This week we will be taking a glance at some tradesmen's tools which were used back in the Golden Days...
Three
of these tools have been in our possession for a long time- the first was dropped in to our showroom just a
week ago with suggestions of using it in our “Industrial” themed
window display.
The
Airlyne Rugmaker is quite a curious looking contraption –
proclaiming to have once been “The World's Fastest Home Rugmaker”,
it was invented
by William Edward Humphreys Jones whilst at Airlyne Products,
Abergele in the 1950′s.
The
device is clamped to the edge of a table and one uses the foot strap
to run the machine so their hands are completely free to manoeuvre the
rug on the table.
There
is a small screw which you move to determine how far the needle
pushes through the base cloth, thus creating a long or short pile.
The
thread is pulled up through the eye and shank of the needle with the
aid of a wire which is provided with the Airlyne.
Getting
your hands on one of these Airlyne Rugmakers won't set you back an
awful lot at all. I'm sure it'll cost you more than the 28 and 6
pence that it originally went for, but chances are you could pick up one for less than the price
of an Ikea rug and you are guaranteed to have a lot more fun making this!
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The
next little contraption we'll show you is our Robert's Cookie Cutter,
a nifty little carpet repair tool.
This
may have been used if say for instance cinders had left a scorch hole
in your carpet- the Cookie Cutter is basically a blade fixed in to a
circular handheld cutter with a pin fixed to its centre.
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You
press the pin into the centre of the offending area and twist
clock-wise in a full circle.
You
then remove the damaged piece and cut another piece for repair using
the same method and once adhesive is applied to the exposed floor you
line up the rows and insert the newly cut piece, smoothing over with
you r fingers.
The
Morgan Lee Trimmer is a wallpaper trimmer and it has been stored with
its original instruction leaflet.
The
leaflet claims that this invention will “make profits for
enterprising decorators” and “will last a lifetime”.
I
have no doubt about it. The tool came in handy when wallpapers were
sold with a salvedge edge , which had to be cut away by the decorator
before application.
See
the instruction leaflet below for detail on use.
Roberts'
Ankorite Tool is a British made headless pin machine for tacking down
carpeting into place.
You
place a tack into the opening and with the pin entered in to the
Ankorite shaft, you hold it gainst the area of carpeting you wish to
tack down and hammer the top of the tool. Using headless tacks means you are not left with great tack heads rusting your carpet and
it also means you won't feel them so much underfoot.
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Each and every one of these tools could still be used today and would still be as functional and as efficient as they were when they were first introduced.
Do you know anyone who still uses these tools today? If so please share this post and let us know, we would love to hear about their experiences with them!
By Ciara Eloise Nolan.
