Many time you publish a project or article in a magazine and then brace yourself for the outpouring of interest or controversy. But what you get is the sound of bored crickets.
Other times you write something that you think that no one could like. Something that has complex angles, ugly wood and is painted. And you get scads of e-mail.
Such is the case with the Moravian stool article I wrote for the December 2012 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. I have gotten an inordinate amount of e-mail about this project, and not because there was a mistake in the article (there isn’t, as far as I know).
Instead, readers have been inspired to take up the challenge of the compound joinery – once they are clued into the secret of the “resultant angle.”
This week, I received an e-mail from Mark Firley, a member of the Hillsborough Orange Woodworkers group in North Carolina. The group, founded by Jim Campbell, gets together to build stuff and has an impressive roster of completed projects in its wake.
Recently they built the Moravian stool. And they sent photos of the results. Very cool.
— Christopher Schwarz
If we all liked Moravian stools we might run out of poplar and milk paint.
We enjoyed it which is what really matters.
Ah the ever elusive and misunderstood “resultant angle”, we Windsor Chair makers are very familiar.
I’d like to build one, but I don’t have a lathe. How can I make the round tenon?
A pocket knife will do nicely.