Lost Art Press

This Weekend: Escape to Canada

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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After looking through about 100 pages of notes this week, I asked myself: “Does anyone really want to listen me talk about nails?”

I mean, who else gets giddy when reading through a 30-page manuscript detailing the British military’s nail needs in 1813? (Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1976), pp. 88-118.)

So I’m also researching fart jokes to insert into that lecture.

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On Friday I leave for Perth, Ontario, to speak at the first-ever Woodworks Conference – a nicely organized event that combines a lot of learning with some nice furniture and some quality tool vendors (Lee Valley, Lie-Nielsen, Konrad Sauer and (drool coming) Douglas S. Orr, a dealer in vintage tools.

Thanks to Delta Airlines, I am not flying to Canada. This is good news because John Hoffman is going to come along for the drive. And I’ll get to bring a few pieces of campaign furniture for people to fondle.

Lost Art Press won’t have a booth, and we won’t be able to bring books or T-shirts. We’ll be hanging out like the rest of the attendees.

I’m actually quite excited about my nail lecture – thanks to some tips from Chris Howe in Australia I’ve been researching a forgotten form of nail that is technologically more advanced than anything we use today. Tonight I got a few more clues about the way the nail is made from blacksmith Peter Ross.

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In addition to my lecture on nails, I’m also giving a talk on “double irons” – aka “cap irons,” “back irons” or “chipbreakers.”

While a few people on the forums have burned this topic in effigy, I have found that a reasoned, historical-based discussing of this 18th-century device helps students immensely. Most woodworkers don’t have the patience to wade into the nasty discussions about double irons to extract the useful bits.

This lecture is about the useful bits. (And why Stanley needs to spanked for almost ruining the technology for us.)

So come to Perth and have a beer with your American friends (that’s John and me).

— Christopher Schwarz

23 thoughts on “This Weekend: Escape to Canada”

  1. I’ve been talking about this conference all week with Hans (including tonight at O’Reilly’s over wings and beer), and every time it gets mentioned a little part of me dies inside because I can’t go. Ah well. Please document Cronk’s bad behaviour for us all to enjoy.

    1. I’m still doing some research on that issue today… Here are two early accounts that are verified:

      1787: Invoice from Joseph Parks of Sheffield to Mr. A Hildick for “top and cut irons” (W.L. Goodman, “History of Woodworking Tools.”)

      1797: “Waaren-Lexicon in zwölf Sprachen” (Lexicon of commodities in 12 languages) mentions “double irons” in planes.

      Oh and “chipbreaker” and its variants do not appear in the OED.

    2. Oh, and the term “chip breaker” or “chip-breaker” or “chipbreaker” begins to appear in the late 1860s (1866 in The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 188) and then 1870s in patent filings and journals. Every early account I’ve encountered uses the term to refer to machine planers. Research continues…..

  5. Oooo… Nails from a historic perspective! I hope you’ll open with proper filing technique and shaping to prevent breakage. A constant problem at our school. Then there’s the whole shellac or wax debate. I can’t imagine what controversy you’ll drag up concerning color since plates don’t contained panatone numbers. Did Roubo imply a preference for pink or red in the traditional French wood shop?

      1. Well, call me a kid. I’m sharpening my color pencils now. Pink nails, yellow holdfasts and rainbow fleam.

  6. Peter Ross gave a class on old nails at the last WIA, screws and such. Nobody dozed off; very interesting.

  7. I like nails, but more to the point; if we should ever meet face to face, be sure to ask me what was the worst thing I ever did in my life. Suffice it to say it involved a funeral, taps, operatic flatulence, my wife, and the phrase, “Was that you?”

  8. Is there any chance of a video appearing online here. Hearing about this from Germany is like being able to look in the window of the candy story but not go in.

    2. These things don’t usually get videotaped. I suspect that if they were available on video, a lot of people would stay home. Then the events wouldn’t happen because of a lack of interest.

  9. So what you’re saying here is I can’t get a T-shirt at the conference? This is supposed to be my American woodworking schwag weekend.
    I’ll just bring my camera instead. #selfie

  10. The earliest known reference to the double iron plane, I believe, is from Samuel Caruthers, an American who was importing the irons from Britain. He wrote in an advertisement in 1767: “Also, double-iron’d planes, of a late construction, far exceeding any tooth planes and uprights whatsoever, for cross grained or curled stuff.” (cited in Pollak, a guide to the makers of American wooden planes)
    Chris, for those of us who can’t make it to the great white north, what’s your beef with Stanley?

    – Steve

    1. Steve,

      I haven’t seen that document, though I have heard of it. Do you have a scan? I am always skeptical of undocumented sources (which track top irons back to 1730….)

      On my beef with Stanley, I’m afraid that is only for the attendees at Woodworks.

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