Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books.
Send us your own ideas! Email kara@lostartpress.com. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is from Brad Reiser. Thanks, Brad!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
I was just reading The Stick Chair Journal No. 2 issue article about using a tenon cutter [“Control the D#^& Tenon Cutter:].
I think I have mastered the technique … sort of.
I made a set of plugs for each of the different sized cutters, up to a 1-1/2″ cutter. The plugs run from 1/2″ to 1″ long. On one side of each plug I drilled a shallow hole to match a rare-earth magnet, inserted just slightly proud of the surrounding surface.
These are glued in place. Usually gently tapping the cutter face down will dislodge the plug. If not, I use an awl to pull it out. I ordered the magnets from Lee Valley. They are fragile. And very strong.
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books.
Send us your own ideas! Email kara@lostartpress.com. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is from Todd Touris, in Canadice, New York. Thanks, Todd!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
I recently pruned back a couple of heartnut (Japanese walnut) trees that were taking over our garden area. After studying the cut logs, which were only about 5” in diameter at their widest, I decided there was enough material for a chair. Because I didn’t want to use a different wood to make the solid seat required for a stick chair, I decided to build a ladderback roughly based on the three-slat design described in Chapter 20 of “Backwoods Chairmakers.”
Carefully riving the parts, I ended up with some interesting pieces that I was able to rough into posts and rungs with a drawknife. I cut several thin slats from the widest portion of the log with a bandsaw. The wood was still very wet and I was able to bend it on the form without steaming.
Because of the irregular shape of the posts and rungs, I had to do a few things to ensure the mortise and tenons would line up when assembled. First, I cut the tenons using the laser method as described in the “The Stick Chair Book.”
Notice the significant bend of the rung.
Next, because I kept the natural curves of the tree for the posts (no steam bending), I had to figure out a way to get the mortises oriented correctly. Precise angles and use of a bevel were not an option.
After getting a back post orientation that looked good, I clamped the posts to the bench and decided on the best point for the rear seat rung. I then drilled the two mortises for the rung using a bit extender.
I then measured down to the bottom back rung and drilled the mortise for that rung. I repeated the process for the front posts. I then made four square and straight dummy rungs to the correct lengths and dry assembled the front and back post assemblies. I cut two scrap boards to a length that would give the desired depth and orientation of the front to back. Because of the curves of the posts, these lengths were not the same and I had to fiddle with them until I got what I wanted.
Finally, I clamped the front and back assemblies together with the board spacers, marked the remaining mortise locations and drilled them using the bit extender method.
Note, I originally intended this to be an arm chair, thus the longer length of the front posts. Unfortunately, my butt wasn’t going to allow that.
After that, the rest of the construction was pretty conventional. I refined the shape of the posts and rungs. I kiln dried the rungs to bone dry. I cut the slat mortises. I shaped and refined the slats. The assembly went smoothly using hide glue.
I would have liked to have harvested hickory bark for the seat, but instead I used rattan splint, which is sustainably harvested, so no trees were killed in the making of this chair.
The chair is finished with blond shellac and a top coat of soft wax.
From the beginning of this project, I thought this chair had a good chance of ending up as firewood. So, I’m quite pleased with the outcome. Using the wood’s natural curves presented both aesthetic and construction challenges. Perhaps some of the techniques I described could help and encourage others to make a ladderback “hedge” chair.
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books. To submit your own idea, email kara@lostartpress.com. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is from Eric Tuominen. Thanks, Eric!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Here’s a quick bevel gauge stand idea for the BS chair made from scrap from the chair. There’s no need to keep taping it and retaping it. Wedges allow for easy removal and placement of my inexpensive bevel gauge, which doesn’t like to stay upright.
To be fully transparent, the wedges came as a happy accident. I made the dado (which the gauge sits in) too loose and decided to use wedges to better fit the bevel gauge. As I worked with it, I found I liked using the wedges.
Philippe Lafargue died at his home from an undiagnosed glioblastoma on June 22. Philippe has been instrumental in the Roubo project, helping with translations for “Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” and “With All Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.”
“When we first met more than 35 years ago, I recognized immediately the talents Philippe possessed, talents that often surpassed his ability to communicate them,” says Don Williams, who co-authored the Roubo books along with Michele Pietryka-Pagán. “Over the years, thanks to the foundation of the multi-year curriculum of École Boulle and the career choices he made later on, combined with the thoughtful encouragement of his former wife, Maria, and the family life with his children, he became what Tom Wolfe would call ‘A man in full.’ In the end, his contribution of good-humored friendship and technical, historical and verbal expertise was integral to Team Roubo functioning smoothly for creating the volumes. We will proceed without him, although to be truthful, I cannot fully envision that right now.”
On learning of his death, Michelewrote, “I never actually met Philippe, but I could tell from one phone call that I was communicating with a true professional – not only a true master at what he did, but also a superb human being. We are all worse off with this loss of Philippe. May he rest in peace.”
We recently featured Philippe in a Meet the Author profile. It ended with this quote from Philippe:
“You can fight all the time but life is going to take you where it’s going to take you. It’s up for you to go for it, to be quick to accept and change. And you are always part of it. That’s the beauty of it. No matter what happened, you are part of it – 50 percent is your choice. The rest is to accept that you have decided to do this or not. That’s the difficult part. But life is short. Life is to be lived. Life is to discover yourself.”
Illustration from “The Stick Chair Book: Revised Edition” by Christopher Schwarz
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books. To submit your own idea, email kara@lostartpress.com. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is from Nick Stanchenko. Thanks, Nick!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
After a few chairs, I decided I was ready to try the armbow miters, as illustrated — but not really explained — in “The Stick Chair Book.” (Turns out, I wasn’t quite ready.)
The first challenge was getting the angles to match. This is easy with a router and a dovetail bit, but unfortunately I had sold my router a year ago to focus more on hand tools. After a bit of head scratching, here’s what I came up with:
Clamp the two parts together, draw an angled line using a bevel gauge and cut in one go.
This kind of worked, but wasn’t super accurate. The saw tends to pivot a little after the top part is cut through. Oh well. Time for another approach:
Make an angled block. Then clamp it to each of the mating parts and refine them with a wide chisel. (The lap joint itself was cut with a saw and flattened with a router plane.)
This time, I had a perfect match and rushed to glue up. Bad idea! Glue gathers in the sharp corner and prevents the parts from coming together tightly. In fact, the whole assembly slides around as you try to clamp it. It was devastating, but obvious in hindsight.
I removed the clamps, let the glue dry, scraped it off and trued all the surfaces again. Now what?
“Pinch dogs” would have been a great solution to hold the joint in place. But I couldn’t remember what they were called, and I don’t think they are sold where I live anyway.
Here’s another method to keep the parts from moving: Pin them!
When chiseling, you might chip a corner as I did here. Don’t panic. Just bevel or round over the damaged edge, which is on the underside of the armbow.
I found a regular pin more or less satisfactory, although you can also drawbore it (i.e. offset the holes by a tiny amount) to pull the joint together more tightly.
Now the glue-up:
Much better.
Finally, I present to you the resulting joint after a bit of clean-up with a spokeshave, a rasp and a card scraper. (OK, it’s the best of the four I’ve made so far.)
The cool part is that a stick will go through where the pin is, so there will be no trace of it left. Well, it does not really matter, but it feels nice.
Good luck!
— Nick Stanchenko
p.s. Needless to say, pinning will also help with non-mitered lap joints.
