Thread: Bent-wood Boxes

Just done some minor research on what you meant by "bent wood" boxes thinking that they would be in line with the "shaker" style of formed boxes but it appears that the Indian style is totally different and is either square or rectangular and made from steaming and bending one piece of wood then carved and painted after the box is formed?
I am interested in leaning more, please post your findings.....cheers Kerry

I think I know exactly the boxes you are interested in. I'm sure I have something at home in regards to these boxes and will get back to you, hopefully with some pertinent info

This is like pulling teeth out of a chicken.
First, our native indians don't care to reveal their knowledge to a caucasian like me. It's an issue of status mixed with cultural tradition and mistreatment by both settlers and missionaries. So be it.
Second, I now know that the cedar slabs have to be split off the face of the log (tangential) as opposed to a radial split slab as most lumber is sawn,
This is no problem for me, western red cedar splits very easily and I have lots of log pieces in my wood stash.
Third, I commissioned a blacksmith to make me a froe with a 25cm x 7.5cm x 5mm blade with which to start the splitting process, wooden wedges get tapped in behind that. Well, my froe gets wrapped up for mailing probably today! I wonder what the postage will be for an iron slab 50cm x 8cm x 5mm? Yours truely gets to pay for it all.

Apparently, it matters which way the froe edge bevel is facing. Towards either the center or the outside of the log. One of those two makes less runout than the other. Another week and the experiments can begin.

Then I can move two and froe?

perhaps this may help.


Edit - Attachments removed.

Sister Darkside: Thank you so much. Where on earth did you find this vintage piece? It is THE key missing document. Outstanding.
The blacksmith emailed me today, my slab-cutting froe is finished and tested. As soon as my coin crosses his palm, Canada Post & Storage will do the rest. I must find some bigger logs.

Thank you!

I am a prolific hunter, gatherer and hoarder of pictures and a few very interesting articles and just so happened to have come across this article a few years ago.

I hope you will find what you are looking for and perhaps share the results with us?

thanks
Wendy

Even as a child, I remember marveling at the construction of a bent-wood box. I find it the absolute height of arrogance as it was claimed that the Native Indians of the Pacific Northwest Coast were "primitives." These "old ways" must never be lost in the fog of history.

Fast-forward to this day and time, the bent-wood boxes offered for sale in British Columbia galleries are NOTHING like those reported by the Bridgewaters. They mention the books by Frank Boas: a very well respected early anthropologist who spent his career in the PacNWest.

From a wood science perspective, I would have predicted that a face-cut, a tangential slab would be easier to work. The article says that the center-cut board (radial slab) was used for boxes.

No matter. I have enough wood to try both. Both dog houses are roped and staked down to stay put in the mountain winter blizzard winds so the logs stored on top can be moved and used.

Originally Posted by RufflyRustic

perhaps this may help.


Edit - Attachments removed.

Wendy,any chance of reposting the attachment Regards kerry

Wendy: if you can find it, would you please post the reference to the original book in which the Bridgewater article appeared? There's no copyright issues in that.
Thanks

hmm, it will be very interesting to see if I can remember whether it was a book or an early edition of Fine Wood Working.

No promises, but I'll see what I can do.

From memory, the photocopy I took of the article is with photocopies from this book, "Boxes and Chests", Alan and Gill Bridgewater. However, page 4 has a couple of advertisements, so I can only think that it came from an early Fine Woodworking Magazine perhaps or another book/magazine. I honestly can't remember more than that at present....

Hope that helps as a start...

Thanks for trying. Fine Woodworking is snail-mailing an article from 1980 (not online) regarding bentwood box construction. I found it used as a reference in a PacNWest volume on Native Cultures/differences/practices. I will post the reference when I see it.

The Haida took slaves. Property like bentwood boxes. For a potlach, the visitors arrived in a typical ocean-going canoe, some 15m+ in length ( a one-piece, bent/steamed wood cedar log.). In a display of wealth, the host used a bunch of his slaves as rollers to get the canoe (full of guests) up the beach.

A big house was some 12m wide, 30m long and 4m to the rafters, The frame had huge carved cornerposts. Guess who went into the bottom of each post hole, under the post, as a new house was constructed?