The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts

[Phil Pascoe]

BBC2 5.30pm 12/1

Anyone watch it?

 

[MikeG.]

I watched last night's, where some nice stuff was spoiled by the silly competition. They judged wallpaper against a silver vessel, a turned-and-steamed chair and some stunning hand-made tiles. It was revealing, interesting, but reduced somewhat to a game show by the format. There was a hilarious moment where a guy was flattening some log slices with a shiny low angle plane from Veritas or Lee Valley or the like, rather than an early 20th century plane.

 

[niagra]

Agreed, the competition was pointless, as was the contrived deadline. Poor old Abdollah was never going to complete the chair in that time. Still, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to next week's.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes, I thought they were judging apples against oranges - it was a bit pointless. The silver was nice (I dabble in that) and I would have liked to have seen a close up of the finished sconce just to see what he actually did with the silver ring. The chair was a tall order, really, for someone who wasn't used to making chairs. I'm sure he hit a wedge with the ripsaw ..... it sounded like it, anyway.
All in all reasonably entertaining - I'd watch another.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I watched last night's ...

Same one, Mike.

 

[bourbon]

I must admit to shouting at the screen a couple of times. The guy with the bone in his hair, He didn't half like to think he was the leader of the group, The rest ganged up on wallpaper lady because she didn't come from the home counties and why was Abdollah even thinking of splitting such a large trunk when he could have lathed branches for the spidles. I'll watch it again though, just for the laugh

 

[Sheffield Tony]

and why was Abdollah even thinking of splitting such a large trunk when he could have lathed branches for the spidles.

It was a bit of an excessive bit of tree, coppiced wood of 6-8" diameter would be easier and a bit more flexible. But not branch wood ! That's for burning. The loading as it grows means it will not have the pith in the middle, so may not cleave straight and will likely move too much as it dries.

Bit of a tall order for a cabinet maker to learn green woodwork in a week. His pole lathe skills looked - well, like a beginner who hasn't been taught well. Too fast treaddling, and scraping.

Liked the silverwork, which was the best job for me.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes, it was a neat bit of silver work.

 

[treeturner123]

Agreed, the silver was pretty good. But then modern silversmiths use almost the same methods as Arts & Craft whilst some of the others were very much out of their comfort zone.

I predict some rows brewing as one or two seem to have a high opinion of themselves and clearly aren't used to collaborating.

Phil

 

[woodbloke66]

Liked the silverwork, which was the best job for me.

I thought the silverwork was excellent as well. However, did anyone see how she brought a roughly planished bowl to a finished and polished state, where almost all the hammer marks had been removed? My guess is that somewhere 'off camera' there was a electrickery silversmithing polishing set up which is really the only way she could have obtained that finish in the time available.
They couldn't obviously show that as it would have run counter to all the original precepts of the English A&C movement...no powered machinery, sweat of the brown, done by hand, honest toil etc etc...
Good programme none the less and I'm looking forward to what they do next time - Rob

 

[bourbon]

and why was Abdollah even thinking of splitting such a large trunk when he could have lathed branches for the spidles.

It was a bit of an excessive bit of tree, coppiced wood of 6-8" diameter would be easier and a bit more flexible. But not branch wood ! That's for burning. The loading as it grows means it will not have the pith in the middle, so may not cleave straight and will likely move too much as it dries.

I bow to your superior knowledge. I know you helped me when I was after poles for our lathe. But that's all I did, I left the turner to it and got on with my pewter casting! I didn't think about the branches, (charcoal?) but coppiced wood would make sense. And save the poor guy a lot of work.

 

[AES]

I watched it too, and also enjoyed it. Will probably watch the next one.

Along similar lines to comments posted previously about similar TV programmes though, the "game show/deadline" format annoyed me. I do NOT expect a full tutorial on any of the techniques shown, but this idea that TV people have of always reducing everything to the lowest common denominator just to build (artificial) tension, emotion, and drama "to maintain viewer interest" really does irritate me though. The TV people always seem to think that all viewers have the attention span of a drunken gnat!

Oh yeah, I thought the silver smithing was good too. Never tried that, looks interesting.

 

[AndyT]

Much the same response here. Too much time devoted to establishing the unnecessary deadline jeapordy and not enough on the making.
If the cabinet maker really was new to green woodworking he did well to make that Morris chair in a week. If someone had shown him how to hold the tools so as to cut rather than scrape, he might have enjoyed it more. Frustrating to see that there was nothing shown between splitting the large log and getting small, smooth pieces. A few minutes about the shaving horse and drawknife would have been good, and possibly new to many viewers.

At least it steered clear of having one of those cringeworthy sequences where the presenter has to have a go and make a mess of it.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I did raise an eyebrow at the cleaving of the log. Sending in with a saw was a strange thing to do, and it did look like he hit one of the wedges. They showed us a shot of an axe several times, but seemingly nobody thought to use it :lol:

I don't quite know how you build a chair of that type in a week. The turned parts need drying time. Those bits could be turned and seasoned by the bodger in the wood. The non-turned bits are probably made from seasoned wood, so the spindles had better be dry or the joints will loosen.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes. The silver work, beautiful as it was is much simpler in the sense there are very few variables. The melting point of sterling is 893c and that of the of the solders probably either 738c or 719c (hard solder is 788c, but that would only be really necessary if there were joints very close together which in this case I don't think there were). These things do not change as wood does.

 

[AndyT]

Am I the only one who was a bit disappointed that she used a modern gas torch for the soldering?

But maybe several hundred pounds worth of silver with several days work invested in it isn't the best place to learn about using the sort of blowlamp where you blow through a tube to control the flame...

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You wouldn't necessarily damage the silver with a blow torch, you just wouldn't get the job done. It's far, far more likely it wouldn't run hot enough than run too hot. I must admit I was surprised she didn't use a blow torch - but if you haven't trained using one they are difficult to use. I did classes over the years with maybe fifty different people of varying abilities and I ever knew anyone to use one other than for demos. Why use one when a gas torch is easier and better? It's not like woodwork where many people seem to think a tool design or method of use is automatically better because it's older.

 

[AndyT]

Well, they were dressing up in period costume and supposedly getting back into the time of the A&C movement... but hey, there's another possibility - maybe the producers didn't really think all these things through!

Actually, some of the 'period' tools were only there for set dressing. Why else would the chairmaker have had a tiny (but visually interesting) archimedean drill, shown in close-up? I didn't spot any fretwork on his chair!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

This is the guy who taught the first evening classes I did in 1977 -
http://www.midcornwallgalleries.com/pro ... j-van-dop/

Eat your heart out.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Anyone watch this week's? Beautiful piece of copper smithing.