Today we started work on the workbench for the Cincinnati Museum Center’s new permanent exhibit, “Made in Cincinnati.” Our workbench is supposed to represent what woodworker Henry Boyd (1802-1886) might have used at his furniture business.
I decided to design a British-style joiner’s bench for the exhibit. It was tempting to build a German-style workbench, but Cincinnati’s German population was just beginning to blossom when Boyd was a young man. (In 1830, only 5 percent of the city’s population had German blood.)
So a British bench seemed more likely, based on the population at the time and the fact that this simple bench style was ubiquitous in 19th-century America. Also, Cincinnati was still a new city when Boyd was alive, so a bench that could be made quickly without a lot of material (or machinery, which entered Cincinnati in a big way circa 1850) made sense.
I know the bench above looks small. That’s because the floor space allotted to the workbench exhibit is only 20” x 60”. So I had to design the bench to fit the space and make it look realistic.
We’re building this bench with yellow pine, which was widely available in Cincinnati in the 19th century – it’s in all our old houses. We are building the bench using hide glue and cut nails – plus a linseed oil finish. In addition to the planing stop and holdfast holes, I’ll add a face vise powered by a wooden screw.
After we finish the bench, the museum’s staff will antique the piece so it looks shop-worn.
You can download my SketchUp drawing of the bench here. It requires five 10′-long 2x12s.
If you’d like to help us build Boyd’s bench, get in your car next Saturday (March 26) and join us at our Open Day in Covington, Ky. We’ll have the storefront open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., selling Lost Art Press books, Crucible tools and apparel. We’ll also assemble Boyd’s bench in the storefront. We welcome any and all gawkers and helpers.
P.S. Donating my time and money to this important exhibit is possible only because we hired Megan Fitzpatrick on full time. Without her help carrying our editorial load, I would have had to pass on this opportunity. And the reason we could hire Megan is because of your support. I’m not asking you to buy more stuff. I’m just saying thanks and letting you know that your support makes a difference.
One of the many lovely chairs I’ve encountered on my searches. This one is from Antiques Atlas.
One of the frustrating aspects of editing a woodworking magazine was how little unplowed ground was left to explore. Well, let me put it another way: there was little ground that we were permitted to explore.
Most woodworking magazines stick to a steady diet of the following furniture styles: Vaguely Shaker, Somewhat Arts & Crafts, Kinda Colonial, Maybe Modern and If It’s Got Nails it Must be Country. Why do magazines stick to those styles? Because every survey of magazine readers indicates those are the styles that readers love. Put another way: Why do readers love these styles? Because they are the ones shown in the woodworking press.
Several of us beat our heads against the wall every month at editorial meetings to get people to try something different. From day one I advocated for campaign furniture. David Thiel pushed for Mid-Century Modern, and John the Intern was always on about “Some Kind of Chair.”
Sometimes the overlords threw us a bone, but mostly it was: “Come up with some kind of Shaker case piece for the next issue. And not too intimidating.”
The problem was, of course, that the Shaker style has been explored by every woodworking magazine, book publisher and online personality. The best Shaker pieces have been published a thousand times. The good ones have been published several hundred times. And now we are down to Shaker Toothpicks, Birdcalls and Corn Scrapers, a Comparative Study.
My secret love was (surprise) Welsh stick chairs, but I didn’t dare suggest we explore that topic in the magazine. I did manage to get a couple articles about chairmaking published in the early 2000s, but those seemed like strokes of luck or sheer will.
Today I get to write about what I want, and if no one buys it then it’s my financial problem. So lately I’ve been writing a lot about stick chairs. Why? It’s not like my enthusiasm for them has increased lately. I’ve been stupid in love with the form for more than 20 years. Instead, the reason I have put them front and center in my work is because this is an opportunity for all of us.
This chair deserves some exploration. Another great chair found on Antiques Atlas.
Stick chairs from many cultures are waiting to be discovered. I have been building these chairs for two decades and have barely scratched the surface of what is out there. Honestly, there are hundreds of stick chair forms yet to be explored. I threw out a few dozen examples in the “Sticktionary” chapter of “The Stick Chair Book,” but there are many more that are waiting for you to study and build.
There are pieces out there that absolutely pause my heart for a couple beats because they are so beautiful. Why aren’t those examples published here or in my book? Dealers and museums are stingy with photos of these chairs. I have collected hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos during the last 20 years, but I don’t have the rights to publish them. I have signed Non-disclosure Agreements (NDAs) in order to gain access to collections of these chairs. I have swapped private photos (hush hush, chair porn) with chairmakers and collectors around the world.
I want to invite you into this world. Here’s how it works. Haunt the websites of antique dealers who specialize in vernacular furniture. Collect their images and descriptions because sometimes these photos aren’t public for long. Then observe who follows these dealers (it’s easy to do this on social media). Follow them. And so on. It’s no different than looking at the bibliography in a book then investigating the bibliographies of those books.
It might sound like hard work, but it’s not. And here’s why: These chairs are everywhere once you start looking. Literally everywhere. They turn up at auction nearly every day, but they don’t merit academic study or an exhibit at a museum. (Because they aren’t Shaker, Stickley or commissioned by some industrialist.)
You can quickly become an expert. Find a form that you love. Explore the hell out of it, breaking new ground with every new piece that you build. You can easily surpass me.
Stick chairs aren’t the only undiscovered country in furniture. But they are the one I love. Find your own favorite furniture form and make other people love the crap out of it.
This six-stick comb-back chair with a narrow comb is probably my favorite design to make. It’s both a challenge to build and a delight to sit in.
This chair is built using bog oak excavated from Poland that’s between 2,000-4,000 years old. The wood was leftover from a stunning dining table commission built by local furniture maker Andy Brownell at Brownell Furniture.
All the wood came from one boule, yet the bog oak varies in color, which made things a challenge. The wood is also dense and difficult to bring to a high level of finish. As a result, there are a couple small bits of grain tear-out on this chair that were impossible for me to tame. As best I can tell, this ancient oak is as strong as contemporary oak. This particular tree grew very fast, so it has lots of tough earlywood.
This chair is set up for dining or relaxing. The back leans 15° off the seat, and the seat is tilted 5°, so the back is a generous 20° off the floor. The seat is 16-1/2” above the floor, which is a good height for most sitters. Overall, the chair is 39” tall, 28” wide, 23” deep and weighs 16-1/2 pounds.
Like all my chairs, the joints are assembled with hide glue and oak wedges, so the joints are strong but can be easily repaired by future generations. The shoe and arm of the chair are also secured with two blacksmith-made rosehead nails.
The finish is a home-cooked linseed oil/wax finish that has no dangerous solvents. The finish offers low protection, but it is easy to repair by the owner with no special skills or tools.
Purchasing the Chair
This chair is being sold via silent auction. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.) If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Friday, March 18. In the email please use the subject line “Chair Sale” and include your:
First name and last name
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
Shipping options: You are welcome to pick up the chair here in Covington, Ky., and also get a free yardstick. I am happy to deliver the chair personally for free within 100 miles of Cincinnati, Ohio. Or we can ship it to you via LTL. The cost varies (especially these days), but it is usually between $200 and $300.
A note on silent auctions: Several people have asked how much previous chairs have sold for via silent auction. Sorry, but that is the “silent” part. I have no desire to run up the price unnecessarily. So bid what you think is fair; that’s all we ask. It’s fair to say that the prices for the chairs sold at silent auction go for far more (two times or three times) the typical $1,400 price when we sell chairs via a random drawing. So for the guy who keeps bidding $100 – we love your confidence.
I apologize if this is frustrating for people who want a chair. I want you to have one, too. I love these chairs and would love to see them in many more homes.
When my former boss hired cabinetmakers, he would always ask for photos of their work. It didn’t have to be a fancy portfolio – snapshots were fine.
Some of the job candidates brought this to the interview instead: “I’ve made some incredible pieces. I just finished up this coffee table with bookmatched veneer panels, stringing and inlay. Just stunning.”
Those people were not hired.
That policy stuck in my craw. So when I started selling pieces in the 1990s, I kept photos of every piece I made – even if it was just a snapshot. Those photos are organized by date in three-ring binders in my office.
These days I simply load a selection of my photos to my personal website, christophermschwarz.com. Even though I closed my commission book in 2019, I keep the website up to date because it’s easy, and it’s a great way to answer the question: What sort of work do you do?
But there’s another reason I keep my website up – one that might not be obvious. Whenever I encounter someone online with interesting ideas or opinions, I try to find pictures of their work. I always like to see furniture. And I like to see if the person’s words match their deeds.
If I can’t find photos of the person’s work, or if the photos don’t jibe with the words, I roll my eyes. What do I mean when I say “the words don’t match the work?” Example: People who jabber on about handwork and David Pye but the only pieces they show are crazy-quilt cutting boards with a routed-out juice groove. Or the person goes on and on about furniture, but the only work they show is router jigs.
These days, keeping a record of your work is practically free. Phones take better photos than cameras. You can upload your photos for zero dollars to a free blog. Or Instagram. So I don’t buy the argument that only professionals or wealthy people can keep and display a record of their work.
I’m not saying everyone should do this (but it would be fun and awesome if everyone did because I love to see furniture). If you’re an amateur woodworker who doesn’t spout opinions, proclamations, maxims, criticisms and homilies everywhere you go, then feel free to just continue being a good citizen.
But if you’re trying to change my mind, you’re going to have to have the photos to do it.
It’s easy to find lots of scolding about the hazards of using woodworking machinery.
I have seen some stuff. I have cleaned the interior of a jointer after someone else’s accident. I have seen a man wrestle a grinder (and lose). I’ve seen a guy try (and luckily fail) to cut off his finger with a jigsaw. Oh, and don’t forget the fine, cancer-making dust.
But what you don’t hear as much about are the hazards of hand-tool woodworking.
I have seen some stuff. Through-mortises in hands. Severed tendons in arms after a chisel poke. A dismembered finger from a Japanese pullsaw (one stroke). And sure, sharpening and axe gashes galore.
But this blog entry is not about the gory side of woodworking injuries. Instead, it’s about taking a reasonable approach to work that allows you to be creative into old age.
I started in hand-tool woodworking against my will when I was about 10 or 11. My parents were homesteaders building houses on our 84-acre farm outside Hackett, Ark., without electricity. This was not by choice; electricity had not come to Hilltop Lane in 1973. So it was all hammers, handsaws and braces at first. And it was work. Back in our house in town, my dad had a full machine workshop, but I wasn’t allowed to use the machines for safety reasons. So again, everything I did was by hand.
Our second house on Hilltop Lane. This was after we got electricity (you can see the transmission wire). We had one plug.
After I graduated college, I started taking classes in handwork at the University of Kentucky under Lynn Sweet, and that’s when I got the fire in my belly. I wanted to do everything by hand. And that deep dive into handwork coincided with my years at Popular Woodworking Magazine. I started at the magazine when I was 28 and ended my association with them when I was pushing 50.
For me, handwork has always been the best part of woodworking. And I do everything to maximize my time at the bench. When I make a chair, the whole process takes 16 to 18 hours. Only one of those hours is on machines. The rest is at the bench.
As I’ve gotten older, I have observed firsthand the toll that handwork has taken on my body. Because of ripsawing and planing, my elbows are not what they used to be. After a full day of planing, I cannot do another day of consecutive planing, or my body will revolt. When I saddle the seat of a chair, my hands are curled into claws the next day. I have to stretch them out.
I am happy with the cardio I get while hand-tool woodworking, but I am humbled by the repetitive stress injuries that come from brute-force jack-planing, mortising and ripping.
Let me put it another way. When I read about people who consider hand-tool work as exercise, I think about the exercise I have to do in order to do hand-tool work. Every morning my day begins with 30-45 minutes of stretches recommended by my physical therapist. If I don’t do these, I’ll end up on my back on a workbench, trying to work out the kinks in my back, shoulders, arms and hands. In the evening, a heating pad takes care of the muscles that are damn whiners.
I am not alone. I know other hand-tool woodworkers who have suffered repetitive stress injuries. (Sorry, no names to protect the crooked.) I have friends who can do only so much planing or sawing before their elbows give out. What caused their injuries? Planing and sawing. I know woodworkers who can’t hold a chisel or scraper well anymore after years and years of chopping and scraping.
So here is the personal confession: As I have gotten older, I’ve had to rely more on machines than when I was 20, 30 or 40. Don’t misread me: I love handwork dearly. But I love woodworking more. So any small crutch that can keep me making things at pace is most welcome.
To be precise, I have no interest in router jigs, CNC machines or any tool with a digital brain. Those things are cool (and yes, they are “authentic” woodworking). But they don’t suit my analog belt-driven brain. I am a simple machine guy, mostly band saw. Sometimes jointer and planer. Occasionally table saw and drill press.
I do not hide this fact, either. One of the other annoying aspects of handcraft publishing is watching some people do one thing and tell their readers to do another. After years of handwork, I can tell when a streak of dust from a handsaw has been faked (I’ve watched set directors do it). Or when material that has been machined is held up as four-squared by hand (i.e. they planed the already-machined boards). Not everybody does this, but it happens.
This legerdemain fools some beginners into thinking they should embrace pure handwork. I’ve met a lot of them who took the bait, became miserable, then bought a band saw or a planer. And they were much happier.
Since the 14th century, woodworking has been about simple machines, plus a small kit of hand tools. And it can still be that way in the 21st century. The best woodworkers I know use all the tools – hand and electric. And they are smart enough to know how to avoid ridiculous situations. Such as making a Plexiglas router jig to cut one butterfly recess. Or converting entirely by hand 300 board feet of rough lumber into a highboy.
If you take a pragmatic path – machines for tendon-destroying donkey work and hand tools for the joinery and surfaces – you might end up like me: an old guy still working every day at the bench. Still with all my fingers and still able to cut damn-good dovetails.
This is the balance I have found that works. You might experience a different journey.
