Free domestic shipping for Peter Galbert’s “Chairmaker’s Notebook” ends at midnight Friday. After that, standard domestic shipping for the book will be about $8 (depending on where you live).
The book will ship from the printing plant on March 25 and arrive in our warehouse a day after that. Our fulfillment service has pledged to set up a special assembly line to process all of the pre-publication orders immediately. All books will go out using FedEx’s “SmartPost” service with reliable tracking and delivery within 5-7 days.
We had to change how we offer free shipping in our store for this book. To receive free domestic shipping on this book, use the coupon code Chair at checkout.
If you’d like to preview a free chapter of this remarkable book, click here.
For a video of Peter explaining his work, click here.
To watch a video of some of our favorite drawings from the book, click here.
And to read more about the book and order a copy, visit the Lost Art Press store.
After struggling with the inexpensive wood-threading tools from China and Taiwan, I have been looking for a better way to tap and thread hardwoods.
I purchased the Big Threader by Beall Tool Co. a couple years ago to try it out. It works brilliantly, but you need a router to power it. And setting the cut is fussy to get the results you want. It’s a lot like a router-powered dovetail jig in that once you get it set up, it’s brilliant. But the setup is a pain when you want to make one or two threaded rods.
While interviewing Jennie Alexander last May, she showed me her German tap and wood threader, a tool she has had for many years and worked perfectly. I’d seen this threader on the Dieter Schmid web site many times before, but the price was too high for me to take a gamble on it.
But after talking to Jennie at length, I bucked up and put the 28mm (approximately 1-1/8”) kit in my shopping cart (see all the sizes here). My rationale? I’d already spent $300 on non-functioning wood-threading kits, perhaps I should have just bought this German one at the outset.
Dieter Schmid has a lot of customers in North America, so shipping was fast and easy. I had the tool in about two weeks.
The threader and tap are extremely well made. And after experimenting with it a lot this winter, I can recommend it for those who can afford it. It makes crisp threads with little effort. Here are some helpful details if you follow me down this path.
The tool is metric, and while you can get away with Imperial tooling, you’ll be better off switching your brain to metric for this operation.
The wooden dowel should be 28mm or slightly undersized for the male threads. I turned my dowels from straight-grain maple to 1.10”, which slipped right into the threader with no wobble. This makes for crisp threads.
The nice thing about the threader is it makes threads with a square tip – not triangular. These square, acme-like threads are more durable. The downside to the threader is that it leaves a 1-1/2” long area of a handle unthreaded, as you can see in the photo above. This is caused by the long collar of the threader. The long collar improves the accuracy of the tool, so it’s a trade-off.
The tap works with a 23mm-diameter hole. I recommend buying a 23mm Forstner instead of using 1-1/8”. You can buy these on eBay for less than $10. The tap cuts cleanly in both hardwoods and harder soft woods, such as yellow pine.
My only caveat to the tap is I recommend chamfering the entry hole or the leading cutter of the tap can, on occasion, splinter the work.
One last detail about the tools: Jennie recommends using tallow on the cutter and I second that recommendation. The tallow makes the job easier and prevents chips from jamming into the V-cutter, which will spoil the dowel.
So I’m happy to report that my search for a good wood-threading kit is over. It was an expensive journey, but I now have an excellent working tool that doesn’t require a router.
If you are interested in some of the staked furniture I’ve been building, such as this three-legged backstool, or in making a Roorkee chair, here are the joinery tools I use.
I make no apologies for these tools. I need stuff that is durable, not only because I use it all the time but so do my students. So it has to be monkey-proof. Also, you’ll notice that I use reaming equipment with a 12° included angle. The world of chairmakers is split on what angle is best. I have found both work fine. So that’s my answer to the question: “What do you think about 6°?”
Wood Owl Auger Bits About two years ago I switched to Wood Owl Ultra Smooth Augers after working for years with vintage augers. These Japanese-made bits are the best I’ve ever found. They cut fast and clean, and they clear chips with ease. Plus you can get them sized by 16ths. Yes, they are technically metric. No, it doesn’t technically matter.
I use the 5/8” Wood Owl in a brace to bore the initial hole for the mortise. It’s $15.95 from Traditional Woodworker.
Large Veritas Standard Tapered Reamer This Canadian-made reamer works incredibly well in a brace, corded drill or drill press. That’s why I prefer it to Veritas’s professional reamer, which can be used only in a brace. I’ll get about a dozen chairs out of an edge before I need to stone the edge, which I do with a diamond paddle.
My only gripe about the tool is it doesn’t have to be this long – I plan to grind off the first 3/8” of the reamer for my work.
I usually drive this reamer with a heavy-duty corded drill. My second choice is using it in a brace.
Vesper Sliding Bevel I have an incurable case of Chris Vesper Fever. He is one of the best two or three living toolmakers I’ve ever met. His stuff has the precision of Karl Holtey – and I can afford it on my salary. I use the small one for chairmaking and staked furniture because I can sneak it right up next to the auger bit or reamer. The blade of a large bevel can get in the way during these operations.
Warning: Once you buy one of his tools, you will likely buy more.
Veritas 5/8” Tapered Tenon Cutter This is the matching tenon cutter to the reamer above. It works like a giant pencil sharpener. Simply shave (or turn) your tenon near to its finished size. Then take it for a spin in the tenon cutter and you will have a tenon that perfectly matches the tapered mortise.
The blade is easy to remove and sharpen – it’s about the size of a spokeshave blade.
These tools – or their equivalent – will get you started making almost anything with a tapered, back-wedged joint. As Master Kenobi said: “You’ve just taken the first steps into a larger world.”
After three straight months of editing and writing during all waking (and drinking) hours, I was starting to wake up sore in the morning. Not the “I can’t look my spouse in the eye after last night’s weird” sore. It was the kind of soreness from my muscles dying.
Sitting all day. Typing all day. Processing photos all day. By Sunday morning I felt like a recovering coma patient.
So today I shoved aside all the clackety-clack and dove into the next project for “The Furniture of Necessity” – a staked dining table. I have been designing this thing on paper and in my head for months now. It’s such a nutty but perfect thing that I’ve been saving it like a tasty morsel buried in the backyard.
I was going to make the entire thing out of yellow pine. But after a stop at the lumberyard this morning I noticed the employees were restocking the hard maple rack. There I found a clear white board with amazingly straight grain.
After six hours of work I roughed out the six (six?) legs for this table, got them into octagons and then tapered them with a handplane. Tomorrow I expect to be sore in new places.
But at least sitting down tonight feels good – like it should.
People just like what I do and buy it. As for schooling, my clients are my teachers. They’re the ones who bring me the design problems. Schools get too easily divorced from the real world. In many places students graduate and become teachers without ever making a living from their work. They grow stale. There’s a preciousness I see in a lot of student work that comes from having too many hours to put into it. Perfection is fine, and nothing has left my shop that I’m not proud of, but you have to produce if you are going to make a living. I’ve heard people say they have to put a piece of wood aside until the spirit hits them. That’s procrastination. Pick it up and work it – you’ll feel the spirit. No, I think it’s an advantage being self-taught.
