Technology for Luddites
“Hi everybody my name is Chris. I choose my woodworking projects based on whatever happens to inspire me”.
In this video, Chris builds a foot powered treadle lathe. Great project, great video.
Via Old Engineering.
Previously:
“I didn’t know much about watches until my aunt died and I inherited an astonishingly beautiful pocket watch from her. Looking online, I found it was made in Switzerland around 1800. It didn’t run, and when I opened the case I thought some small worm had got trapped inside. On closer inspection it wasn’t a worm but the tiniest chain I had ever seen, a perfect microscopic bicycle chain with links smaller than half a millimetre.”
Artist and maker Tim Hunkin repairs Victorian watches. On the picture: a 1908 Waltham pocket watch, Tim Hunkin.
“Our mattress is worn out. We need a new one, but I’ve been dreading buying a new one. I don’t like the waste of it all: The ignoble dragging of the old mattress to the curb. The prospect of sleeping on a brand new construct of toxic foam and fire retardants… In Greece, Italy and France mattresses are made by local craftsmen, and are stuffed with 100% wool. These mattresses basically last for life. When the wool gets compressed the mattress guys will empty it out, fluff it up, and re-stuff it, adding more wool if necessary.” [1]
“The bed Mary bought was made by Signor Oldani, a Milanese bed-maker and upholsterer. He made beds the Italian way, and the way we used to make mattresses in England before the introduction of short-lived internally sprung ones.
The beauty of the mattress is that when it needs a wash, the wool can be pulled out, stuffed, in batches, into pillow cases, put through the washing machine and after drying, carded back into fluffy pile before being returned to the mattress cover.
Every few years, it needs to be re-carded, as the wool slowly compacts, says Mary. In Italy during the summer, the mattress man, il cardatore, tours Italian homes, pulls out the wool from their mattresses, re-cards it, adds some more, as the process reduces the stuffing a bit, rebuttons and then sews the mattress cover back up again. Mary submitted her mattress to this process four times.” [2]
“Totally by chance, I found two places in Paris that still make their own 100% wool mattresses by hand… It was ready two days later. They told me to come back in 10 years to have the mattress redone: they pick it up in the morning, take out the wool stuffing, clean and refluff it, put a new cover on it, and then deliver it back to you before bedtime.” [3]
Read more: 1 / 2 / 3. Via Root Simple.
“Juliano Lima believed in the skills of his countrymen, but he knew that few Brazilian crafters had the resources to bring their work to a larger market. He wanted to create a global brand of leather shoes that were not only handmade, but made without chemicals for dyes or tanning (i.e. chrome). He traveled over 8,000 kilometers through Brazil looking for artisans who knew how to craft and dye leather the old way.”
“In the state of Ceará he found leather-workers whose hand-made process dated from the sixteenth century. Here they were still tanning leather without using chrome. To move beyond the colors of brown and black, he pushed to find a way to color his shoes with natural dyes. To create a more sustainable sole, Lima’s team began experimenting with using old tires, eventually creating a tool to craft the tires and separate the rubber from the steel wires.”
Watch the video: “Brazilian Slow Shoes“. More about Caboclo shoes.
“The bowls created by Robin Wood’s reconstructed lathe have an unique finish, which is only found in bowls cut with a traditional pole lathe. The sharp tools leave a distinctive mark much like the lines found on thrown earthen ware or glass. The clean cut with the sharpened tools means that the objects are practical for everyday use. They can be washed with warm soapy water and will not fuzz up, unlike a bowl cut
on a machine lathe and later sanded smooth. Robin’s bowls and plates only improve with use and ware.”
“Of course making wooden table ware for a living means making thousands of items every year, which seems rather a tall order when you consider the technology being used, but Rob insists that his pole lathe can turn out wooden ware as quickly as the mechanised equivalent. This theory has been put to the test and proven correct. As Robin explains in the
film, when he’s powered up, so is his lathe and he can get results quickly. When he stops the lathe turning he can adjust the wood instantaneously, whereas when you power down a mechanical lathe you have to wait for the machine to slow down and stop turning in it’s own time.”
“Any fool can make something more complex but it takes real genius to make things simple again“. A new video by Artisan Media. Robin Wood’s blog.
Via Toolemera. Previously: Make your own treadle lathe.
The ‘Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit’ (SUDU) in Ethiopia demonstrates that it is possible to construct multi-story buildings using only soil and stone. By combining timbrel vaults and compressed earth blocks, there is no need for steel, reinforced concrete or even wood to support floors, ceilings and roofs. The SUDU could be a game-changer for African cities, where population grows fast and building materials are scarce.
