At the time I stopped teaching in 2015 I was booking 18 class a year. It was a stupid schedule. I quite enjoyed the travel and learning from the students. But my personal work – my writing, designing and building – suffered.
Starting in November I’m returning to a limited teaching schedule – four classes in a year and no more. I am extremely excited (yes, I used an adverb there) to share the techniques and designs I’ve developed during this hiatus.
These classes will be different as I’ll be teaching little or no casework or workbenches (unless the French Oak Roubo Project III comes calling). It will be all staked furniture and chairs.
My first class will be Nov. 3-4, 2018, at our storefront in Covington, Ky., where I will teach the Staked High Stool. This project is a great introduction to chairmaking and working with compound angles. And everyone leaves with a finished stool. You’ll be able to finish your stool with “shou sugi ban,” though we’ll also teach spray finishing of shellac and some hand-applied finishes.
Registration for this class will open next week. We’ll have full details on all the storefront classes for the remainder of 2018 posted on Monday.
I hope you’ll consider joining us. The classes are small – six students maximum. The workshop is a great place to work with excellent benches and loads of natural light. And Covington, Ky., is a fun place to stay and eat.
You know that this post is going to be about André-Jacob Roubo. But not entirely.
For me, woodworking books in the French tradition begin with a title we haven’t been able to publish from the “other André” – André Félibien’s “Des Principes de L’Architecture…” (1676). Félibien’s book, which includes sections on woodworking, was published before Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick’s Exercises.” And Joseph, the naughty Englishman, ripped off many of Félibien’s images for his book.
We have attempted to translate this book on a couple occasions, but the effort has always drifted off track for one reason or another. I’d like to get it published because Félibien’s book illustrates the first instances of the double-screw vise (what we call a Moxon vise), the goberge clamping bars, a sliding deadman and a marquetry donkey (among other innovations).
Another Book We Don’t Publish Also important in the French canon is M. Duhamel’s “De L’Exploitation Des Bois” (1764). This is, as far as I can tell, the first book devoted to what we now call “green woodworking.” It deals with the seasoning of wood and explains wood movement using the same charts we use today. It covers making all sorts of things from green wood, from shoes to the frames for saddles. It covers wood bending and a wide variety of techniques.
We’ve started on this project a few times and it has proved to be a challenge. Someday.
And Another… You can’t really discuss French technical books without mentioning Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s “Encyclopédie,” a 32-volume work that covered, well, everything. It was an encyclopedia after all. There are sections on woodworking and the allied trades. But I find the “Encyclopédie” too general for me to own a set.
OK, Now Roubo A group of us have devoted a ridiculous amount of time and money to translate large chunks of Roubo’s “l’Art du menuisier,” which is an enormous multi-volume set on woodworking, joinery, furniture-making, marquetry, carriage making, garden woodworking, turning, finishing and many other topics of interest to the contemporary woodworker.
Unlike the other authors above, Roubo was a practicing joiner who studied architectural drawing at night (he drew the illustrations for his books) and interviewed fellow craftsmen to create his masterwork, which earned him a promotion from journeyman to master.
At times I think I am too close to this work and cannot adequately explain how completely intoxicating and challenging it is. Many woodworking books (even the ones I write personally) are fairly tame stuff, intellectually. While modern books help you grow a bit, Roubo is more like diving in headfirst to Thomas Pynchon right after mastering “Dick & Jane.” If you are willing to pay attention, you will be rewarded with nuggets of knowledge you can’t find elsewhere. Roubo has helped me directly with my finishing, the way I prepare glue, my understanding of campaign furniture, how I make brick moulding, designing galleries and on and on.
And I seriously doubt I’ll ever build a high-style French furniture. It’s not a book of projects.
We have two translated volumes that reflect a decade of work by Donald C. Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán, Philippe Lafargue and a team of editors and designers.
The second volume, “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture,” covers all of Roubo’s writing on making furniture, plus the workshop, workshop appliances, tools and turning. This book is massive, and even though I’ve read it many times over, I refer to it regularly and consider it one of the foundations of my work.
Because we are insane, we also published a deluxe version of this book. It is $550. It is the nicest thing in the world that has my name in it. Carrying this book around is like lugging two giant pizzas to your car. Sitting down and reading it with a glass of bourbon is one of the greatest pleasures I know of.
I do love it. But still, it was a nutty thing to publish.
Slightly less nutty (but still up there) is “The Book of Plates.” This book reproduces all of the plates from Roubo’s books in full-size. This is a great companion if you buy a pdf of one of the two translations or happen to read ancient French.
And Finally I would be remiss if I didn’t mention “Grandpa’s Workshop” by Maurice Pommier, perhaps our most charming book. Ostensibly a children’s tale, it’s a delightful collection of illustrated stories about woodworking, craftsman and slaying dragons with a mortise chisel.
It’s a bit scary for overprotective parents (there’s a murder). But the rest of you will be delighted because Pommier is a devoted hand-tool woodworker. And so all the woodworking bits are perfectly rendered by someone who knows how to handle the tools. It is, to me, a pure delight to read.
Whenever I finish an important project, I feel I should give a cheesy “acceptance speech” like you see for awards programs (“I’d like to thank all the world’s mentally defective sea turtles…”). Though my speech (said quietly to myself) always thanks certain tools and fellow woodworkers.
Were I a wanker, I would post photos of my latest chair and say things like: Check my new design, brh. Then a series of acronyms – FISKET and YAMLO. Then the hashtags – #gravycouncil #billyraycoochierash #sponsored.
But that’s not fair. Every piece of furniture is the culmination of the designer’s experiences, influences and previous work. We’re just the blender that takes these ingredients and frapps the frothy result. And so I try to acknowledge these influences whenever possible.
For this chair, the most obvious inspiration is the later chairs of John Brown, author of “Welsh Stick Chairs.” In learning more about the life of John Brown, I discovered Christopher Williams, who worked closely with Brown on these chairs to refine and lighten the historical examples. (We are bringing Chris back in 2019 for at least one – maybe two – more incredible classes on building his chair.)
Chris’s chairs are very dramatic (and I say that in the best possible way). I don’t have the stones to use the rake and splay he does on his legs. So I started with an 18th- or 19th-century Welsh chair shown in a Shire booklet on Welsh furniture that was written by Richard Bebb.
Here’s where some of the other elements of the chair come from. The raised spindle deck is a design feature I’ve been playing with for a year or more. I developed it out of frustration, really. I have always tried to get a crazy-crisp gutter between the spindle deck and the seat. And I’ve never managed to make myself happy. So by raising the spindle deck, I get that sharp shadow line I want.
The armbow is a typical three-piece bow. On historical chairs, the thicker section usually has a decorative detail on its ends – a bead, ogee or some such. I decided to use a 30° bevel to repeat the bevel on the underside of the seat and the underside of the “hands” of the armbow. Nothing earth-shattering.
The “hands” of my armbow aren’t from any particular source that I am conscious of. Many Welsh chairs have rounded hands, something I wanted to avoid. But I wanted the hands to get wider so the armbow didn’t look static, like a steam-bent armbow. So I used a French curve to accelerate the radius on the armbow until the hands were wider. Then I used a French curve to add a slight arc on the front of the hand to tip my hat to the rounded hands of historical chairs.
I beveled the front of the underside of the hands at 30° so the sitter had something to do while listening to a relative drone.
The crest rail is smaller than I usually make – only 1-3/4” tall. I did this so that it will be easy for other people to make this crest if they don’t have access to thick stock or steam-bending equipment. This crest is cut easily from solid material. The front of the crest is – surprise – a 30° bevel, repeating the other bevels on the chair.
The finish – black over red milk paint – is a process developed by Peter Galbert.
I am sure that there are other influences running through this design that I’m not conscious of. But I am told we have to cut for a commercial break.
Sometimes a customer asks us to recommend a good place to begin when buying our books.
It’s a question we take seriously. Our books are not cheap, they take time to read and each represents years (sometimes decades) of work to get to press. So recommending one of our 33 books is a bit like matchmaking.
Mentally, I arrange our books into a few “tracks” or “traditions.” Today, I’d like to discuss the United Kingdom tradition.
Joseph Moxon’s ‘The Art of Joinery’ “Mechanick Exercises” by Joseph Moxon was the first English-language book on woodworking. We reprinted his section on joinery, called “The Art of Joinery,” and it was Lost Art Press’ first title in 2007.
Moxon’s 17th-century language is a little stilted for modern ears, so I offer commentary on the text and try to explain some of the areas that are confusing. What I love about Moxon is that not much has changed in hand-tool woodworking in more than three centuries. The tools and processes are similar to what I do at the bench every day.
And so the details covered in Moxon are as relevant to me today as when Moxon printed them. Of course, you can get this sort of information from other sources, but understanding the primary source is the best way to separate good technique from Internet self-fondling.
While this was our first book, it’s not necessarily the first Lost Art Press book I’d buy from the U.K. tradition. That book would be Robert Wearing’s “The Essential Woodworker.”
Robert Wearing’s ‘The Essential Woodworker’ We had to fight like hell to get “The Essential Woodworker” back in print. Though the author was supportive, his previous publishing company was as pleasant as a bag of hemorrhoids. The company destroyed the original files and photos (or said they had been destroyed) and pretty much resisted us at every turn – even though the company had let the book lapse years before.
So we rebuilt the book from scratch. We typed in every damn word and made revisions from Wearing. We rescanned the line drawings. We took new photos. The result is my favorite book for the beginning hand-tool woodworker.
“The Essential Woodworker” isn’t really about disconnected skills (sharpening, planing, mortising, dovetailing). Instead it connects all these disparate skills into a way that you can see how they are used together to design and build furniture. For many woodworkers, Wearing’s book puts all the puzzle pieces in order and makes it all “click.”
It did for me.
‘The Joiner & Cabinet Maker’ This almost-forgotten book from the early 1800s tells the story of Thomas, a young apprentice in a rural workshop. It is similar to “The Essential Woodworker” in that it provides a framework for learning the craft through three projects: a packing box, a school box and a chest of drawers. But what is different is that all this happens through a historical lens.
We took the original short book and printed in its entirety, but we also loaded it with historical context from Joel Moskowitz and a modern interpretation (from me). For me “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker” is for woodworkers who also love the History Channel. It will make you look at your shavings, your folding rule and your name stamp in a different and deeper way.
It will make you appreciate that you cannot spell “woodworking” without “working” and help you grasp why historical technique is sometimes different than what we do today.
And you will loathe Sam, the villain of the book.
Charles H. Hayward ‘The Woodworker, Vols. I to IV’ For me, our series of four books from Charles H. Hayward represent the most exhaustive look at the art of joinery in the United Kingdom’s tradition. Hayward, the editor of The Woodworker magazine for more than 30 years, wrote, built and illustrated almost every word of the monthly magazine during his tenure.
He was uniquely talented, thoughtful and skilled as a writer, editor, builder, illustrator and publisher.
We sorted through every issue of The Woodworker published during his editorship and, with the assistance of too many people to mention, we culled it all into these four volumes that cover tools, techniques, joinery, workshops and furniture design.
These books are a joy to read casually and are a reference for almost every hand-tool process I know of. These books are for beginners. They are for hard-bitten professionals. They are (and I rarely say this) something that I wish every woodworker would read.
Unlike some practitioners, Hayward wasn’t myopic. He was fascinated by alternative methods from other woodworkers and other cultures. You can even see his own opinion shift on several key items as he listened to his readers.
For a taste of some of Hayward’s genius, check out the table of contents and the free excerpts available here.
And Some Other Titles…. There are other books we have published that are part of the U.K. tradition that focus on narrower topics. “Doormaking & Window-making” explains just that – using the tools and processes common to the U.K. (and North America). “Campaign Furniture” explores an important form of British furniture that doesn’t get much attention. “Welsh Stick Chairs” is one of the most important books on chairmaking (it’s from Wales). And “Cut & Dried” spends a good deal of its pages explaining the woods common to the U.K. and how they are cut, dried and used.
According to my notes, this is my fourth attempt at building an armchair for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” And to be honest, I don’t know how many sketches I made of this design – probably 80 to 100.
Some of my designs failed for technical reasons. Others were too complex to ask of a first-time chairmaker. This design, however, presses all the right buttons. It is built with off-the-rack lumber using a toolkit that doesn’t require many specialty tools.
The wood is kiln-dried. You don’t need a shavehorse, lathe, steambox or even a drawknife. It’s built using standard timber sizes you can find at any lumberyard. The crest rail, for example, is sawn out of workaday 8/4 red oak – nothing special or expensive.
After gluing up the chair this afternoon, I made a set of detailed wooden patterns so I can replicate the design. These patterns will help me do two things: write the chapter on the chair and teach three classes in 2019 on building it.
Indeed, after a few years off, I’ve decided to teach a few classes in 2019 – one at our storefront, one in Indiana and one in the United Kingdom. I’ll post details on the classes and registration when they become available this fall.
I’m eager to share the design for this chair. Even if you don’t want to take a class with me (there are only so many squirrel jokes a person can take), I’ll be publishing the complete plans for this chair. They will be available for a free download for anyone who has purchased “The Anarchist’s Design Book” from us or any of our retailers.
Those plans probably won’t be available for another year – at least. I still have to build four or five more projects for the expansion. But this chair was the most difficult design, and I’m glad it’s behind me. Well, almost behind me. I still need to paint it.
“Mechanick Exercises” by Joseph Moxon was the first English-language book on woodworking. We reprinted his section on joinery, called “
We had to fight like hell to get “The Essential Woodworker” back in print. Though the author was supportive, his previous publishing company was as pleasant as a bag of hemorrhoids. The company destroyed the original files and photos (or said they had been destroyed) and pretty much resisted us at every turn – even though the company had let the book lapse years before.
This almost-forgotten book from the early 1800s tells the story of Thomas, a young apprentice in a rural workshop. It is similar to “The Essential Woodworker” in that it provides a framework for learning the craft through three projects: a packing box, a school box and a chest of drawers. But what is different is that all this happens through a historical lens.
For me, our 
