In many cases the same smith who made the nails occasionally turned his craft to the making of screws and thereby left us with personal traces of the maker. The smith heated the square stock and then began the process of pounding out a round shaft. But the form used for the screw was a more or less round shallow depression into which the top of the shaft was hammered flat, producing a screw head. The slot for the bladed screwdriver was cut with a hacksaw. So far so good. Lacking a cold hardened steel die with which to cut the thread, the craftsman had to cut it himself by hand.
ADDITIONAL MEDIA
This was usually done in laborious fashion with a file. When the smith had the length he thought was needed for the job, he simply cut or snipped the threaded shaft. This entire hand-done process leaves a multitude of clues on the handmade screw, just waiting for our inspection. Starting with the top of the screw, the head, evidence of handwork is abundant.
In most cases the head is not perfectly round and is not centered perfectly on the shaft. The hand cut slot is seldom perfectly centered on the off-center head. Below the head, on the smooth portion of the shaft above the threads, is the most likely place to find areas that still show a flat side of the original iron nail stock. This portion of the shaft is almost never totally round or totally smooth. But the most obvious clue to the handwork is the thread.
The pitch, the angle of the thread to the shaft, will vary considerably from thread to thread as will the depth of the cut into the shaft that produces the thread. The edges are often flat since they were filed into shape, and the tip is invariably blunt since the smith just cut it off. And the overall shape of the entire screw is cylindrical rather than tapered, as is the case in modern screws. Because of the individual nuances and variables in the handwork process, no two handmade screws are identical. Screws with these characteristics were produced until early in the 19th century.
Around a machine was introduced that made screws on a lathe but the War of slowed its distribution and development. After the War, the new machine went right to work, turning out virtually identical screws with sharp even threads, but the heads still had to be hand forged and the slots were still cut with a hacksaw, producing slight variations caused by this last bit of handwork. These new machine-made screws also resembled their ancestors in that they were still almost perfectly cylindrical and had a blunt tip. The methods of working wood also changed during this time.
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The saw changed, molding styles changed, mortising changed. Since it is impossible for any item to be older than the technology that made it possible, a chronological system of the advancement of cabinetmaking technology can be used to establish construction dates to within a few years. The up and down saw leaves marks on wood that look like this.
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The circular saw leaves marks on wood that look like this. The pit saw is a two-man powered saw used in America before to cut logs into boards. After , its major use was as a large jigsaw to shape knees, ribbing, and planking for ships. The up-and-down saw, was used in this country from the s until early in the s. Therefore, most boards used in the construction of early cupboards show signs of being cut with an up-and-down saw. The circular saw although introduced in the mid s could not be made big enough and powerful enough to cut lumber of the size used in furniture construction until The circular saw was limited to cutting thin pieces of wood such as shingles, clapboards, and laths until the early s.
Cupboards and other furniture in which the large size boards used in their construction are circular saw cut can date to , but usually date after The rough sawed lumber used in furniture construction was smoothed with either a hand held plane, or a planing machine.
The hand held plane was used in this country from the beginning until after Planing machines were experimented with early in the s. Two early experiments are the Woodworth planer in and the Daniels planer in However, a perfected machine was not developed until Lawsuits over patent rights prevented its use until Machine plane marks are of some use in dating cupboards made as early as , but machine plane marks usually suggest a construction date of or later.
The introduction of the modern looking butt hinge used to hold doors on cupboards dates to Before , hinges were made one at a time by a blacksmith. The first butt hinges were made out of cast iron. They were thick and heavy. By , cast iron hinges became thinner as manufacturers tried to squeeze more hinges out of each pound of iron. By , the use of cast iron in the making of butt hinges was discontinued in favor of stamped steel. The common wood screw underwent a major change in when T.
Sloan of New York City invented the first machine to mass-produce this item. Sloan holds many patents for cutting threads, shaping points, and forming the heads of screws. Before , all screws were handmade and the slot in the top of the screw was hand cut with a hacksaw. Seldom was the cut placed exactly in the center. Because the new machine made screw was inexpensive, it was readily accepted by cabinetmakers. Items made after are made using this new screw. For the first ten years of production, machine made screws were made with no slot in their head.
System for Dating Country and Primitive Furniture, Part One
The slot still had to be cut by hand with a hacksaw. Country furniture made with these screws can easily be dated to the ten-year period The Mercer library contains materials on both machine made screws and methods of cutting screws by hand. In , cast iron latches became available to cabinetmakers. After the introduction of the cast iron latch, most cabinetmakers used this new feature in place of the little wooden turnstile that had been used for centuries. In the South and Midwest, hand-cast brass latches were in use before These early latches were inlaid into cabinet doors rather than being attached to the surface, as were the later cast iron latches.
Dealers who specialize in country and primitive furniture have depended on the above methods plus the study of nails for dating their antiques. Many dealers feel that the technological system is superior to the stylistic system.
Furniture styles linger for years. New technologies, because they bring cheaper prices or faster methods, are accepted quickly — usually within a year or two.
Nails and Wood screws
The Dating of Old Houses, a paper prepared by Dr. Mercer, contains photographs, drawings, and patent information on nails, hinges, screws, hardware, planing machines, etc. The screw above was handmade. The slot in the top was hand cut by a hacksaw. The screw on the right was machine made.