European Artifacs- Camwood Bundles, Fences, Canoes
Contents
  
Reconstructing the Past

Artifacs reconstruction is divided into three sections: barrels and camwood bundles, fences and canoes. Barrels and camwood bundles section offers insight into slave ship importation of supplies including barrels, local carpentry production and the bundling and trading of camwood.

Fence construction is explored in the middle section with how traditional fences were produced and how digital fences are created.

Canoes illustrates how a traditional craft is brought forward through time. In studying how watercraft is locally produced today, insight is gained into production from the past. Select this image to explore digitally creating a watercraft.

Camwood Bundles
Many barrels were brought to Bunce Island in slave ships bring supplies. Made of vertical wooden staves and bound with metal hoops, barrels were used for storing liquids such as water, oils, wine and whiskey but also to store dry goods and gunpowder. Barrels could also produced by local carpenters. The digital images below illustrate the type of barrels used.

Camwood, a shrubby hard-wooded tree, was used for firewood and a source for brilliant but not permanent red dye. An example of the Camwwod tree and its color and graining characteristics are shown below. Firewood bundles were traded and sold on Bunce Island as a modern photograph of camwood bundles suggest. The digital reconstruction image represents camwood bundles adjacent to a tree branch fence.
Digital Camwood Barrels CAD images by Chatelain
Photos and Digital Camwood Bundles CAD image by Chatelain


Fences
Fence construction used a type of tree branch or limb bound together to form an almost solid structure. In the lower left image from recent photographs, the background is removed and made transparent and is shown as white here. Next, the image is created as a digital texture and applied to a 3-D form.

In the bottom right detail from the cemetary reconstruction image, transparency permits the cemetary grave slab and ground cover to be seen through the tree limb construction.
Fence Images - Current
Fences - Digitally Reconstructed CAD images by Chatelain


Canoes
A variety of small watercraft photographs from recent date illustrate the continuation of traditional craft in the production of small boats. This continuation of skills gives insight into the history of watercraft construction.

The last image illustrates the steps in constructing digital watercraft. The top portion shows NURBS or non-uniform rational B-slines in the form of ribs. Each rib differs in shape and is irregularly spaced from bow to stern. By connecting each rib with a loft surface tool, a skin is applied and becomes a shape as illustrated in the middle of this image. Framing, seats, ropes and other details are created. Finally, applying and mapping a wood texture and rendering in a final quality complete the digital reconstuction.
 
Canoes of recent construction and CAD digital construction


Materials and Textures Reconstructing the Past