I think I’m showing here how I clean stubborn fibers out of the pin corners. (And I think I should have braided my hair.)
With the first class out of the way at the Lost Art Press storefront, I’m pleased to announce that there are still plenty of Band-Aids – to the best of my knowledge, only four were needed – whew! (And everyone left with an almost-done Dutch Tool Chest – yay!)
That means we’ll have plenty of bandages left for the upcoming classes. Most of these are two-days, over a weekend; Chris works in his shop almost every day, so those of us whom he has so kindly allowed to teach are trying to not trespass on his space and goodwill…too much.
The classes are limited to six people (the number of benches that will comfortably fit in the room), so there’s a 1:6 teacher/student ratio, plus the teacher has an overly qualified assistant (that would be Chris). All of the below are sold out; this is just to give you an idea of the sorts of things on offer, and to let you know that we might yet be adding a couple of 2018 sessions – so stay tuned.
April
7-8 Make a Shaker Silverware Tray, with Megan Fitzpatrick
21-21 Make a Sector, with Brendan Gaffney
May
21-25 Make a Welsh Stick Chair, with Chris Williams
June
2-3 Make a Sector, with Brendan Gaffney
23-24 Make a Shaker Silverware Tray, with Megan Fitzpatrick
July
21-22 Make a Laminated Fore Plane, with Jim McConnell
A few weekends ago, I traveled up the Mendocino Coast in Northern California to see The Krenov School’s midwinter show in Fort Bragg, Calif. I suppose I’ve been vocal enough about my status as an alumnus of the school (when it was the College of the Redwoods), so I’ll just say that I like to get back when I can, visit the wonderful people of the area and check out the work in the show. The midwinter show, not the year-end show, has become the alumni event that brings dozens and dozens of us alumni back to the school.
One person I look forward to seeing when I visit is David Welter. David retired in 2016 from his long-time role as shop steward and jack of all trades at the school. David worked alongside James Krenov for 20 years, and he stayed on another decade and a half past the old master’s retirement from the school. David has shepherded and photographed every student piece that’s passed through the school, and he is a font of knowledge on the craft and community.
When Krenov retired from woodworking and his shop in April of 2009, he called David over to clean the place out. By this time, “Old Jim” (as he took to signing in his later years) had almost completely lost his eyesight and had retired from cabinetmaking to make his signature handplanes (which was as much a way to keep busy in the shop as it was a business venture, it seems). When David cleaned out the shop, he brought home a few of Krenov’s machines, hand tools and his workbench.
David just finished building his own small workshop this past year behind his house, a beautiful small shop split into a machine and bench room, with a small guest apartment. The machine room has all of the features of a good Krenovian shop – a nice band saw or two, a boring machine and stacks of wood too good to pass by. But in the relatively spare bench room, only two features catch the eye. One, David’s collection of egg-beater drills hangs above eye-level and is a joy to behold. The other, resting comfortably below eye-level on the same wall, is “Old Jim’s” bench, now fittingly David’s – and it is a joy to peer over, under and around.
The three brothers who started Målilla Hyvelbänkar. Thanks to Leif Karlsson (son of Yngve and current benchmaker at the company) for the photo and information.
The bench itself was built in the 1950s by Målilla Hyvelbänkar, a small family-run company that still makes traditional Swedish workbenches in Målilla, Sweden (a a town roughly halfway between Stockholm and Mälmo). Three brothers (pictured above) started the factory, and it was Yngve Karlsson who built Krenov’s bench just after the World War II.
The bench will be familiar to those who have seen other Scandinavian benches from the 20th century – a large wooden tail vise and accompanying square dog holes, a shoulder vise and a shallow tool tray, with a beech benchtop. This style of bench has a particularly novel stance, with a much wider set of trestles on the shoulder vise end, to accommodate the vise’s protrusion. The tail vise is a classic construction, with the large wooden thread tucked into the dovetailed end cap, plus a guide rail that keeps the vise from sagging and racking.
The shoulder vise, however, is a bit peculiar. The sliding chop, which runs in an odd channel, has been beaten up significantly. Krenov preferred this style of vise for its capacity – without a thread in the middle of the vise’s depth, it could hold much larger parts (all the way down to the floor), such as full carcases or long drawers. Ejler Hjorth-Westh owns a much later bench from the same company, made by Leif. On his, there’s a more standard vise, ordered in a batch of benches by another CR alumnus, Link Van Cleave, who encouraged the maker to pursue a more standard vise layout to sell more benches in the States.
Krenov made a number of simple modifications to the bench (and made them when it was relatively new, judging by the cover shot from the 1986 Prentice Hall edition of “The Impractical Cabinetmaker” which shows the bench back in Sweden with all of the modifications). He added two plywood shelves above and below the bench’s rails, inside of which he stored small pieces of lumber. He also added a simple rasp and file rack to the front of the rail.
On the back of the benchtop, he attached a number of blocks for holding his work light and several small foam knife blocks, into which he often stuck his carving knives. Under the bench is another simple modification – a side-hung drawer. The drawer is tucked under the top a bit, making it hard to reach – but this positioning keeps it away from the bench dogs, which might otherwise be difficult to pop up into service.
The bench is laden with marks from more than a half-century. At the tail vise, a particular angle was sawn so often (roughly 22º) that its kerfs are deeply marked into the top. The small knife blocks bear hundreds of small knife points, which show the variety and small size of the knives Krenov made and used (no slöjd knives here, despite his long residence in Sweden).
Krenov worked for several decades with this bench in his home in Bromma (a suburb of Stockholm), Sweden, and when he moved west to establish the school in Fort Bragg in 1981, he brought it with him. It lived in his corner of the bench room at the school for another two decades, eventually moving to the back room where he escaped from students. Finally, when he left the school in 2002, it followed him home to the shop where David picked it up in 2009.
Visiting this bench, the school and visiting with David and the rest of the teachers always brings about a particular flavor of nostalgia – it isn’t just a yearning for the old, but rather, a desire to get back to work having remembered the monastic time I spent at the school and the philosophy of its founding teacher. There is a quiet energy, not an excitement or enthusiasm, that always comes to me after a visit to Fort Bragg. Maybe, more than anything, it’s just a desire to be at the bench, working with a slow inertia toward fine work.
I just completed a pair of side tables copied from one I measured at Hancock Shaker Village last year. The top of the original table, dating to around 1840, was attached with pocket screws. The first thing that comes to mind when the words pocket screw are thought of is the modern Kreg Jig. Pocket screws are actually quite old; they existed long before Craig Sommerfeld came up with an apparatus to bore them in 1986.
The early pocket screws pockets are chopped out with a gouge instead of bored. The majority of the old ones always look pretty much the same: a gauge mark at the bottom and a coarsely chopped pocket. In most of the vintage ones I have measured, the bottom of the pocket is 3/4″ to 1″ from the top edge of the skirt.
These are quite easy and fast to cut. About the only special tool needed is an incannel gouge. No need to be particularly neat either – the old ones aren’t. They are also nice because there is no other hardware needed besides screws. I can cut the pockets faster (about three minuets per pocket) and less time spent doing laying than using Z clips, figure-8s or buttons.
To lay out the pocket, start by laying a screw the length you will be mounting the top with on the edge of the table skirt. Let the screw overhang the skirt the amount you want it to penetrate the top you will be mounting. In my case here, I had a 5/8″-thick top, so the screw projects past the edge of the skirt 1/2″. When the screw is positioned, mark the location of the screw head. This will be the location of the bottom of the pocket.
Set a marking gauge to the pencil line and gauge a line at each location you need a screw.
Next, using a gouge, start cutting down to the gauge mark, taking light cuts until the bottom of the pocket is slightly wider and deeper than the diameter of the screw head. The gouge I am using here is about 1/2″ wide. A more narrow or wider gouge will work, too. If the sweep is too wide cut from ether side of the pocket this will make the back of the screw pocket a bit V-shaped, but it works just fine. A more narrow one just requires a few more licks.
Once the pockets are cut bore thru for the screw and then cut the countersink for the screw head.
Last, align the table base on the top and bore the pilot holes thru the pockets into the top. To allow for expansion an contraction of the top, elongate the screw holes a bit where they exit the skirts. Screw on the top.
Give them a try sometime, the work great!
— Will Myers
Below are a few photos of vintage tables using pocket screws.
I was by Lesley Caudle’s sawmill last week and observed his latest Alaskan sawmill setup in action.
Lesley was our source for the workbench kit Chris and I used in Roubo Workbench: by Hand & Power. He is also the source for the materials for the Moravian workbench classes I teach. Lesley sells Roubo workbench kits and will ship them as well (lesley27011@yahoo.com).
Lesley processes a lot of big logs that most mills can’t handle; the better ones become workbench tops and parts. The lesser quality logs will be sawn into railroad ties and pallet lumber. Some are live sawn into slabs for customers.
Lesley uses a band saw mill that does most of the work but for the really big logs to fit on the band mill he has to first saw them in half with an Alaskan mill powered by two chainsaws. This ain’t a kiddy set up either, the two power heads are Stihl MS 880’s, the largest saws Stihl makes (9 hp each). A 66″ double end saw bar connects the two.
I shot this short video of mill in action on a 48″ white oak, it’s quite a trick.
I met Chris in person during the Young Anarchist class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in 2015. Most of the week was spent in sharpening donated tools, hammering cut nails and trying not to drink too many of the Old Rasputins that a fellow student kept buying by the case. But at some point, Chris and I walked into the shop wearing matching blue French chore coats. After the requisite double-take, we geeked out for a while about the utility of these garments.
This guy liked to kill snakes.
Chris and I like chore coats for a few reasons. They’re simple, affordable, comfortable and practical. It’s a light jacket or a heavy shirt, making it great for wearing in all but the hottest weather. They’re made in sturdy, straightforward natural materials. They look about the same they did 100 years ago. All this adds up to the clothing equivalent of the Furniture of Necessity.
This kind of coat has been found throughout Europe for the past 200 years, with lots of tweaks and variation in different times and places. But the basics are the same: square hem, three outside patch pockets, one inside pocket with a logo, a point collar and heavy fabric. The color means a great deal: A French compagnon friend told me that painters and masons wore white, farmers and general laborers (and Bill Cunningham) wore blue, and carpenters – after becoming journeymen – wore black. Yes, I’m sure that there were lots of variations on that, but it seems like the woodworkers always wore black.
When Chris mentioned interest in making a Lost Art Press version, I just about fell over. Hell yeah! I wanted to keep it simple, avoiding the pitfall of “new twists on a classic,” which usually means taking a classic and making it dated. I wasn’t about to add an iPhone pocket, a hammer loop, or make the whole thing out of Cordura – nothing against those features, but you can get that stuff elsewhere. We needed good fabric more than anything else, and so I called my source for the best Japanese fabrics. She found a gorgeous double-woven cotton sateen from a mill in Osaka, and comparing it to the old French stuff, I think ours comes out on top. It’s thick, sturdy and comfortable, and it’ll contour to its wearer over the long years of its life.
The only other tweak I made was to add a double layer of fabric to the bottom of the front pockets – that’ll help reinforce against the handfuls of Clouterie Rivierre nails that get tossed in there. You see this on some of the nicer vintage jackets, but it’s not common. Similar reinforcements used to be put on the back pockets of blue jeans, which is the origin of the decorative stitch lines on the back of your 501s.
We’re proud to be working with Dehen Jacket, a garment factory in Portland, Ore. They’ve been around for almost 100 years, and have their own line of incredible outwear (as well as a roaring business in cheerleading uniforms). They’re not cheap, but the quality is impeccable and their sewers are paid well. To get a lower sewing price in the USA, we’d have to cut worker pay or garment quality. Not gonna happen.
There’s the background. The fabric has made it to the U.S. from Japan. The tags are done. The buttons are on their way. We’ll have a pre-sale going up soon. Complaints about pricing and sizing can be directed to our customer service line.
On the back of the benchtop, he attached a number of blocks for holding his work light and several small foam knife blocks, into which he often stuck his carving knives. Under the bench is another simple modification – a side-hung drawer. The drawer is tucked under the top a bit, making it hard to reach – but this positioning keeps it away from the bench dogs, which might otherwise be difficult to pop up into service.
