Working Wonders With Wood

 

   It is rather incongruous that one would receive these days, via email, information about how to buy a woodworking book written in 1949. It came from Lee Valley which, by the way, is Canadian and that allows me to fulfil my Canadian content quota. It is also family owned, and finely named when you think about it. 

   The book reminded me of how ill-suited I was for the “trades” (even more so now) and that we should not be so dismissive of them. A skilled one like woodworking reminds me also that I was generally incapable of handling higher intellectual endeavours ( even more so now.) That is, I did not have the surgical skills required to deftly construct wooden contraptions and would not have been smart enough to calculate area, construct geometric shapes and determine miter angles, and do many of the other things which the Woodworker's Pocketbook explains. 

John Muir - The Woodworker

   I can at least recognize the talents of others and, in the case of working with wood, told you about the tremendously complicated objects constructed by the naturalist John Muir. That is one of his, pictured above. I will point you to a historical site where you can see more illustrations and learn about Muir’s inventions. He created one machine that booted him out of bed. He created another that allowed him to light a fire in a school house far away so it would be warm when he arrived!!??

The Clocks of the Bily Brothers

   I told you far too much about Muir earlier in this blog, but did not say anything about the Bily Clocks when I passed through Spillville, Iowa a while back. There is a museum there devoted to them. When the Bily brothers weren't busy farming, they were carving intricate and elaborate clocks like The Apostles' Parade which is almost ten feet tall and includes the twelve apostles. 

   Your day will be better spent looking at these wooden works of art, rather than reading what I have to say about them so I will provide what you need below.

Sources: 

For Muir, the place to begin is at the Wisconsin Historical Society where you will find, in the link provided, a good essay and other images. 

You know Muir's wooden inventions are interesting since they are included in both:

Mental Floss - "Conservationist John Muir’s Youthful Hobby: Inventing Amazing Alarm Clocks"

and

Atlas Obscura - "John Muir's Alarm Clock Desk"

   I provided a good description of Muir's fire-starting device which was taken from his, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth.  See the section on his inventions in "School Days and Labour Days."  If you want to read a novel-length post about Muir's wood working days in Meaford, Ontario see, John Muir. 

My cryptic reference to Spillville relates to the book review I did of Zoellner's The National Road. He is the one who actually went to Spillville and that is where I learned that Dvorak also visited and it was where the Bily boys did their work. They even 'manufactured' a Dvorak clock.

 The Bily museum can be learned about here: https://www.bilyclocks.org/

  A couple of hundred miles away in Libertyville, IA, you can learn more about the Bily clocks and many other kinds. See: The Well Made Clock. 

  The Bily clocks also made it into Atlas Obscura. 

  If you want to see them in action (the clocks, not the Bily brothers) see footage from the Bily Clocks Museum in this YouTube video. 

The Bonus:

  There is even a Dvorak clock. 

"Without nails or screws or training, and with homemade glue, the most unexpected and marvelous thing happened. Frank and Joseph Bily, a pair of bachelor brothers, carved and crafted some of the most beautiful, unique, intricate timepieces ever designed by untrained hands. For almost forty five years, from 1913 to 1957, when they weren’t busy running their family farm in northern Iowa, they carved and carved.

What you’re going to hear next, though, is what makes their story, not just unusual, but also stirring, heartening and thought provoking. They never sold their clocks, not even one, not even in 1928 when Henry Ford, the automaker who had an affinity for clocks and music boxes, upon hearing about their eight foot, five hundred pound American Pioneer History Clock, had offered them an astounding million dollars! Instead, they wanted to keep the collection in tact and stored in their barn."

[From The Wellmade Clock]