1959.104

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Details

ID Number

1959.104

Category

T&E For Materials

Sub-category

woodworking T&E

Item Name

level

Materials

WOOD, UNKNOWN

Description

Horizontal and vertical bubble tubes; factory-made; egg-shaped hole at one end

History

the spirit level is a glass tube partly filled with spirits (alcohol) set horizontally in a strip of wood which if laid on the carpenters work, levels the latter when the confined bubble rests at the marked middle of the tube. Delicate, expensive, and at first somewhat inaccurate, the device, invented as before mentioned, according to Rees, by Thevenot in 1666 or Dr. Hooke, c.1680. It is not classed as a carpenter's tool. The very exact making, filling, sealing and setting of its glass tube put it beyond the home craft of the carpenter, the evidence shows that it was factory made from the start and not adopted by carpenters until its manufacture had been, as above noted, simplified and cheapened by factories in the middle 19th century.

Collection Name

Museum Windsor

Subject (Fre)

Y

Subjects

Carpentry / Travail du bois subject

Manufacturing subject