Researching traditional handicraft skills – cleaving wood and bending wood to bentwood boxes.

This essay concerns the reconstruction of historic traditional handicraft processes in wood cleaving and bending wood to bentwood boxes. It is based on two ethnology publications from the 1940’s and their source material concerning bentwood vessel production. A central issue is to determine if it is possible to recycle the source material to address new questions. On the basis of the source information, practical experiments have been carried out according to the method authentic processual reconstruction. This means that, as far as possible, the original tools, equipment, and techniques are used. Among other things, production of big bent pine wood cases using the same methods that have been described from the village Våmhus in Dalecarlia are examined. This involves hand-cleaving large pine logs into boards. This essay advocates the importance of conducting handicraft research in a higher educational environment to make it as transparent and as reliable as other academic research fields and the need of stronger theory-building in the field of practical handicraft-research. Finally, focus is placed on those who conduct the contemporary research and in the long run, are shaping the functional theories and methods in this subject.Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie masterexamen i kulturvård, 30 h