This project is incredible!
A frame maker built a reconstruction of a scraping machine to make the intricate patterns found around old paintings. In the clip they say it was based on an engraving in Diderot’s Encyclopedie.
But there is also another description of a machine like this by Joseph Moxon in his “Mechanick Exercises” (1678-80).
This machine made it possible for frame makers and joiners to make complicated trimmings and profiles in large quantities.
Here is a great article (PDF) with more information on this subject.
In a way this was the CNC machine of the baroque era…
Advertisements
