Page 6 - 2015_Cabin Days curriculum booklet

Answers to “Early American Implements”

1. Ice axe
2. Post axe, used for cutting mortises in beams
3. Lard squeezer-animal (usually hog) fat was melted, then tied up in a cloth and

squeezed between wooden pinchers called lard squeezers. The liquid squeezed
out of the lard was poured into wooden bowls and cooled; the pork scraps that
remained in the cloth were eaten as special treats.
4. Armrest, often used during long church meetings
5. Feather-bed patter, used for smoothing out feather mattresses and quilts
6. Wheel race, used for measuring the circumference of a wheel before fitting it with
its metal rim.
7. Candlemaker. Wicks were tied to it and dipped into hot wax.
8. Leather, or beaming, knife, used for dressing hides.
9. Hay saw
10. Screw, used for loosening sugar in a sugar barrel
11. Wheelwright’s reamer, used for boring hub holes
12. Froe, used for splitting wood into shingles
13. Round shave, or scorper, used to smooth the inside of a barrel and also to make
wooden bowls
14. Hook pins, or drift hooks, used to peg beams together temporarily when laying a
framework on the ground, before raising a house