This past weekend I had the good fortune to accompany Roy Underhill and Peter Ross on a visit to a chair exhibit at the North Carolina History Center in New Bern, N.C. It is a collection of 75 turned “common” chairs from northeastern North Carolina. The guest curators, Mark Wenger and Hiram Perkinson, did a wonderful job of gathering and documenting the chairs for the exhibit.
The angled rungs on this chair are original, made to lean back. The chair is from the Hertford County, N.C., courthouse.This walnut chair from Northhampton County, N.C., was my favorite. It’s appeal might be because the over bore on the right front leg reminds me of something I would do.
The exhibit runs thru Sept. 17, and is free to the public. Tryon Palace is a couple blocks away from the history center and well worth checking out, too.
Big slabs of wood move as they dry – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. In my experience, the worst of the movement happens in the first six to 12 months of drying. The hardest two problems to deal with that emerge from the drying process are: a crown over the length of the slab, and the more common twist or wind over the length.
This movement (particularly a bad twist) can mean removing a tremendous amount of wood to get a flat surface. A jack plane with a cambered iron can do wonders, but if there is a lot of wood that has to come of it, can be quite a job. Another factor can be the wood itself. Most of the benchtops I deal with are red or white oak; once dry, it is hard to take much of a bite with a handplane.
The past couple of years I have been using a hand held electric plane for hogging off the majority of the offending wood. It works quite well across or with the grain. When using it cross-grain it will take close to 1/8″ off each pass. Once I am close to where I need to be, I can easily finish up with handplanes.
These little electric planes vary in price, I think I paid $120 for the one I have. This one has seen some pretty heavy use and has held up well so far.
This top had about 1/2″ of twist over 6′ length. It took about 10 minuets to get it true enough to move on to a surface planer or handplane.
In the video Chris and I shot, “Roubo Workbench: by Hand & Power,” we used one of these electric planes to flatten one face of the benchtop. We did the opposite face of the top with a 20″ surface planer. After all was said and done, wrestling the 300 lb. benchtop through the surface planer was much more exhausting than going the electric plane/handplane route.
The following is a description of the break room at the military museum where I worked as a carpenter’s assistant in 1987.
Part of the farewell card I made for my colleagues when I left.
By far the best thing about the job was the break room, where about a dozen of us from different departments gathered each morning around half-past 10, then for lunch at one, and again, later on, for tea. An industrial-size kettle sat on the stove; a roster indicated who would be in charge of making tea before the others arrived. On my first day, George told me how much tea to throw in the pot and how high to pour the water when the kettle boiled. There was always a bottle of milk in the fridge and a bowl of sugar nearby.
The men would stroll in, pour themselves a cup of tea, and take their customary places. Aside from two younger fellows, most of them appeared to be in their 50s or 60s and coasting toward retirement. The break room sped them on their way like one of those moving sidewalks at the airport.
Most of them were married. Their wives packed their lunches, wrapping sandwiches in neat paper or plastic bags, tucking in a packet of crisps alongside some radishes or carrots from the garden. They’d pop in some other little treat — a couple of chocolate digestives, a small container of fruit cocktail, a slice of leftover Madeira cake from a picnic with the grandkids. It seemed clear that most of these men were well cared for and well trained. And because they were expected to behave themselves at home, they leapt at the chance to have some fun with the 27-year-old temp.–Excerpted from Making Things Work
Editor’s note: We still have a few spots open for an evening with Nancy Hiller at 7 p.m. Aug. 12 in our Covington, Ky., storefront. Nancy will read from her book, there will be beverages for everyone and then we’ll play some games. Read more here. Or skip that and get your tickets here.
Twenty years ago, I had to replace my refrigerator. Being a person who breaks into a cold sweat at the thought of facing the wires, tubes and electrical panels that make up the contemporary fridge, I bought a new one, the lowest-end, no-frills model from Sears, which came with a warranty, instead of gambling on a used appliance. Delivery added so little to the price that I signed up for it.
Two young men arrived with the refrigerator, which they carried up the steps to the side door just off the kitchen. I know a fridge can be a beast to handle, but as this pair scraped their strap’s buckle across the original 1925 door and crashed like drunken fraternity pledges into the old fir casing, they piqued my concern, to put it mildly. I’m no stranger to the challenges of delivering unwieldy objects to homes where nervous customers hover close by (“Be careful of that newel post!” “Watch the wallpaper!“). So as a fellow working person, I asked them respectfully to show a bit of care.
“She don’t like men,” one of them remarked dryly to his partner.
“No, she don’t,” agreed the colleague with a knowing glance at my work boots (men’s size 8-1/2).
Suddenly I was transported back to a classroom at Indiana University in the summer of 1990: Dan Bixler’s philosophy course, “P105. Introduction to Critical Thinking and Reasoning.” Here I was, face to face with an excellent example of the ad hominem fallacy: She’s gay, so she’s being unreasonably critical of us. Ignore her. Not only were they careless and rude – to a customer, no less (way to help your employer, guys!). They were also bigots. I was speechless.
The fact is, I love men. And this has nothing to do with my sexual orientation or footwear.
Advertisement published in The Ladies’ Home Journal, 1919. Is it just me, or is there a suggestive twinkle in her eye as she removes that work apron?
Hoosier cabinet ads offered another attractive benefit: by helping their users stay “beautiful,” “youthful,” and “energetic,” the cabinets in effect promised to help save marriages. “Why be all fagged out and suffer from backache and headache?” asked one ad. “Why be a kitchen drudge, waste your strength and wear yourself out? A ‘Dutch Kitchenet’ will systematize your kitchen work—make it easy and give you leisure time for rest and recreation.” The Sellers cabinet promised to “conserve your strength to a remarkable degree.” The Hoosier Manufacturing Company agreed that “the greatest economies [women] can effect are those of Time and Strength,” allowing “more time for rest and recreation,” and for “porch breezes” in summer. “The Hoosier will help me to stay young,” declares a bride to her mother, presumably on her wedding day, judging by her attire. “Save nerves, Save health,” cries another Hoosier ad; yet another, “Think what this spare time would mean to you day after day, if you worked sitting down so you could feel rested enough to enjoy it.”
Based on these and other advertisements citing headaches (yes), exhaustion, and drudgery, it seems likely that Hoosier cabinets were not infrequently paid for by husbands anticipating improved performance in the bedroom as well as the kitchen.—Excerpted from The Hoosier Cabinet in Kitchen History by Nancy Hiller, author of Making Things Work
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