Hand Tools 

Furniture in the nineteenth century was made by hand and also by machine. Furniture makers or carpenters in small Illinois towns used hand tools similar to these. Axes and saws cut down the trees. Hand saws cut the logs into boards. Planers smoothed the boards flat. 

For carving details and designs into the wood, woodworkers used compasses to draw circles and curves, mallets and gouges (not pictured) to make grooves and carve forms, and rasps to round off edges. 

Ernst Gehlmann's cabinetmakers would have used many of these tools when building the secretary. Frank Richards used hand tools to make his fireplace mantel and screen with its carved panels.