People – both woodworkers and the less handy – often ask me what kind of chairs I build. Lately I’ve been calling them “commonplace chairs” instead of diving into an eye-glazing lecture on the British Isles, vernacular furniture and John Brown.
The word “commonplace” suits them in both the literal definition – not unusual; ordinary – and when you happen to pull the two root words apart – common and place. These chairs are both common and come from a place. What about this one?
This one came from my scrap bin. When I design a new chair, I rummage through my 5-gallon buckets filled with leftover ash and oak legs, stretchers, sticks and such, some of them years old. This seat was a backup seat left over from a class. The arms and crest were some straight, bendable sassafras.
I set out to give this chair a formal silhouette, like a Scottish Darvel chair. I got to examine one in person this fall and loved its presence. I wanted a low-slung undercarriage to belie the age of my design. But most of all, I pictured this chair in my mind as belonging to the head of a household. So it should have some height, arms and a just a whiff of throne.
But still be a stick chair. And not too damn fancy.
It’s comfortable and cozy (thanks to some negative springback after the steambending). The back sticks taper gently from 5/8” to 1/2” and bend ever-so-slightly out to cradle the shoulders of the sitter. The oak seat is lightly saddled, as per my usual way. And it’s painted with General Finishes (Not) Milk Paint in Coastal Blue that has been brushed on.
If you want to see this chair in person it will be in the gallery at Fine Woodworking Live in April (the event is almost sold out). I wish I could offer this chair for sale. Nothing would make me happier. But the head of the household (Lucy) wants it for the dining table. It will be the nicest chair of mine that we own – everything else around the table is dogmeat and prototypes.
Sweet jiminy I don’t need any more mail, tasks or obligations. If you have a woodworking question, you can usually find answers by using the search box on the right-hand sidebar. If you have a question about your order or a product, you can always send a note to help@lostartpress.com.
But occasionally I do get a question or two through the mail or friends that bears answering. Here are two good questions – and one that I cannot answer.
Benchtop Thickness
Robert in Vista, Calif., asks about an apparent contradiction in my writing. At one point I wrote that 4” is the maximum thickness for a benchtop that works with holdfasts. Later, I recommend 4” to 6”. What gives?
When I wrote my first articles on workbenches about 20 years ago (which led to my first book), the world of holdfasts looked like this: tons of crappy cast ones and a few custom blacksmith holdfasts. So I bought every holdfast I could. I helped Don Weber make me one. And when I tested them, I couldn’t get any of them to work in a benchtop that was thicker than 4”.
And so I reported my findings.
As interest in holdfasts grew, better ones became available. We started making one with a 1” shaft. These better holdfasts worked in thick benchtops. I can get ours to seat in a block that is 10” thick. But 10” is silly for a benchtop. I think 6” is the maximum I’d use.
Trestle Table Flex
James in Twentynine Palms, Calif., asks about the trestle table I built for Woodworking Magazine exactly one coon’s age ago. When his kids sit on the table, he sees the supports below the top flexing under their weight. Is this a known problem?
The trestle table is flexible; that’s one of the nice things about it. As long as nothing is groaning under the weight of the kids, you’re probably fine. The table is like an I-beam with a wooden skin on top. It’s quite strong and remains one of my favorite designs.
However, I cannot vouch for your joinery or the mass of your children. I can report that my table has survived many strange evenings.
James also writes to ask if I have any tips for sourcing wood on the West Coast (he’s new there). Species, places to buy etc.
As a Kentuckian, I have zero experience with West Coast lumberyards, except for buying alder and fir. Perhaps the readers could offer some ideas about good local woods for furniture.
This week, we are finishing the layout of our latest book, “Honest Labour,” which is a collection of essays from The Woodworker magazine while Charles H. Hayward was editor (1939-1967). This book will be the fifth and final volume in our series from The Woodworker.
When we started on The Woodworker project more than a decade ago we didn’t intend to publish “Honest Labour.” The series was going to have four books that covered handwork: tools, techniques, joinery, the workshop and furniture plans. But as we paged through every article from The Woodworker during the 29-year period, we kept getting stuck on the “Chips From the Chisel” column at the beginning of every issue.
These columns during the Hayward years are like nothing I’ve ever read in a woodworking magazine. They are filled with poetry, historical characters and observations on nature. And yet they all speak to our work at the bench, providing us a place and a reason to exist in modern society.
For years I heard rumors that the unsigned column was written by a clerk or assistant at the magazine, but I don’t believe that for a second. After reading Hayward’s writing on woodworking most of my career, I know his prose like I know my own.
For the last few years, we’ve been working on “Honest Labour” in the background. John Hoffman secured the rights to the material, which was no small effort or expense. Kara Gebhart worked through all of the “Chips From the Chisel” columns, selecting the best ones. We decided to organize the essays year by year, and so Kara has written a short column for every chapter that lists the major news events of that year. These short essays provide important context – even woodworking writing is different in wartime.
During the last couple months, Megan Fitzpatrick and I have been laying out the book, with Megan doing most of the heavy lifting. The structure of the book is more like a book of favorite poems you can pick up while you are waiting for your family to get ready for dinner. Or when you sit down in front of the fire after a long day of work.
Every page spread in the book consists of one column only, illustrated with line drawings from the magazine that were published during the same year the column was written. The illustrations were also made by Hayward.
Here’s a small sample of one of the columns from the 1960s. Like a lot of good writing, it’s difficult to divorce a piece from the whole without diminishing it.
How easy for anyone having sufficient professional skill to get away with a semblance of truth. There are some craftsmen who simply take it for granted. The lack of precision in marking up, the careless cut, the small faults which declare themselves when a piece is assembled. Such a craftsman knows all the answers. “Oh I can soon put that right,” he says easily. And he can, filing, adjusting, smoothing, gluing here, screwing there, using as much casual skill in faking as in making. The furniture he produces may deceive the untrained eye but by any true standard it falls short. Without perhaps even being aware of it, the casual craftsman lets himself down more than anyone: the real damage is to himself.
It is all too easy, demanding no particular effort, no particular sense of responsibility, either to himself or to anyone else. But anyone who wishes to lift himself out of the rut, as a person as well as a craftsman, needs to feel responsibility and to be committed to a standard. Only in this way can he keep the sense of effort alive, and to cease from effort is to die before our time.
“Honest Labour” is going to be a sizable book – 488 pages – the largest book in The Woodworker series, and will have the same manufacturing specs as the other books in the series so they look good on your shelf. We hope to deliver it to the printer by the end of the month for a release in April or May 2020.
We know this is an odd woodworking book and that a lot of people will be skeptical, so we are doing everything we can to keep the price as reasonable as possible. And we are prepared for it to be a commercial flop. That’s OK, as we consider it an honest labor of love.
We use acid brushes to apply glue in our shop, but we tune up the brushes before using them.
Straight from the store, the bristles are too long and wide. When they get wet with glue, they act like a floppy mop and make it difficult to apply glue where you want it and in the right amounts.
To tune up your brush, grab a sharp pair of scissors. First trim the bristles so they are 3/8” long. Then trim the width of the bristles. Basically, you want to make the bristles 3/8” long and 3/8” wide – square, some call it. If the bristles are too wide, you’ll have trouble getting into mortises without splashing some glue on the rim.
After glue-up, clean the brush (some of our have lasted five years or more). Check for any loose bristles and trim them back.
A proper glue brush is just one of the rituals in our shop. A few others:
When assembling joinery, we rarely use glue straight from the bottle. We pour what we need into a paper cup (or coffee mug). The cup allows us to brush on glue or, in some cases, pour it onto a large surface if necessary.
When we clean up squeeze-out, we use a toothbrush wetted with clean, warm water. The toothbrush gets into corners no rag can manage.
We let things dry overnight if possible. You might be able to take the clamps off in 30 minutes. But if you don’t have to, why not leave the assembly in clamps overnight?
Katherine has made a big batch of soft wax during her break from art school. The wax is $24 for an 8-ounce jar. Soft wax is great for finishing the interior of woodwork, as a coat over milk paint or a way to add some luster to an aged finish.
Katherine cooks up the wax in the machine room using a waterless process. It’s packaged in glass jars to eliminate any chance of rust. And has a coated metal lid (also to reduce rust).
We also use it on tools and (thanks to a tip from a reader) leather shoes.
You can purchase the wax here through Katherine’s etsy store.
