Joshua Klein during a visit to Jonathan Fisher’s Maine home.
Joshua Klein, a woodworker and conservator in Maine, is now accepting pre-publication orders for the first issue of Mortise & Tenon Magazine, which looks to be very interesting reading.
You might have heard of Klein through his blog, The Workbench Diary, or some of the stories I’ve written about his research of Jonathan Fisher (Klein is writing a book about Fisher for us, by the way).
In addition to his conservation work, a young family, taking apart a house for later reconstruction and writing a book for us, Klein has poured an enormous amount of energy into Mortise & Tenon Magazine to make sure it is a high-quality, well-made publication.
Take a look at the table of contents for the first issue here.
Then click on the “Pre-order Now” button. The first issue is just $24 – a bargain for such a labor of love. I ordered mine as soon as I got up this morning.
Whether you like old furniture, handwork or conservation, you’ll find a lot in the first issue to love.
Because I’m not teaching anytime in the near future (and because I quite enjoy eating), I have time to film three new DVDs with the crew at Popular Woodworking Magazine.
The first one, which we begin filming Monday morning, is the bookcase project from my upcoming book “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” It’s a contemporary bookcase built entirely by hand using nails, dados, rabbets, tongue-and-groove joinery and hide glue.
I spent a lot of time rethinking book storage when designing this piece. As a publisher, book collector and woodworker, I have a lot of things I like and dislike about book storage. I hate sagging shelves. And I think a lot of our choices when using adjustable shelves are ill-conceived.
This project is as much a treatise on bookshelves as a lesson in building something by hand.
The second project is on making chairs without chairmaking tools. It was inspired by the stick chair I built for “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” but I’ll be designing a new (but similar) chair for the DVD.
Many woodworkers are intimidated by chairmaking because of the angles, tools required and the tradition of using green wood. After building chairs for almost 12 years now for customers, I have developed methods for building chairs using cabinetmaking tools.
I don’t have a shavehorse, froe or many other traditional tools. And you can make a gorgeous chair without those tools if you use your noggin.
The third project is the my ambitious yet.
After many years of putting it off, I’ve decided to do a DVD on building “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” from start to finish on DVD. This project will probably eat up a month of time to do right – and I will do it right. During the last five years of building this chest over and over in classes, I’ve learned a few things about making it easier for beginners to build.
And because people actually seem interested in making this chest – which I love as much as my bench – I feel obligated to do this for all those who cannot afford to take a class and need a little help in getting started.
Those of you who know me personally know that I really dislike being on camera. I’d rather have a double colonoscopy. (What’s that? From both ends? Shudder.) But I’ll take a stiff drink in the morning and muddle my way through.
I adore my Millers Falls mitre box, and I’ve been bemused by a recent backlash against mitre boxes, which ruled the American worksite and garage during the first half of the 20th century.
The argument against a mitre box is that you don’t need it. You should develop your sawing skills to the point where you don’t need a mechanical contrivance to hold the saw for you. The things are training wheels. And you are a candy-bottom wuss girl if you use one.
To these people I say this: You don’t cut many miters, do you?
Metallic manual mitre boxes are more accurate than the electric miter saw in my experience. They allow a level of finesse and control that you aren’t going to get with freehand sawing. And chances are, if you aren’t a nincompoop, your miters will be dead-on off the saw with a mitre box.
Oh, and when armed with a shooting board they radically decrease your need for a table saw.
If you own a mitre box, you need to know how to maintain and use it.
So this evening I present to you a scan of a vintage Millers Falls manual for using the company’s mitre boxes. I guarantee that even if you are an ace, you are going to learn something from this short little manual.
The manual was given to me by the late Carl Bilderback. During my last visit to his home, he asked me to take his library. To keep the books that I didn’t have. And to give the rest away to deserving young woodworkers.
This vintage manual is one of about 100 books and manuals Carl owned that I did not.
So I present it to you in a free pdf you can download here:
It isn’t often that I’m enthused about poor craftsmanship, but when I’m trying to demolish something, drywall screws and questionable joinery are most welcome.
I spent yesterday at our new building with a wrecking bar and a sledge hammer – trying to prep the place for a big Dec. 12 demolition party. We’re going to remove the 1980s-era bar (leaving the 1890s one intact) and haul out all the layers of crap that have been applied to the interior during the last 60 years.
There are a lot of false walls and odd black-light lighting fixtures that I wanted to remove, and I thought I’d get a good start on the project yesterday.
But thanks to the ridiculous way everything was assembled, it all came down with little effort. In some cases it was the paint that was holding everything intact.
Hooray for poor workmanship.
So with that part done, I began the demolition of the ceramic floor. While the cement board below came up easily I then encountered a layer of good craftsmanship. The person who laid the floor below the cement board did a good job. It’s a circa 1950s (or earlier) composite material that is still stuck down and still seamless (so far).
Mike Siemsen’s “The Naked Woodworker” has inspired thousands of new woodworkers to get off their duffs, buy a basic set of tools and get down to business building sawbenches and a dang-straight workbench.
What has been surprising for us at Lost Art Press is how the DVD continues to sell and pick up new woodworkers. When we went to Minnesota two years ago to film the DVD we had a great time hunting for rust and building stuff with Mike, but we didn’t expect the response to his DVD to be this strong today.
We think it has a lot to do with his wacky van. But that’s another story for another round of beers.
Check out these two recent blog entries on “The Naked Woodworker:”
Bill “Woodnerd” Traynor writes about how the DVD inspired his first workbench and “birthed a new woodworker.” No foolin’. Check it out here.
And even if you are a more experienced woodworker, check out how the DVD inspired Greg Merritt to build the sawbenches and bench featured in the DVD. Good stuff. It’s here.
We hope to get Mike to do another video on some upgrades he’s made to his bench that he was showing off at Woodworking in America. So stay tuned.
