Scorp

After starting this book, I encountered several words new to me.  One of my favorites: The Scorp.

The scorp derives it’s name from the same Proto-Indo-European root ‘-sker’ (meaning ‘to cut or shear’) as does the more familiar word scorpion.  It is designed as a roughing-out tool for making bowls, spoons, and similar concave shapes.  The handle is offset to allow adequate hand clearance and the shank is stout to reduce chatter and increase precision in carving.  Also known as an inshave, this hand held draw knife was used extensively in the chair and cooperage industry.  If you’ve ever known a Bill, Joe, or Shelly Cooper, their linneage (although, it must be said, distantly so) is one of barrel making.  There was a time, as Austin Weber writes, when “everything from soup to nuts was transported in wood barrels.”  Thousands of coopers made millions of barrels to meet the demand.  Cooperages often occupied 15-20 acreas of land to store and weather the necessary wood.  Apprenticeships in barrel making were a highly coveted position and lasted 4 years or more.  Looking at a barrel stave illustrates why they are so hard to make and why the inshave was so vital.  The stave has a concave side, a convex side, two tapered ends and, finally, two long edges cut on a chamfer.  “If one stave is out of shape by the slightest degree the barrel will leak” adds John Seymour, in The Forgotten Arts & Crafts.  Drawknives themselves have a cloudier history.  A remarkable find was the Viking-age Mästermyr chest (c. 1000 AD), which contained, amongst much else, a two-handled inshave.  Ron used his scorp with other assorted draw knives to give accuracy to the fit and feel of his 19th century log cabin.