Victorian Gingerbread

Victorian Gingerbread

The "gingerbread" trim used on Victorian houses was highly complex and ornate, and would have been extremely time-consuming for carpenters to make. Therefore, the vast majority of this sort of trim was purchased from manufacturers who mass-produced the goods on power-driven mills.

If a carpenter were to make the trim, he would have used a variety of cutting, shaping and smoothing tools. These might have included the following:

Bow Saw

The bow saw is used to cut out all manner of woodwork. The blades range from 6" to 36" in length and from 1/8" or less to 1" or more in width. To keep the thin blade taut and prevent it from buckling during cutting, the frame is designed to tension the blade with a twist-tightened string (some saws used a threaded rod and wing nut). A stick called a toggle threaded between the bowstring strands gave the user leverage for tightening the string. The blades are typically held in place by slotted fittings on the ends of the handles that allow the user to rotate the blade during cutting, so tricky curvaceous patterns can be cut without having to do a jig-step around the workpiece.

A simple type of bow saw, the coping saw, is used for small trim work on moldings and other fine curves.

Other Saws

Other saws used for cutting curves include the compass saw and the keyhole saw.

Combination Plane

These versatile tools consist of a plane and an array of interchangeable irons. The earliest wooden combination planes date from the 16th century; cast-iron ones appeared in the last half of the 19th century. They would have been very useful for the large variety of trims on a Victorian house.

Compass (Circular) Planes

Used for shaping curved work, compass planes look like coffin-shaped smoothing planes with a sweeping convex sole.

Draw Knives

Among the most effective tools were drawknives which often had two handles, allowing the carpenter to use both hands in drawing the knife toward himself when shaving wood. Plow planes and spoke shaves were used on rough edges, although originally, spoke shaves were used to shape wooden buggy wheels.

Drawknives came in many sizes and shapes depending upon their purpose, but they all have the two handles in common as a design feature.

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