Nothing Common About A Gavel

Short Papers Competition 2009 © 2010 Internet Lodge and the author Paper 11/2009 Title Nothing Common About a Gavel Author Bro Alan Turton – England The common gavel is an important instrument of labour and highly esteemed as an instrument of art, so it is written in our first degree tools. To understand, you has to have used a gavel yourself, I have learnt and the scars on my knuckles are healed. It has nothing to do with the round headed wooden object commonly uses by Master and Wardens to give knocks and call order. It has a metal head with a square face one end and a gable shaped edge on the reverse, both are used for cutting stone by sending shock or sound waves through the stone at a particular angle in a particular way for a particular result. The job starts with a vision having before us a rough form from the quarry and imagining within that the form of the object of intention. T he work starts by removing the larger unwanted parts with the gavel face arriving at a rough cube. Then with the reverse of the gavel the first arras or edge is formed, point, line. The work thus far has all been hand and eye, imaginat ion and vision. A rough right angle is then formed and adjusted with the Square. Poin t, line, angle, all hand and eye connected to what we conceive in our minds eye, prompted by labour. This process of forming, point, line, angle continues to superfice (flat side) and finally into a three dimensional object, a cube, all by hand, eye and vision of the minds eye with only the fine adjustments being made with the square bri nging perfect regular form. We now have a cube of stone with 12 regular edges between the sides, just like the one sitting by the Junior Warden awaiting a smoothing and polishing with mallet and chisel.
So to extend that which is conveyed in our ritual in the second par t, for you will remember the first part of the tools in each degree is the ope rative sense and the second part the speculative, we draw from the gavel some important truths. It starts with abstrac t thoughts to envisage form in it’s purest sense. It teaches us to envisage and keep perfect the concept of the vision we try to create. From it we understand that labour along with conviction are needed to make it happen. Our edges must be straight, true and square in respect to one another. Th is is the foundation of our being fo rmed into regularity and there is nothing to polish if this is not right.
By understanding our material and measuring our blows, hefting away all that does not belong to that envisaged form, a regular ashlar will emerge. The gavel requires mind and body, imagination and skill to execute the design. It’s speculative use demands the same. Light is born of Craft and Craft effort. Power to your elbow.
Let your Gavel sound.