Lost Art Press

Author: fitz

Woodworker, writer, editor, teacher, ailurophile, Shakespearean. Will write for air-dried walnut.

The Tools You Need

Posted on by fitz

The following is excerpted from “The Anarchist’s Design Book: Expanded Edition,” by Christopher Schwarz. It’s an exploration of furniture forms that have persisted outside of the high styles that dominate every museum exhibit, scholarly text and woodworking magazine of the last 200 years.

There are historic furniture forms out there that have been around for almost 1,000 years that don’t get written about much. They are simple to make. They have clean lines. And they can be shockingly modern.

This book explores 18 of these forms  – a bed, dining tables, chairs, chests, desks, shelving, stools – and offers a deep exploration into the two construction approaches – staked and boarded – used to make these pieces that have been forgotten, neglected or rejected.

While the tool list below is based on building the furniture pieces in this book (look Ma, no dovetails!), it’s a good foundation set for any woodworker.

– Fitz

I wrote my first book in 1995 on a Macintosh Centris 610. The story was about a carpenter whose life is saved when he joins a religious cult teetering on the brink of collapse and violence. The book was titled “Fisheye” because once you can actually see the world around you in all directions, it becomes distorted and difficult to interpret. Think of a fisheye lens for a camera.
The book completely sucked. I burned the manuscript in 1998.

What’s important about the first paragraph of this tale is the model number of the computer. It was the same machine I used at my newspaper job. There my editors assigned me about 300 stories a year on everything from the machinations of the zoning board of appeals to a local duck that had fallen in love with a neighbor’s dog.

I am grateful that most of that work went to wrapping fish, starting fires and stuffing the coats of mountain hermits.

In neither case was the Centris 610 to blame for the resulting drivel. It was caused by the stupid bag of meat between my ears. Yet there is a key difference between the two similar stories above. At the newspaper, I used my Centris 610 to make money for my employer. When I wrote my doomed novel, I used the Centris 610 to attempt my escape.

It’s the same in woodworking. The tools – hand, power or digital – are neutral. What makes them terrifying or liberating is how they are wielded. You can use a table saw to make MDF tchotchkes for a mass-market retailer, or you can use it to build something for yourself – a table, a chair, a business that exists outside of the corporate world.

It’s too easy to anthropomorphize our tools with political, social or emotional traits. In the end, all tools are just rocks. You can use one to scoop out a tree trunk for a canoe or bash in your neighbor’s head.

So why do hand tools seem more subversive than a random-orbit sander? It’s probably because you don’t find many handplanes on the factory floor anymore. So owning a backsaw instead of a chop saw makes you feel like you are thumbing your nose at industry or society. But the truth is that until you put the saw (either saw) to the wood, you are just picking your nose with the wrong digit.
Tools are interesting. The things we can make with them are far more so.

In that spirit, I’d like to introduce some of the critical tools (and a couple machines) that will help you build the projects in this book. This chapter is not an infomercial. All of these tools here are mine, and I paid full price for them. You might not even be able to purchase some of them because of where you live in the world or because you are reading this book in the prison library run by our squid overlords in 2174.

So don’t sweat it. There are lots of good tools out there. This chapter will show you what to look for.

16 oz. Hammer
Hammers are essential to woodworking. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling dovetail jigs. But which hammer is basic to building furniture?

The furniture-maker’s hammer has a 16 oz. head, a smooth and slightly domed striking face, a wooden handle and the balance of a trapeze artist. A 16 oz. tool allows you to drive 4d and 6d nails for furniture with a few strikes and without wearing you out. A domed striking surface lets you set the heads of nails flush without “Frenching” the work. MF: The French call it “Englishing”…or at least I hope they do.

A wooden handle is warm in your hand and won’t vibrate your arm apart like some metallic or fiberglass hammers.
Lots of people talk about the “balance” or “hang” of a tool, but it’s difficult to describe. You will not know it when you first pick up the hammer. You will not know it after you drive a nail. By your thousandth nail, however, you’ll know. And the knowledge will never leave your fingers.

Lump Hammer
In the last few years I’ve become fond of using what the English call a “lump hammer” to assemble casework and chairs. Here in North America, it’s called a sledge, blacksmith or engineer’s double-face hammer. But none of those names does the tool justice quite like “lump hammer.”

I like one with a head that weighs between 2 lbs. and 2-1/2 lbs. (in metric land, look for a 1,000-gram head) with the tool’s total length about 10-1/2″. You might have to cut down the handle; this will improve its balance and finesse.

The lump hammer offers gentle whacks when you lift it and let it fall a few inches. And if you put any swing into it, you can knock almost anything home, even a dovetailed carcase that is locked-in mid-assembly because the glue has swollen the joints.

That’s how I came to love the lump hammer – I had one in my tool kit to rescue student work that was on the brink of failure. But I came to appreciate it as a tool of great subtlety; I use it for mortising and setting holdfasts, too. Plus beautiful vintage ones are cheap and plentiful.

MF: He loved it so much, we now offer a Crucible Lump Hammer.

Nail Set
Sometimes called a “nail punch,” these are goofily named but important tools. If you want to drive, set or punch a nail head 1/32″ below the surface of the wood, you need them. Buy good ones or undamaged vintage ones. They typically come in three sizes. Get all three.

A Few Bevel-edge Chisels
A “few” might be more than you need. For most work, a 1/4″, 1/2″ and 3/4″ chisel will handle most everything.

Don’t worry about the tool’s steel or how long it keeps an edge. That’s fairly irrelevant. If a chisel is garbage, you’ll figure that out and exchange it. Most, and by most I mean 90 percent, chisels have steel that’s better than you need.

Focus instead on the handle and determine if the chisel is handle-heavy, which will wear out your wrist. I prefer a lightweight wooden handle – most plastic-handled chisels are too heavy. The chisel should feel like something you want to hold all day, like a pencil.

The long edges of the chisel’s blade should be beveled so you can get into acute corners. These bevels also reduce the tool’s overall weight.

There are lots of other details in this simple tool, but if you buy a wooden-handled bevel-edge chisel, you can make any necessary modifications yourself.

Mallet
Mallets are as personal as hammers. I have a 16 oz. round-head mallet for light chopping with chisels, mostly. You can make your own if you like. Wooden mallets are great because they can be easily modified or repaired by a woodworker (you).

Jack Plane
The jack plane is by far the most common handplane in woodworking, and for good reason: You can set it up to hog off material, straighten surfaces or provide the final surface for finishing. For many years a jack was the only bench plane I used.

A vintage (the older the better) metallic jack plane with wooden handles is a fantastic choice. My Stanley No. 5 cost less than $20 and is still going strong after 20 years of constant use.

There are so many resources out there for picking and restoring planes that it can become a hobby unto itself, though that’s not my bag. Get the tool working and improve its condition every time you disassemble it for sharpening. That’s my best advice.

Block Plane
The second plane I use the most is a low-angle block plane. You basically have two choices with this tool: Buy an old one and restore it or buy a premium new one. Inexpensive modern block planes are good for rock fights or adding ballast to a bag that you’re trying to sink to the bottom of the lake – little else.

I like a tool that has an adjustable mouth and fits easily in one hand. I’m not a fan of monster block planes.

Router Plane
Router planes are essential to every hand-tool shop for installing hinges or making dados or sliding dovetails. The larger size – based on the Stanley No. 71 – is the most useful if you can buy only one. I like a “closed throat” router, or a tool where the throat can be temporarily closed.

Premium router planes include a depth stop, a handy feature. Don’t worry about having all the different irons; you’ll do 99 percent of your work with a straight iron.

Combination Square
Though originally designed as a metalworking tool, a good combination square is outstanding for woodworking. I use the 12″ and 6″ models. You get what you pay for with combination squares; cheap tools are frustrating and quality versions are not.

Pick up a Starrett or a Brown & Sharpe and you will be spoiled.

Cutting Gauge
Cheap marking gauges that use a dull pin to abuse the wood are frustrating. You need to file the pin to a sharp, flattened point that is angled slightly away from the fence and make sure the beam and fence lock so everything is at right angles.
Or buy a good cutting gauge and get to work. There are lots of good ones available. Look for one that has a fixed (not rotating) wheel to make the cuts. Keep it sharp.

MF: I would put this tool in the brand-name section below, and tell you to get a Tite-Mark. The design that allows one to micro-adjust it with one hand is worth every penny.

Compass
Woodworking has more to do with geometry than mathematics. So a compass is essential for layout – not just arcs and circles, but for many straight-line layouts as well. I have a nice Starrett compass I purchased (finally) after struggling for years with a draftsman’s compass. The Starrett is built like a tank and allows me to swap out one of the points for a pencil – it’s perfect.

Brace
If you are ever going to build a piece of staked furniture, you need one good brace with an 8″ or 10″ sweep. I’m not picky about brand names. Instead, I nitpick the tool’s condition. You need a chuck that has its springs, closes tight on the bit and has crisp – not worn-out – jaws. The brace’s pad at the top shouldn’t wobble much, if at all. The handle, where you grab the tool to crank it, should spin freely.

Hand Drill
If you are going to use nails or screws, a hand drill is essential. Just like with the brace, don’t shop by brand name. Shop by the tool’s condition. The chuck should be in perfect working order. The tool’s gears should engage and turn freely. A little lubrication in the tool’s oil ports will work wonders. Oh, and the crank’s handle should be firmly affixed and not weirdly bent. All the other features – detachable side handle, multi-gear transmission, bit storage – are tits on a tomcat.

Spokeshave or Drawknife
To create the rough shape of a round tenon for staked furniture, a spokeshave or drawknife is essential (if you don’t own a lathe). A drawknife works faster than a spokeshave, but it is more difficult to sharpen and learn to use.

If you buy a spokeshave, I recommend ones based on the Stanley 151 model. These have two spinwheels that let you adjust the tool’s cutter. Beginners have much better luck with these tools compared to ones without mechanical adjusters. Spokeshaves come with either a flat sole (like a handplane) or one that is slightly bellied from front to back. Both are useful.

Coping Saw
For sawing tight curves, a coping saw is ideal. Most of the modern ones are shoddy; vintage ones are much better. Look for tools that accept pinned blades.

More important than the tool is its blade. Good blades make the difference. I use Swiss-made Pegas blades. If you are having difficulty finding them, that is because I have hoarded a lifetime supply. Apologies.

MF: Double apologies for any scarcity. I have also bought what I thought was a lifetime supply…but because I keep handing them out in classes, I need to buy more. Before this posts.

Rasps
Rasps are invaluable for curved work. I use them for smoothing the cuts made by the coping saw or drawknife. For the projects in this book, you need only a small, fine-toothed half-round rasp. Look for rasps with random, hand-stitched teeth. They are (a lot) more expensive, but they cut smoothly and leave a better surface behind.

Backsaws
For cutting pieces to final size or cutting joints, you need a backsaw or two. Most woodworkers end up with three backsaws: a 10-point tenon saw filed with rip teeth, a 14-point carcase saw filed with crosscut teeth and a 15-point dovetail saw filed with rip teeth.

You can get away with just buying a dovetail saw at first. Look for one that is lightweight and fits your hand in a glove-like manner.

Handsaws & Buckets
For cutting pieces to length, a handsaw and two plastic 5-gallon buckets (thank you Mike Siemsen for that advice) are the ticket. Good vintage handsaws that are ready to work are difficult to find or expensive. So buy a hardware-store saw with induction-hardened teeth. This tool will last you about 10 years. Yeah, the handles are plastic or uncomfortable, but the tools cut surprisingly well and cost almost nothing.

Sharpening Stuff
Entire books have been written about sharpening gear, so reading one of those books is (eventually) a good idea. What’s more important than your equipment or your technique is that you choose one sharpening system and stick with it. Sampling all the systems is expensive, confusing and another hobby entirely.

I use a side-clamp honing guide (sometimes called an Eclipse guide) and waterstones.

Bottom line: It’s more fun to make tools dull than it is to make them sharp.

MF: If you want a short, no-nonsense guide to how to sharpen, check out “Sharpen This,” Chris’s most-recent book.

Some Brand-name Stuff

I hate to do this to you. But here are some of the tools where the brand really makes a difference. It is worth searching for these specific tools.


WoodOwl Auger Bits
In 2013 I switched to WoodOwl Ultra Smooth Augers after working for years with vintage augers. These Japanese-made bits are the best I’ve found. They cut fast and clean, and they clear chips with ease. Plus you can get them sized by kinda-16ths. Yes, they are technically metric. No, it doesn’t technically matter.

I use the 5/8″ WoodOwl in a brace to bore the initial hole for the mortise in all the staked furniture pieces in this book. If you can’t find a WoodOwl, find the best 5/8″ auger you can.

Large Veritas Standard Tapered Reamer
This Canadian-made reamer works incredibly well in a brace, corded drill or drill press. That’s why I prefer it to Veritas’s professional reamer, which can be used only in a brace. I’ll get about a dozen chairs out of an edge before I need to stone the edge, which I do with a diamond paddle.

My only gripe about the tool is it doesn’t have to be this long – I plan to grind off the first 3/8″ of the reamer for my work.
I usually drive this reamer with a heavy-duty corded drill. My second choice is using it in a brace.

Veritas 5/8″ Tapered Tenon Cutter
This is the matching tenon cutter to the reamer above. It works like a giant pencil sharpener. Simply shave (or turn) your tenon near to its finished size. Then take it for a spin in the tenon cutter and you will have a tenon that matches the tapered mortise.
The blade is easy to remove and sharpen – it’s about the size of a spokeshave blade.

Vesper Tools Sliding Bevel
I have an incurable case of Chris Vesper Fever. He is one of the best two or three living toolmakers I’ve ever met. His stuff has the precision of Karl Holtey – and I can afford it on my salary. I use the small one for chairmaking and staked furniture because I can sneak it right up next to the auger bit or reamer. The blade of a large bevel can get in the way during these operations.

MF: Chris still loves his Vesper Tools, but we’ve since developed the 4″ Crucible Sliding Bevel, on which you can lock in the angle but still slide the blade up and down, or lock the slide but still adjust the angle, or lock/unlock both simultaneously. I have no idea how this engineering magic works.

Oh, & Electric Things

Corded Drill
For building chairs and staked furniture, I use a corded drill to ream the mortises because it has an endless supply of torque. You might as well spend the extra money and buy one that has a 1/2″ chuck, a side handle and a long power cord. Don’t worry if the drill is heavy – you’re not a contractor who has to hoist it all day.

14″ Band Saw
If you’re making furniture for yourself (not for a living), a 14″ band saw is likely more useful than a table saw. It cuts both curves and straight lines, it’s safer, quieter and takes up less space. I like vintage U.S.-made band saws that have little (or no) plastic parts. They are better machines and are less expensive than new. My Delta/Rockwell band saw was made in the early 1980s – so you don’t have to hunt down the ancient stuff.

Portable Thickness Planer
The portable thickness planer is the single-most important woodworking machine in my shop. It saves immense amounts of time and labor and produces a better surface finish than most industrial machines. The knives are simple to change. It can be stored under a workbench.

Most woodworking texts recommend you use an electric jointer in tandem with your thickness planer. And for a production shop, that’s the correct advice. In a home shop, however, you can flatten one face of a board with a jack plane then run it through the planer to create two parallel faces.

Yes, you need a dust collector. No, it cannot be a shop vacuum.

MF: Yes, we now have a 20″ planer – but mostly because we’re now prepping a lot more stock for classes and need the advantages of a larger planer for doing lots of work quickly. It might be overkill (but delightful overkill) for a home shop.

And Perhaps a Lathe
I enjoy turning, so I use a lathe in some parts of this book to make tenons or add details to legs. You don’t have to own a lathe or learn to turn to make furniture – you can use a spokeshave or drawknife to create round shapes.

If you want a lathe, I recommend a solid benchtop model (sometimes called a “midi” lathe) that can accept a bed extension. You want to be able to chuck up a 30″-long table leg in the machine. Anything less is for turning pens.


Mechanical Library Campaign Furniture Collection

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Often when we start working on a new book, among the first steps are to acquire any good (and sometimes bad) research that’s already been done on the subject – at least for topics that haven’t been written about ad nauseam (see workbenches…or Shaker furniture; we’d need far more shelving to hold everything written on those subjects).

This bookshelf bay holds just about everything Chris could find that’s been written on campaign furniture, from books – OK, book – to various magazine articles and (most helpful) the catalogs from Christopher Clarke Antiques. Also, period sales catalogues for British Empire posting needs.

It also holds some “overflow” and backup tools.

Let’s start with the Army & Navy Co-operative Society price lists. These listed just about everything the British military man could need or want for his self, family or house – whether posted to a colony or not. Find what you needed, then go to one of the stores, or have it delivered (sometimes free of charge), from London to Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta). Chris bought three of the price lists, because in addition to a vast selection of pie frills, corsets and party performers (see below), you could purchase campaign (and other) furniture. In our collection are the price lists from March 15, 1907, 1923-24 and 1929-30. These are fascinating – and you can now find most of them digitized online (you could not in 2014, when “Campaign Furniture” was published). But that does take away the fun of paging through them from the comfort of my Rhoorkhee chair (I could lose whole days in these).

The colorful paperback books to the left of the Price Lists are every print catalog that Chris could get his hands on (and in the black binder to the far left are printout of the digitized ones that weren’t available in print) from Christopher Clarke Antiques Ltd., an incredible store in the Cotswolds of England – and the only place that specializes (specialises?) in British military campaign furniture and travel-related antiques. The Clarke brothers, Sean and Simon, kindly answered all the questions Chris had that no one else could, and they proofread “Campaign Furniture” for us. Their shop is half store, half research library. They have every photo of every piece they’ve ever acquired and sold, along with notes about it and its history. They’re under contract for a book with Lost Art Press – and we eagerly await their having time to write it. In the meantime, follow their Instagram feed for close-up looks at some fascinating pieces.

Tucked alongside the Christopher Clarke catalogues is “Britain’s Portable Empire: Campaign Furniture of the Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian Periods,” a 2001 museum exhibition catalogue from The Katonah Museum of Art in New York.

On the far right are “Edwardian Shopping: A Selection from the Army & Navy Stores Catalogies 1898-1913” compiled by R.H, Langbridge (David & Charles, 1975) and “Britsh Campaign Furniture: Elegance Under Canvas, 1740-1914,” by Nicholas Brawer (Abrams, 2001), the earliest book we know of on the subject. (Brawer was also the curator for the museum exhibition mentioned above.)

The aforementioned black binder also holds copies of various antiques magazines that featured articles on select pieces of campaign furniture, and the working layout of the first draft of “Campaign Furniture.”

Now the tools: These are a mix of tools that are backups in case Chris’s primary versions get lost/destroyed/etc. (the Lie-Nielsen No. 3, a Lie-Nielsen 60-1/2 block plane, an extra block plane blade, a Blue Spruce 16 ou. mallet*, a Lucian Avery scorp and a Tite-Mark cutting gauge), and overflow tools – things he now longer uses…mostly because we now have versions of them from Crucible Tool (the Sterling Tool Works dovetail marker and two small Vesper Tools sliding bevels ). Also stored there is the first of the Crucible Tools Sliding Bevel that worked like it was supposed to (a lot of R&D went into making the two locking mechanisms perfect).

The sepia photo is a period original that shows a nattily dressed man leaning against an English-style bench; he’s holding a pair of dividers. So of course we had to have it. The marquetry panel is a thank-you gift from a Kickstarter campaign to which Chris donated.

The bookend (which shows one of Cincinnati’s Art Deco gems, Union Terminal) is from Rookwood Pottery.

– Fitz

*That Blue Spruce mallet is brand new. When I was leaving to teach in Florida last month, I grabbed the older backup one and tossed it in my carry-on. I was assured by my shopmate and a visitor that I would have no trouble with it at TSA – they’d taken one through security many times. They were wrong. So I bought us a new backup as I awaited boarding. (Thank goodness I didn’t try to take my beloved and irreplaceable blue Blue Spruce mallet!)

p.s. This is the fifth post in the Covington Mechanical Library tour. To see the earlier ones, click on “Categories” on the right rail, and drop down to “Mechanical Library.” Or click here.

Reminder: LAP Open House November 26

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Wally hopes you can join us on Saturday, Nov. 26, from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. for our holiday open house (at which you might consider giving him a cat treat or 10). We’ll have available our full line of Lost Art Press books, Crucible Tools and apparel, including new baseball caps – khaki with the English square (from the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” cover) embroidered in black. We’ll also have a selection of “blems” – slightly damaged books – at half price (blems are, as always, cash only please).

Plus, we’ll have a special gift for the first 100 or so visitors – a gum eraser stamped with the Lost Art Press logo (I’ll post pictures when I have those in the shop). And if you’re 21 or older, do ask to see the clock. (We’ll also have treats and beverages for those who eschew alcohol, of course).

We’ll be happy to raise a glass with you, and an answer your woodworking questions – or even demonstrate any techniques that are flummoxing you (preferably before raising too many glasses). And I believe we’ll have a special guest demonstrator, too – more on that to come!

– Fitz

Make a Plane Adjusting Hammer

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4–82. A view of the finished hammer showing the pared, wedged end.

The following is excerpted from David Finck’s “Making & Mastering Wood Planes.” No matter what sort of handplane you use, this book is perhaps the best guide available to understanding, tuning and using these tools at a high level.

Written by a graduate of the College of the Redwoods (now The Krenov School), “Making & Mastering Wood Planes” is ostensibly about the laminated handplanes that James Krenov made famous in the 20th century. But Finck decided to probe far deeper into the topic – so much so that this book is actually an excellent primer on handwork itself.

Use a length of 5/8-inch-diameter brass rod for the head. If ordering through an industrial supply catalog, remember that the minimum length will provide for many hammer heads. Smaller lengths may be found at a hardware store or machine shop. Saw off a segment 2-1/2 inches long, face the ends with a sander, and then round the sharp edges.

Now the trick is to drill a perfectly centered hole crosswise through the rod. To do this, make a simple fixture from a squared and trued length of hardwood that’s approximately 12 inches long x 1-3/4 wide x 1 inch thick. Divide the stick in half with two connected lines on a face and an edge, then mark the center of those lines (4–77). Drill a 5/8-inch hole through the mark on the face. Then insert the brass rod so that the ends protrude from the fixture the same amount. The rod must be a snug fit. If it is too loose, shim it with a wrap of tape.

4–77. Fixture layout for drilling a centered hole in a hammer head (holes already drilled on centers).

Chuck a 3/8-inch brad-point drill bit in the drill press. Lay the fixture on the drill-press table, edge up, and use the point to perfectly center the bit at the centerpoint on the line. Clamp the fixture securely. Drill down to the rod, but not into it. Replace the bit with a 3/8-inch metal-cutting bit and drill through the rod (4–78).

4–78. Drilling a handle hole into the hammer head.

Make a handle from a 12-inch-long x 1-inch-wide x 1-inch-thick stick of tough, springy hardwood such as hickory, ash, or oak. Shape one end to a 3/8-inch-diameter to fit the hammer head. The stick is longer than the handle will be, so the waste end may be clamped in a vise while the handle is worked with a spokeshave. Lay out the shape of the handle on one face; the shape should taper to 3/8 inch at the hammer-head end. Saw out the shape on the band saw, remaining outside the lines. Lay out a second set of lines on the sawn face, again tapering to 3/8 inch at the head end, and saw those as well (4–79). If dealing with gentle curves, place the con-cave surface down, to prevent the stock from rocking, while the second set of lines is being sawn.

4–79. Sawing the handle. The first set of lines are already cut, and the second set are being sawn.

Use a spokeshave to shape the handle (4–80). Form the 3/8-inch-square end of the handle into an octagon and then, with very fine cuts, shape it into a circle. Try the hammer head until it just gets started on the handle. Twist the head back and forth to burnish the handle and you will see exactly where to remove wood to improve the fit. Fit the handle snugly through the head and let it extend about 1/8 inch beyond. Simply trim off any excess if it goes through further. Cut the handle to length and trim up the end.

4–80. Shaping the handle with a spokeshave.

Next, saw a narrow kerf in the thin end of the handle, for wedging the hammer head in place. Saw it in line with, and 1/8 inch shy of, the full diameter of the hammer head. The kerf is visible only at the end when the hammer head is installed. It is difficult to clamp the tapered shape of the handle and make the cut with a handsaw, so use the band saw, running the handle against a straight piece of stock. Close off the throat plate of the band saw by sawing into another piece of wood that will act as a temporary table (4–81).

4–81. Kerfing the handle for a wedge. The scrap below the handle stock serves to close off the wide band-saw throat plate; otherwise, the narrow handle end might drop in and jam.

Now prepare a low-angled wedge from some 3/8-inch-wide stock. The wedge should take up most of the length of the kerf, without bottoming, before it jams. Install the hammer head, squeeze a little glue into the saw kerf, and tap the wedge into place. When the glue has dried, carefully pare the end of the handle and wedge, leaving them both a bit proud of the hammer head (4-82)[top].

A Vampire Chair

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Mary Ownby. A famous chairmaker near Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Ownby is shown here boring out a rifle barrel.

The following is included in Volume 1 of “The Stick Chair Journal,” an annual publication to expand the universe of all things stick chair: More history. More plans. More techniques. Reviews of tools. And Big Thoughts. (Important note: We have printed 4,000 copies of the Journal. Once that press run has been exhausted, we will not reprint this issue.)

We thought “A Vampire Chair” would be a perfect accompaniment to this spooky season.

Handmade sitting chairs have long been a staple of the antique and crafts business in rural, wooded communities. When Allen Eaton published “Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands” in 1937, there were several noted chair makers in eastern Tennessee. Mary Ownby, of Gatlinburg, was a highlight of Eaton’s book. She crafted her chairs from beginning to end. Mary’s first step in making a chair was finding the right tree, which she cut herself. She then split the wood and turned the posts.
Mary made her own chisels. And, like other chairmakers, she bragged that she had made her first chair with a pocketknife.

Other well-respected chair crafters in the 1930s were Ebb Bowman, hard at work in Creeneville, and Noah McCarter in Sevierville. Along with those produced by Mary Ownby, Bowman and McCarter chairs are highly prized by today’s collectors.

Long before the craftsmen (Ed: and women) of the 1930s began to put together chairs, other southern chairmakers had adapted the standard slat-back chair into an item distinct from manufactured Hitchcock chairs. The rear posts were shaved down and curved backward. The result was a seat that folks now call a mule-ear chair. It is similar to the type made in the early 1800s. Sometimes there were two slats across the back, sometimes three.

In cold storage. A ladderback (unknown provenance) in a collection now in Indiana.

But the most famous handcrafted sitting chair made in the region hasn’t been located recently. When it is found, you don’t want to be the one sitting in it. The chair is cursed in a peculiar way and is apt to draw blood.

A true antique, the so-called Vampire Chair of East Tennessee was made by brothers named Eli and Jacob Odom up in the high mountains of Carter County near Shell Creek. The brothers seem to be of no relation to Solomon W. Odom, a highly regarded former chairmaker in the same area.

Eli and Jacob Odom came to Shell Creek in 1806, it is believed, and began making chairs that they traded for salt, sugar, meat and coffee. The brothers knew that a chair was only as good as its joints, and they had a secret for making perfect joints. They carefully fitted seasoned hickory rounds into green maple posts. The green wood shrunk over the rounds as it dried, holding them tightly into place. Old wood into new, that was all there was to it.

The brothers’ chairs became famous because they held together so well. Hundreds of chairs were made and traded. By the 1840s, the chairs Eli and Jacob made were being carried down the mountain and taken into stores where they were sold for hefty profit. Resort hotels lined their long front porches with the mule-ear chairs from Shell Creek.

Wagonloads of the chairs were eventually driven south and the slat-back seats of Carter County found their way into the finer homes of Chattanooga.

Through normal trade, a pair of chairs made their way into the domicile of a woman who lived alone in a little cabin high above the Hiwassee River near Charleston, Tennessee. This woman was nobody’s sweet little old lady. The woman who lived high on a cliff above the river was a vampire.

There is no record of her exploits, nor of the reasons her neighbors held for killing her. All that is known is how she died and where she was buried.

In 1917, a county crew was widening the upper road on the river bluff just outside Charleston. Not far from Oostanaula Creek, they unearthed the body of an adult woman who had been buried long before. She’d been buried, apparently, in the middle of the road. The body, according to the late Frank G. Trewhitt, was wholly petrified by the high level of minerals in the ground water there.

Also petrified was the wooden stake that had been driven through the woman’s heart prior to her body being buried in the road.

“The land on which the body was found was once the property of my great grandfather, and it was passed to his sons,” Mr. Trewhitt wrote in an article published in the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin. “If they had ever heard of any vampire stories hereabouts, I would have been told.”

It was once tradition to refuse sanctified burials to known murderers, witches and other perceived villains of society. Scoundrels and witches were at times buried at crossroads, so that their eternal rest would be anything but peaceful. It was the practice to bury evil persons where foot, horse and wagon traffic would create a continual clamor overhead.

Traffic would also keep the dirt above the grave tightly packed down. This is important, particularly with vampires and witches. Such evildoers might be able to return from the dead and escape their coffins by tooth and fingernail, clawing their way to the surface to seek revenge.

As an additional measure of safety, these ghouls, once executed, were buried face down. Should they wake from death interred and seek to dig themselves from under the earth, they would dig in the wrong direction. They would only dig themselves more deeply into the earth.

The piece of wood through the dust-dry heart of the mummified corpse of Bradley County’s lady vampire wasn’t any old piece of wood. It was a cradle-lathed post, a bottom leg support, from one of the chairs that had been in the woman’s cabin on the ridge. The chair had been crafted by brothers Eli and Jacob from Shell Creek.

Soon after her murder and burial, the woman’s furniture and other worthwhile belongings were carried from her home by those who desired them. The house fell to ruin. Nobody would live there.

It wasn’t long until the Eli and Jacob chair, its round expertly replaced, found its way into a prompt series of trades among the citizens of Bradley County. No one wanted to keep that chair. After a few years, it ended up at one of the hotels. Someone, who was afraid to throw away or light fire to it, left it on the hotel’s porch at the end of a line of similarly made chairs.

Legend says the chair sits as comfortably as any, with a finely woven seat of hickory splits. Well, at first. Then it becomes very uncomfortable for the person who sits in the chair.

Nothing is seen, but plenty is felt. The occupant is held fast for a time, against one’s will, until a scratch appears on a forearm or bare leg, and blood drips to the floor. Only after a drop of blood stains the floor or the ground under the chair, is the occupant capable of fleeing from the chair.

Those familiar with the blood-drawing qualities of this individual chair were afraid to destroy it, beat it to pieces with hammers, or catch it on fire, lest they be cursed in a manner much worse than a drop of blood hitting the floor. So they passed it along.

The Eli and Jacob Odom handcrafted slat-back chair haunts eastern Tennessee still. Reports have placed it in any number of antique stores over the years. Others have sworn it was once on the creaky front porch of a bed-and-breakfast in Gatlinburg, on the college campus at Tusculum, and at a garage sale in Kingsport. Truth is the Vampire Chair of East Tennessee could turn up just about anywhere. The hope remains that it doesn’t turn up perched under you.