Author: fitz

When we said we were going to offer fewer woodworking classes at the Lost Art Press storefront, we meant it…yet we nonetheless have a fair number on offer for the second half of 2020 (plus we’ve added one in June).

You can see the classes now and it looks as if you can buy tickets, but you cannot. The “register now” won’t actually let you register. Tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, Feb. 22.

Here are the additions to the lineup at a glance – plus a reminder of our two 2020 Lost Art Press Open Houses:

June
• Open House – June 13, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Build a Jennie Alexander Chair with Ray Schwanenberger, June 15-19

July
• 3-Day Spoon Carving Intensive with JoJo Wood, July 6-8
• The Bent-leg Greenwood Stool with Brendan Gaffney, July 11-12
• Build an American Welsh Stick Chair with Christopher Schwarz, July 13-17

August
• Make a Dovetailed Shaker Tray with Megan Fitzpatrick, Aug. 1-2
• Build a Welsh Stick Chair with Christopher Williams, Aug. 29-Sept. 2

September
• Build an American Welsh Stick Chair with Christopher Schwarz, Sept. 14-18
• Build the Anarchist’s Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick, Sept. 28-Oct. 2

October
• Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee, Oct. 5-9
• Intro to Staked Furniture – Design & Construction with Christopher Schwarz, Oct. 17-18
• Build a Jennie Alexander Chair with Ray Schwanenberger, Oct. 26-30

November
• Build a Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick, Nov. 6-8

December
• Open House – Dec. 12, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Click through here to our class listings for details on each. Again, tickets for these new-to-the-lineup classes will go on sale at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 22.

But if you’re itching to take class sooner, there are still a few slots available in the following current classes at Lost Art Press:
• Four Corner Joints & a Dado with Megan Fitzpatrick, March 21-22
• Build a Welsh Backstool with John Porritt, April 6-10
• One-slat Ladderback Chair with Brendan Gaffney, May 1-3
• Build a Sawbench with Megan Fitzpatrick, May 16-17

And in these classes with Brendan and me elsewhere:
• Build a Boarded Bookcase with Megan Fitzpatrick, Feb. 29-March 1, Alaska Creative Woodworker’s Club (Anchorage, Alaska) – Registration closes tomorrow: Sat. Feb. 15
• Build a Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick, March 4-6, Alaska Creative Woodworker’s Club (Anchorage, Alaska) – Registration closes tomorrow: Sat. Feb. 15
• Build a Frame Chair with Brendan Gaffney, May 11-15, Port Townsend School of Woodworking (Port Townsend, Wash.)
• Build the Anarchist’s Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick, June 1-5, the Woodworking School at Pine Croft (Berea. Ky.)
• Make a Moxon Vise with Megan Fitzpatrick, July 18-19, Port Townsend School of Woodworking
• Build the Anarchist’s Tool Chest (using that Moxon Vise above!) with Megan Fitzpatrick, July 20-24, Port Townsend School of Woodworking
• Post-and-Rung Chair with Brendan Gaffney, July 24-26, the Woodworking School at Pine Croft

— Fitz

Sincere thanks to all who took the time to write and submit stories for the True Tales of Woodworking Contest held by Lost Art Press to celebrate the publication of their new edition of “Making Things Work: Tales of a Cabinetmaker’s Life, and hearty thanks to Megan Fitzpatrick for doing the heavy lifting to make the contest happen. Congratulations to the winner, Bruce Chaffin! Here’s another of our top picks. 

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff, Do Sweat The Big Stuff, by Chris Becksvoort

I had four years of wood shop in high school, worked summers for my father during that time and then worked almost a decade in a custom furniture shop in Maine.  I thought I knew all about woodworking.  Not quite. For two and a half years I worked at an architectural millwork shop in Portland, ME.  

As I mentioned in Shaker Inspiration: Five Decades of Fine Craftsmanship (Lost Art Press, 2018), this was where my first task was to build 64 custom oak doors, 50 of which were different sizes and configurations.  I was faced with a stack of blueprints and a pile of 2,000 board feet of roughsawn 8/4 oak.  The logistics were challenging, to say the least.  That was only the beginning of my introduction to non-furniture woodworking.   

Over the course of the next two and a half years, I experienced the art of grinding knives for miles of custom moldings, was taught how to make speed tenons on the table saw, got to make half-oval windows with over 40 curved lights, spiral stair rails, sunburst transoms, store fixtures, custom turnings, etc.  We did things on the shaper that were dangerous and too fierce to mention.  Many of the jobs consisted of restoration work for southern Maine’s older homes, estates and mansions. 

One of my most boring and also harrowing jobs was work on the Skolfield-Whittier house in Brunswick, ME.  It is an Italianate brick house, built by a wealthy ship captain, now home of the Pejepscot Historical Society.  The two story structure has an eight-sided, windowed cupola on the roof.  The top of the cupola has a railing with 88 identical lyre-shaped white pine cutouts and 16  mirror-image filigree corner accents.   I spent three days on the drill press and scroll saw.  Boring. 

At the center of the cupola roof sits a finial, barely visible from the street below.  As I recall, it was almost 72” high and about 24” in diameter.  We glued it up out of 8/4 mahogany and marine epoxy.  The shop had an old, seldom-used lathe, with cast iron legs and an 8’ bed.  To accommodate the finial, we had to build up both the headstock and tailstock.  We also added another sheave to the motor to further slow the turning.  Even so, the glued-up blank had to be hand turned to get it started. 

I’m allergic to mahogany and had on a full complement of dust mask, goggles and ear muffs.  It was mid-summer and the shop was not air conditioned.  Even with the big cast iron lathe, the whole machine still vibrated like crazy.  Really scary.  After just a few minutes I started sweating up a storm.  Took off my shirt. It didn’t help.  Shed more clothes until I was standing there  in my skivvies like a semi-nude Darth Vader.   David Stenstrom, my boss,  suggested that I put on a johnny [Editor’s note, especially for Brits: in this case, an open-backed hospital gown], just in case a customer were to come into the shop.  Even so, I was soaked down to my sneakers.    

David threatened to take a picture of me, with my mostly bare backside showing through the open johnny.  I was fully concentrating on the work, and to this day,  I’m not sure whether or not he took a photo.  I asked him about it last time I visited.  He’s still looking. —Chris Becksvoort

Editor’s note: Thanks again to everyone who entered our True Tales of Woodworking Contest, in celebration of the release of Nancy Hiller’s new edition of “Making Things Work: Tales of a Cabinetmaker’s Life.” We enjoyed reading every one of the entries – so much so that we’re sharing some of them here and some of them on Nancy’s blog at Making Things Work – so be sure to tune in there, too! And congrats again to our winner, Bruce Chaffin.
— Fitz

p.s. Jim is a professional furniture maker who lives in England, hence the British spellings.

It’s fair to say that it would not have been my first job of choice as a full-time woodworker. For the past 25 years I had run my own architectural business designing and supervising the refurbishment of whatever jobs came through the door – houses, pubs, hotels.

Over the next few years I became despondent with the standard of work contractors, particularly finishing contractors, were presenting me with. I felt I could do better. I was a keen amateur woodworker and had a lifelong desire to work with my hands. As a result, I took part time classes over several years ending up with a City and Guilds in Furniture and Cabinet Making. The property crash of 2009 forced me to rethink my working life and I became a full-time cabinet maker.

Some years before in my previous life I had designed and supervised the refurbishment of a large Victorian house. The work was carried out and all went well enough for my clients and I to become and remain friends.

They had recently approached me to design a large set of shelving units. They wanted an irregular design, each space to house various pictures, books, and artefacts, painted rather like a ‘Mondrian ‘ painting, with the front lipping picked out in a different colour.

They wanted to know if I knew anyone who could make such a unit. I hesitated but told them that I would be that person – as I already knew the house and we shared an aesthetic. I went to see them and looked at the large living room with very high ceilings and two imposing alcoves either side of a marble fireplace and I felt I could give then what they wanted.

Measurements were taken, sketch designs and costings provided and the approval to go ahead was given.

I did not have the luxury of a workshop at this time but fortunately the ‘site’, the living room where the units were required, was empty with bare floor boards. I measured and drew out the units very accurately and had all of the timber cut to size.

This was my first job for a paying client. It not only had to look good but had to work. The units were over two meters wide each and had been designed to appear random but were in fact strategically sized to provide each shelf with adequate support.

I had worked out that working alone I would have to build the units and then get them into position. There was sufficient room on the floor to build the main outer frame and cross brace it for lifting.

The units were to sit on top of the existing high Victorian skirting boards. I had devised a system of timber rails which were fixed to the existing skirting boards but extended out from the alcoves into the room either side of the fireplace on supports.

The rails were lined up with the top of the skirting boards and were in fact in two pieces – one of which would remain as a permanent support beneath the shelving, the extension being removable once the unit was in place. The extended rails into the room would allow me to work on the units and then slide them back into the alcove without having to lift the finished unit which would be too heavy. I was alone in the house most of the time and it occurred to me for the first time that I could be at risk.

I installed the rails to one alcove to allow sufficient floor space to build the first unit. I laid the pieces out which I had previously spent a whole day sorting. It was like a giant jigsaw. I worked out the minimum pieces I would have to put in place to allow me to lift it without distorting.

Once these were fixed together, I attempted a lift. It was heavier than I could have imagined. I had also made it upside down. It had to not only be lifted, but rotated.

Whilst looking for inspiration and resting my arms there was a knock at the front door. I opened it and nearly fainted. There before me stood a ghost from 25 years ago. A teacher whom I had feared most of my life at school. He had aged, like one of those e- fit police photographs but was still recognisable to me. He obviously had no idea who I was. I was just one of the many children he had no doubt caused untold misery to in a bygone age of stricter schooling.

He had ‘just popped in with the decorator to see how things were going’. Apparently and unknown to me he was my client’s father. “Are you alright ?” he asked as I must have looked pale with shock. At that precise moment I didn’t know whether to tell him about my dilemma with the shelves or punch him. I decided on the former.

At this point two young decorators appeared behind him. Getting over the shock of seeing this now old man I had once feared, I asked them if they would mind giving me a lift as he did not appear fit enough for such activity. The three of us lifted the unit, rotated it and put it on the rails. They stood back. I hadn’t expected an audience as I edged the unit into place. Hoping it would fit and I would not look a total idiot I eased it inch by inch into position. I had that same sick feeling as if I was back in school. I envisaged it not fitting and was waiting for the bellow of how useless I was. As the unit eased in position, I heard the old teacher say “Wow, just look at that. Perfect. That’s how you do it lads, you’re watching a craftsman!”

— Jim Bennett

Editor’s note: Congratulations to Bruce Chaffin, the winner of our True Tales of Woodworking Contest, and a $100 gift certificate to Lost Art Press! Thanks to everyone who entered in celebration of the release of Nancy Hiller’s new edition of “Making Things Work: Tales of a Cabinetmaker’s Life.” We enjoyed reading every one of the entries – and will run a few more of our top choices next week. Nancy will also be sharing some of the entries on her Making Things Work blog, so be sure to tune in there, too!
— Fitz

Maybe you’ve built something that went exactly to plan or came out better than you had hoped.

Maybe your project started out as, say, a bed frame and ended up a bench.

Maybe the partially assembled parts gathered dust for years.

Or maybe it was doomed from the start.

In 2014, a contractor I worked with contacted me with a commission – his client, a tough-as-nails restaurateur in Center City, Philadelphia, got her landlord to pay for a planter box to be installed in the tree pit outside her upscale establishment. As a sign of defiance, she wanted it to be expensive. I liked the sound of this. For once, cost was not my problem.

She wanted the box built out of clear cedar, painted white, in keeping with the restaurant’s black-and-white color scheme. To match the interior woodwork, it was to be V-panels, which translated into $150 for the router bit set. Not my problem, the client would pay for it. She also wanted the box filled with dirt and planted, so I needed to build a small interior box to go around the tree trunk. My wife (repeatedly) insisted that this was going to kill the tree. My response? Not my problem.

I went to the site to take measurements and discovered that the tree pit was cut out of the sidewalk right next to the curb. Then and there, I knew that someday a car, truck, or the #12 or #17 bus was going to hit this box. Not my problem.

The contractor and I met again to agree on construction details and to come up with a plan — the four sides and inner box would be built off-site and assembled (Dominos, pocket screws, and glue) around the tree. With the chances of getting good miter joints for the rail cap on-site being slim to none and Slim just rode out of town, the rail cap was also going to be constructed off-site and hoisted over the young tree. We also agreed that someday this box was going to get hit.

Milling the boards where I rented shop time went without incident, as did construction at the builder’s shop space. Much as I hated seeing beautiful wood being painted, I enjoyed the luxury of having someone else do it.

Installation day saw the contractor, three helpers and I descend with the unassembled boxes and necessary paraphernalia, which we scattered over the sidewalk. As we dodged traffic, I was thankful that my strategy called for placing the bar clamps parallel to 20th Street and that the tree was not centered in the pit, so we could check diagonals for square. I handed the No. 2 guy a drill and screws and he said, “Don’t you want to do it? You built it.” I said, “Nope, you’re good.” Minutes later, he climbed out of the box and said, “Man, that really sucked.” I replied, “That’s why I wanted you to do it.” The rail cap, lifted over the tree by someone younger and taller than me, was screwed to the box, and the inner box was screwed together. As we admired our work, we pondered taking bets about how long the box would last before a car, truck or the #12 or #17 bus demolished it.

My travels in town often took me by my box, and I would express amazement to my companions that it had survived. Then sure enough, this January, a little more than 4 ½ years after the box was installed, I saw that it had finally met with a car, truck, or either the #12 or #17 bus. I didn’t feel anger or sadness. I simply said to myself, “Not my problem.”

— Bruce Chaffin

Editor’s note: Thanks to everyone who entered our True Tales of Woodworking Contest, in celebration of the release of Nancy Hiller’s new edition of “Making Things Work: Tales of a Cabinetmaker’s Life.” We enjoyed reading every one of the entries – it was difficult to choose a winner (a good problem to have!). We’re running some of our top choices here (lightly edited to match LAP editorial style), and will announce and share the winning story on Saturday, Feb. 1. Nancy will also be sharing some of the entries on her Making Things Work blog, so be sure to tune in there, too!
— Fitz

In the 1980s, I made and sold Windsor chairs, using mostly old techniques and tools. Mike Dunbar’s “Windsor Chairmaking” was my handbook, and Santore’s “Windsor Style in America” was my inspiration. One friend’s 100-acre forest provided the trees, which I cut down with a chain saw; another friend’s gorgeous Percheron mare, a draft horse with hooves almost the size of dinner plates, hauled them out.

Instruction was hard to find. I remembered how scary it had been, as a kid in junior high shop class, “poking a bar of steel into a spinning chunk of wood”* – it hadn’t turned out well.

Today, excellent instruction is available on-demand in downloads and streaming videos; Peter Galbert’s wonderful materials come to mind. Forty years ago, a beginner would have to go to the teacher. After wasting four months trying unsuccessfully to figure out how to turn wood, I finally found a mentor, 300 miles to the south, whom I met at a workshop 300 miles west.

One of the most challenging things for me was learning how to drill the seat for the legs. I quickly experienced the heartbreak of destroying a carved seat by drilling the legs wrong. The technique shown in Dunbar’s book used two angle gauges and a hand-held brace with a spoon bit; that didn’t work for me. I found it easier to use a single line of sight with a single angle gauge (a common technique, today). I used an antique Delta floor-standing drill press with a foot pedal to bring the bit down into the wood. That left both hands free to hold the big wooden chair seat in position. To get the correct angle for the legs, I built a wooden tilting table that bolted to the work surface. It worked great and I could tilt it either way – front or back.

I often demonstrated chairmaking at the local Farmer’s Market. On one of these occasions, a young guy watched me from a distance. Eventually, he showed up at my door, introduced himself, and said he would love to watch me work, and learn how to build a chair in my workshop. I quickly realized that Eddie had a lot of potential; he had worked with mentors far more talented than I was, repairing 17th and 18th century furniture, stuff that I had seen only in museums. I taught him by simply showing him what I did and explaining why I did it. I said there were probably better ways to do all of it, but I just hadn’t found them.

I suggested the best way to make his first chair was to find a big fireplace, so he could burn his first attempt; he shouldn’t take it too seriously – that would minimize the stress. Eddie ignored me, of course; he was determined to make his first attempt a really great piece of work. And he was doing quite well; he spent several days carefully cutting and carving a seat to a very pleasing shape, and then turned some very nice legs to go with it.

Eddie was very capable, so I let him work pretty much on his own, unless he asked for help. I occasionally took a peek to keep him out of trouble. The challenge was teaching without interfering, finding that line between oversight and overbearing. I showed him how to set up the drill press to bore the holes in the seat, and then watched from a distance. I knew how easy it was to reverse the angle of the table, and have the chair legs gathered tight together on the floor, like a goat on a rock.

I saw him setting it up wrong, and I just couldn’t bear to let him destroy that beautifully carved seat. I also wanted him to learn to think about what he was doing. I didn’t take my eyes off him as I quietly backed off into the far corner of the windowless shop. I waited to see if the light would go on in his head, but he pressed on. When he finally had everything ready (and backward), Eddie reached up and flipped the switch on the drill press motor. I pulled the switch in corner. The shop went dark, the machine fell silent, and Eddie yelled “NOOOO!!!!!” as he finally realized what he’d been about to do.

When we finally stopped laughing in the dark, I turned the power back on and we got back to work. His first chair turned out very nice, and he still has it decades later.

— Ed Rumsey

*David Fisher’s colorful reason for carving rather than turning bowls:
“There’s something about a twenty pound chunk of wood spinning around at five hundred rpm that makes me not want to poke it with a bar of steel. I like my chunks of wood to sit still in front of me.”
https://davidffisherblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/carving-round-bowls-can-be-super/