I’ve made a few pitchforks for historical museums over the years, though I can hardly say I’m an expert. Curtis Buchanan called me a few months ago and said he wanted to make a pitchfork. Here’s some photos from my weekend in Jonesborough,  eating the Buchanan’s good food and making pitchforks with Curtis and a neighbor of his. We had a ball! Thanks to Curtis’s neighbor Ben for taking many of these photos:

The process starts much as a chair back does:  riving, squaring, tapering, octagonalizing….

Curtis boring holes for the dowel-spreaders with my help.

Curtis sawing the tines apart…

…and stopping to tell a story.

Riveting the tines together to prevent the tines splitting when we bend the fork.

Ben talking philosophy as the forks steam.

     Here I’m splitting dowel spreaders from dry stock.

Ben driving the spreaders through a dowel plate.

Out of the steam box, the spreaders are driven through the holes.

Then the fork is inserted into the form.

The tines are spread.

  The handle bent up…

…then down.

Here we’re spreading the tines, first with clamps…

…then wedges.

Curtis nailing the tines to the spreader dowels.

Done!