Here’s a few more shorts from the British Pathe:
Bentwood trug baskets being made in 1929. They have some sort of a square steam box. What was this made out of? I assume there was no CDX plywood at this time, and my experience with solid wood steam boxes is that they warp dreadfully.
Lots and lot of hoops in this shed with a half-dozen workmen. I think I’d go crazy making one hoop after another for the rest of my life, but it would be fun to try for a morning. This video is quite apropos for me since I helped a friend make some 4′ diameter hoops for a puppet show a couple weeks ago. We could have used one of these shaving breaks – a shaving horse doesn’t work well when the work is flexible and long enough to bend to the ground.
BBC and British Pathe are not the same: you watched Pathe in the cinema and the BBC was broadcast, principally on the radio. Pathe was pretty jingoistic and as you know celebrated the wartime efforts especially. It also exposes the class system – the narrator is condescending and upper-class. BBC was similar but less so.
We recently bought a trug from a young woodworker in Sussex, Charlie Groves, who told us he uses chestnut for the boards that has been rejected by the cricket bat makers, http://www.thetrugstore.co.uk
Thanks for that! I’ll correct the text – I think some part of me knew the difference between BBC and Pathe, but not the part that was writing the blog at 10pm. I’m glad there are still trug makers.