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Peter Follansbee Has Left the Building

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Lost Art Press

When I visited Peter Follansbee in his shop at Plimoth Plantation in 2012, it looked as if his shop had always been there and always would.

I wouldn’t call it cluttered, exactly. It was quite tidy. But it was filled with 20 years of tools, work and the bits and pieces that come with a joiner’s life. (For photos from my visit, go here.)

But after 20 years, Peter has left Plimoth to strike out on his own. On one hand, I could not be happier for Peter. Walking away from any organization with its meetings, internal politics and hassle is liberating. But it’s also the end of an era at Plimoth. It appears that Plimoth will not replace Peter.

Peter said they were talking about adding a candle-dipper and soap-maker in his place.

While I have nothing against candles or cleanliness, this is a step backward for woodworking research into the 17th century. Peter, Jennie Alexander and a few others have been at the core of exploring and understanding the lively and robust furniture and tools from the 1600s.

(This isn’t a commercial for his book, but if you don’t own “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” and like green woodworking, you are missing out.)

Peter explains the shape of one of his bowls.

No longer will you be able to visit Plimoth and watch Peter dismantle oak trees with sharp tools and a sharper tongue.

But there is a bright side to all of this. Peter is not slowing down or retiring from joinery. I spoke to him a bit at the Lie-Nielsen Open House last weekend about his new life and he’s keeping quite busy with commercial work, carving spoons and bowls and (I hope) finishing up a book for Lost Art Press.

Peter at work on some birch at the Lie-Nielsen Open House.

That book, tentatively titled “Joiner’s Work,” will focus on the tools, methods and typical pieces of a joiner from the 17th century. He’s been at work on the book for some time – now he just needs the shop space to finish it up.

So if you love Peter’s work like we do here at Lost Art Press, you can lend a hand by following his excellent blog, picking up a copy of his book or DVDs from Lie-Nielsen or perhaps buying a spoon or bowl from his web site. Peter’s no charity case, but every little bit helps when you are starting out on your own.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Hey Peter, sorry about the title of this post. I couldn’t think of a good Bob Dylan song to go with this post. Hence, Elvis.

Tools to Make the Anarchist’s Tool Chest

Posted on July 12, 2014July 13, 2014 by Lost Art Press

The following is a list I should have made four years ago when I first started teaching people how to build the full-size tool chest in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”

Apologies for the delay.

Here are the tools you need.

Dovetailing Equipment
Dovetail saw (15 point or coarser)
Cutting gauge, such as the Tite-Mark
Mechanical pencil
Dovetail layout square (Or a bevel gauge and smallish try square)
Coping saw with several blades (coarse blades, 12 tpi or so)
1/2” bevel-edge chisel
Mallet (I like a 16 oz. model)
Two pair of small dividers

Planes
One bench plane, such as a jack, jointer or smoother
Block plane
Rabbet plane or shoulder plane (if you have one)
If you have a tongue-and-groove plane (or match planes), use them
Beading plane (1/8”, 3/16” or 1/4”)
Plow plane with 1/4” cutter

Nailing equipment
Hand drill
Variety of small bits (1/16” up to 1/8”)
16 oz. hammer
Nail set
Nippers (if you have them)

General Marking/Measuring
12” combination square
12’ tape measure
Spear-point marking knife

Additional Tools
Mortise chisel (1/4″, 5/16″ or a close metric equivalent)
Crosscut handsaw (7 or 8 ppi)
Rip saw (4 to 7 ppi)
Your personal sharpening kit
Clamps (48” bars)

Hardware Installation Tools
Small router plane
Centerpunch
Birdcage awl
Screwdrivers

— Christopher Schwarz

Campaign Birdhouse (And a Movie)

Posted on July 12, 2014July 12, 2014 by Lost Art Press

Campaign birdhouse. It is real. Check it out on my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine.

One (or Two) of Jonathan Fisher’s Workbenches

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Lost Art Press

Jonathan Fisher built a number of workbenches during his life in Blue Hill, Maine, according to woodworker Joshua Klein, who has studied Fisher’s journal in detail.

One of Fisher’s workbenches is a lightweight model that uses a basic Nicholson construction with an unusual base that looks a little like a folding ironing board.

Here are some of the details Klein and I observed while looking over the workbench.

1. The front apron of the bench, which is facing away from the camera in the photo above, has two threaded holes in it that look like they were intended for a twin-screw vise.

2. The benchtop doesn’t have a planing stop. Instead it is bored with a series of holes for wooden pegs. Some pegs are designed to restrain the end of the board; other pegs are designed to restrain the board laterally. It looks a lot like workbenches shown in drawings of Nuremburg woodworkers.

3. The underside of the bench uses four diagonal braces and one horizontal brace to restrain the bench while traversing. The aprons are fastened to the legs with nails, which prevent it from swaying while planing with the grain.

4. The one thing that had Klein and I scratching our heads was the backside of the bench. It looks like the bench had a drop leaf attached with butt hinges. In the middle of the apron are some notches and a semi-circular dado. Our guess is that this was the mechanism for holding the drop leaf up. But we couldn’t figure out how it worked exactly.

Another bench at Blue Hill is a low workbench that looks like a Roman or Estonian model. It is pierces with a lot of holes for pegs (or jigs). There is some evidence of sawing and chiseling that was done on the bench – but not a lot.

This could have been a low workbench that Fisher used. Or perhaps it’s a sitting bench that was used occasionally for woodworking.

— Christopher Schwarz

To read more about Jonathan Fisher and his woodworking, check out these links.

Jonathan Fisher’s Tool Chest (and Tools)
Jonathan Fisher. Begin the Begin
Friday’s Fisher House Tour
The Congregationalist’s Tool Chest

Jonathan Fisher’s Tool Chest (and Tools)

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Lost Art Press

Immediately after arriving in Maine last week, Thomas Lie-Nielsen took me and some of his key employees to the Farnsworth Art Museum in nearby Rockland, Maine. The trip was to view the tools contained in Jonathan Fisher’s tool chest.

Joshua Klein, a woodworker who has been studying Fisher, met us at the museum and we were quickly taken to the Farnsworth’s administrative offices upstairs. There, in a corner room, the employees had laid out about 50 of Fisher’s tools with his tool chest sitting on the floor against the wall.

It was an interesting, and somewhat unusual, collection of tools. Of course, Fisher was an interesting and unusual fellow who invented and built all sorts of contrivances and recorded them in his illustrated journal. Some of the things on the table we couldn’t identify. Could that be a slitting tool used to make woven hats (the Fisher family made a lot of hats)?

Other tools were quite familiar.

With the help of the museum staff we examined the tools, asked a lot of questions out loud and simply puzzled over some of the objects in this unique collection. Klein was interested in the tools because he has been researching Fisher’s woodworking (perhaps for a future book). Lie-Nielsen was particularly interested because Fisher is one of his relatives.

(By the way, if you haven’t read anything about Jonathan Fisher, check out the web site for his house museum here. The Wikipedia entry on him only scratches the surface. He was a remarkable and industrious man.)

During our visit to the Farnsworth, I kept focusing on Fisher’s long planes, especially his jack, try and jointer planes. All three of them were festooned with an unusual triangular indentation. The “stippling,” for lack of a better word, was only on the sidewalls of these planes. It wasn’t on top of the stock. And it wasn’t on the sole. (Interestingly, it also wasn’t on his smoothing plane nor any of the moulding planes we examined.)

What was this this for? Deneb Puchalski of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks wondered if it could be something to improve one’s grip on the plane. But the stippling was everywhere on the sidewalls, and not on the top of the plane where you grip it.

There was no rhyme or reason for the marks, and so my speculation is this: It was done by a bored child who was allowed to decorate the sides of the planes with a hammer and some sort of triangular tool.

We might never know the answer. Or perhaps Klein will uncover the answer in one of Fisher’s letters or an unread journal entry.

Next time: One (or perhaps two) of Fisher’s many workbenches.

— Christopher Schwarz