I’ve just posted a blog entry that shows the evolution of the Crucible Improved Pattern Dividers (and explained why they have that name. Check it out here.
— Christopher Schwarz
Author: Lost Art Press
Publisher of woodworking books and videos specializing in hand tool techniques.
Build a Welsh Stick Chair with Chris Williams
As many of you know, Chris Williams is writing a book about the 10 years he spent with Welsh chairmaker John Brown, who was Chris’s mentor and friend. The book, which is well underway, will detail John Brown’s woodworking life using Chris’s personal story, interviews with woodworkers all over the world and 20 of John Brown’s best columns for Good Woodworking magazine.
In addition to the narrative of this influential woodworker and writer, the book will detail how John Brown built his chairs using the techniques and patterns handed down to Chris.
This is not the same chair shown in John Brown’s book “Welsh Stick Chairs.” That chair was one of his early forms. After more than a decade of work, the design of John Brown’s chairs evolved into something else entirely. Something spectacular, really. Readers of Good Woodworking got a glimpse of these chairs in the 1990s, and these later chairs are what made me take up the tools and make chairs myself.
For a glimpse of this sort of work, I encourage you to visit Chris’s website and, more importantly, follow Chris on Instagram for a near daily look at his work.
To help re-introduce this style of chair to North America, we hope to bring Chris to our shop here in Covington, Ky., May 21-25, 2018, to lead a group of six woodworkers in building this chair. The class would be held in our storefront on Willard Street. Because of the intense nature of this class, we would encourage participants to have some chairmaking experience under their belts (or a lot of experience with handwork).
The Cost of the Class
The class would be $1,500 for the week plus a small fee for materials. This is a considerable expense for a week-long class, so an explanation is in order. For starters, this will be an intimate class – just six students, one instructor and an assistant (me). It will be a different experience than schools that have 12, 18 or even 30 students in a class. Second, we have to get Chris and his tools to Kentucky all the way from Wales. And, most importantly, we have to make it worth his while. This is not a Lost Art Press venture. Neither I nor Lost Art Press will make a dime off of this event. All the proceeds go to Chris to support his important work.
In addition to learning to make this gorgeous chair, participants also will learn a lot about John Brown. Chris is filled with great stories about the man that could be pried loose with a pint or a glass of wine.
The Setting
Covington is a nice little city in the shadow of downtown Cincinnati. And the shop is walking distance to lots of hotels, restaurants, breweries and two of the best bourbon bars in the United States. The storefront is a great place to work – lots of natural light and workbenches.
We’ll be able to provide participants a list of nearby hotels and AirBnBs that range from $65 a night and up. Our shop is a 10-minute drive the Cincinnati International Airport (CVG) and we’re just a few blocks from I-75.
But before we plow forward on bringing Chris here, we’d like to hear from you. If you are interested in participating in this event, please leave a comment below. This will help us judge the interest among woodworkers. Thanks in advance for your help.
— Christopher Schwarz, editor, Lost Art Press
Personal site: christophermschwarz.com
Personal note: No, I’m not opening a school; nor am I returning to teaching. What do I get out of this? I get to watch Chris work and listen to his stories about John Brown, which will make me a better editor for the book. Plus, this class will help expose woodworkers to a fantastic chair design.
Building Crucible Inventory for Christmas
During the last two months, John, Raney and I have been building up our inventory of dividers, holdfasts and design curves at Crucible Tool to ensure we don’t run out during the holidays.
We’ve also been working on a new product – a lump hammer – that we hope to launch before the end of the year. Details on the hammer will come in the next few weeks as we get the handles finalized (the heads are done and designed).
As a result of all this production work (plus my duties at Lost Art Press and finishing some furniture commissions), I have been lax in writing about our tools. But, on the other hand, I’ve been using the hell out of our tools in the shop.
Our iron holdfasts are as important to my work as my leg vise. They get hit dozens of times a day to secure doe’s feet or workpieces at my French workbench. These are the only holdfasts that haven’t failed me (you know, when you hit a holdfast and it only bounces in the hole). Even when I’m securing stuff 8” off the bench, these cinch down as gently or as fiercely as you like.
I also love how my holdfasts have aged during the last 18 months in my shop. They are dark grey and nicely dented. I’m glad we didn’t opt to powder coat them or attempt to block the natural aging process.
The improved pattern dividers are always on my bench. They’re in my hand when I’m thinking. They’re in my hand when I’m laying out joints. They sit on the bench as a reminder of what’s important – accuracy not precision. As these dividers have broken in, I’m glad we took the extra step to make the hinge’s tension adjustable. Some blacksmith-made dividers I have in my shop have some slop in the mechanism. When you move the tips, they adjust suddenly for about 1/16” and then move tightly. You can tighten these up with a hammer, but it’s tricky.
Ours do not have this slop. And the reason they don’t have slop is one of the reasons they cost what they do.
Interestingly, the design curves haven’t seen as much use as the other two tools. But I haven’t been doing much designing during the last few months. I’ve used them to help design the arm bow for a staked armchair I’m (still) working on. But these curves have mostly sat on my desk, waiting to be used. I can say they have remained quite flat all summer – yay for seven layers of bamboo.
So apologies for the silence on the front of Crucible Tool. You can expect more information about using our tools in the coming months – there’s lots to explore with these tools.
— Christopher Schwarz
‘Roman Workbenches’ Isn’t Quite Right
Today I glued up my recreation of the Roman workbench from the Saalburg fort and museum outside Frankfurt, Germany. The Saalburg bench is, as far as I know, the oldest surviving workbench from about 187 A.D. And as I pounded home the maple wedges, I pondered how the title of my book – “Roman Workbenches” – isn’t quite correct.
While two of the benches I’ve built for this book are definitely Roman, with a third from the Holy Roman Empire, the thrust of the book isn’t about Rome or the workbenches that came from there. It’s about the workholding on early benches.
Thanks to the paintings dug up by Suzanne Ellison and the addition of my active imagination, the book is becoming a treatise on: “Look, you don’t need a lot of complex devices on your bench to build fine furniture. You just need to be smarter than physics.”
For about 1,500 years, these forgotten workbench appliances were common on both low benches and high ones. Then we became a mechanical people. We tried to make our lives easier by inventing devices that would assist us in our work. I’m sure there’s some formal name for this idea. Until someone tells it to me, I’m going to call it “Arthur’s Law.”
(W. Brian Arthur was an economics professor at Stanford University and is now at the Santa Fe Institute. He wrote in 1993: “Complexity tends to increase as functions and modifications are added to a system to break through limitations, handle exceptional circumstances or adapt to a world itself more complex.”)
I’m not saying complexity itself is a bad thing. Some systems are complicated. But many times we attempt to overcome a problem with additional complexity when the answer might actually be simplicity.
So while the glue dries on this bench I’m going to give the title of this book some more thought. Likely I’m going to stick with “Roman Workbenches” because that’s where the historical record of these benches begins.
— Christopher Schwarz, editor, Lost Art Press
Personal site: christophermschwarz.com
Editor’s Journal: Summer is Over
On Friday – I think it was Friday – I had my first normal day since June 7, which is the day I left for Germany to see the Saalburg workbench and teach at Dictum GmbH.
Since that trip I’ve been on a nonstop schedule of traveling, taking care of unexpected (and important) family business and trying to keep up with all my publishing obligations. I failed spectacularly. Everything got so crazy that I had to do something very unusual: I canceled my trip last month to the UK and the European Woodworking Show.
While I regret missing that trip, those seven days were a gift and helped me get back on my feet. I was able to take care of some pressing family stuff, finish up some furniture commissions, complete a magazine article I was two months late on and get “From Truths to Tools” and “Carving the Acanthus Leaf” on a fast track to the printer.
So on Friday, I woke up and drank two cups of coffee. I opened my calendar and saw the day was empty. Absolutely clear. I decided to turn off my phone, leave my laptop closed and focus on building my reproduction of the Saalburg workbench for a forthcoming book. Thanks to that day of bliss, the bench now needs just a little cleaning up before I assemble it.
I just opened my calendar for the coming week. Monday is clear. So I think it’s going to be finished by Tuesday.
This post is a reminder (to myself) that somethings have to fall apart. And it’s an apology to all the people I owe phone calls and emails to. I’ll get to them in the next week or so. Just as soon as I have just a few more empty days of healing handwork. I wish I could bottle that stuff.
— Christopher Schwarz, editor, Lost Art Press
Personal site: christophermschwarz.com
