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Monday, December 8, 2008

Pump-drill

I have wanted to make a drill for re-enactment purposes for at very long time now.
So last week, when i got an oppotunity to try some woodturning I desided that my first ever woorturning-project, was to be a so-called "pump-drill".




Although I don't have any sources of these drills being used in medieval times, I can only think that they must have had them...
The mecanism that rotates the drill is very simple and has been used for at least a couple of hundred years, by all sorts of craftsmen (namely goldsmiths).

I haven't made the drill-bits, for the pump-drill yet. But photos of these will follow as soon as I figure out how to make them... Along with a demonstration!

The drill is made from oak-wood and norwegian soapstone.



The soapstone fly-wheel makes the drill rotate steadily and wind up the cords that spins the shaft of the drill.



The cord is mounted on both ends of the "cross-bar" (?) by a knot tied to a small nail.



At the top of the shaft the cord passes through a hole. This makes sure that the cord is equally long on both ends of the "cross-bar".

11 comments:

  1. It looks really beautiful. Simple but beautiful. I´ve never tried woodturning in oak and I sort of thought it would be hard to get a nice smooth surface of the finished object, but you seem to have got it right.
    Good luck with the drill-bits.
    /Frej

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  2. Oak is a bitch ;-)
    The drill got a lot of small fractures. Nothing that compromises the stability, but it doesn't look that good.
    Maybe it isn't that clear on the pictures... but unfortunately they are there...
    Next time i will try Elderberry-wood instead!

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  3. I agree with Frej.. It's beautiful in its simplicity!

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  4. Have you looked at the tools in the Mästermyr chest?

    http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/resultat_foremal.asp?lokalid=39216&sort=ASC&orderby=lokal_&qtype=f&search=1

    http://www.netlabs.net/~osan/Mastermyr/ImageLib.html

    There are drills (Swe: borr) and drillbits in there.

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  5. Thanks for the links Lia! Those are som great pictures!
    If I could one day own copies of all those lovely tools... I would surely be one happy guy :-)

    Even though there are drills in the Mästermyr-chest i don't think that they are suitable for a pump-drill. The type of drills ("Augers" or "spoon-drills") found in the Mästermyr-chest are augers and I believe the require a more sturdy handle. As they are rotated by hand.

    The drill-bits for the pump-drill are smaller and the bit is almost always flat.
    The tips of the drills can then be either diamond-shaped or "crown"-shaped.

    As can be seen in this reconstruction:
    http://www.historiavivens1300.at/hv1300.htm

    And here...

    http://www.historiavivens1300.at/hv1300.htm

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  6. Nice work!

    You wrote: "Although I don't have any sources of these drills being used in medieval times, (...)".
    Well, here they are:
    1425 http://www.nuernberger-hausbuecher.de/75-Amb-2-317-5-v "Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung"
    ca. 1280 http://www.beinschnitzer.de/biblio/spielebuch.jpg , ist from "Libro del Acedrex"

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  7. These pump drills were used in the middle ages. In the book "On The Divers Arts, written by Theophils, there is a plate done in 1576 by the artist Stephanus. In the upper left hand corner you will see two of these drills.

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  8. Really useful post. I'm probably going to be making my own pump drill for medieval jewellery work.

    I've used one of your photo's and linked to this blog. I hope that is OK with you.

    Jamie

    Primitive Method blog

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  9. Very nice work! I have been searching for material on renaissance drills lately and this is a goldmine. Have you seen information on heavier drills for things like pipe augers?

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  10. For wood i would think that spoon augers were the most common.
    Drilling in stone might be done with a chisel.

    I will have to read about pipe-augers. Don't know anything about them.

    ReplyDelete