Re: Popular Woodworking and Shepherd Tool

Rob Lee

>...I never use gunmetal in my navel... :)

Rob

(culdn't resist, as I somtimes make funny typin errors too...)

Re: Popular Woodworking and Shepherd Tool

joel

>You could - have you thought about a piercing?

OED & Gun-metal

Justin W in Ann Arbor, MI

>I have access to the OED online, so here's the OED definition of gun metal...

gun-metal:

1. A bronze formerly much used for cannon; now, a common term for alloys of copper and tin (or zinc).

1541 Act 33 Hen. VIII, c. 7 �1 No person..should..conuey anie brasse..laten, bell metall, gun metall, ne shroffe metal into..partes beyonde the sea. 1693 T. POVEY in Phil. Trans. XVII. 736 About 20l. of Lead is usually put into 100l. of Pot-metal; but about 6l. is sufficient to put into 100l. of Gun-metal. 1776 ADAM SMITH W.N. IV. viii. (1869) II. 240 The exportation of unmanufactured brass, of what is called gun-metal, bell-metal, and shroff-metal, still continues to be prohibited. 1824 TREDGOLD Ess. Cast Iron 114 A cast bar of the alloy of copper and tin commonly called gunmetal. 1854 J. SCOFFERN in Orr's Circ. Sci., Chem. 492 Gun-metal is an alloy of eleven parts tin and one hundred of copper. 1858 GREENER Gunnery 61 Gun metal, technically so called, is a compound of copper and tin, in the proportion of five, eight, and ten pounds of the latter to 100 pounds of the former. 1881 RAYMOND Mining Gloss. s.v., Aich's metal and some other gun-metals contain zinc and iron but no tin. 1887 D. A. LOW Machine Draw. (1892) 80 Alloys consisting of copper and tin are called bronze or gun-metal.

attrib. 1879 Man. Artil. Exerc. 168 Attach the gun~metal plates to it by screws supplied.

2. A colour resembling that of gun-metal, a dull bluish-grey.

1905 Daily Chron. 12 July 6/7 Gun-metal coloured taffeta. 1923 Daily Mail 8 Oct. 1/2 In Gun Metal, Shoe Grey and Black. 1931 Daily Tel. 21 May 6/3 A train of gun-metal chiffon. 1952 C. DAY LEWIS tr. Virgil's Aeneid II. 42 Its angrily-rearing head, its gun-metal neck.

Re: Popular Woodworking and Shepherd Tool

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Encyclop�dia Britannica, gunmetal, also called G Metal, variety of bronze, formerly used for ordnance. Modern admiralty gunmetal is composed of 88 percent copper, 10 percent tin, and 2 percent zinc and is used for gears and bearings that are to be subjected to heavy loads and low speeds. It withstands atmospheric, steam, and seawater corrosion and is suitable for valves, pump parts, and steam fittings.

Re: OED & Gun-metal

joel

>THanks for posting that. Doesn't answer the question on which came first the scrap term or the specificaltion of the alloy to use in the very early days when some cannon were bronze. although I would go for the latter origination myself. Also what in heck is "shroffe metal"?

the first citation of 1541 doen't actually define the material - just assumes we know what it is and that it is one of a series of bronze alloys that were restricted.

The term obviously predates 1541. I would like Ben to comment on his source (which of course must be even earlier) where it is explictitly referred to as scrap metal from guns as opposed to an alloy used to make early guns.

I love the OED. (and if forced to guess before your post I would have bet the term comes from the mid-late 18th century - not 200 years earlier when guns were made of bronze)

Scrap first, then spec

Ted Owen, Pittsburgh

>According to Ben, the spec developed later. It certainly was a fascinating couple hours.

Best, Ted

Re: Scrap first, then spec

joel

>But where does he get this information from and I hope he chimes in here and sites his source.

It makes more sense the other way around and certainly the OED has the "spec" reference going back to 1541.

Re: Scrap first, then spec *LINK*

benknebel

>Firstly let's talk about when bronze cannons were made.

They were made well into the 19th century and bronze was common in cannons right up to the 1880's.

There are 2 cannons in a fort in Nova Scotia cast in 1813 and 1814 respectively--go to this link to see them http://www.newscotland1398.net/lunenco/chesbronzcann.html

Go to this link to see others from the same era

http://www.newscotland1398.net/annapco/annebroncann.html

The cannons at this link http://www.history.navy.mil/cannons/cannons.html#anchor625232 in one of the US Naval yards are all bronze and date as late as the mid 1800's and are from several different countries.

At this link you will see a confederate cannon cast in 1857 http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Woods/3501/cannons.htm

Now from the 1600's to the 1890's the British dominated the seas and 20% of the land mass of the earth ( by 1899). They captured 10's of thousands of bronze cannons --both land and sea types and when they didn't use them to outfit their own ships--which was common BTW--they sold off the cannons as scrap.This gunmetal was used extensively by British industry in everything from lever caps for planes to candlesticks in churches---it became a status symbol to have a candlabra in your home cast from a captured gun or a door knocker or a bronze bust or a clock etc.

Eventually the word "gunmetal" came into common usuage to describe any bronze that had any percentage of zinc in it and it is still called that today---see the C905 spec for gunmetal use today.

I'll find the specific references for this but it's been a while since I've looked for them so I'll post again when I find them.

Regards

Ben




Navy Yard

Council of Florence in 1326

David Barnett

>The Council of Florence in 1326 decreed a foundry for cannoni d'ottone (brass cannon) be built to replace the iron bound cannon then in use. Benvenuto Cellini (d. 1571), constructed his massive Perseus in the same foundries, using the same (albeit with improvements) lost-wax casting technique, the same alloys for cannon metal, and even the same woods for maintaining the correct temperatures (alder and oak, if I remember).

By the time Bartolomeo Beretta da Gardone delivered his 185 canne d�archibugio to the Arsenale di Venezia in 1526, it was already common to refer to the alloys as gun metal, cannon metal (cannoni/canne "ottone e bronzo" in Italian), and so on in the respective European languages, although these alloys were employed in arms and statuary alike. Later, the alloys most used for art casting became known as statuary bronze. The casting technology of cannon founding was of immense value, of course, but I don't recall gunmetal being particularly scarce or valuable itself.

(Sorry, this is off the top of my head, so I can't quote the sources for the above beyond book two of the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.)

Re: Spec then Scrap

joel

>I stand corrected on the use of bronze cannons but from what has been posted earlier the gunmetal term being originated as a term from scrap seems very, very tenuous. It seems it's the other way around.

It seems reasonable for the coloquial reference to most bronze objects as gun-metal if as you say there was tons of scrap gunmetal around, not because the metal came from gun scrap but because it was gunmetal.

Re: Spec then Scrap *LINK*

benknebel

>I agree Joel--I didn't say that gunmetal was called that because it was scrap. What I did say was that bronze cannons were sold as scrap and that this gunmetal was used commonly for all kinds of objects and that eventually any bronze that contained any amount of zinc was called gunmetal even if it didn't meet the gunmetal spec.

Any way enough on gunmetal---I noticed that the link I posted to the naval yard site doesn't work so I'm posting it again.

Regards

Ben




http://www.history.navy.mil/cannons/cannons.html#anchor625232

You're clearly right, joel

David Barnett

>The first real Western arms race was fought by the city-states of Italy in the early 1300's, and there are numerous references in Italian to the desperate search for the perfect cannon alloy, and various versions of the terms for gunmetal surely predate the English "gunmetal" by hundreds of years. It is simply too common a combination of words to have been otherwise (although "metallo" was not always as common then as today.) Of course "gunmetal" for gunmetal scrap is a viable secondary derivation.

Now that's correct.

David Barnett

>

Um... Ben....

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>I think your computer has a bit of a cold or a virus. Let's just say I tried to open your picture and got a very kinky story.

Gun Metal - assay laws

R.J. "Sam" Simpson

>Hi Y'all,

I think you will get closer to the route of this conundrum, if you look in the direction of the British assay laws. The term "gunmetal" is not only a term to describe metal as used in gun making, but also a term used to describe the quality of the metal, as being suitable for guns and firearms.

An interesting aside, is the nail making trade. This trade was the first to be assigned National assay or "quality control." In fact the quality control involved in nail making was so consistent, that the firearm manufacturers purchased assayed nails as a base line from which to control the quality of barrel making.

So, I read into Ben's reference to "Gun Metal" not only the source of supply, but also the quality of the material being purveyed.

Regards Sam Simpson.

Re: Popular Woodworking and Shepherd Tool

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Reminds me of an inadvertantly funny sign I saw in a shopping center here in Sydney offering:

Naval Piercing

I had fits of laughter all afternoon imagining destroyers with a stud through the funnel.

Warships had funnels when I was in the Navy :-)

Re: Quick Review-Shepherd Tool @ Popular Woodworki

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>I just have one question. Did Doug use his "heritage" ball peen hammer to work the dovetails?? He posted pic's on the pond and I commented on the beautiful planes made an ugly hammer and I was wondering if he had retired the hammer yet? (Just for the liability issue ;-))JR