British woodworker Richard Arnold recently discovered an abandoned hand-tool joiner’s shop located only a few miles from his workshop.
Arnold says it looks like the shop was abandoned just before the second world war and looks as if it had never been mechanized. The pit saws were still hanging undisturbed on the walls.
Even more extraordinary are the pine or fir workbenches left in the shop. Each is about 30” tall and looks like it was built right out of Peter Nicholson’s treatise on joinery.
Two of the benches sport planing stops and leg vises with a traditional parallel guide. Yet neither appears to have a garter, as far as I can tell from the photos. Both benches have massive legs plus bearers that pierce the front and rear aprons and support the tops.
Perhaps most remarkable is that Arnold said the benchtops were only about 5/8” thick.
Arnold said there is a third workbench, not pictured, that appears to be an even earlier piece of work and didn’t have any vises attached to it. He promised that he would go back for a closer look and would report back.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Arnold is the generous soul who dug up the original “Doormaking and Window-Making” booklets that we reprinted late last year.
I think this post has a typo. Surely you meant to say that the benches are 38″ high. Benches as low as 30″ are modern trend started by some book author in the US.
Chris and/or Arnold — I’d love to see more info on what was written on that cabinet in the shop as well. It’s interesting to see what joiners and cabinet makers jotted down on the walls etc. At the Sampson shop in Duxbury MA it was interesting to see sketches, some layout etc (https://www.flickr.com/photos/7240095@N02/7795648158/in/set-72157631844871371 ) My NBSS classmate John’s fiance works at the school where that outbuilding was and helped get folks like Michael Burrey involved to investigate it more and document it (Since then folks from CW, Winterthur, Plimouth and others have all been by as well). He also found a door from a late 19th century shop that had pay rates on it, a few sketches and the guys signed the door as they came and left over the years which was pretty neat and now is in being used in a mutual friend’s barn/workshop.
Take care,
-Bill
Wonderful! What about the tools on the wall. No holes in the skirts for hold fasts? Or do I just not see them?
I did my top the exact same way, with the exact same horizontal bearers. It was an expedient based on how the legs turned out. Gives me a chill to see those photos.
I noticed the lack of holes as well, then it hit me… a 5/8″ top probably wouldn’t support hold fasts well, right? Sooooo, they didn’t use them? The thin top kind of makes the overall construction of the bench type clearer for me. Why all those cross supports between the front and back stretchers if the bench has a thick top? Just more questions to answer.
My guess is that they used pegs and wedges, which give similar results. I’ve used it occasionally with my bench and been satisfied with the results, although just like holdfasts you spend a little time figuring out how to make it work.
Ok, that makes sense. I’ll have to try that sometime, just to add to my arsenal
I generally detest aprons, but that is a beautiful bench. And a clean shop. Thank you for taking the time to document Arnold. Do you have any plans to use the space for teaching or a local artisan hangout? Hard to beat the ambiance.
Sorry Richard – confused your given & surname. Also, you might chalk the “ambiance” bit up to us Yankees, who rarely see anything built before 1950, let alone maintained in its pre-war state.
Ugh. I HATE it when I accidentally stumble upon a pre-WWII joiner’s shop, complete with tools and benches just sitting there, untouched for the last 70 years. What awful luck Arnold must have. Wouldn’t stand near him in a lightening storm, if you get my meaning.
*sigh* Looks like a nice, spacious, well-lit shop, too. Look at all of those windows. Doesn’t take much imagination to fill that cabinet in the back with moulding planes. Dreamy, innit? When you moving in, Arnold? Or have you not yet looked into acquiring the place? Next week, then?
Is it possible it started out much thicker, and has been resurfaced many times?
Maybe it started out 8 and 5/8 thick! 😉
That theory does restore order to the 3′ 2″ universe…