Excerpted from The Chronicle, Vol. 4 No. 2, April 1951 by Gillian W.B. Bailey Although the manufacture of tin plate had -long been a monopoly of Bohemia, about 1620 the industry spread to Saxony where it achieved such recognition that an emissary was sent from England to learn the process. The English student was courteously …
Assembly of the cylindrical body This third blog installment profiling the construction of a tin canister by Bill McMillen will outline the assembly process of the body. Parts 1 and 2 published previously gave some background on the tin trade and the preparation of the component pieces that are cut from a 10″ x 14″ …
Welcome back. I’d like to begin this second installment in this series of blog posts on tinsmithing with Bill McMillen with a bit of information about the tin canister and the tinplate and patterns from which it is made. Almost all tinplate in early to mid 19th century America was imported from the United Kingdom, …
Folks who attend EAIA meetings are certainly familiar with the work of master tinsmith Bill McMillen. Bill has given numerous talks and demonstrations at our meetings about his work and about his studies of the tinsmith trade. His summary of the subject, “The Tinsmith in America – The Trade, Materials, Tradesmen, Tools and Products,” was …