The proofs for “Make a Chair from a Tree” arrived this morning; it should be in the store and available in about eight weeks.
William Shakespeare is credited with the invention of 1,700 words (or at least his plays are the first known printed use thereof). Jennie Alexander can be credited with just a few less – and we even left some of them in the third edition of “Make a Chair from a Tree” (if their meanings could be easily gleaned from context). Below are just a handful of the interesting neologisms she coined and a few actual (but rarely used) words and phrases she uttered (and wrote) on a regular basis. Who knows? Maybe in 450 years, everyone will be saying “dingus” instead of “fixture.”
Baby Jerome (n.) Someone who crawls under the furniture (to look at joinery).
clacker (n.) A depth stop made from a chopstick that attaches to a drill bit shaft. It clacks when it hits the work.
clean-out chisel (n.) A chisel with a curve or angle at the bottom for cleaning out a mortise (like a gooseneck chisel, but shop-made).
dingus (n.). Any shop-made jig that gets used over and again. For example, the IYFLL (see below) is a dingus.
dotter (n). A thin stick with screws through it, used to simultaneously mark all mortise locations (or mark whatever you’ve laid out with said screws). Conscripted from the turning world.
furshlugginer (adj.) A piece of junk.
GABG (n.) The Glowing Acrylic Bevel Gauge. A dingus made from green acrylic. Used in sighting legs to the proper angle.
gixerdee (adj.) Something that’s out of truth – synonym for cattywampus (which she used interchangeably with gixerdee).
Goldilocksing (adj.), Choosing the best compromise between alternatives, such as the size of a rung mortise.
IYFLL (n). In Your Face Line Level. A dingus that hooks onto a drill-bit extender to help you keep the bit level.
knocker-docker (n.) a wooden mallet.
Miss Moist-Bone Dry (n.) One of many Jennie’s many pseudonyms.
Mouldy figs (n.) People who listen to early Jazz; Jennie (who was a jazz musician) appropriated it as a term for hand-tool purists.
ovality (n.) The quality of being oval.
spruck (n.) The sound a piercer or spoon bit makes while tearing up the wood fibers as it makes its way around a hole.
truncadon (n.) The remainder of a billet after the sapwood and bark has been rived from it – i.e. it has been truncated into its useful wood.
toothy critters (n.) A metal planing stop with sharp teeth.
— Fitz
p.s. Anyone who spent time with Jennie has more to add – above are the just the words/phrases that Larry Barrett, Peter Follansbee, Christopher Schwarz and I could jot down off the top of our heads. So if you have others, please add them in the comments!
A “knocker-docker” in Jennie’s hand. (Photo by Harper Burke)
Dressing Tables are nothing else but ordinary Tables [where] the corners are rounded and around the perimeter you add some ledges of about 3 to 4 thumbs in height and you cover it with muslin or lace, according to the wish or the opulence of those using it. We make use of other small Tables that are portable which contain all [things] which serve the grooming of Women, like the mirror, the powder box, pomades, flasks appropriate for applying perfume and other ingredients of this type, which are put on ordinary dressing Tables.
The small dressing Tables represented in Figs. 1 & 2 are composed of a base and a top, which is divided into three parts in width, namely that in the middle, which holds a mirror and opens vertically, and those on the two sides, which cover two boxes, which fall back at both sides of the Table. Beneath the mirror, that is to say, in the middle of the apron rail is placed a little writing Table about a foot wide which slides horizontally. You pull it out when you wish to use it. Below this writing Table and its two side boxes are placed three ordinary drawers of which the depth, added to that of the side boxes, is normally 6 thumbs; [specifically 3 thumbs at least for the side boxes], and the rest for the drawer and the crossbar that holds it. This reduces the depth of the drawers below the side boxes to very little, truthfully. But it is not possible to take advantage of this given that the knees of the person seated before this Table must fit easily beneath the cross-piece [rail] that holds the drawers. See Fig. 3, which represents the side view of this dressing Table taken from the middle of its length, and Fig. 4, which represents another view taken at the location of a side box, which is filled in with a second box fitted with its cover on top. See Fig. 5, which represents the Table viewed from the top and completely closed, and at Fig. 6, which represents this same Table completely uncovered.
The construction of these types of Tables is nothing special [except] the opening on top, the area that holds and supports the mirror, which is done in the following manner:
You make a groove in the two separations of the Table in which you insert a cross-piece AA, Fig. 7, by which you [open and close on a hinge] the part of the Table that holds the mirror and the exterior ridge that is beveled to give the mirror the tilt that is necessary. When you wish to make use of the latter, you pull it from the front to release it from the bottom of part B, which remains in place. You pull it out and you bring it as close to the front of the Table as you judge to be appropriate, making the cross-piece A run inside the grooves of the sides, as you can see in this Figure.
The two other parts of the top are attached on the aprons of the ends of the Table. You should take care to extend over the center or knuckle of the hinges by an equal distance to the projection of the top so that the latter can fully fold over toward the outside. See Fig. 8. The two sides of the top are closed with a lock in the dividers/separations of the Table and they hold the middle part by means of two pins [handles], a, b, Fig. 2, attached below and at the two sides of the latter.
Other dressing Tables are made totally different from those that I just described, either in general form or in the manner of making them open. But these differences are of little consequence. What’s more, those that I just described are the most convenient and are the most used.
I said up above that we make some writing Tables a bit similar to dressing Tables. These Tables do not differ from the latter except by their opening of the middle part, which folds into three parts, namely that of the rear, which remains in place, like those of the dressing Tables; that of the middle a, b, Fig. 9, which you lift in the form of a lectern; and another small part b, c, of about 2 thumbs in width, which is fitted with the middle part, such that when making this latter move around point d, where it is fastened to the Table, part b, c lifts and serves as the ledge of the lectern. You hold it up by means of a little frame support e, f, which you fold beneath the lectern when you do not wish to use it any more.
The night Tables represented in Figs. 10, 11 & 12 are composed of four legs and of two shelves, one of which is placed at about 18 thumbs high and the other at 26 thumbs at least, on top of which you protrude the legs and the three sides to hold whatever you put on these Tables, which you place next to beds and you use only in the night or in the case of sickness. Underneath the first shelf, that is to say, the lowest, you place a drawer of about 2 thumbs deep, which you make open by the right side of the Table with which it is level/flush. The three sides that surround the space contained between the two shelves of the night Table, are normally pierced [ventilated] so that they diminish all the odor that is possible. We sometimes put there some very thin marble shelves, at least on the top one, which is a very good usage given that the marble is not subject, like wood, to warping with the moisture to which these sorts of Tables are exposed, nor to absorbing any bad odor. See Figs. 10 & 11, which represent a night Table viewed from the side and the front. And Fig. 12, which represent this same Table viewed from the top, which is, I believe, sufficient to show all the necessary theory for this sort of work.
In general, these sorts of Tables are not likely to have any type of ornament. It suffices that they be neat and especially lightweight to be easier to transport. That is why a thumb-and-a-half suffices for the size of the legs, where you make the curve/corner contour connecting the side to the back and only chamfer inside, so that the little wood which remains serves to hold [support] the shelf of the top. However, it is good to make this enter by tongue and groove into the sides so as to prevent any warping. You should pay the same attention for the base, which, like that of the top and the sides of the Table, should be only 4 to 5 lines thickness at most. When you make marble shelves for the night Tables, it is good that they be supported underneath by another wooden shelf (although this is not the custom), which prevents their breaking, as often happens.
There is still an infinity of Tables for all spaces, shapes and sizes, the detail of which I will not enter into given that they are often nothing but the whim of the Workers or of those who use them. What’s more, these sorts of Tables differ little from those that I just described, of which the usage is the most generally received, and after which you could design them in whatever form you judge to be appropriate.
Before ending all that concerns Tables and generally furniture with simple frames, and consequently moving to the description of closed pieces [furniture with closing doors], I am going to give in Plate 267 various examples of ornate leg Tables, as I just announced in the article on table legs, page 697. I will end this chapter with a description of screens and folding screens of different types.
The below is excerpted from “The Intelligent Hand,” by David Savage (1948-2019), founder of Rowden Atelier School of Fine Woodworking in Devon, England.
The Bideford Workshop was a great time for me. Situated in Westcombe Lane opposite the refuse lorry park, I had 2,000 square feet of space that had been used as a metal refinishing factory. It was a horrible, stinky, dark, cheap mess. I spent weeks putting in roof lights and electrical wiring to make it as much like Alan Peter’s workshop as I could. I had little money and little paying work, but I could put my labour into making this place shine.
It’s easy for me to say now, but it’s important to work out what you will and will not do in the form of work. It’s less easy to do this with no work and little money. It’s that thing about knowing where you want to go. I said I would repair old furniture but would not do reproduction copies. I would not work in the antiques trade. I would not do fitted kitchens but I would do joinery work, doors and windows, though there seemed little chance of that. Next door were the professionals. Des and Ginger were proper joiners, not imposters like me. Ginger would strangle a 1/2″ router, cutting trenches in staircase stringers. You could hear it going from a scream to a low moan as Ginger dug it into the timber.
Des was, however, to remain a permanent reminder to us of the danger of woodworking machines. One Friday afternoon, rushing to get done, he took the top of two fingers off on the jointer. These machines are Very Patient Meat Eaters.
Two thousand square feet of space on two floors was way too big for me, I thought. I arranged to rent out the ground floor and put all my machines upstairs in what was becoming a nice, light-filled bench room with a lovely varnished solid-wood floor.
I found work soon enough making big Gothic solid-oak doors for a builder, and a regular task of assembling kitchen cabinets from flat-pack once a month. I made a small walnut bureau for a neighbour and a maple desk for a doctor in London. This was a good commission; the deal was I had made them a dining table for the cost of the timber whilst my pal was a medical student. When he qualified, I made him a desk for his office for real money. This was like being a real furniture maker.
There were disasters, as usual. (You are, I hope, beginning to expect that with me.) Des sent a local lady to me to who wanted a pair of beds. I did a lovely watercolour that sold the idea, but then couldn’t make the bed ends look like the watercolour. She wanted her money back. I learned that what you show the client in the watercolour should be pretty much what she gets. My “in laws” helped out by buying the unwanted beds from me, bless them.
Getting pieces photographed was harder than it is now. It involved a studio and a man with a huge wooden-plate camera to make 5″ x 4″ transparencies. “Dupe Trannies” (duplicated transparencies) were then sent to magazines with a 300-word “who, what, where, when” blurb. Images now are bouncing around the world in moments. Then it was different. If you had any new-looking piece, you could get it featured in a glossy magazine for nothing! And that brought more work. For several years this was my major form of marketing. Free PR was sent to magazines and published regularly. Almost no month went by without David Savage Furniture Makers being featured in one glossy magazine or another.
Do the job well enough and you will be working for a small group of clients for 40 years.
The most important arrivals at that time were Malcolm Vaughan and Jim Duthie. They came to me from a local maker who needed to take a break from teaching. The trouble was, this was right in the middle of the courses Jim and Malcolm were taking.
I hated the idea of students and said “no thank you” when first offered these two students. I then returned to my labours. I was assembling a pile of kitchen cabinets that a local builder wanted done by Friday. Well maybe it would be better than this….
This put me, only very recently part-baked, in the uncomfortable role of teacher. But I remembered an old saying: “In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” And I attempted manfully to stay one page ahead of my very clever students.
I had a precedent to follow. Edward Barnsley had apprentices and fee-paying students. Among them was Oliver Morel, who first paid Barnsley then took a job with him as a maker after a year’s training. Morel took the model and set up a teaching workshop, first in Wales then in Morton in the Marsh. It was this model of a commercial workshop with makers, apprentices and fee-paying students that I emulated. I didn’t plan it, but it seemed to work.
The future would see this as a part of non-existent business plan. I would have a half-dozen employed makers, one or two apprentices and maybe three or four fee-paying students. The aim was to never allow the students and apprentices to outnumber the skilled makers. The advantages were cash flow and potential skill. Like Barnsley with Morel, I could find good staff amongst my students. The thing I learnt about staff is that it’s not what they know that matters, it’s who they are. After a year, you have a pretty good handle on that.
On the other side were the apprentices. I trained a number of local guys in the Bideford workshop. Two of them, Neil Harris and Chris Hayward, have become exceptional makers. Neil was my first apprentice. He was straight out of school on a Youth Opportunities Programme. I was stunned by Neil’s abilities on one of the earliest jobs I gave him: Clean the greasy parts of a disassembled veneer press I had bought. Neil and I then set about assembling the beast. We had no instructions, just an A4 photocopy of what it looked like assembled. Whilst cleaning those parts, Neil had this thing assembled in his head.
“No, that goes over there, this fits in here.” Neil Harris has gone on to become one of the best furniture makers I know. Fast, clever, efficient, he also trains spaniels to do amazing things at Field Trial Championships.
Malcolm, who stayed on as staff after his course, was also brilliant but in a different way. After his time as an executive at a paper manufacturer, Malcolm wanted to leave behind his experience with a large corporation. He brought to the workshop a wonderful sense of humour and a keen eye for business. The pine assembly bench became the boardroom table, and we each acquired corporate parking places – rank and position beyond our years. Malcolm made doing this fun. But as Malcolm was putting the briefcase away, I was getting one out. Not yet totally liberated from stammering, I had furniture to sell. It was Malcolm’s experience in public relations and his marketing wisdom that helped the place to tick more than anything.
About this time, I learned a valuable lesson about wealthy people. It began with a walnut desk that had been commissioned by a London architect friend. This was a prestige job for a building conversion in London’s Covent Garden. It was right on the Piazza – a prime spot. My desk was to fit diagonally across the reception area. Malcolm and I worked and worked to get this spot on. Table delivered, everyone delighted, craftsmen paid.
A few weeks later I get a call: “The building has been sold. The new owners don’t want your table, so it has been taken by the managing director of the developing company for his Dorset house. We suggest you get in touch with Derek’s wife, Mary.”
Reception desk. The new owners don’t want your table, so it has been taken by the managing director of the developing company for his Dorset house. We suggest you get in touch with Derek’s wife, Mary.
WHAAAAT!!!!…. I hated this. Malcolm and I had made this table for a specific place in the centre of London. Now it was going into some rich dude’s country house – a disaster I sulked over for days. It turned into something unexpected.
Getting hold of Mary Parkes was not easy, and I didn’t really want to do it. Making the phone call took me ages. When I did talk to her it was, “Oh I love your table! We are restoring a house in Dorset and we have put it there. We need some special dining furniture. Can you help us?”
I remember feeling extremely scared before I met Mary. I went trembling to a very smart address just off the Kings Road in West London. I came with some draft ideas of chairs and tables. Derek arrived later; he was genial and friendly and very much the worse for a few drinks. We settled nothing but agreed to meet at their Dorset house sometime later.
When we met again, Derek was on great form. He spent a whole morning showing me around a wonderful old house. He proudly showed me some of the restoration work. It was incredibly expensive but almost invisible. Derek took great pride and pleasure in what he was able to do to restore that beautiful old house. He introduced me to the gardeners and household staff; he knew each by name and knew about their families and children. This man was operating socially on a completely different plane to the rest of us. To me, he was amazing; I was bowled over. He liked making things, and enabling things to be made.
Mary and I worked on her ideas. Derek wanted chairs in which he “could have a great dinner party, consume a bottle of claret and not damage himself falling out of the chair.” I remember Mary doing sketches of chair backs that I recognised from chairs in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. I picked that up and developed it.
A photo competition. The photo of a chair (based on one from the Doge Palace) that changed everything.
We made a table in solid English cherry and a set of chairs. It was the biggest job I had every done. I remember Malcolm and Neil sweating blood over it. Mary wanted holly and dyed blue veneer details to match her fabrics. “We can do that,” I said with complete conviction and total ignorance. We would find a way.
We delivered the pieces, the bill was paid and the client was happy. I brought over my photographer, John Gollop, to take a shot of the pieces in location. John did that, then did something that was to me extraordinary. He picked up a chair, carried it into the next room and put it in front of a full-length window. There was a huge potted plant behind it. The photo he took changed everything.
Derek and Mary were happy if I made versions of their chairs. I thought I might make two or three. John’s photo and versions of it were in every glossy magazine for what seemed like months – the 1980s equivalent of going viral. It was an early confirmation of what furniture maker Garry Knox Bennett much later told me: “Dave, we are all in a giant photographic competition.”
We were making these damn chairs in various timbers for clients all over the country for the next few years. But more important, it told me that I could do this: I could talk with people, nice people, such as Mary and Derek Parkes, and come back with ideas for furniture that would make their homes better places to live. I could listen to what they wanted and translate that into an image that fitted them like a good suit of clothes.
Thankfully, I was a good listener; the stammer had taught me that. The first quality of a designer is to be a good listener, to take the brief and hear what is not always said. Then take the idea back to the workshop and make it. The making would be done without compromise; we would make as well as we could. Mary and Derek hadn’t quibbled over price; they wanted something special – something like the house they were living in, something new but worthy of the place. IKEA wouldn’t quite work here. The idea of “designing for clients” came directly from this job.
When I met Derek again nearly 30 years later, he was still at Blackdown House. His life has become a tribute to a wonderful English country house. We made another piece for the same room. I love that – do the job well enough and you will be working for a small group of clients for 40 years. They will always want you to make another piece.
Since the most exotic woods are very expensive, and for the most part difficult to work, one rough cuts them with a saw, in both their thickness and width, in order to conserve the materials by making the least waste possible, and at the same time to diminish [dress] them most easily, given that much cannot be done except by the toothed plane, at least for making them the correct size, which one cannot do with the [jointing] plane, given that these woods are often very hard, or which is even worse, of a curly grain, the iron of the standard/jointing plane cuts very little into it, causing tear-out [splinters] such than one could not remove without doing wrong to the different pieces which would be found to be too thin or too narrow. What’s more, this type of joinery being made to be polished, it is necessary that no voids be found in the entire surface, either along the length or width, which, consequently, requires the use of toothing planes, at least for the wood of an extremely hard quality, or of a grain mixed with burls, as I just said before. The wood which is less hard and more straight-grained than those of which I just spoke, one removes the material [dresses them] with jointer planes and in the ordinary manner. However, one will do very well to finish them with toothing planes, in order to avoid all types of tear-outs on their surface.
When the pieces are too small, or of a wood too hard to be planed ordinarily, that is to say, with bench [jointing] planes and other planes, after having sawn them, one squares them with rasps and Files of different types, as I will explain later. But whichever method the woods are dressed, the cabinetmakers use, for squaring them, the square made of ordinary wood. However, it would be good for the squares to be of iron or of brass/copper, named squares a chaperons [a square that has an applied fence/guide on its edge; a try square], of which one section is turned completely flat, and the other is perpendicular, like that of Fig. 2, where one would cut off part a–b–c–d, so that when orienting the square in whatever manner, the upper section is always perpendicular to the piece that one is working, as one can see in Fig. 4, where the upper section of the square, supposed to be c–f, is perpendicular to the other section, g–h, viewed from on end, in this Figure. These same squares could also serve to change direction one above the other, that is to say, the upper section above point i, and the other g–h, positioned flat on the work (see Fig. 4).
This square can also serve as an angle for drawing [laying out] the work, however it is constructed as I have supposed, or as it is represented in Fig. 2.
Figure 1 represents another type of square appropriate for marking right angles on different parts, where ordinary squares are not convenient to use.
The squares of which I just spoke cannot be used except for projecting angles [outside corners] and flat surfaces. As it sometimes happens, when one has cavities of a right angle to cut into the wood, like mortises or other works of this type, one uses for squaring them (or at least for verifying that they are pierced squarely) a square named squared cross, which is composed of two iron bars A–B and C–D [Fig. 3] ,of which the latter is set perpendicular to the first, with which it is stopped [locked] by the means of a screw E, such that this square serves at the same time to verify that the sides of the chopped [cut] holes are perpendicular to the surface of the work, and assures the evenness of depth. One lowers section C–D of the square, from F to D, of a length equal to the depth of the part which one wishes to excavate, as one can see in this figure, which I have represented by punctuated lines, the same square as the other side of the mortise.
Although I have not represented here anything but squares and right-angle triangles, it is however good to have miter squares, and bevel squares also of iron, for the reasons that I said above. If I have not illustrated them here, it is only in a desire to avoid repetitions, and to not multiply uselessly the figures, and by consequent, the Plates.
Figure 5 represents a type of square, or better said, the caliper for verifying at the same time that a piece is perfectly square and an equal thickness in all its parts, which is necessary, especially for the pieces which one squares with a File. Marking gauges of iron are of a form a bit similar to that of Fig. 5, except that instead of the returning arm as in square G, their shank is terminated by a built-in point or by one added to the shank with a threaded screw, which is the same, as long as this point is made of hard steel and tempered, especially when one uses it for metals.
As I said above, page 810, Cabinetmakers use the same saws as other Joiners. However, for the works under question here, it is good that these saws, if they are the same, be made with a bit more care, and that their blades be tempered, so that they better withstand working hard woods. Since tempered saws require extreme stiffness, one would do well, instead of a cord/rope [to tighten the bow saw], to put there a rod of iron threaded at one end, to receive a winged nut by means of which on can tighten [tension] the saw blade to the degree that one judges appropriate. See Figs. 7, 11, 13 & 14.
It is necessary to take care that the bottom of this rod (whether of iron or of copper) be of a squared form, as well as the top section found immediately after the threading, so that it does not turn when tightening the winged nut. It is even good to fit the end of the arm of the saw, Fig. 11, with an iron plate which is pierced with a square hole through which passes the rod, as one can see in this figure.
Figure 6 represents a saw named the English Saw, of which the bow or frame is all iron. This saw is banded by means of a handle, which holds the end of the locking anvil H, which is held there by means of a screw I, a bit like the same manner as the marquetry saw of which is made the description on page 843. These sorts of saws work not only for all the little works, but also for cutting soft metals, like copper, tin, etc., as for the other materials that one uses in cabinetmaking. That is why it is always necessary that their blades be tempered.
Figure 8 represents a tool named a sawing Knife [keyhole saw], which differs from the hand saw (of which I spoke in the first part of my work, page 190) only by the size of the blade and the shape of its handle. This saw is very convenient for the small parts [and places] where one cannot use ordinary saws, and it is good that they are constructed like that represented in Fig. 8, so that one can change the blades when one judges appropriate.
Figures 9 & 15 represent another type of saw with a handle and a fence/shoulder, which cuts to only the depth that one judges appropriate [established by adjusting the fence/shoulder], and forms consequently, in many works, cuts of an equal depth. This saw is made of an ordinary blade, with a chassis or frame of iron, divided in two in its thickness, and where one of the parts enters in notches by its two ends in the part that is fixed and which, consequently, enters in the handle in a manner that they appear to be one part, the two parts are held together by means of three screws threaded in the fixed part of the frame, in the middle of which the saw is placed, being pierced itself by three corresponding slots and of a width equal to the diameter of the screw, in a way that one can lower or raise the blade as much as can be permitted by the length of the slots. Afterwards, one tightens the screw in order to hold the saw in place. See Fig. 9, where I removed the middle part of the frame, so that one can see the mortise of the blade, and consequently the results that can be had.
Figure 10 represents another type of saw with a guide/fence, where the frame is configured in a manner that one can adapt to it one or two saw blades, that is to say, one on each side. The frame of this saw enters into the first cut of the saw made previously in the work piece, and it can, as with the preceding one, serve not only to cut different pieces of the work, but also to make grooves of different depths or widths according to the thickness of the saws, in place of which one can use Floats, if one desires, especially for working hard woods, ivory, shell or other materials with which one wishes to make embellishments, by reason of which one will construct the tools you will need. Being content with the two examples that I just gave, which are, it seems to me, sufficient to help in composing the others, whether of a similar form, or laid out like tools with stock/body.
Figure 12 represents a Piercing tool. It is nothing but a point with a flattened shape, of which the exterior ridges are sharp and cutting [very similar to a die-maker’s scraper or a bird-cage awl]. This point serves to pierce little holes in pieces of thin wood, observing to position the widest part of the piercing tool perpendicular the grain line, so that these being cut present hardly any resistance to the point which is forced into the wood, which therefore diminishes the risk of splitting. The other small holes are pierced with an ordinary bit. When one fears that the pieces be too frail to tolerate the force of the latter, one pierces them with a Drill Bit, as I will explain here in speaking of the appropriate tools for piercing metals.
The tools that I just described (an abstraction made of those of Turning and Locksmithing of which I am going to speak later, and in general of all the tools of the Joiner of which I spoke in the course of this Work, which can work equally for the construction of cabinetry, which is the question here), are nearly always those which are the most useful. There are still many others that each worker makes for his own use, according to his talent and the different occasions which he has for using them with more or less success. Since most of these tools are little different from those of which I spoke in the description of the different types of Joiners, I believed to be able to dispense with entering into each detail on this subject, this information being otherwise inexhaustible.
As to the construction of solid cabinetry, it is the same thing as for the other types of joinery. The different parts which compose it are always tied one to the other by means of grooves and tongues, tenons, mortises and other assemblages [joinery]. The only difference is that of these different assemblages as well as all the rest of the construction of this joinery be made with all the perfection possible, that the fashioning of the wood, the joints and especially the assemblages, be made with the [best] precision, without being diminished in any manner so that when working on the joints they do not open/appear. I will not speak here of the quality of the wood, which should be perfect and dry as is possible; without which, whatever care one takes, one cannot do excellent work.
The third edition of “Make a Chair from a Tree” (MACFAT), which has been in the works for seven years, will be going to the printer later this month – and I’m not qualifying that statement with a “should,” “we hope” or “if.”
As Christopher Schwarz wrote in 2018 when he first announced this project, he and Jennie Alexander butted heads over getting this book done from 2014 (when she agreed to write it) until just weeks before her death in July of 2018. Jennie was working on it until right up until the end (with the indispensable help of chairmaker and friend Larry Barrett, and Jennie Boyd, who cared for Jennie Alexander in her final years).
“Don’t you want to see your book published and see it influence a whole new generation of woodworkers?” Chris asked Jennie? “You and Larry will do that after I’m gone,” she replied. With the help of Peter Follansbee and a host of others, they have.
While the chair in this book looks much the same as the one from the 1978 first edition (Taunton Press), Jennie’s methods were refined over 40 years, much like the chair itself. The book is the culmination of everything Jennie learned about “greenwoodworking” through her years of building chairs and teaching others to do the same, and her endless curiosity and experimentation.
But we wanted to share a bit more of Jennie than just her chair. So each chapter begins with a short story from a friend or from Jennie herself, either through a remembered conversation or her journals (which are now in a collection at Winterthur Library). Here are just a few of those to whet your appetite.
— Fitz
Sometimes when you’re in the thick of things, you can’t even see them. I made chairs from the original 1978 edition, then met JA and Drew [Langsner] and plodded along over the years. By the time I worked with Alexander on the afterword to the 1994 MACFAT edition for Astragal Press, some techniques were so embedded that I forgot they were “new.” Steambending the posts, for instance. But after JA’s death, Geli Courpas, Nathaniel Krause and I were among the group sorting the contents of the house. We represented the beginning, the middle and the end of some of JA’s closest assistants. As we walked a line of 15-20 chairs, we took turns talking about what was happening at each different stage. And Geli drove home a point I should have known, but clearly forgot. “We had no steambox,” he told me, “we bent the posts green.” In the original edition, JA says to bend the posts green, or boil them, but doesn’t say how – because they didn’t do it. It was Dave Sawyer who introduced the best post-bending jigs and the steam box to Drew Langsner at Country Workshops in 1981; they were adopted by JA from there. And we never looked back. — Peter Follansbee
November 1978. Woodcraft Supply invites me to do a country woodcraft slide presentation in Massachusetts. Perhaps I can make a stop going north in Baltimore to meet JA in person. JA enthusiastically agrees to meet a kindred soul. An over-nighter seems appropriate, except that the Alexanders will also have two other house guests for the weekend. (Somehow, Joyce Alexander agrees!) The other guests are Richard Starr, a junior-high woodworking teacher, and John Kelsey, the first editor of Fine Woodworking magazine and also editor of “Make a Chair From a Tree.” Alexander meets me at the airport, a little guy with lots of big guy energy. JA talks full time during the drive home, and I then meet JA’s wife, Joyce, a slight woman who is gracious and very friendly. Starr and Kelsey are also there, busy talking about MC (moisture content) of chair joints. There’s also a teenage neighbor, Geli Courpas, who is introduced as JA’s apprentice.
For the first time, I actually see several Alexander chairs. And of course sit on them. In real life these chairs look even better than the photos. And they are satisfyingly comfortable. Meanwhile the other guys are talking away about chairmaking technicalities. It’s new territory for me, so I’m mostly listening during the dinner conversation. In the morning after breakfast, Starr and Kelsey leave for the Winter Market. Conversation with JA turns to the possibility, and soon planning, for a chairmaking class at our place next summer. It’s a complicated undertaking. JA pretty much knows how to make the chair, but not how to teach making one to a class in five days. I’ll do my best to help. And he’ll bring Geli. We’ll need tools and shaving horses for up to 10 students. JA can supply some tools from his ever-growing collection. My biggest task is procuring a veneer-grade red oak log, pre-splitting some of it, and leaving some round for the students to split and work green wood.
That morning JA also wants to get me started with my first chair. He phones Geli to come over to help. The Alexanders have a tiny backyard that is crowded with chairmaking paraphernalia and a haphazard looking collection of hardwood logs. Some are still round; other logs have been split into halves, quarters, whatever. JA also has a small boat filled with water, to keep split logs wet. Geli shows up and we begin to split a perfect-looking straight hickory section into the required posts, rungs and slats for my first chair. We also do some rough drawknifing (and maybe axe hewing) to get the parts closer to their eventual size. The plan is that JA will keep the parts wet (in the boat) and bring them to the class next summer. After lunch I catch the plane to Boston. My chair-making career has begun. — Drew Langsner
It fell off the truck, honest.
Years and years ago, a rough-sawn plank, 2″ x 6″ x 14′ long, fell off the back of a truck. Honest. I was driving the van to my shop with my apprentice, Geli Courpas. The truck in front of us hit the big bump right across from the Mount Royal Tavern, and the plank skittered across the street directly in front of us. I swerved, braked and honked. The anonymous (thank Heavens) truck sped off. The plank blocked the street. Good citizens, we cleared the hazard. Red oak! Goody, goody gumdrop! Give it a home.
“Geli, open the back door… jam it up under the front seat … get back there … sit on it!” The plank hung out. We hit each and every bump. Geli rode it to the shop. I now had a long and heavy board for a better shaving horse, but not wide enough to sit on. What to do?
There I was with the narrow board that tried to run me down. Not wide enough to sit on. I thought of the lathe’s parallel ways. There’s nothing new under the sun. — Jennie Alexander
