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1929.9.2

Pump drill of wood with a metal bit.

On display

1929.9.2

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

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Collection type
Object
Description
Pump drill of wood with a metal bit.
Cultural groups
English
Person
Maker Unknown Maker
Field collector Henry Balfour
PRM source Henry Balfour
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1929
Date collected
By 1929
Acquisition information
Donated: 03/1929
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Material Metal, Material String, Material Iron Metal, Process Perforated, Process Carved, Process Tied, Process Forged (Metal)
Dimensions
Length x Width: max 395 x 161 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1929.9.2
Research and responses

This drill was viewed by Tomas Brown, PhD candidate in History at the University of Cambridge, during a research visit in December 2025. He noted that the drill is a repurposed goldsmith’s drill, an earlier kind of which can be seen under the entry ‘ORFEVRE-JOUAILLIER, METTEUR EN OEUVRE’ in Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie. The fine pointed bit in situ (represented in Fig. 50) is too thin at around 1mm for making the cavities needed for riveting or wiring ceramics, the holes for which are typically 2-3mm in diameter. It may originally have been a part of a larger chest which would have included wider bits, rivets, and cement mixtures, a parallel early twentieth century example of which was in the possession of the National Trust Conservation team. Metal-smiths of all kinds often undertook ceramic repairs, an extension of their practice of re-handling and spouting pieces, examples of which have been highlighted by Jonathan Harris’ ‘Handled with Care’ and are extant in the Norwich Castle Museum. For more information see Jonathan Harris, ‘Handled with Care’, Furniture History, Vol.52 (2016): 51-72, and ‘ORFEVRE-JOUAILLIER, METTEUR EN OEUVRE’ in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers ed. by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert (André le Breton, Michel-Antoine David, Laurent Durand and Antoine-Claude Briasson, 1751).

Search terms: Tool, Pottery, Pump Drill, Potter's Tool

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