Recently, Owen Madden started a book club, and he wants you to join.
A professional cabinetmaker from upstate New York, Madden works as shop foreman at Rowan Woodwork.
“At our shop, we have a monthly meetup, and I get to meet some of the most talented woodworkers and artists,” Madden says. “Most of the conversations anchor around something learned from a book, at which point I write down that book and add it to the endless queue. I found that the best nuggets of information come from the discussion and innovation around the text. Naturally, I wanted to create a more organized space for these conversations so I could garner as much as possible.”
Madden, whose past work ranges from historical preservation and replication to modern architectural millwork, says he enjoys the community aspect of woodworking, trading stories and techniques about the craft.
We at Lost Art Press love Madden’s idea and hope to support the club in the future with virtual visits from some of our authors during meetings.
“The first book was selfish,” Madden says. “Nancy is a hero of mine, and I find that book relates to anyone who wants to make great, lasting things that connect to the people we make them for.”
Here’s how the club works:
Madden will set up monthly meetings to discuss each book. Longer books may require a couple of meetings.
“I would love to have everyone involved in some sort of conversation, be it on Zoom, Discord or even in-person splinter groups in their own community,” Madden says. “It’s still so new the structure will probably build as we have some meetings.”
You can learn more about The Woodworker’s Book Club here. You can follow the club on Instagram here. And you can join the club’s Discord channel here.
As for the next book?
“After this one, I’m going to do a poll and see,” Madden says. “I also think it would be cool if the guest moderator picked the next month’s book. It’s all fluid and new still, so we will just see what works and what doesn’t.”
Editor’s note: The third edition of “Cut & Dried” should arrive in February. You can sign up to be notified when it arrives here. In this post, author Richard Jones explains his update to Chapter 6.
Rombald’s Moor: The opening image to Chapter 6.
In 2021, I decided I ought to update “Cut & Dried,” and the third reprint of it at the end of 2024 was a good opportunity to do so. For a long time I had been aware of two ways to determine wood moisture content, i.e., the “dry basis” (db) and the “wet basis” (wb). In Section 6.6 Measuring Wood Moisture Content in the already printed book, I emphasised we woodworkers use only wood’s dry weight as the base weight to assess wood moisture content. This dry basis methodology wasn’t actually named in the book and nor was the alternative wet basis methodology named or described except the wet basis was hinted at in an exchange I had with a furniture student at the end of page 76 and into page 77.
However, since the last printing of “Cut & Dried” in 2019, things have evolved and environmental issues are ever more pressing. The drive is on to reduce carbon emissions, reduce particulates and pollutants etc. I am not here to proselytise on these issues but burning biomass fuel in the form of logs, wood chips, pellets etc. is one potential source of particulates and pollution. Many people and organisations around the world burn biomass fuel for heating homes, cooking, industrial boilers etc., and burning wet fuel is both inefficient and pollutant. The U.K. government, for example, created legislation to regulate the supply of biomass fuel, including setting the maximum moisture content levels for biomass fuel suppliers, and putting in place organisations to verify that such suppliers meet required government standards.
Crucially the authorised method of determining wood moisture content in the biomass fuel sector is the wet basis. It’s the case that the biomass fuel sector might be considered peripheral to us woodworkers with our focus on making things out of wood, and where we want to know its moisture content, but the biomass fuel sector, like use, require felled trees, so there is an environmental impact which deserves some discussion in “Cut & Dried.”
To illustrate the difference between dry basis and wet basis calculations for wood moisture content I’m including some text from the latest iteration of section 6.6 of “Cut & Dried,” but modified slightly for this blog post’s purposes.
A learner approached me with the following figures for a piece of wood both before and after oven-drying:
Wet Weight = 20 grammes
Oven-Dry Weight = 15 grammes
This learner questioned the calculated moisture content result. Using the formula already provided she calculated: ((20 – 15) / 15) X 100 = 33.3%MCdb. This learner, in trying to grasp the basis of the calculation, changed the formula to calculate thus: ((WW – ODW) / WW) X 100 giving the sum ((20 – 15) / 20) X 100 = 25%wb. We discussed the different results, i.e., 33.3 percent and 25 percent, and it is easy to mentally visualise a 5 gramme weight loss is a quarter of the 20 gramme wet weight of the sample, i.e., 25 percent. Similarly, it’s quickly apparent that a 5 gramme weight gain is one third (33.3 percent) of 15 grammes, the sample’s oven-dry weight. As soon as the learner understood the base line for the dry basis calculation is the dry weight of the wood, not the pre-dried wet weight, all was clear to her. She was then able to comprehend how, using the dry basis methodology of assessing wood moisture content wood MC figures such as 100 percent or greater were possible, e.g., wet weight, 200 grammes and oven-dry weight of 100 grammes.
This learner’s confusion had led her to unknowingly stumble upon the methodology for assessing wood moisture content referred to earlier, i.e., the “wet basis” (Forestry Commission, 2011). To calculate the wood moisture content percentage on the wet basis (wb) the formula given by The Forestry Commission (2011, p5) is:
“The MCwb = (the weight of water in a sample/ total initial weight of the sample) X 100.” MCwb as indicated earlier, means Moisture Content Wet Basis. Results are expressed as a percentage.
Further reading, if so desired, can be found at the following links:
We spent the last couple months of 2024 working hard on our building at 407 Madison Ave., an old woodworking tool factory that we are restoring as our fulfillment center, retail store and editorial offices.
In addition to the staff and sub-contractors, we brought in Zach Haynes of Haynes Carpentry to help do some of the difficult and detailed work. Zach finished up the drywall, helped get the offices separated from tool assembly and did a lot of work getting the storefront ready. Thanks Zach!
On Tuesday, I did this quick video tour of the building. Lots more work ahead this month. Our cabinets should arrive for the storefront (there’s no way I could build these in time or for the price we’re being charged). And work has already begun on fixing up the old factory bathroom on the second floor.
Right now, I can’t even show you a photo of the bathroom because I think it would break some laws it’s so scary.
“The Woodworker” is filled with solid gold, such as this description of mortising. The best way (in my book).
This week I’ve signed off on a new press run of our four-volume set of “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years.” We ran out of stock last year, and reprinting the books became prohibitively expensive (thanks, inflation!). I didn’t want to charge people more than $200 for these foundational texts on handwork.
So we worked with our printer to come out with a new four-volume set at an affordable price. What did we change? Only the cover. These books will be softcover instead of hardcover. The text will be printed on the same #60 paper. The pages will still be gathered into signatures and sewn for durability. The book will still be printed on offset printing presses in Michigan – not some digital perfect-bound piece of impermanence.
The four books will be wrapped in #100 Mohawk Carnival, a gorgeous American-made paper, for the covers. And we’re going to have a special introductory offer. Here’s how the pricing will work:
The set of four should retail for $139. But for the first 30 days, you can buy the full set for $100 with free shipping.
These books make me hyperbole. We spent eight years culling these articles from hundreds of issues of the now-defunct magazine The Woodworker. These books cover all aspects of handwork, from getting started to making complex mouldings and curved barred-light doors. By hand.
The 1,500 pages of proofs I reviewed to get these books back in print.
These books are densely packed with thousands of hand drawings by Hayward. The four books comprise more than 1,500 pages of information. All organized so you can find it (here’s a list of the entries). I consider these books to be the backbone of my handwork library. When I have a question about a technique or a tool, these books are the first place I look.
We hope to have all four volumes in stock by the end of February. Save your pennies. These books are worth it.
Cutting patterns is a natural part of working wood with hand tools. For centuries, patterns and symbols have decorated simple tools and utensils. During long winter nights in front of the fire, symbolic patterns were carved into the wood. And with the tip of a sheath knife, a signature or house mark was added next to the year — a couple of slanted notches that have immortalized the object for posterity, a plowed furrow in the soil of time. Today, these objects glitter like treasure in museum archives and provide inspiration for those who want to develop a creative and authentic practice of pattern-carving in wood.
To me, contemplating what pattern to cut on an object — on a box, spoon or knife handle — feels like I’m being served dessert. I want to enjoy the process, allow the sketching time it needs to create a unique and ideal pattern: a decoration that I can cut at my leisure, safe in the knowledge that it will stand the test of time for many years to come. This is the feeling and experience I want to share with you. A big advantage of cutting patterns is that you don’t need many tools; a chip carving knife and a regular well-sharpened sheath knife will go a long way. Basic slöjd tools are needed to make the objects themselves, of course. But once this is done, you can bring your chip carving knife anywhere. Once you begin to familiarize yourself with techniques such as the fingernail cut, shallow relief carving and kolrosing, you’ll need to supplement your tools with a few gouges and a kolrosing knife. You may also need to fasten the material to a workbench or table with clamps to free up both hands.
There is great variety and freedom of choice in composing your own designs. Think of this book as a primer on technique, a source of inspiration and an invitation to create your own bank of patterns as well as your own unique style.
It contains many pictures of newly composed patterns and objects made and crafted specifically for this book. There are also pictures of older examples from folk art, captured in museums around Scandinavia. You can also read about cutting patterns in my previous book “Slöjd in Wood” (Lost Art Press, 2018), under the chapter on chip carving. This book offers a wider range of in-depth pattern ideas, additional inspiration, and suggestions on how to make various everyday objects the slöjd way.
You can read and use this book independently of “Slöjd in Wood,” though I occasionally refer to technical descriptions found in the previous title.
ROOTED IN A FOLK TRADITION OF PATTERNS
My journey as a woodworker began when my father put a chopping block in my childhood bedroom. Along the way, as I have adopted new techniques and materials, these experiences have been com-pounded into a knowledge that has shaped a special slöjd-inspired approach to my materials, tools and folk art. It has resulted in a practice that has gradually come to encompass work processes as well as cultural history in a never-ending exploration that is constantly growing both deeper and broader. Slöjd has become part of my profession, a kind of artistic vocation or a so-called métier. Traditionally, this has been common in many professions that involve working with one’s hands but has rarely been documented by the practitioners themselves, who are preoccupied with their work. Herein, I have gathered all my experience of cutting patterns in wood, and with this book I wish to pass it on to you.
My woodworking is marked by a quest to strike the perfect balance between opposites such as shallow and deep, burlesque and serious, as well as classical and folksy. Drawing inspiration from older slöjd, this has always been a stated aspiration in my work. When I admire traditional patterns, I’m often struck by all that the term “traditional” holds. It’s a loaded, heavy and somewhat boring word, often evoking preconceived conservative images imprinted on us by museums and history books. Yet for me, the opposite is true. Every time I return to the archives — as I like to call the thousands of pictures and drawings of old slöjd and patterns I have collected over the years — I am struck by a tremendous desire to work wood with my hands. When I study the patterns, I see the folk geometry, the rhythm, all the personal mannerisms and local variations. I feel like I become part of a long tradition of folk-art souls making slöjd. These explorations give me a deeper understanding of the conditions that governed how folk art was made, both the living conditions of the slöjd maker and the materials and tools that were used.
The choices and limitations — why a certain pattern has been carved — are influenced by the time in which the slöjd maker lives. Often, I see a personal and artistic style that offers a great freedom, which in my view approaches a folk-art definition of what slöjd is. To me, slöjd and folk art offer the freedom to express beauty, contradiction, naive delight and deep seriousness in my own unique way. I can’t wait to try out variations on what I have just seen. In slöjd, I get to explore new ways of expressing a different aspect of my personal style through sketching, drawing, reshaping and finally cutting the pattern. Together with the joy of having made a new object, to me the creative process is the greatest satisfaction in slöjd
Ale-drinking vessel, from the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo, Norway. The barely discernible face surrounded by rays underneath a crown became the spark that ignited my long interest in pattern-making in slöjd. At first, I was attracted by its crude yet refined simplicity. Only later did I become aware of the significance of the symbols. “IHS” was originally an abbreviation for the name Jesus in medieval manuscripts.
WHAT’S THE POINT OF CUTTING PATTERNS?
One of my earliest vivid memories of pattern-carving is from a visit to the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo in the early 1980s. The exhibition space is dark; only the light from the display cases illuminates the room. Some guksis (wooden cups)and burl bowls from the 17th century catch my interest. I try to take a picture, but suspecting it’s too dark, I take out my sketchpad instead and begin to draw the shapes and patterns from the outside of the bowl. I struggle to define which parts of the carved surface are raised and which are recessed. After staring and thinking, sketching and erasing for quite some time, the pattern finally emerges with greater clarity — as though I were developing a photograph in an analog darkroom. Shading with a pencil, I create depth and angles. How can I accentuate shallow and flat surfaces in relation to deep cuts?
By the time I have been sketching for an hour, I’m exhausted and my fingers are itching for a piece of wood and a knife; I want to have a go at cutting the pattern myself. Someone is speaking to me from behind the carved figures. The woodworker is inviting me to do the same: “Try it yourself! Put your knife to the wood and the rest will take care of itself.”
