Printed copies of “The Anarchist’s Workbench” were scheduled to leave the press’ dock last Wednesday, but our quality control people (who don’t work for the printing plant) spotted a manufacturing defect on some copies.
If you look at the photo, you’ll see the problem. We aren’t exactly sure how it happened, but it occurred on only one signature of the book, and it didn’t happen to all of the copies of the press run.
That means every copy of the entire run has to be inspected. Good copies will get repacked and sent to our warehouse. Bad copies will be fully recycled.
So shipping this book has been delayed a bit. As soon as we know anything, we will let you know.
We hate it when these things happen, but we’re grateful our quality control people caught it. Having to process 1,000 returned, defective books from customers (and paying for it) is the stuff of my nightmares. I’d much rather have the nightmare where I’m in college, naked and riding a goat into my Law & Ethics class.
The beginning. In the House of the Vetti, this dining room fresco is perhaps the earliest depiction of a workbench in the West. Photo by Narayan Nayar
Editor’s note: On this day (Aug. 24) in 79 C.E., Mount Vesuvius erupted, killing thousands and forever changing the course of archaeology. The ash that covered the nearby towns was devastating, but it also created a detailed snapshot of everyday life. It also gave us the two earliest images of workbenches in the West. To remember this day, here is the first chapter of “Ingenious Mechanicks,” which is about my visit to the volcano.
The journey to the summit of Mount Vesuvius has all the romance of visiting an unlicensed reptile farm. It begins in Ercolano, Italy, a touristy village in the shadow of the volcano and home to Herculaneum, one of the towns buried by Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 C.E.
As Narayan Nayar (the photographer for the journey) and I stepped off the train from Naples we were assaulted by young, attractive Italians. Their job: Bait tourists to nearby restaurants. We glanced around and saw only one escape route from the train station’s cul-de sac. So, we plowed through the crowd of eager human fishing lures.
We emerged from the other side a bit relieved. Then we realized we’d scurried past the bus company that was supposed to drive us up the volcano. We turned around and dove back into the swarm of too-perky people in order to catch our bus.
Where are the virgins? The cone of Vesuvius is not a fiery hole leading into the bowels of the earth. It looks like a gravel quarry where you might buy stone for your garden. Photo by Narayan Nayar
The twisty-turny bus ride ended 660 feet below the volcano’s summit, and we then climbed a steep trail to the volcano’s rim. The top resembles a gravel pit where one of Frank Herbert’s worms might emerge. There’s no deep hole for tossing human sacrifices – throw a virgin into Vesuvius and she’s only going to get skinned knees and a sunburn. I looked around the volcano and promptly excused the early settlers of the area for building their homes at the base of Vesuvius. The only evidence you’re on a volcano (besides the little gift shops) is the occasional tiny plume of gas and the odd rocks below your feet.
I picked up a few rocks. For rocks, they were young – likely the result of the 1944 eruption, which destroyed several villages. I looked out from our 4,200-foot perch at the buildings in every direction below, which are built on top of villages that were covered in ash from earlier eruptions. It’s a grim scene if you think about it too much – 600,000 people now live in the so-called “red zone” for a future eruption.
Ruined. Even with thousands of tourists around you, Pompeii is so sprawling that it seems deserted. Photo by Narayan Nayar
And yet, as I fondled the rocks in my hand I felt only gratitude for this deadly, fire-breathing mountain.
The Earliest Workbenches The recorded history of woodworking begins with the Egyptians. But the recorded history of workbenches begins (for now) with Vesuvius. Its massive eruption in 79 C.E. buried Pompeii, Herculaneum and other sites, preserving frescoes, buildings, pottery, human remains and even wooden furniture.
At Pompeii, the ash blanketed a fresco showing a low, four-legged workbench being used for mortising by a man in Greek attire. At nearby Herculaneum, the eruption preserved a fresco showing “erotes” – what we might call “buck nekkid cupids” – sawing a board at an eight-legged low workbench. It features a holdfast and other holdfast holes. This fresco has since been destroyed, but we have engravings that were made soon after its discovery (more on both the frescoes’ stories is ahead).
Graven image. This copperplate engraving was made by Italian artists shortly after the Herculaneum fresco was discovered. Sadly, the original has deteriorated.
These two images are the earliest representations of workbenches of which I’m aware. And they launched my interest in exploring knee-high workbenches and how to use them to build furniture, boats, storage containers and wagon wheels.
The conventional wisdom is that these low benches were used in former times for simple work and were replaced by superior modern benches, which are thigh-high or taller. But the more I studied low benches, the more I found that they never disappeared. They are still in use. Additionally, these low benches can be used for complex work, including steam bending compound shapes and lutherie.
The low bench is more than a thick plank of wood with legs. It’s also a collection of simple jigs and appliances that allow you to do remarkable work while sitting comfortably on an easy-to-build platform. For centuries, these simple jigs remained hidden in plain sight in paintings and drawings in museums. And their appliances have been proven to work, both at my low benches and by the modern craftsmen who still use them.
But why bother with this musty old crap? Modern woodworkers are blessed with a wide array of vises, dogs, clamps and other devices that can immobilize a piece of wood so you can work on its faces, edges and ends. Well, at times I think we tend to make our workholding far more complex than it has to be. And that can affect your approach to the things you build. While your brain might see the logic of a screw-driven tail vise with a series of movable metal dogs, the ingenious early craftsman might find this same vise slow, fragile, fussy to maintain and cumbersome in use.
Teach a Roman to shave. It is a short intellectual leap from the low workbench to other “sit and work” appliances, such as the shavehorse.
I empathize with the early woodworker. My brain is wired to look for a simpler solution to a problem instead of creating complexity.
Example: Earlier this year, I spent a couple hours in the dentist’s chair and was force-fed several episodes of a home-improvement show focused on carving out storage from oddball places in a home. Some of the examples I remember over the whirring of the dental Dremel include:
• Hinge your steps to create trap doors on the landings of your stairs to make small bins in the wasted space between your stringers. • Find stud walls that are chases for utilities and turn them into built-in chests of drawers. • In attic spaces, create sliding racks on the interior of a high-pitched roof. You slide giant plastic bins into the racks – it’s a bit like a top-hanging drawer.
Through the entire program I wanted to puke (that was mostly because I have a sensitive gag reflex). But it was also because these “storage solution” programs neglect to mention the easiest way to control clutter: Get rid of your excess crap.
No one should have so much stuff that they have to slave excessively to make a place to stow it. In the same way, no workbench needs vises on all four corners (I’ve built these for students and customers) to build fine furniture. You just don’t.
With this book, I hope to expose you to early and simple ways of holding your work. While many of these devices were used on low workbenches, most of them work on high workbenches as well. I use both sorts of benches – high and low – in my work for building all manner of things, from stud walls to Welsh stick chairs, dovetailed chests to nailed-together coffins.
The workholding on these benches is truly ingenious and effective. Things change when you sit down to work. And I think you’ll be surprised what you can do on your bum: planing, chiseling, shaving and even dovetailing.
The low bench form might not be for everyone. But it might be right for you and you might not know it. Woodworkers with limited mobility use low benches because they can sit and work. Apartment woodworkers use low benches because they take up little space and do double-duty as seating or a coffee table. Curious woodworkers use them because – dammit – they are an interesting form to build and use. Many chairmakers already use a low bench (but they call it a shavehorse), as do many other specialty trades, including coopers and basketmakers. Oh, and a low bench is the best sawbench ever made – promise.
One more plug for these early benches: Using their lessons, you can make almost any surface into a worksurface. A couple drywall screws can turn a picnic table into an English-style workbench. A missing brick in a wall (and a pine wedge) can become a face vise. A shavehorse can be cobbled together with a rock and a scrap of wood strapped to your gut.
Even if you never build a low workbench and reject its appliances as “not whiz-bang-y” enough for your engineering mindset, you might enjoy the journey of discovery required to write this book. It involved trips to exotic Italy, Germany and Indianapolis. (And understanding the low bench might connect your work to Chinese benches.) In the process, we rescued oak slabs from a pallet factory. We flushed $1,000 down a metaphorical toilet to learn about the construction of the first modern workbench in 1505. We ate a ton of Neapolitan pizza.
Workbenches are at the heart of everything we do. So, let’s take a brief look at the history of Western workbenches and consider why it’s even worth looking at ancient benches.
On July 13, we sent the final corrections for “The Anarchist’s Workbench” to the printing plant. When I woke up on July 14, I couldn’t get out of bed.
Like a lot of writers and artists I know, I deal with clinical depression. I am open about it, but it doesn’t define my work or factor into my personality much (plus depressedwoodworker.com seemed too, well, depressing). In fact, I doubt I’ll ever mention my diagnosis on the blog again. I don’t want this disease to become my calling card. (Norm has his tool belt, Marc Spagnuolo has tattoos and Schwarz is like Eeyore, lol.)
But it’s part of the story of this book.
Two years ago I weaned myself off antidepressants (I hate taking pills), but after lying in bed for two hours that Tuesday morning I knew I should call my doctor. He put me back on medication, but the stuff usually needs to float about my brain for about four weeks before I feel relief.
(I suspect there are well-meaning people out there who want to give me advice about depression. Thanks, but really I’m fine. My health is my problem alone. I’ve been through the wringer and around the horn during the last 14 years. My doctor and I know what works for me. But I do sincerely appreciate your good intentions.)
The next step to get my head working right is to push myself into building things. Once I get moving, my body can handle the rest. Plus, working on a project helps speed up the time. When I’m depressed, every day feels 40 hours long. If I’m deep in a project, time passes normally.
Luckily I have a backlog of commission work. I knocked out a couple small pieces, and then looked at the next customer on the list: Two Scottish Darvel chairs.
Hmm, I thought, I could start taking photos of the chairs’ construction process for “The Stick Chair Book.” This serendipity seemed like a gift. I could build a couple chairs (which I love doing) plus feel like I was moving forward on a book project.
The next day I got in my truck and headed for the lumberyard. It was too early for the drugs to start working, but I was already starting to feel more like myself.
— Christopher Schwarz
Note: The last few entries in this series have been pretty touchy-feely. Next up I shift gears into a discussion of photography and lighting and how we produce photos for Lost Art Press books.
Read other posts from the “Making Book” series here.
My second chair. Ugly but strong. And it was the key to my upcoming book.
Before I talk to an author about writing a book for Lost Art Press, I ask them to perform a short exercise beforehand. The exercise helps me understand the real thrust of their book idea.
This is important because we have received book proposals from authors that read “I’d like to write something about doors.”
Here is the exercise we send to potential authors:
Come up with a book title and (if necessary) a secondary title. Book titles should be short – usually no more than five words. And they must relate to the entire book. They should use simple and strong words – no -ing or -ly forms. We will help you with the final title, but it will help you think about your book if you can develop a working title. It helps set the tone for your work. A secondary title can help explain the main title. For example, the secondary title for “Cut & Dried” is “A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology.” You might need a secondary title. You might not.
Write a “high concept.” The “high concept” is a 35-word (or so) pitch that explains the content of the book to someone who is not a woodworker and who has never heard of your work. I imagine it’s how I would explain a book at a dinner party to the person next to me. The “high concept” for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was: “You can build almost anything with about 45 tools. This book shows you how to choose good tools, helps you build a chest to protect them and contends that furniture making is a radical act in today’s society.”
Create a table of contents (TOC). A good TOC is an outline for your book. It is the skeleton, and it charts your narrative arc (all good books tell a story). The more detail and thought you put into your TOC, the easier the writing will be. Also good to note: You might rip up a few TOCs before it’s over.
When I start in on a book, I also perform this exercise. But with the vernacular chair book, I wasn’t ready to answer these questions. I had to first figure out if I had an idea that was worth working on for two years.
So for the first half of 2020 I worked on other people’s books and “The Anarchist’s Workbench,” and I didn’t think much about chairs at all.
I did sign up a few new authors for future books, such as getting Megan Fitzpatrick to write a book on Dutch tool chests for a 2021 release. One day we talked about her upcoming book, and I asked how she planned to deal with the different possible construction strategies for the chest’s lid, back and interior.
She replied that she was going to use a “Choose Your Own Adventure” approach, where she would show all of the typical methods and let the reader pick.
And that was when my book on vernacular chairs snapped into focus.
Of all the books I’ve written, my favorites are the ones that I wish I’d had when I was 11 years old. If I’d had “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” or “The Anarchist’s Design Book” when I was a kid, I would have been thrilled.
When I first contracted the chair-building disease in the 1990s – after encountering John Brown’s writing – I bought every book I could find on chairs, even the crappy ones. I read them all once, and most of them twice.
They all left me disheartened. Here’s why: Each author explained how he built his chairs. But they were (mostly) from the tradition that involved green wood, a froe, a shavehorse, a drawknife, a steambox and a bunch of specialty tapering and reaming tools.
Plus the geometry hurt my head.
I didn’t own any of those tools or easy access to green wood. After years of building furniture with dovetails, mortises and tenons, it seemed like few of my skills or tools carried over to chairmaking. That’s when I decided to take a class with David Fleming in Cobden, Ontario, to see if there was any hope for me as a chairmaker.
With Dave’s help I got through the construction of my first chair. Then I came home and – within days – began to build another chair so I wouldn’t forget what I’d learned. I decided that I would just use whatever wood and tools I had on hand and make it work. The chair would probably suck, fall apart or break. But that would be OK. It was just a flammable vessel to help me retain the geometry lessons and the hand skills.
The chair I made was damn ugly, but it didn’t fall apart.
After 20 years of studying vernacular chairs, I have concluded that “use what you have” is a valid way to make a good chair. It’s the strategy that’s been employed all over the world for centuries. You don’t need special tools or skills to make a chair. You just have to really want to build a dang chair.
Megan’s simple phrase, “Choose Your Own Adventure,” is the crux of my next book.
The working title: “The Stick Chair Book.”
The high concept: “Build chairs with the wood and tools around you. Learn to make all the components of a chair – legs, stretchers, arms, sticks, crest – with a wide variety of materials, tools and methods. Then combine these parts however you like into a pleasing, comfortable and sturdy chair.”
That’s 46 words and a little long. Oh well.
Then I vomited out the book’s TOC in less than an hour.
There are a dozen ways to make each chair component, from using a band saw down to a block plane. You don’t need riven wood. Straight grain is straight grain, no matter how you find it. You don’t need any special equipment to make a good chair. These disparate components can be combined in 1,000 ways to make 1,000 different chairs. And the geometry is easy once you realize that it’s the numbers and math that are holding you back.
I knew in a second that this book is something I’d gladly devote two years (or more) to. It’s the chair book I wish I’d owned in 1998.
— Christopher Schwarz
Read other posts from the “Making Book” series here.
The Ohio River’s water level is low enough this week (about 27 feet) to expose a swath of slimy garbage, an encrusted Lime scooter and thousands and thousands of branches and tree trunks.
This morning I walked the shore thinking about the book “Mudlarking” by Laura Mialkem and her fascinating form of archaeology along the foreshore of the Thames river. (She is definitely worth following on Instagram if you like history.)
While I didn’t spot any relics this morning on the Ohio, my eyes were drawn to the weathered branches that were piled up a foot high in places. Some of them were shaped like a chair leg. Others had enough bend to be the crest rail of an armchair.
If you’ve read Christopher Williams’ great book “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown,” then you know a bit about Chris’ “one square mile” approach to making chairs. Like many Welsh chairmakers before him, Chris regularly searches the woods and hedges of his surroundings for curved branches that could become chair components.
I picked up a few branches this morning to see how sound they were. Hmm, strong enough for a chair perhaps?