“The Intelligent Hand” is entering the final stages of print production at the plant in Tennessee and we are on track to ship the book in mid-October.
Until the book ships, we are offering all customers who purchase the book a free pdf download of the entire book at checkout. The pdf is hi-resolution and searchable. Even if you don’t enjoy reading books on a screen (and I do not), the pdf is handy for taking along on a trip or for searching.
Also, like all our digital products, we offer it without DRM (digital rights management). So you can easily integrate it into your personal library without passwords or having to be connected to the internet when you read it.
As of now, the hardcover book and pdf cost $50. When the book ships, the price for the book plus the pdf will be $62.50.
For those who might be unsure if this book is their cup of tea/coffee/Red Bull, we offer this hi-resolution excerpt of the first section of the book. It’s short, but will give you a good taste of what this book is about. It is, by the way, a massive book – 302 pages – and a visual treat of photos, line drawings, watercolors and historical images. Click the link below, and the download will begin:
Because of my deep personal interest in this book, I was the art director and page designer for this title. As David poured his heart into the text, I went all out with the images and page design to create something I am (and I rarely say this) particularly happy with.
I am pleased to announce that Molly Brown, one of John Brown’s daughters, will be creating many of the key illustrations in the upcoming book “The Life & Work of John Brown” by Christopher Williams.
Molly specializes in linocut illustrations, a process that is particularly well-suited to show off the graphic forms of Welsh stick chairs. Linocuts are similar to woodblock printing in that the image is drawn on a piece of linoleum and the background is carved away. Then the image is inked and pressed into the paper.
This week, Molly showed us one of her initial prints. Chris and I are very pleased.
Our plan is to have Molly provide the construction illustrations for the book. That might sound odd if you are used to reading CAD-generated drawings. But computer-created illustrations with precise measurements are the exact opposite of what John Brown liked, as he explained clearly in “Welsh Stick Chairs.”
John Brown thought every chair should be an individual, and we wanted the illustrations in this new book to reflect that.
In addition to the technical drawings, Molly will create spot illustrations that will be used throughout the book, such as tools and details of the chair. Recently, she visited Chris in his workshop in Wales to see his chairs, look over columns written by her father and get acquainted with the project.
Molly plans to show more of the process of making the prints for her book on her Instagram feed. You can follow her here if you’d like to watch the process. If you’d like to see some of her delightful non-chair prints, you can visit her website here.
Chris is working on a new chair design these days, and if you haven’t followed him on Instagram, remedy that here.
One of the furniture forms I’ve had a long obsession with are settles. These high-back benches were common in early homes and were handy for keeping warm by the fire. One of their variants, the settle chair – is somewhat less common. But it is just as delightful.
These boarded chairs are made from four planks that are nailed or screwed together. And – if you take what you know about stick chairs and apply it to a boarded chair, it can be pretty comfortable. Much more comfortable than the crate or coffin that it resembles.
The trick is to angle almost every joint so the backrest leans back, the chair leans back and the giant boarded sides open up to the sitter like the arms of a mustachioed aunt with boundary issues.
There are 100 ways to build this chair that are difficult. For the last several months, I’ve been tinkering with the construction process to make it as simple and foolproof as possible. Finally, on Friday I decided that drawings and CAD could take me no further. I had to build it.
This chair will be the next new chapter for “The Anarchist’s Design Book” expansion. If you have questions about the expansion, here is an FAQ.
I started with No. 2 common white pine 2x6s from the home center and glued them up into four panels:
1 Seat: 1-1/4” x 26” x 19”
1 Back 1-1/4” x 21-1/2” x 41”
2 Sides 1-1/4” x 19 x 49”
It’s a lot of wood, I know. But 2x6s are cheap. I also knew I was going to cut the side pieces with a decorative pattern, but I wasn’t sure what the pattern would be. Had I known the pattern, I would have glued up the sides in a way that greatly reduced waste.
I could bore you with all the mental gymnastics that came up with the steps to build this chair. If you come up with an easier way to do it with simple tools, I applaud you.
Let’s hit the highlights.
Cut the dados in the side pieces that will hold the seat. These dados are angled 97° off the back, which creates part of the “lean” to the back. The dados are 1/2” deep and start 15” up from the bottom of the side pieces.
Cut or plane a 9° bevel on the back edge of the side pieces. This bevel makes the sides open toward the sitter (remember the aunt joke?).
Screw the back to the sides with No. 9 x 3-1/8” screws. No glue. You will want to disassemble the chair to make things pretty. You can glue it up later if you like.
Glue 5”-wide blocks to the back edge of the sides, creating the back feet. You’ll have to cut the 9° bevel on one long edge of these blocks. Note that I’ve already cut an angle on the bottom of the sides to add some more lean. I recommend you do this at the end of the construction process.
Make the seat fit its hole. Here I’m using pinch sticks to get the measurement of the seat at its narrowest point. Cut the seat to size and fit it in the dados. Screw the sides to the seat.
Cut the decorative profile on the sides. I drew mine with trammel points. The three arcs for the top curves are all a 9-5/8” radius. The curve for the bottom is a 7-1/2” radius. I was trying to imitate the traditional wingback chair with these curves and exaggerated things to make it look more “ersatz hillbilly.”
Clean up the edges. Screw it back together and then see if you like it.
I’ll build a couple more of these chairs with different profiles and then get to work on writing the chapter for the book. This prototype is good enough to get cleaned up and finished. I’ve asked my daughter Katy to paint it – perhaps we’ll offer it for sale here if we’re both satisfied with it.
This is a tricky topic to discuss. Good teaching can resemble abuse – at least from the outside. But I don’t think that good teachers ever actually abuse their students. Instead, I found that my best teachers were both scrupulously fair and uncompromising. For me, as a student, that was the combination that worked.
During my first year at Popular Woodworking, I spent every free moment in the workshop. I’d blast through my editing duties during the morning, and by lunchtime I’d be helping out the other staff or working on my own projects. Jim Stuard, one of the junior editors at the magazine, was a long-time professional woodworker and had excellent hand skills. He was always in the shop. Naturally, I latched onto him like a puppy.
Jim took teaching seriously and imitated his German masters when it came to doling out instruction. When I screwed up, he yelled “You’re fired!” and would walk away. This happened almost every day. He wasn’t a fan of answering my 100 questions about why something was. He was just there to show me how to do it. How to get through the day.
And occasionally, he was there to open my eyes.
There are a few points in the craft where you feel like you have turned a corner. Jim offered me my first corner. I was cleaning up the edge of a circular Arts & Crafts tabouret, and Jim came over to watch my progress. I did my best, but Jim rolled his eyes, sighed and pushed me aside.
“See these?” he said, pointing to some machine marks I had completely missed. “These have to go.” He cleaned up one quadrant of the tabletop and put the scraper down.
“Do that,” he said. “That’s craftsmanship.”
I was grateful that he didn’t “fire” me that day. That tense exchange unlocked a keen awareness and sensitivity to surfaces that has only become stronger and more refined every year. That day started me down that path, and I am forever grateful for the kick in the pants.
Why am I telling you this?
When I spent my two weeks at the Rowden Workshops run by David Savage, I was delighted to see that same sort of teaching style in evidence. The students were tasked with the impossible: Please do the work of a high-level professional. Right now. Right here. If they failed, they had to try again. David, like all good shop owners, was always there at the worst possible moment when you had really mucked something up. His staff was there to guide you to the solution.
I got to eat several meals with the students and listened to their begrudging admiration of the whole process. They were grumpy because they were always on notice. They were stressed because their work was constantly being evaluated. And they were wondering if the whole experience at Rowden was worth it – because we should all question our sanity at trying to make money at woodworking.
I thought about telling the students that they would get some perspective in time. They would see how much better they had become compared to other young woodworkers. But that’s like telling a teenager that life is short. They simply aren’t ready to receive the message. So why bother?
So I just listened.
If you would like a dose of this hard truth, salted with failure and seared with difficult trials, I recommend “The Intelligent Hand” to you. This book by David Savage contains the core ideals from Rowden, but without the hard looks or the glorious teatime. The print version will be released in mid-October. If you order it now, you will receive a pdf of the book (for free) at checkout.
Several friends who have read the book have sent me private messages, such as this one:
I opened up David’s book last night about 11:00 to take a quick look. Could not put it down til I got maybe 40 pages in. It may not appeal to everyone (though I think it will to most people) – but it is ***** awesome. My initial opinions are always tentative, but this is on a very very short list of best overall books on craft that I’ve ever opened.
Seriously. It is incredible.
I can’t let myself open it back up til things settle here, because it’s a total black hole for my attention. But it really is the book I wish I could have written in another 20 years or so. I met and liked David briefly last year – but I can understand exactly why you’re so taken with him. I truly cannot praise it enough. For ME, this is in the three or four best things LAP has done.
Also, like all our digital products, we offer it without DRM (digital rights management). So you can easily integrate it into your personal library without passwords or having to be connected to the internet when you read it.
