Welcome to Builder Bill's Wrinkles.

1. What is a pilaster?
2. What is Scumble.

Marvellous craftsmanship produced on sidewalk workshops?

When I first planned my trip one of the things that I was looking forward to was seeing all the small craftsmen's workshops that are seen on the streets all over Asia.  Streets of metalworkers, stone carvers, pottery villages etc.

Vietnam, roadside gearbox repair.

What I saw more often than not was was people working like the guys in the photo above, without any quality tools, using very little concern for good trade practice and I suspect, invariably making a less than quality job.
There was little point in the guys in the photo above removing the bus gearbox and taking it into the nearest town to a workshop.  The chances are the workshop wouldn't be much cleaner than the dirt at the side of the road and the bearing removal etc would consist of a guy squatting on his heels and pounding it out with a lump hammer and cold chisel, with bits of concrete chips flying about everywhere.

I had a great few days travelling around the Mekong on the back of a small motorbike with a guide.  The almost new bike, a Honda 125cc Dream developed a noise in the back end.  We stopped at three sidewalk motorcycle mechanics who frigged about, adjusted and sent us on our way..  It took the fourth mechanic to diagnose the problem correctly and replace the rear bearings.

I hate to say this but I think that with all the trouble in the last 50 years or so, the poverty, and not least the government attitudes, that quality workmanship in the small shops that I saw it is dead and long gone in Vietnam. (I didn't get in to see any of the so called "Joint Stock Companies" run by offshore multinationals).

A few basics were taught to me early on in my career and because I absorbed them at an early age they have stuck with me all my life.

• Before starting a new job, or a significant stage of a larger project, always try tidy up.  Be it a bench, a workshop or a building site it is easy to let rubbish accumulate.  Apart from the safety aspects of a clutter free work environment I think it is something of a mental exercise also.  A bit of quiet doing routine easy tasks gets the mind running over the upcoming job to be done, giving time for thought beforehand, instead of charging ahead.
• Sharpen tools if necessary, check power tools and change discs or blades, etc.  Simply get the gear for the job ready. Apart from the obvious reasons, again little mental effort is required for this work so the mind is free to think ahead to plan what we need for the next stage.
• One other thing that I very rarely do is listen to the radio while working.  I happen to believe that concentration on the job in hand is essential for good work and anything that dilutes your concentration, like radio, is a bad thing.  Read Robert Persig's "Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance for a better explanation than I can ever give on this subject.  There is a free version on the web somewhere.
• If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well!  An often repeated saying but not as often acted on these days.  All I can say is that after 50 years in the game I think that in most cases it is far easier to do it right in the first place as to make a mess of it and then try to bodge it up. 

So on one a personal level, because of my background and training I was continually irked while wandering around Vietnam.   I found an appalling lack of quality and disregard for personal and public safety that to a certain extent is all over Asia, but it sticks out a lot more in Vietnam because of the dense population and it's all out rush to join the modern world.

Saigon Fine Art Museum.

The lift and stairwell in the one hundred years old Saigon Fine Arts Museum. The beautiful wrought iron handrails and balustrades are painted in a dull uniform grey as is most of the inside trim of the building.  No attempt is made to show them for what they are, fine examples of design and craftsmanship.

I probably spent a bit too much time in Saigon, but coming from a small town as I do, a huge strange and vibrant city has it's attractions for me. 
There are many interesting buildings in the city, the various local temples, some very old, The beautiful french colonial Notre Dame Cathedral and another fully restored colonial building (the tourist's favourite), the Central Post Office.

My favourite though is the 100 year old (or thereabouts) fine Arts Museum.  If I could go back tomorrow it would be the first place that I would revisit and yet on the face of it there is very little going for it.

The building is in a very bad state of repair, with very few signs maintenance (and this in a tropical climate) and absolutely no indication of any plans for the preservation of the structure.  There are some extremely nice timber entrance doors with stained glass panels still in some of them.  On close inspection one of the lead lined stained glass panels was leaning out an inch or so from the frame and has probably fallen out and shattered by now.
Even so the the great design and the quality of the original workmanship shines though and it is well worth a visit just to study the building.  This is true of course of many of the public buildings in Vietnam from the French colonial era.

As far as the the actual art works go, I have seen them described on the web in glowing terms on government orientated web sites and again as a collection of mostly politically correct junk.

A rear section of Saigon fine art museum building.

So my attraction is firstly in the building.  You might query this, looking at the photo above. The amount of tatty additions (check out the corrugated iron awning), sliding steel grills, electrical conduits and various other crap bolted on here and there make it look more like the local version of Moscow's Lubianka prison.

Yet I somehow managed to spend a good 4hours on my first visit and later on I returned and spent another hour of so absorbing the architecture from the outside.
The design and detailing of the building is truly great and I can imagine it being a great attraction for visitors if it was restored to something like it's original condition.

As for the artworks, well it is a matter of personal taste of course.  There are indeed many paintings and sculptures of a style that would have found great favour in Stalin's Russia.
Even so I found enough to interest me. There is a pencil on paper work "Portrait of a Czech Engineer" that I really like. It is a superb drawing, but I can't help wondering if it would be on display if it was a portrait of a French or American engineer.
I enjoyed mainly the antiquities, Khmer and Cham sculptures and fragments, but also the museum has many excellent ceramics and bronzes.

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Timber Buildings In Old Hoi An.

Carved beam supporting a roof overhang in Hoi An, Vietnam

In my seven weeks in Vietnam, I didn't speak to anyone who had a bad word to say about the town of Hoi An.
This UNESCO World Heritage Site is simply magic.  Original old Chinese style buildings that have somehow been preserved though the last few hundred years.  They are not set in some sterile enclave, but they are part of a bustling, vibrant trading town.  They are mainly in a large section that the local People's Committee has had the good sense to ban motor cars and heavier traffic from.  The ever present crowds of market traders, shoppers, motor cycles and bicycles seem to add to the feeling of thriving energy that must have been the force that made Hoi An one of the main trading ports in Vietnam from the 16th century.

Heavy timber construction in a roof in Hoi An.

Scribed joint in a beam say 250 wide to fit over the top of a column.  Hoi An, Vietnam.

The line from the old joiner's prayer comes to mind here.  "Scribes and mitres,.......I must confess, but butt joints and batten doors I fear no man".
So how do you reckon you'd go cutting scribes like this?  Without modern tools as well.
In an old building that had various sections of old roofs that had been cut out and replaced, there was a few displays of a complete set of old home made carpentry tools.
One of them had a couple of different sized timber bow saws similar to what was used in western countries, but it also had a steel coping saw that had about a 12" throat.  Now that would take a bit of handling!

Some old carpentry tools, Hoi An.

As I said there were quite a few displays of old tools like this one, but most of them were fairly common to what we use in the west also.  This board however has a couple of thing that I have not seen before.

At the bottom right is a version of the Mason's level on my string line page.
The one in the photo has a vertical line scribed down the center of the upright, obviously at right angles to the base, from which a plumb bob and line could be held against.

An old carpentry ink line.

In spite of what it says on the caption ("Ink pot: a carpenter's special tape measure") this is of course a version of our modern chalk lines, but made to make a more permanent mark on the timber with the line passing though an ink pot.

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Something for The Boatbuilders

A small boat repair operation on the river island opposite Hoi An, central Vietnam.

All over Vietnam there are these small sawmills, in boat repair yards and as stand alone operations.  Always I saw them on river or canal banks.  Transport by water is still a huge operation, but as new roads and bridges get built I guess it will be gradually ease off, but I can't ever see it being superseded entirely.

The timber is fixed and the saw is pushed by hand through it.  In this instance the guys left the last 200mm or so intact of each cut and withdrew the saw then dropped down another 30 for the next cut.

I saw no signs at all of seasoning the timber in these yards.  It appears to be cut to shape and fixed green.

Repairs and caulking a fishing boat, the planks in the foreground are weighted to a curve and small fires are lit under them to aid the bending process.

The caulking material itself consists of timber from small saplings that is shredded by hand with a knife to make long thin wool like shavings that are twisted together and belted into the joints along with an oily putty.

New planks fitted to a small cargo boat.

The anchor design is common feature on the bow, but the eyes are painted onto all the boats that I saw, up to 200ft long steel bulk carriers.  The only exception were very small boats.

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Answers

A Pilaster is an architectural decoration to the surface of a wall.  It takes the form of an imitation column.  Almost always it is a rectangular shape with it's own capitals and entablatures.  However in the photo of the Museum, you can see on either side of the small balcony some false columns or pilasters that are made with a blue ceramic glaze.

Scumble is alive and well in modern Vietnam! A newish cabinet out of plain MDF board painted and then a scumble finish applied to imitate timber grain.  Seen in my US$4.00 per night hotel room in Sapa, NW Vietnam.

A scumble layer of paint is laid over a dry base coat of a different colour.  It can be anything from opaque to almost transparent.  The most general use of scumble is in the imitation of timber grain, using a series of rags, timber combs etc.
It was commonly used in the days before Melamine faced boards came on the market, to make cheap pine timber look like expensive hardwoods.

In the hands of a good tradesman scumble could look very close to real timber.  In the hands of someone slightly more enthusiastic about the medium you can get results like on the cabinet above.  There's no accounting for taste eh?

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