At one time and for some years I demonstrated traditional skills at events at a number of area museums. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of those demos were the conversations one would end up in, conversations sparked by either what I was doing or a tool I was using...
I no longer remember the gentleman's background, but someone I had such a conversation with insisted the Poll on a "Shipwrights" Adze was about moving pieces being worked, and little else - An obvious example would be flipping over a floor board adzed flush to the chosen common thickness at each joist, flipping over and back to check if the board being worked had reached a level of completion desired without bending over, until ready to kneel down to then nail off - To nail off with a hammer!
I've come to look for such bits of information in such conversation as valuable, and "living memory" as a source for almost lost tid-bits of the once every day - And wrote a bit about that here >
http://bridgewright.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/living-memory/Another interesting conversation I had while demonstrating was with a guy who explained he'd been trained to hew as part of an engineers regiment before deployment to the Second. When I asked if he ever put the training to use he said "Well no, if we needed timber to build a quick bridge or some-such, we'd just go pull down the nearest French or German Barn"
