RWW 90 Colonial Williamsburg Wheelwright

I had a great trip down to Williamsburg and got to spend some quality time with a few of the trades. The wheelwright is one of the more obscure by today’s standards but a highly precise branch of woodworking.

I was only able to capture so much of the process of building a wheel since the Wheelwrights were working on a small cart and actually not building a wheel while I was there. There are some great videos on the Internet that can illustrate the process if you are interested in learning more.

First you have to check out Colonial Williamsburg’s site at www.history.org but specifically their trades section where they have a description of the Wheelwright trade as well as 2 podcasts discussing the trade. Look for a link to those two episodes in the multimedia section in the right sidebar. In addition there is a great slideshow illustrating the process of fitting the iron tire.

There are also a few great videos on YouTube, but this one I found particularly to be a good explanation of the trade.

Finally I make reference in this episode to a post on Stephen Shepherd’s blog about over sharpening. Check it out here.