Welcome!
I hope you enjoy our website!
It's amazing how many crafts and trades have been lost to history. One day soon I expect someone to research how people used to put up web pages on websites like this one to share information and know that it too is a lost craft. Some of the crafts and trades have become just hobbies to some and industry has revolutionized others or completely eliminated them.
My great grandfather had a full blown blacksmith shop. When I was a child the shop had not been a working blacksmith shop in years but I played there with my young imagination. It took me back to the days when the fire burned bright and his hammer smashed against the hot red steel and showers of sparks rained at his feet. Later in life it made me appreciate all the crafts and trades that have come and gone to get us to today along with the craftsmen who experimented and sacrificed for the benefit of everyone who lived after them.
In the past people typically worked one trade or craft all of their lives and pasted the secrets of their trade or craft to their children or apprentice. So much information has been lost about the crafts and trades of yesterday while some have been captured in books written by tradesmen and craftsmen before they passed. The mission of this website is to try to capture a few of these books from each trade or craft that has been lost to history.
Please feel free to submit comments and suggestion using the "Contact Us" button above. Thanks again for visiting!
Latest Book
Our latest book addition is "Practical Carriage Building" Complied by M. T. Richardson. Comprising of numerous short practical articles upon carriage and wagon woodwork; Plans for factories, shop and bench tools, convenient appliances for repair work, Methods of working, Peculiarities of bent tember, Constuction of carriage parts, Repairing wheels, Forms of tenons and mortises, together with a variety of useful hints and suggestions to woodworkers. Copyright 1891.