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ACTS OF CARE
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The sites of the Sheffield Edition interventions are within the
walls of Portland Works on Randall St; the location where
Stainless Steel cutlery was first made 100 years ago. This site
was chosen as it holds a strong historical significance within
the metal trades and it continues to thrive today as a community
owned series of workshops which house a variety of highly
skilled craftspeople, artists and small scale manufacturers.
In a way unlike other objects, tools speak of the action that
is afforded to them through material choice, ergonomics and
scale; layers of readable triggers that can be carefully unpicked
to discover the function. Having the potential to then be
engaged in a subsequent creative act, invites the imagination of
what has and could be done.
Each tool created within the Acts of Care series are highly
specific in their function; they have been designed and made
to perform a single action; marrying a particular material with
a technique. Their highly specified use betrays an obsessive
manifesto for modern acts of care. I am using these tools
to create order and work minute details into spaces where
breakage or loss has occurred; to ameliorate the site.
Are we the last generation to be able read these objects, to decode the meanings of the various joints, design and materials to
glean information as to their proposed use? As access to skills
teaching becomes evermore rare, practitioners retire without
anyone to succeed them, and small businesses are swallowed
up are these tools to become relics of a fetishised past for
future generations?
It is by working with our hands on a micro scale that the large
scale changes occur.
Linda Brothwell 2013
Acts of Care The Sheffield Edition
was created by Linda Brothwell.
This project was made for Jerwood
Makers Open 2013, part of Jerwood
Visual Arts, a major initiative of the
Jerwood Charitable Foundation.
All content within this publication
is the property of Linda Brothwell
and must not be reproduced in any
format without prior permission from
the artist.
www.lindabrothwell.com
CREDITS
Clare Cumberlidge & Co - Curation
and Representation
Mark Campbell - Project Photography
Simon Elvins - Publication Graphic Design
THANKS
I’d like to thank the community at
Portland Works for their kind support of
this project. In particular Derek Morton,
Stuart Mitchell and Andy Cole of A.Cole
Tools at Portland Works, who allowed me
to work in his forge and kindly gave his
expert advice and help at every stage.
www.portlandworks.co.uk
The tools made for the project have familiar aspects about
them; a hammer is easily read as such. However, they also have
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In Acts of Care altered traditional techniques are employed to
perform acts of individualised care within the public landscape.
The works take the form of repair interventions; acting upon
or within areas of damage to create new works. In order to
perform the acts of care the tools specific to the tasks required
are also made. Each tool having its own palette, material
language and scale in accordance to the geographical location
of the intervention and techniques employed.
uncommon features - the tilted face of the hammer for instance
is there to aid the precise angle of the tooth cut on the stainless
steel shims and is made to be used at a specific working height
and at a specific work station. These details are not design
for its own sake, they are employed to create the ideal tool
for the job; each individual job on its own. Historically this is
not uncommon, craftsmen and women would often each work
upon one particular aspect of production and so would make or
adapt tools to work specifically for those tasks.
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Tools connect us; to our familial, regional and national heritage
and through these links they also help us to locate ourselves,
both emotionally and physically.
ACTS OF CAR E
Th e S h effi e ld E dition
Acts of Care t h e S h eff i e ld E d i t i o n
H i story
S H E FFI E LD INDUSTRY
Sheffield is really a special place; new makers are at home in
Sheffield, the city holds open arms to artists, craftspeople and
makers of all descriptions with a selection of workshops and
studios, and galleries. All of this exists within the scars of past
industry, which are still present. In some small corners there are
still highly skilled traditional makers – the Little Mesters, as they
are known locally, going about their business, drawing out what
is vital and keeping up the constant shift of adaptation within
the contemporary environment.
“The city's metal trades craftsmen, known locally as little
mesters, operated as independent makers whom either worked
alone, or employed a small number of support workers and/or
apprentices.”2 As the edge tools complexity increased it soon
became necessary for each craftsman to specialise in individual
stages of the production process. This, in combination with
the development of steam power meant that trades began to
move away from the riverside locations and in to the city centre.
Goods at each stage of production circulated between the little
mesters, in numerous locations across the city. As the global
demand for Sheffield's wares increased new factories were
built, housing individual workshops which were then rented out
to the craftsmen needed for a given production process; these
were called ‘integrated works.’ These factories significantly
reduced the time and costs involved in the constant moving
of unfinished goods around the city and became an efficient
working model in the metal trades.
PORTLAND WOR KS
Portland Works is one of the city’s last remaining examples of a
purpose built light metal trades integrated works. R.F.Mosley &
Co. Ltd; manufacturer of cutlery and silverware, commissioned
the building around 18763 and it continued to operate on the
Portland Works site until the late 1950’s. Mosley’s was the first
firm to produce stainless steel cutlery when Harry Brearley,
a respected metallurgist, approached them with a weight of
chromium steel that he wanted making into rustless cutlery
under his supervision. These test pieces were sent out to
friends and collegues to see if, during use any stains on the
steel occurred. None were returned and so the project was
a success for Harry Brearley. It was then that Ernest Stuart,
cutlery manager for R.F. Mosley & Co commented that stainless
steel would be more marketable a name than rustless steel
for the cutlery industry. 2013 will mark 100 years since Harry
Brearley’s discovery was made.
3
In 1857 2,000 men, women, boys and girls were employed
specifically in cutting files.5
To hand cut a file the blank piece of steel was laid on the
lead plate on the stiddy6 and secured by leather straps. The
straps were usually held in place with the workers feet, which
allowed easy and quick adjustments. The cutter then selected
the correct chisel and hammer to hit hundreds of parallel teeth
(lines) down the blank, lining up the chisel and striking with the
hammer on the back of the previous cut. Each tooth was hit at
the same angle as the one previously to create an even cutting
surface. Once completed on one side, the blank was turned
over, held down again by the straps and the process was
repeated with the lead block protecting the cutting surface on
the completed side.
With the spread of file cutting machines in the 1880’s hand file
cutting was considered a ‘sweated’ trade and the last hand file
cutter in England finished working around 1960.
As the cutting of a file required minimal hand tools and a single
stiddy, it required minimal space and small stations could be
set up in an outbuilding or workshop in a yard. With the blanks
being dropped off and collected women at home sometimes
performed the job; to fit in with other household duties and
childcare to earn extra money for the family. The 1891 census
records that there were 1,362 women involved in file cutting
and file scouring.
This project employs a process similar to file cutting to mark the
individual Stainless Steel shims with teeth, this is done to give
the shims some extra friction when clustered together in situ
and also gives a decorative element to the polished surfaces.
Rhythmic striking of the shims using the hammers and chisels
made for this purpose created this effect.
Edge tools are tools with a single or multiple cutting edges, such as a
chisel, gouge or knife.
2
portlandworks.co.uk
3
Date when planning permission was approved.
4
"A Day at the Fitzalan Steel and File-Works, Sheffield," The Penny
Magazine Supplement, Volume XIII, March 1844, pages 121-128.
5
British Medical Journal No XIX: May 9th 1857 Edited by A.Wynter M.D
6
wooden trunk with a metal anvil centre
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ACTS OF CAR E
Th e S h effi e ld E dition
Sheffield’s industrial heritage is firmly rooted in the production
of steel and the manufacturer of edge tools.1 Until the
eighteenth century workshops were often built as small
extensions to rural dwellings and farmhouses in riverside
locations with the makers taking each item through it’s entire
production process by harnessing the water for power.
Th e Tool Di rectory - Fi le Cutti ng
"These tools, simple and unimportant as they may seem to
those who never enter an artisan's workshop, are among the
most note-worthy articles made of steel. They are the workingtools by which every other kind of working-tool is in some
degree fashioned. Whether a man is making a watch or a
steam-engine, a knife or a plough, a pin or a coach, he would
be brought to a stand if he had not files at his command.”4
ACTS OF CAR E
Th e S h effi e ld E dition
V i ctor ’s works h op
Victor Mather was one of the very last remaining hand cutters
in the world. He retired from his Portland Works workshop
some years ago and left all of his tools and bench there, as
if he had just popped out. I was shown Victor’s workshop by
Jimmy, another tenant who assured me it was a really special
place that I’d love. He was right and amongst the chaos of the
space being used for other tasks over the years, Victors tools,
punches and papers were still all there. I decided to catalogue
Victors tools and to create a new order for all of the letters and
number punches, to see what was missing and what remained.
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I wanted to understand what a hand cutter was by working
through the tools and trying to understand the processes that
way. Sorting through over 500 of these incredible letter and
number punches I soon realised there were two types - counter
punches and punches. Counter punches are the letters or
number patterns that Victor struck into the end of a metal bar,
which was then further engraved, filed, polished and hardened
to become the punches, which then were sold to manufacturers
and craftspeople to mark their work.
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l i n
S h eff i e ld I n d ustry
& port l a n d works
se q ue n ce of
too l pro d uct i o n
1
- Gauge is made to measure the proposed
spaces for quantity of shims needed.
- Intervention sites are identified and stencils are
made to recreate the spaces in the workshop.
2
4
- Shims are individually forged in Stainless Steel.
- Shims front edges are ground to facet.
- Shim fronts are polished.
- Teeth Cutting hammers heads are forged in 2
weights.
- Holes for the handles are drilled into the
hammer heads at an angle and drifted.
- Front faces of the hammers are ground to
correct angle.
- Faces of hammers are buffed up.
6
7
Images clockwise from top: 1–3 Portland Works,
4. The old Stanley Factory, 5. A.Beckett & Sons building.
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- Hammer handles are carved to shape.
- Handles are inlayed with size relevant motifs.
- Handles are tapered to accept heads and split
to receive a wedge.
- Heads are mounted onto handles.
- Wooden wedge is driven into handle.
- Head is soaked in water for 2 hrs.
- Steel wedges are driven in at an angle to
wooden wedge into handle.
- Handles are oiled and buffed over 3 days.
ACTS OF CAR E
Th e S h effi e ld E dition
3
- Tapered drifting mandrel is made for making
the holes in the hammer heads.
- Two weight forward forging hammer heads are
made; one large for getting the overall shape
and a small one to refine it.
- Holes for the handles are drilled and then
drifted.
- Hammer handles are carved to shape.
- Handles are inlayed with size relevant motifs.
- Handles are tapered to accept heads and split
to receive a wedge.
- Heads are mounted onto handles.
- Wooden wedge is driven into handle.
- Head is soaked in water for 2 hrs.
- Steel wedges are driven in at an angle to
wooden wedge into handle.
- Handles are oiled and buffed over 3 days.
5
- Chisels are roughly forged.
- Shapes are measured out to give even
distribution.
- Chisels are ground to the right shapes
and sizes.
- Faces are polished.
- Blunt double cutting edges are cut.
- Chisels and hammer head faces are hardened
& quenched
- All items are tempered.
- Cutting edges are sharpened on chisels.
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- Stiddy is set up with interchangeable wooden
fixtures to receive different shim sizes.
- Hammers and chisels are used to cut teeth of
shims in stiddy.
- Shims then fill the stencils to create
configuration and test for sufficient quantity.
- Shims are put into batches for each site and
installed.
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process Of tool maki ng
for 2 e le m e nt tools
Identify task
identify receptor
identify location
Action
Hardness
Portability concern
Force required
Fragility
Hidden actions
Frequency
Ductility
Studio location
2
Des ig n stag e
Sketch ideas
Research historic tools to perform
jobs similar - connected
ACTS OF CAR E
Th e S h effi e ld E dition
1
R esearch stag e
Re-draw
Mock up 3d (paper, clay, scrap metal)
3
Select suitable material possibilities
Refine design
Maki ng
Tip or head
Handle / shaft
version 1
version 2
version 3
version 4
Make jig
Trace design
onto material
Turn
Trace measurements
onto material
Create structure
Solder or weld
File
Strop/ polish
Pierce out
File
Harden
Temper
Polish
Sand
Harden
Temper
Polish /strop
Heat
Forge (repeat last
2 as necessary)
Grind
Harden
Temper
Polish
Draw on graph paper
Create male & female templates
Mark up material
Drill provisional center
Turn or carve
Drill out hole / make slit
Refine shape
Insert tip / create head
Check for fitting
Make ferrule / whip / add shim
Oil or wax
Buff
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d ef i n i t i o n s
Large teeth cutting Hammer
P20 Steel, Hickory, Ebony
Medium teeth cutting Hammer
P20 Steel, Hickory, Ebony
shim tooth cutting chisels
D2 Steel
A hand tool with a heavy metal head set
crosswise at the end of a handle with an
angled face.
A hand tool with a heavy metal head set
crosswise at the end of a handle with an
angled face.
A metal hand tool with a squared double
sharpened edge at one end. Used to cut teeth
into solid materials.
Large steel hammer with forward angled face
and tapered back. Mounted onto handle at an
acute angle for use with chisels to cut between
90 & 45degree teeth from seated position.
Inlayed with large double shim motif to aide
selection.
Medium steel hammer with forward angled face
and tapered back. Mounted onto handle at an
acute angle for use with chisels to cut between
90 & 45 degree teeth from seated position.
Inlayed with single shim motif to aide selection.
Based on the functionality of traditional file
cutting chisels; this set of 7 tools are used
to create the teeth on the shims. Each tool’s
width and weight is unique allowing the precise
selection to be made for each application.
5
4
6
Medium, Weight forward
forging Hammer
D2 Steel, Hickory
Small, Weight forward
forging Hammer
D2 Steel, Hickory
A hand tool with a heavy steel head used to
shape metal by using localized compressive
forces. Used with an anvil to shape hot steel.
A hand tool with a heavy steel head used to
shape metal by using localized compressive
forces. Used with an anvil to shape hot steel.
Medium weight forward forging hammer to
roughly taper the end of a hot stainless steel
bar.
Small weight forward forging hammer to
smooth the steps in the tapered Stainless
Steel.
7
A fixture is a custom made tool or series of
tools that hold work in a fixed location.
Marked blocks used with the Stiddy to hold
shims. Used in varying combinations to create
best fit for each shim; line system inlayed on
the blocks to allow easy repeat alignments.
A working area with an anvil, often dropped
into a tree stump for support.
Large oak stump with metal lined recess for
assorted angled inserts to hold individual shims
whilst they are cut. Leather strap for securing
the shim whilst working which is held firm on
one side and with a foot strap with the other to
allow varying pressure to be applied.
9
8
Fixtures Angled blocks & leather strap
Various hardwoods, inlayed
Stiddy
Oak, metal, ceramic & leather straps
ACTS OF CAR E
Th e S h effi e ld E dition
3
2
1
Gauge
Brass and various woods
Stencil
Brass, lacquer
An instrument to measure the size of something
using a standard or custom system typically
with a visual display of such information.
An object which allows a pattern or shape to
be reproduced.
Hinged tool for measuring the amount of shims
needed for each gap.
Brass stencil to create multiple size guides for
the various shim configurations.
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Th e S h effi e ld E dition