Fretwork Again Popular Hobby

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31277, 25 January 1967, Page 2

Fretwork Again Popular Hobby

(By

STELLA BRUCE.)

When the sun finally set on the British , Empire it set also on the hallowed hobbies with which the Englishman would beguile his leisure hours—the pursuits of fretwork and pokerwork.

Fretwork was, in simple terms, the art of cutting as many holes as possible in things that did not really need them. Poker-work, the art of burning holes in things that did not need them, has largely become the monopoly jof the careless cigarette smokier. ! I do not suggest that fret work will ever cotne back in a big way. I hope that, in its Victorian form, it never will. But what is returning with a bang is an interest in the fretsaw and the multiplicity of jobs it can do. Once tlie fretsaw was a curious spindly Implement with a blade so fine that it broke very easily. Today, it is much more robust. You can buy powered versions in Britain too, and some of these can be fitted to electric drills. Others have their own motors.

j All this is leading up to the belief that if there is a car-

pentry implement built with a woman in mind, it is the fretsaw. And if you think that women have little interest in such things, the oversubscribed women’s carpentry classes will prove you wrong. Some manufacturers are already cashing in on the trend by providing paper patterns—larger versions of types used by dressmakers—containing sections of furniture. You simply attach it to a piece of plywood or blockboard and cut around the dotted line.

Cupboards and shelves, even sink units, can be tackled in this way. Often the blockboard, while easy to cut, is strong enough to be fastened together without need of an interior framework.

One word of warning: sweep up the sawdust immediately you have finished. Otherwise it will tread all over the house.