Frames and supports in 15th and 16th-century Southern Netherlandish painting

MATERIALS AND MEN 39 Fig. 11. Tools from an expedition shipwrecked in Novaya Zemlya in 1596-1597. We recognize the bevelled chisel, brace drill, gimlet, the body of a plane with two blades, an adze, large double-headed hammer, doloire adze, auger, splitting axe, gouge blade, and marking point (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). The cutting edges of tools of every kind were sharpened by grindstones (fig. 6: 38), whetstones (fig. 6: 39) and files (fig. 6: 40-42). The grindstone was a disk-shaped piece of sandstone mounted on a shaft that was operating by foot or by hand. Wetting was necessary for better performance and prevent overheating which could permanently damage the blade. Sometimes the disk spun through a trough filled with water. High-quality natural whetstones, used for fine-sharpening on the workbench, were quarried in the Belgian Ardennes since Roman times. Tools were valuable. Then, as now, the joiner stowed them after use in a toolbox (fig. 6: 83).