Wood carving in 1912

Rob Keeble

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GTA Ontario Canada
I have no idea how i came across this video but it shows what carving used to be like in the shops around 1912.

Not the best quality but its historical black and white good enough to see the workmanship we will never see again on a mass basis.

https://youtu.be/3Glg4gNWnYQ

At the end you get an idea of the duration of the apprenticeship and the work done during the process of learning.
 
I loved the video.

Yeah sadly those skill sets are gone on a production scale. BUT - the skill sets are not entirely gone. There are still carvers that do a fantastic job at what they do.

I am sure fabrication of those carved works was done using the best technologies available to them in that day, just as technology is used today.

Hand Carved Signs today are still highly prized items - as well as priced that way. Joe Crumley of Norman Signs in Oklahoma does hand carved signs. He is highly skilled and on the level of those in the video. His work is phenomenal.
 
There are still a few folks around who are in the same league, Mark Yundt comes to mind: http://woodworkingstudio.net/gallery2.html (he also has a blog apparently - just found that now when searching for him: https://woodcarvingblog.wordpress.com/).

The one thing not shown (much) there is the amount of work done before carving, I know that some of the people who do this will spend days drawing up the plans or making models before starting on a piece.

Fun stuff either way, pretty humbling to watch.
 
Great video, thanks for posting it Rob. Oh man, about half way through that one guy preping for fine detail on that big block was taking off MASSIVE amounts of wood...lol...I would have been scared to death of it grabing and taking off more then I wanted, I can do a little carving, but no where even close to that kind of speed and accuracy that those guys displayed. Of course I don't do it every day all day long. I can imagine after a three apprenticeship the hand strenght of them guys must have been unreal...hate to have one of them guys grab me ... yikes...that would hurt like hell...no need for vise grips there...lol
 
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