HHandicrafts Lords Prayer pattern No 12

[scrimper]

I have found my copies of the original Handicrafts design no 12 The Lords Prayer at the time it was advertised as the most ambitious fretwork item they designed and it certainly is magnificent, though a lot of work to do, IMHO lettering is one of the worst things to cut as unlike other things like leaves or shapes it has to be exact and if you deviate from the line you can't easily disguise it as a different shape!

The copies are in very poor condition and the paper is very fragile and torn away at the folds, I have bought myself an A3 printer/scanner and am going to try to renovate the plan by joining it together and repairing the missing bits in photoshop. Below is a sample of two pieces straight from the scanner.

Amazingly I have 4 copies of this plan all in the same damaged condition, they came from a shoe box full of old plans I bought several years ago There were about 120 plans in the box dating back to 1890 although many of them are very fragile and tear very easily.

My grandfather made one of these in the 1920's and remember it on his living room wall, I have always wished to make one but it might be too ambitious for me?

It is made in sections but even so imagine spending hours cutting it out then make a silly mistake and have to start again!

 

[Claymore]

wow! blimey that must take some making and like you said imagine getting halfway through and something going wrong......... what type of saw did your grandfather use to make one? he must have had the patience of a saint to produce that.

 

[bugbear]

wow! blimey that must take some making and like you said imagine getting halfway through and something going wrong......... what type of saw did your grandfather use to make one? he must have had the patience of a saint to produce that.

IIRC the last thread about this linked to an old article about a lady who cut this with a 18" hand frame...

BugBear

 

[Chippygeoff]

I agree with you John. When I first started doing scroll saw work it was so frustrating cutting letters and I made a lot of fire wood then. Many years later I still get the odd one where something goes wrong, an awkward piece of grain or a lapse of concentration. As you say, one mistake and the whole thing is ruined along with an expensive piece of hardwood. I would dearly love to make the Lords prayer and if I did scroll saw work purely as a hobby I would give it a go but maybe in a different format to that lovely plan you have, I was thinking along the lines of cutting each word individually and then coming up with a way to put them all together in a frame.

 

[bugbear]

There was a good thread (to which I posted some carefully searched up links) on the old woodhaven site :-(

This pattern was quite a popular "goal", back in the day.

BugBear

 

[scrimper]

wow! blimey that must take some making and like you said imagine getting halfway through and something going wrong......... what type of saw did your grandfather use to make one? he must have had the patience of a saint to produce that.

He used a Hobbies Treadle machine (The Imperial). Don't forget that when he did it there was not that much to do in your spare time. this was before TV and other time-wasting things that occupy us now.

The actual finished item looks a lot more impressive than is obvious from the plan, some of the lettering is overlaid giving a 3d type look. The plaque disappeared when he died we don't know whether he gave it away to his carer/lady-friend or what. I am not at all religious but I would have liked this hanging on my wall.

 

[scrimper]

I know people will think me odd but even if I don't have a go at making this item I sort of feel duty bound to save this plan before it disintegrates, for all I know it may not exist anywhere else? The thing is that Handicrafts was not as widespread as Hobbies Ltd and they probably never sold that many of this plan also any that did survive may have been lost in WW2, also in the days when this pattern was sold often the pattern was glued to the wood and sacrificed unlike today when we have scanners and copiers where we can keep the original pattern.

One day I would like to create a Fretwork site and put some of my really old patterns on it hoping that others will have a go at making some of the older designs.

 

[bugbear]

...also in the days when this pattern was sold often the pattern was glued to the wood and sacrificed unlike today when we have scanners and copiers where we can keep the original pattern.

Good point - that hadn't occurred to me.

BugBear

 

[AndyT]

I seem to have acquired a copy of the Handicrafts "Annual" from 1933. It's really a catalogue padded out with a few articles along the lines of "buy all this stuff from us" but it's certainly got a good selection of fretwork patterns, which were also available with all the wood to make them.

This page shows your Lord's Prayer design:

and here it is a bit closer:

They also offered an even larger, more ambitious version, 32" x 23 1/2", described as having "the record for the greatest number of exhibition awards."

Here it is in context:

and a bit closer - excuse the quality but the original catalogue was really badly printed!