On the principle of beginning at the bottom, we will in the present chapter take in hand the making of the “ledge” door, and what comes next to it in simplicity – the “framed ledge” door.
The former can be dismissed very shortly, the boards and ledges being prepared according to instructions in Chapter I. The whole of the former must be laid, face downwards, either flat on the bench or on two pieces of timber as wide as the ledges. They are then cramped up fairly tightly, and the ledges laid on them. The top and bottom ones of these must be fixed first, squaring them across at about 5 ins. from the respective ends of the door, and fixing them at each end with two screws in each. The intermediate ledges are then fixed in the same way, keeping them at equal distances between. A single nail can now be driven through two of the ledges into the middle board (to prevent the boards from springing out), and the door turned over. The position of the four ledges must now be squared across on the top side, as the door lies, as a guide for nailing.
Two methods of nailing are shown in Fig. 21. That shown at A is favoured by a good many persons, but the writer prefers the other (B), as not being so liable to split the ledges, and also as acting more as a brace.
When the whole of the nails are driven in, they should be sunk still further by punching ; the door can then be turned over and the nails clinched neatly, also using the punch.
The screws in the ends of the ledges (Fig. 22) are sometimes omitted, but this is a mistake, as they add very much to the strength of the door. Another mistake often made is the use of too long nails – 2 in. nails are long enough for a 1-in. door, 2-1/2-in. nails for 1-1/4″-in. door, and so on. If longer nails are used, instead of the points bending over and adding to the strength, they break off, and nearly all the holding power is gone at once.
We now come to the important matter of bracing, which is necessary for all doors over 2-1/2 ft. wide. The usual method is to brace them as Fig. 23, notching the ledges to form abutments for the ends of the braces; but after testing the matter in various ways, the writer has found that a door braced as · Fig. 24 will keep its position far better than one braced the other way, while it is far easier, more quickly done, takes less material, and presents a better appearance-consequently it is always adopted by him.
As will be seen by Fig. 24, the braces are simply cut between the ledges, and fixed by nails or screws ; the latter should at least be used at the ends.
We now come to the framed ledged door, which was sufficiently described in Chapter I to enable anyone to recognise it without further description. We can therefore presume that the framing is planed up and the boards prepared, and will proceed at once to set out the door. This requires a “setting-out rod,” on which is marked the full size, with every mortise, tenon, bead, rebate, etc., and this rod is shown in Fig. 25 (A). The full height of the door is from C to D. E is the mortise for top rail; F the haunching for same; G the mortises for the ledges; H the space from bottom of door to bottom ledge; and I the spaces between the ledges, which must be all equal.
To set out the stiles, lay them face to face on the bench, and lay the rod on them, so that the lines can be transferred from the one to the other, as shown by dotted lines from A to Y, Fig. 25, which latter show all mortises squared over and wedging marked, also gauging for mortises.
The width of the door is set out on the rod at K, the finished width being shown by L, the length from shoulder to shoulder on the face side of top rail at M, and the length of the back shoulder of top rail, and the shoulders of bare-faced tenons on the ledges at N (see dotted lines).
The three ledges and top rail are shown set out and gauged for cutting at X, Fig. 25. Perhaps it will be as well to state that the ledges are gauged with a marking gauge, set to the correct thickness of the tenon required.
One stile is shown mortised, rebated, and beaded (the haunching is shown by dotted lines) in Fig. 26, while Fig. 27 shows sections of the ledges bevelled in two different ways. O is bevelled quite through, for which the mortises should be bevelled as well, while P is bevelled on only as far as the tenons, thus requiring square mortises only.
Fig. 28 shows the back of the complete door, braced as recommended for the ledge door. The brace at the top end should be kept on the top rail; if it goes to the stile, it has a tendency to force it off, as anyone may see, if he will take notice of any doors where the brace is fixed into the angle formed by the stile and the top rail.
It is sometimes necessary to make a door in two parts, to be hinged one above the other. Such a door is shown in Fig. 29, A being a vertical section, where it will be seen that the top door shuts into a bevelled rebate, made in the top rail of the bottom door. B shows a vertical section of a similar pair of doors; but the bottom ledge of the top door is brought down and fits closely on the top rail of the bottom door. C is a section of ordinary ledge doors hung in two parts to answer the same purpose, the top ledge of the bottom door projecting above the boards, so as to form a rebate for the top door.
When hingeing doors such as these, the top one must be hung so as to throw up considerably, or they will bind in opening.
Fig. 30 is a cross-section of folding ledge doors, the strip R being screwed on to one door to cover the joint.
Fig. 31 is a cross-section of folding framed ledge doors, the two meeting stiles being rebated together and beaded as at S.
Fig. 32 shows a cross-section of a rough ledge door, in which square jointed boards are used, the strips being nailed up the joints instead of tongues. This kind of door is often used for sheds and farm buildings, and somewhat rarely in cottages.
One more word as to bracing doors. The brace should always be at the bottom of the door on the hanging side, so that it is in compression, not in tension.
A copy of ‘Life of the Infant,’ 1617. Hieronymus Wierix’s drawing of a bench was copied far and wide in Europe. It might have helped transmit this workbench form across borders.
The following is excerpted from Christopher Schwarz’s “The Anarchist’s Workbench” (which you can download for free on the store site; see the penultimate paragraph there for a link) – it’s Appendix A. I’m posting it because Chris gets dozens of questions about workbenches…even though he has no public email. And I get hundreds of workbench questions…because Chris has no public email. — Fitz
During the last 20 years, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about workbenches. Most of these questions I’ve answered 100 times already. That’s OK. When people first get focused on building a workbench, they usually haven’t read years of blog entries or the five or six books that are available on the topic.
And so they send an email asking what’s the best wood to use. Oh, and could I also compare and contrast all the different forms of benches? You know, like, just real quick?
We get these questions almost every week.
Below is a list of the questions I am asked constantly – plus my answers. A lot of this information is covered elsewhere in this book. But this format – question and answer – seems to help some people work through their own doubts.
This chapter also gives me something to cut and paste when replying to emails and letters. Here we go.
Questions about Workbench Materials 1. What wood should I use? There are only a few woods I wouldn’t use for a workbench: white pine (too lightweight), expensive exotics (too expensive), rotted wood (too rotted). I recommend you use the heaviest, cheapest and most readily available species in your area. In the South and Midwest, that’s yellow pine (the cheapest), followed by poplar and soft maple. Don’t worry about the stiffness and other engineering factors. If you overbuild your workbench, it will be plenty stiff and strong.
2. Should the benchtop be a slab? A lamination? Plywood? LVL? Which material works best and survives the long term? All of these have trade-offs, and all of them work well – both in the short and long term. The choice is less about engineering (all are heavy and stiff enough) and more about aesthetics, economics and the tools you have available. You can make a plywood bench using a table saw and screw gun. A slab bench requires far more (including a forklift). But which looks better? That’s your call.
3. What’s the best glue for building a workbench? All the common glues are strong enough – hot hide, liquid hide, PVA, epoxy. Choose one that suits your wallet and the way you work. PVA is cheap and easy to get, and it sets up fast (this can be good or bad). Hot hide glue sets up very fast (again, good or bad). Liquid hide glue might be difficult to purchase in your area and sets up slowly. Epoxy is very expensive, but it fills gaps and can have a slow or fast curing time depending on its formulation. For most woodworkers, PVA (plain old yellow glue) is an excellent choice.
4. Can I use green wood? How green? Yes. But it’s risky. Drier is better. You have no idea how much the components will move as they dry. Benchtops, even thick ones, can twist more than 1″ at the corners. If you do receive a fresh slab and need a bench today, build the bench quickly and use stretchers between the legs. The undercarriage and the joinery can help hold the top in place as it dries, reducing its tendency to warp. Also, it’s a good idea to orient the top so the heart side of the board faces up.
5. Is it OK to include the pith in my bench components? I don’t recommend it. No matter what your local sawyer might say, a board with the pith included (sometimes called a “boxed heart”) will split. The split might be minor, or catastrophic. It depends on the tree. Why risk it?
6. Is air-dried wood better for a bench? Or is kiln-dried OK? Either is fine. And I can’t say that either is better for a bench. Just use the heaviest, cheapest wood that is readily available. For me, the more important question is if the wood is at equilibrium with its environment. If not, let it sit a while. Then build the bench.
7. If I can’t find Southern yellow pine in my area, can I use….? Yes.
8. What’s the best finish for a benchtop? Probably no finish is the best. You don’t want your benchtop to be slick. You want the work to be easily restrained. If you want to make it look nice, some boiled linseed oil will do that (and give you a little protection from water spills). Or an oil/varnish blend. That will give you even more protection, but it might slicken up the benchtop a bit. Avoid waxes and thick film finishes, unless your workbench is a fashion accessory.
Questions about the Form or Structure of a Workbench 9. What style of bench should I build if I use only hand tools? I think the easiest bench to build with hand tools is an English joiner’s bench, sometimes called a Nicholson. If you buy dimensional lumber, there is almost no wood to plane to thickness. It’s just cutting boards to length and fastening them together with simple joints, screws or nails. Mike Siemsen’s video “The Naked Woodworker” is a good place to explore this.
10. Won’t wood movement in the benchtop wreck a Roubo or Nicholson workbench? I have never seen it happen. The top shrinks and expands, and the base contorts a little. It doesn’t affect the working qualities of the bench, and the benches don’t pull themselves to pieces.
11. Is it OK to use mixed species of woods when building a workbench? Sure. There is no issue with strength, longevity or (realistically) differential wood movement. A hardwood top and a white pine base might be an economical way to build a bench. The only real concern is aesthetics. Sometimes a benchtop with strips of walnut and purpleheart through the middle make me throw up in my mouth.
12. What’s the best workbench for… …a beginner? Probably an English joiner’s bench (aka, a paneled bench). It has the fewest joints and is the fastest form to build in my experience. However, any beginner can build a French bench or a fancy German bench. It just takes a little more time. Don’t let your lack of skills snuff out your dreams.
13. …an apartment dweller? I would build a small yellow pine bench like the one in this book with nice vises. It would have mass because of the pine and all the features of a full-size bench. Then, when you get a bigger place, you can build a bigger bench and use the same nice hardware. The small bench could go to a friend or become a kitchen island in a Manhattan loft.
14. …a garage or barn without HVAC? I would use softwoods, such as yellow pine, fir or hemlock. These woods move less in service than hardwoods. So, if there are wild swings in humidity, you’ll see less wood movement.
15. …a person with very little money? A bench made with yellow pine or any heavy construction timber. Pound for pound, construction woods are the cheapest and easiest to get.
16. What do you think of a torsion-box benchtop? Or the New-Fangled Workbench? Shaker workbench? How about this other workbench that you’ve never seen or heard of? At times, I feel like I’m being baited with this kind of question. You can answer the question for yourself if you think about it for a minute. Your bench needs mass. How easy is it to work on the faces, edges and ends of boards with the bench? Can you modify the bench as your woodworking changes by adding different vises or holdfasts? Does the joinery seem impossibly robust or one step above a slumlord’s birdhouse?
17. Should the benchtop be assembled with loose tenons? This is an ancient way to assemble slabs (made popular by Greek and Roman boat builders). It certainly adds long-term strength. Drawboring these loose tenons can help pull boards together without clamps. If you lack clamps or faith in your glue or edge-jointing skills, this is a good technique to fix those shortcomings.
18. Can I glue 8/4 material face-to-face to make a thick benchtop? Yes. You also can laminate a large quantity of toothpicks to make a benchtop. The trade-off is you need the equipment to do a seamless job. Or you need to be OK with a few gaps. There is a lot of surface area that needs to be glued when you laminate boards face-to-face.
19. Why shouldn’t I buy a Lie-Nielsen, Plate 11 or Benchcrafted workbench or a high-end Sjöbergs or Ulmia? I like building my own workbenches in the same way I like building all the furniture in my house and making pizza from scratch. That doesn’t make my furniture or pizza better than store-bought. It’s just what I like to do. In fact, I cannot do things any other way because my head is that stupid. If you would rather buy a workbench and spend more time building jungle gyms for owls, do it. As always, caveat emptor with tools and woodworking equipment. I’ve used Benchcrafted, Plate 11 and Lie-Nielsen benches and find them to be great. Sjöbergs are not my favorite. And I haven’t tried a recent-vintage Ulmia.
20. Could you evaluate all the workbenches you’ve encountered in your career and explain to me the best one for my work? Sure thing. Wait right here.
21. What’s your favorite workbench ever? Probably the one in this book.
22. Which workbenches do you regret building? None, really. Even the ones that were less successful taught me important lessons. The bench I miss the least is the door on sawhorses.
23. Should I tooth my benchtop like veneer? Sure. I’ve tried it. The rough resulting surface seems to help keep your work in place, but that might only be my perception and not an engineering truth. The best reason to do it is that every time someone tooths a benchtop, the internet poops its inter-pants.
24. Is there any case where you would advocate for a tool tray? Yes, when the tool tray is a box with a lid and three sliding tills. And positioned off to the side of your bench where all your tools are at hand.
25. What’s the best way to make my workbench mobile? Push it. Commercial “mobility kits” don’t impress me. I’ve seen engineered solutions that are more complex than a Jarvik-7 artificial heart. Simple is best. Most benches can be slid across a floor easily. If you want to protect the floor, put a moving blanket under the feet. Honestly, I own workbenches that are almost 400 pounds, and I can move them myself with my scrawny bird-like arms.
26. What’s the best height for a workbench? I think it’s somewhere between the historical heights of 28″ and 36″. Plus, remember that you can endure working in a range of about 3″ around your ideal. So, if you can’t decide, make the bench a little taller than the internet tells you. Then saw the legs down bit by bit until you find that your work becomes easier. Second piece of advice: Sit down at your bench to do detail work with carving tools, chisels or a router.
27. What’s the best way to make my workbench height-adjustable? I know this sounds snarky, but it’s not. Sit down at a shop stool if you need to be closer to your work. Stand on the same stool (or a raised platform) if you need to get way above it for some reason. Adjust your height – not the workbench’s.
28. What do you think of these commercial benches that adjust in height? I am impressed by the engineering, but I don’t see a need for them in my workshop.
30. Should my workbench be in the center of the room or against the wall? Either works, as long as you can move the bench for oddball operations. I shift my bench all the time here and there to do different things. I prefer to have my bench in the middle of the room so I can go around to its backside to take photos. But most people don’t need to do that. One caveat: If your bench is lightweight, having it against the wall (or secured to the wall) can make it more stable.
31. If I put my bench near a window, which direction should that window face? The classic shop uses only the beautiful northern light. The real shop will take any window facing any direction.
32. Can I drawbore a bench together without glue to make it knockdown? You can do this once. After you disassemble a drawbored joint, it never goes back together as tightly as it did the first time.
33. How lightweight is too light? If the bench moves across the floor during normal planing operations, you have a problem. Bolt the bench to the floor (or wall), add weights or build a heavier bench. After experimenting with commercial benches that were on the featherweight side, I’ve found the typical 60 lb. bench is too light. At about 150 lbs., things begin to work. Above 250 lbs., I don’t notice the workbench.
Questions About Workholding 34. Won’t the toothed planing stop cut me? It’s unlikely. I’ve never cut myself after 15 years of daily use. Can it happen? Sure. Have I heard of people getting cut? Only once. Is it mentioned in early texts, which detail many of the possible gruesome injuries in the shop? Not that I recall.
35. I don’t want to cut a mortise for the planing stop in my beautiful benchtop. Are there other options? Sure. You can fasten a moving block to the end of your benchtop. But I think that’s lame compared to just chopping a hole in your bench and doing the job right. I totally understand that some people have a mental block about some things: grinding an iron, filing the mouth of a handplane open, doing the Ruler Trick for the first time. The barrier is all in your head. Close your eyes and jump off the tire swing. You’ll be glad you did.
36. Do I have to have a face vise? Can’t I use just a crochet? Or is that a dumb idea? Screw-driven vises didn’t show up until the 14th century. So yes, you can do excellent work without a screw-driven vise. Yet, the screw-driven vise is enormously convenient. (There’s a reason that Record never made a iron crochet – painted blue – for workbenches.) And vises are readily available and inexpensive. (But for the record, I enjoy using a crochet.)
37. What is the best arrangement/placement of holdfast holes? Three rows. The back row is 3″ from the rear edge of the benchtop. The middle row is 10″ from the rear edge. The third row is 17″ from the rear edge. The holes are 16″ away from each other. And the holes are staggered on each row by 8″. You might have to adjust these dimensions if you have a very narrow benchtop, but this is the general idea.
38. … of dog holes? Dog holes should be close to the front edge of your benchtop – usually 2″-3″ or so. This allows you to use handplanes that have fences that drop below the benchtop (such as a plow plane). I like to keep my dog holes close together – about 3″ on center.
39. What’s better: a wooden vise screw or a steel one? Neither. Both can close quickly and ferociously on your work. Both can last several lifetimes if cared for. Both can be trashed by abuse.
40. What’s the best material for lining the jaws of a vise? I like suede and a cork-and-rubber gasket material (Benchcrafted sells this as Crubber). Avoid cork alone as it’s too fragile. Some people like neoprene, but I haven’t tried it.
41. What glue should I use to affix the liner for the jaw? I prefer epoxy. Full stop.
42. Should I install a patternmaker’s vise? In the tail vise position? The face vise position? If you are a patternmaker, yes. And it can go in either position on the bench, according to the historical record. If you are a regular-head furniture maker, this vise has downsides. It’s expensive and a trick to install. Most furniture makers don’t need one. But dammit, I own one.
43. Why won’t my holdfasts cinch down? Your benchtop might be too thin, so the holdfast cannot wedge itself in place. Or the hole is too big for the shaft, so the holdfast can’t wedge in place. Or the hole is not plumb. Or the shaft is too smooth. The least likely reason is the holdfast is poorly made and doesn’t have enough spring.
44. How flat does my workbench have to be? The bench has to be flat enough so your work doesn’t spring in low spots to the point where you cannot flatten boards with your handplanes. If you work with handplanes, you will know when the benchtop is too wonky because your planes won’t do their job. If you don’t work with handplanes, flatness is rarely critical.
45. How often should I flatten my workbench? I flatten a benchtop when I make it. Then I flatten it again when it has become disgusting from glue and abuse. Or when it stops working (as per the previous question). Some people flatten their benchtops yearly. Some do it after every big project. I ain’t got time for that. And I haven’t found it necessary.
46. What’s a vise garter? Do I need one? Garters are a part of a screw-driven vise that links the screw mechanism to the vise’s jaw. With a garter in place, the jaw moves in and out when you move the screw in and out. Without a garter, the jaw moves forward with the screw, but must be pulled back manually when you retract the screw. Do you need one? They’re convenient but not necessary.
47. Will I regret not installing a tail vise? The best path forward is to build a bench that allows you to add a tail vise immediately or in the future. That way you and your work can answer the question (instead of a dumb Kentucky woodworker).
48. Which is better: square dogs or round ones? Neither. Square dogs don’t rotate; round ones do. Your work might need round dogs if it’s odd-shaped. Round dogs are easier to install. Both forms are traditional and go back centuries.
49. …steel dogs or wooden ones? Steel dogs hold better but they will mess up your handplane as soon as you hit one. Wooden dogs don’t hold as well, but they don’t hurt your handplanes. The choice is yours.
50. What sort of woodwork requires a tail vise? If you plane up a lot of boards that are similarly sized, a tail vise can be nice. They can also be nice for disassembling a frame that is tightly dry-fit. They are convenient for traversing wide boards with a jack plane or working diagonally with a jointer plane. We have several benches with tail vises or wagon vises. I use a tail vise once every few months.
51. Do I need a board jack (either integral or freestanding)? These are helpful when you have very long boards (longer than 8′) or a face vise that has a poor grip and cannot handle an 8′-long board by itself. They are also handy for edge-jointing long tabletops and mortising doors. If you do big work, they are a godsend. If you don’t, they are occasionally useful but are mostly a storage facility for holdfasts.
52. Finally, what wood should I use for my bench? Oh, do sod off.
Update: Sold. (I’ll let y’all know when I clean out my own basement…).
I’m clearing some stuff out of the Lost Art Shop cellar to make more storage room for Chris and his family (it’s their house, after all), and came across this poor, abandoned almost-done sugar pine Dutch tool chest from a class I taught two years (possibly more) ago. The bottom is dovetailed; the backboards are three wide tongue-and-groove pine boards (and as you can see, it features Rivierre forged nails). The battens and fall-front catch are red oak; the tool rack and “lock” are walnut.
It has sustained a modicum of water damage – but nothing that can’t be cleaned up with a little planing – and it needs a lid (I gave the lid for this one away to a student).
Given the fixes it needs – and the need for it to be gone – I’d be happy to take $100 (as-is) in exchange, just to cover the materials – the catch is, you must be able to pick it up at Lost Art Press in Covington, Ky., by August 9.
If you’re interested, please send me an email; my signature below is linked.
Cabinetry and remodeling by Denise Gaul. (Photo: Denise Gaul)
Most people who write books (at least, books of non-fiction) give some thought as they write to who their readers will be. For authors, it’s partly a matter of doing our best to convey as clearly as possible the particular kinds of information our readers will likely find useful. It’s also important for marketing.
Even so, few books are intended for just one kind of reader. “Kitchen Think” has much to offer anyone interested in kitchen design, regardless of whether you’re planning to remodel your kitchen. There are hundreds of luscious images to enjoy, rich in practical ideas and inspiration. The book will certainly be of interest to homeowners thinking about remodeling their kitchen, with analysis of areas that typically present problems and suggestions for how to enhance the pleasure of work involved in preparing meals. “Kitchen Think” offers a wealth of information and assistance for those new to remodeling, but it also has a few hard-won gems for those with a career of professional work behind them. And as a book for Lost Art Press, there’s also hands-on guidance, with chapters on how to start thinking about a remodel all the way through to how to build and install cabinets.
One type of reader who stands to gain a lot from the book is the spare-time woodworker who wants to build her or his own cabinets. So we made sure to include among the case studies a woodworker who fits into this category (or did, before she lost her job to downsizing and attended a nine-month intensive training at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship and started her own business, Denise Gaul Design). Denise Gaul and Alice Collins hired me to help with their cabinet design, reworking an impractical and uninviting layout. They chose quartersawn teak for their face species. Once the cabinet drawings were complete, they remodeled the kitchen, doing most of the work themselves. They tore out the cabinets and counters, jackhammered up the tile floor and gutted the room to the studs. Then Denise built the new cabinets over several months, installed them and acted as general contractor for the flooring, electrical and plumbing subs.
Denise (right) with instructor Aled Lewis at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship.
You’ll find the whole story in the book. Here are a few pictures.
Before: Alice in the kitchen, which had a tiled floor (so hard on the joints!) and cabinets with higgledy-piggledy variations in depth and height for no reason other than fashion. The traffic jam of appliances visible in the far corner made that area especially uninviting.
Alice with jackhammer at the start of demolition.
When she was working on the kitchen Denise had a studio in the backyard, but she had to take longer pieces of material outside for cutting, as in this snowy scene.
After: The big view of the kitchen, seen from the den. (Photo: Denise Gaul)
Denise retrofitted the dishwasher with a teak panel and built the kitchen side of the peninsula to house a microwave. (Photo: Denise Gaul)
A built-in pantry wall incorporates storage for small appliances and a phone charging station. (Photo: Denise Gaul)
The peninsula cabinet is especially clever, with open shelves and an electrical receptacle at the end. While she built the kitchen side to house the microwave and storage, Denise finished the back with teak shiplap boards and a door (at the far right here) that utilizes the inside corner between the dishwasher and the peninsula. (Photo: Denise Gaul)
Considering how wistfully many adults talk about youth, you’d think it really was carefree.
Was your youth carefree? Mine wasn’t. Aside from the usual complement of jobs, household chores and emotional Sturm und Drang, I was beset by concern about ecological devastation from the age of about 8, and about war and violence of all kinds. How can your heart not be broken by news of people being killed at a wedding or while having a pint at the pub, or wild animals dying in a human-caused conflagration?
Beyond this, the clear horizon of seemingly endless possibilities that causes so many adults to wax nostalgic about youth felt more like a burden to me. How should I plot my course when I had no idea what I “wanted” to do? What would be an ethical and meaningful way to make a living? As I went from one job to another, I quickly got a feel for the work that didn’t suit me. But it was far more difficult to imagine a line of work I might be capable of pursuing over the long term that would give me a sense of contributing, somehow – and one that wouldn’t quickly become depressingly routine.
Hattie with her desk “The Hatchery,” designed and made in her final year at Rycotewood. She describes it as “a desk for a home office, inspired by my dad’s playful approach to his work. The bird [in Hattie’s hand] can be moved around the desk, to be used as a reminder to do tasks or as a way of leaving notes for the user, the bird house is a great place to keep your phone whilst it is charging.” (Photo: Paul Wilkinson)
A recent conversation with a young furniture designer-maker in England revived these memories and reminded me how glad I am to be (gulp) 61. Harriet (“Hattie”) Speed contacted me after she read Making Things Work – she wanted to interview me in connection with her project This Girl Makes. I looked up the website; it was clearly a worthwhile endeavor with which I’d be glad to help out. But when she sent a list of questions, each carefully related to an excerpt from the book, I was blown away by her thoughtfulness and how keenly the book had resonated with her. For example:
“Did you go through the mid-twenties crisis (as I am experiencing)? E.g. doubting yourself and your chosen career, questioning if you are ‘enough,’ losing motivation, falling out of love with making, feeling disenamoured with the ‘scene’/the ‘industry’?”
Excerpt from Making Things Work: With this change came a creeping return of the perfectionism I’d cultivated during my City & Guilds training. “Is this good enough?” I’d asked Mr. Williams in those days, handing him my latest effort at a dovetail or miter. In his soft Welsh accent he always threw the question back to me: “Do you consider it good enough? If you need to ask the question, you most likely know the answer.”
And
Perhaps you were expecting something technical: “Invest in a SawStop” or “Tails before pins.” With me, it’s always more existential.
I couldn’t help thinking this person would make a great career counselor (or shrink). And I was intrigued by what she’d revealed about her situation. As someone who gets her share of correspondence from woodworkers of all ages asking for my thoughts about going into furniture making as a livelihood, I sometimes feel like a therapist saying it’s OK – and in many cases, better – to save woodworking for your spare time. Fortunately, Christopher Schwarz agreed that as a thoughtful young person with formal training and an impressive list of awards, who is finding her way in the world as a woodworker, Hattie would make a good profile for this series.
The bird that goes with “The Hatchery.” (Photo: Hattie Speed)Hattie and her father, Chris Speed.
Hattie was born in Hexham, Northumberland, a town Wikipedia describes as dominated by Hexham Abbey, a Gothic confection constructed in the 12th century. The youngest of three sisters, she came along in 1995. For her A-level studies (the rough equivalent of junior and senior years in high school in the States) at Hexham High School, she did Product Design. Her first project was a light; the second, a chair. It was the chair that hooked her. She wanted to make furniture.
She took his suggestion and went through a three-year bachelor’s of arts training in furniture design and making. To cover the course fees (each year of tuition at Rycotewood cost her £6,000-£7,000), she got a student loan. Hattie was one of three women in her year, some of them mature students (i.e., older than the typical students, who were recent high school grads or in their early to mid 20s). “I think that’s why it was such a positive experience,” she remarks; “there was such a mix of ages and backgrounds.” She learned as much from her peers as from the tutors.
“HINNY” reading stools, designed and made at Rycotewood in 2017. Hattie writes: “‘Hinny’ is Geordie (the dialect spoken in Newcastle, near where I am from in the North East of England) for a young woman, but is also the word for the offspring of a male horse and female donkey (the opposite of a mule). Due to the equine form of the stool, I decided on this name. The stools were shortlisted for the design category of the 2017 Wood Awards. They are a playful piece that I imagined being in a library to make reading more of an exciting activity for children. The length of the seat means children and adults can sit on the chair together. ” (Photo: Hattie Speed)
She describes the training as “very traditional.” Hattie was particularly influenced by tutor Dr. Lynn Jones, who’s best known as the designer of a chair for breastfeeding women. “Her approach is so specific to each person she works with, she really listens and tries to understand who you are and what you are about,” she says of Dr. Jones. “She would often give me advice on projects I was doing alongside my studies, which meant her guidance was really holistic and I was able to benefit from resources outside of the college. It was also one of the first times I had met another woman in furniture, who shared my aesthetic style and love of resourcefulness! I guess we just clicked. She is now a very good friend. I must say though that all the staff at Rycotewood were VERY good and very committed to my learning – [it’s] worth mentioning Joseph Bray, the course leader; John Barns, the machine-training tutor/jig maker extraordinaire; and Drew Smith, CAD and design tutor.”
The training was also quite competitive. “I felt I really had something to prove,” she says. “College taught me resilience, as I hadn’t done furniture making before,” she wrote for a testimonial on the Rycotewood website. “I kept trying, and eventually got up to a good standard. The tutors and staff are really amazing.” She spent the summer holidays following her first year at Rycotewood gaining work experience at Robinson-Gay, and told Stephen that he had changed her life.
The training at Rycotewood focused on hand tools to start, after which students added small equipment such as biscuit joiners. Following this basic training in techniques, they moved on to projects that involved designing and building to briefs. Her projects included bedside cabinets, a pair of reading stools called “HINNY” and “Corkey’s Cabinet,” her final design-build project, which she partnered with a related 5,000-word dissertation.
“Corkey’s Cabinet” (Photo: Hattie Speed)
“Corkey’s Cabinet” explored how craft can help those who have been bereaved, a subject with which Hattie has personal experience, having lost her father when she was just 14. She designed and built a collector’s cabinet for keeping mementos of a loved one, the whole thing constituting a kind of therapy. “It ended up winning quite a few rewards,” she says, adding modestly, “so that was quite good.” Quite good, indeed. Rycotewood has its own annual award for graduating students; she won best in show. She also won best in show for the Young Furniture Makers Award that year. Following these exhibitions, she showed the piece as part of a show of furniture and artworks in wood at Messums Gallery, a contemporary arts center housed in a jaw-droppingly lovely 13th-century tithe barn and adjacent dairy barn in the rolling hills of Wiltshire.
(Photo: Hattie Speed)
After this series of high-profile exhibitions, the prize-winning collector’s cabinet currently lives in her room, where the frame serves as a clothes horse and the top stores makeup.
(Photo: Hattie Speed)
Hattie lives in a shared house in Oxford with three others. In a few weeks she’ll be moving to a larger house with 10 occupants that she calls “a sort of art commune-type thing. I met the girl that set it up when we started a punk band that ended up being quite short-lived, but I went on to meet other people in their community.” When a room became available, Hattie jumped at the chance to be part of the household.
For now, she has two part-time jobs. One will be familiar to many graduates of furniture making courses: on Saturdays she teaches furniture design and making to young people at her former college, Rycotewood. Her other job is less typical: three days a week, she does therapeutic woodworking with patients at a neuro-rehab center that’s part of the National Health Service. She’s typically working with in-patients who have suffered strokes or traumatic brain injuries, as well as working with out-patients who experience other neurological conditions, such as MS. “There is a real mix; some patients are in wheelchairs and have good cognitive function, whereas others may have good limb function, but might struggle to communicate or have difficulties with vision or spatial awareness.” The workshop is in the ward; she collects the patients from their rooms and brings them to the workspace. They have a few set projects – a bird box, for example, a trinket box and a picture frame – and are encouraged to be creative in how they personalize them. Those who wish to customize their work are free to do so. They use a hand-powered miter saw for the cutting; the frame ensures it’s well within the capabilities of even those in lower-functioning cognitive states. “It’s pretty impressive what you can achieve,” Hattie remarks. “I find it really interesting as a designer-maker. You’d think it would be repetitive, but each person’s different, and the way you go about doing things is different for every person. It’s a form of therapy, so you get to learn about [them] and talk with them. It’s really social.”
Hexagonal stools. (Photo: Hattie Speed)
But let’s go back a bit. After graduating from Rycotewood in 2018, Hattie took a job as a design engineer at Ercol, one of England’s best-known furniture manufacturers, which has been around since the 1940s and is still a major provider of home furnishings today. Ercol is a big supporter of Rycotewood; they do a lot of live projects, which says something about the company’s interest in staying relevant as tastes and ideas about furniture change. The chairman and head of design were at Hattie’s graduating show; she caught their eye because she won three awards. (It’s hard not to make an impression when you keep being called up to the stage.) When she saw a job opening in the design team, she applied, a move for which she credits a furniture designer friend, Alys Bryan, whom Hattie met during her first year at university; Alys, too, was a student of Dr. Jones.
By way of illustrating the gulf between what many imagine the job entailed and its reality, she offers the following: “’Oh, you’re a designer!’” friends would say. “No, actually, I’m a design engineer,” she’d reply; “I’m looking at what kind of screws we’re going to need.” As middle-person between the designer and the production team, she prepared technical drawings and did modeling on CAD, helped with bills of materials and sent them to the purchasing department. If the company was putting on an exhibition, she might design stands for the pieces, or help lay the show out.
“I definitely felt like, reading the job description, I could do that role,” Hattie reflects. “I went into it knowing I was going to learn a lot, but it was out of my comfort zone and what I would expect of myself. The skill set I thought I had – it was going to teach me the skills I didn’t have.”
As she settled into the job, the compartmentalization of the industrial work context chafed. “I like the holistic approach of doing every single part of the process and seeing it from start to finish. Although you did get to see the furniture being made, you weren’t involved in the making.” She’d spent three years in college making every day, always feeling she had something to prove. “When you’re a woman, people think you’re going to be a designer. So I worked really hard at learning to make.” And now she was in a job where several layers of intermediaries stood between her and the making.
On the other hand, she says, “they were really supportive in giving me opportunities and supporting projects I was doing outside of my job.” For instance, when she had an exhibition, they paid for printing for the exhibition, including postcards and artwork. They provided sponsorship so she could participate in the Young Professional Industry Experience, a three-week tour around furniture factories and showrooms, most of them larger operations but some smaller shops with 10 or so people on the shop floor. When a Design Technology teacher from Didcot Girls’ School approached her to ask whether she would run a workshop with her students, Ercol allowed her to do it on company time and provided two members of staff, as well as materials (“we used their waste components,” says Hattie – and what better use to make of waste than teaching people to build things?) to run the project. “That was probably the best thing I did while I was at Ercol. It made me realize that I enjoy being in a learning environment and working with people to create their own designs. Because the school was same-sex, we were running the workshop for approx 15 GCSE students (ages 14 and 15). Seeing that many girls in the workshop cracking on with the design-and-make project we had set was so exciting! It was a stark contrast to the factory floor.”
Feeling a bit of burn out, Hattie took four months out to reset. “I had no other job lined up. But a friend, who I studied at Rycotewood with, told me he was planning on leaving his job (the NHS role) to go travelling, which just so happened to be around the time I was thinking of leaving Ercol. I had already heard of the hospital’s workshop when the workshop manager had visited Rycotewood in my second year. And I had been in contact with him when I was doing my research into craft and bereavement, as I referenced a study the hospital carried out with its patients in my final essay. Whilst waiting to hear about the NHS role, I also contacted Rycotewood and asked if they had any work suitable for me, which resulted in the Saturday Club role.”
Lockdown
The lockdown proved a time for Hattie to do a lot of thinking and working through emotional stuff. Her job with the NHS has continued – she wears full PPE: mask, goggles, apron, gloves. But there has been no teaching at Rycotewood since the lockdown began. (She points out that those Saturday classes wouldn’t have been happening during the summer anyway.) At this point, she hopes to apply for a full-time role at the NHS and teach evening classes at Rycotewood on the side. To get there, she needs a teaching qualification. So she decided to do a post-graduate certificate of education through the City of Oxford College, where Rycotewood is based. She’ll be studying part-time over the next two years, while keeping her current jobs.
Hattie sent a few photos of this piece, “Cupboard-19,” with a layout indicating something of its design and the tools she used to build it. Here’s what she writes about it: “The most recent design and make project I completed is Cupboard-19, a storage solution for PPE, including masks, gloves and single-use aprons. It is a wall-mounted cabinet, constructed from blue laminated chipboard, originally used as protective packaging on a delivery, which was otherwise going to waste. The use of excess material represents resourcefulness and adaptability, and due to the blue colour, is therefore symbolic of our NHS. The overall colour scheme takes inspiration from equipment found in the Occupational Therapy workshop, where the cabinet is located. This was a constructive project to work on during an unsettling period, which will hang on the wall as a colourful reminder of that strange time in 2020 that we all made it through. The initial Cupboard-19 prototypehas sinceinspired a group project that patients can collaboratively work on in their individual workshop sessions, whilst in hospital during the Coronavirus outbreak.” https://this-girl-makes.com/cupboard-19/
Taking on the bigger picture: This Girl Makes
(Photo: Millie Pilkington)
Hattie started This Girl Makes in 2016, during the second year of her degree. She’d visited the London Design Fair at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane and spoken with the women makers; all agreed there should be a blog promoting women in craft. “You hear about all these men and you can reel off the names,” she says. “But not women. I did a lot of it for my own personal interest because I wanted to find other women who were interested in what I was interested in.”
Hattie at the Messums Gallery exhibition with a marquetry plaque for This Girl Makes. (Photo: Mark Reeves)
She decided to put on workshops that would encourage women to get involved. Lacking her own workshop, she couldn’t have people come to her, so she went to them, approaching galleries and museums, community spaces, with proposals to engage members of the public. To save time during the events themselves, she put together kits of parts in her room in the shared house. The first project was a three-legged milking stool; the second, a toolbox made of plywood. In a two-hour session, participants would assemble these kits, as an introduction to the satisfactions of building something useful and practical for themselves.
It’s important to Hattie that the events be inclusive and accessible. For some of these events, she has managed to obtain funding, which allows low-income people to participate. Others are ticketed. At this point she’s done more than 20. They’ve gone really well, she says; she often fills every spot available. “There are a lot of schools where you can learn to make high-end furniture [that] cost thousands of pounds,” she notes. In contrast, these two-hour courses are accessible to kids and complete beginners. “There’s definitely a demand for it. I want to keep doing it as a side thing.”
Parts kit for Hattie’s “Assemble Your Own Tool Box” event. (Photo: Hattie Speed)
Parents tell her schools don’t offer this kind of teaching any more. Their workshops aren’t well resourced, or they’ve been entirely shut down. There’s a lack of teachers who can teach these skills; everything has shifted to digital. “Everyone at school will learn to use a laser cutter, but won’t necessarily learn to sharpen a chisel or set a plane.”
Kit for Hattie’s milking stool event. (Photo: Hattie Speed)
Reflecting on where she stands at this moment, Hattie is keenly aware that she’s on a road less traveled. “At formal furniture training colleges you’re going to learn to make fine furniture so you can get a job making furniture for the 0.1%. It’s unlikely this furniture will ever be used. It’s superficial and made for people to show off. But there’s a market for that. There’s [also] a reduced middle class, and therefore market, for bespoke, handmade furniture. Some people are totally fine with that, because they just want to make what they want to make and they don’t question the ethics. But that didn’t sit comfortably with me.”
She was training to be part of that scene, but she didn’t want to be part of it. She thought that working at Ercol, which makes well-designed furniture that is more affordable, more vernacular and functional, would align better with her values. But various aspects of that work jangled, too.
She’s quick to acknowledge that she’s pursuing a different path from many furniture design students. “Having studied on a bespoke furniture making course, you don’t do design for industry!” There are different standards and materials – the whole perspective is far more commercial. Having been trained to use hand tools, she was now designing for CNC production. It was also her first experience in a corporate environment. “Because my parents are both self-employed, it was my first experience of being in a pecking order. Also, the office environment – that was totally not me. So that was a bit of an education. A lot of positives came out of it, but it was a very tough year.”
Left to right: Kate Speed (mum), Francesca Speed (middle sister), Hattie, Hattie’s maternal grandmother, Jean Oxford (“Grom”), Holly Speed (oldest sister).
A few weeks ago, Hattie and her family observed the 10th anniversary of her dad’s death. “When I had my exhibition last year…the last line of my thank you speech was ‘thanks mum and dad, for bringing me into the world.’” She’s grateful for opportunities her parents have given her. “My mum is very tough-love. In her not being a typical mum she’s made me more independent… It’s a silver lining of something that could be viewed as more negative.” She describes her dad, a quantity surveyor who worked with architects to calculate materials needed for given jobs, as “a man of real integrity. Very honest. He had a very big heart. Even in business, he had really good relationships with people he worked with. He had his own business, working in construction…but approached everything with a real sense of humor and playfulness and would always find ways of incorporating creativity into his days. I definitely wouldn’t have achieved as much as I have had he not been my dad, and had he not died. If you lose a parent when you’re younger you grow up quite quickly, and you also learn the value of life.”
I, for one, will be watching with interest where Hattie goes.
