Jeff Burks turned up this fantastic image from the 1850 book “Bilder des Todes oder Todtentanz für alle Stände” (“Images of death or the Dance of Death for all classes”) illustrated by Johann Gottfried Flegel and written by Carl Merkel.
See the complete book here.
In August we are hosting a coffin-building party for a few friends (it’s part of the research for “Furniture of Necessity”). I am sure that at some point during the weekend we’ll be re-enacting this image.
— Christopher Schwarz
I hate hearing someone say: “I would get in to woodworking but I can’t afford the equipment.”
Woodworking does not have to be an expensive hobby. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. A simple workbench can be built in a day with hand tools for about $100. Many tools can be picked up at garage sales and at tool meets. Online auctions or classified sections of woodworking lists such as WoodNet are another great source, as are Craigslist and e-bay.
Do you really need stationary equipment for your hobby? Machines can be expensive – moving them, getting your shop wired, dust collection and etc. will add up quick. Many times it is quicker to do something by hand than to set up a machine or design jigs for machines to do the job.
I find that machines pay off when making multiples. It is the skills that are hard to come by. Lack of skill is what really costs us time and money. The $5 handsaw is rusty and dull, so you need to know how to clean and sharpen it. Find someone to show you how or take a class; learn to do it properly and well. You may have $100 invested in that first saw when you are done, but you also will have a new skill. While your next rusty saw will be $5 plus your time to clean it up, you will also know if it is any good before you buy it.
Learn how to saw. Many of the tools we buy are created to replace a skill, to make a task so easy a child could do it. They very seldom live up to their hype. How many of you have purchased a tool to improve your dovetails or to enable you to saw better?
The chisel needs to be used and understood before you move on to the saw and plane. You probably don’t need a new chisel; you need to learn how to efficiently sharpen the one you have.
You need to know the properties of wood before you can work it properly, including how to read grain direction and plan for wood movement. Knowledge is the thrifty woodworker’s friend. Knowledge will ensure your materials are stored properly, tools and equipment are maintained, the shop is clean and organized and layouts are done efficiently for both time and materials.
Knowledge of power tools, if you choose to use them, can save you time, money and pain; know how to safely use them. Using a power jointer and planer can save a lot of preparation time if you don’t get your hand in there. Power tools are also efficient at spoiling material if you don’t really know what you are doing. “Knowing” that you need a tool to be more efficient at your work is better than “hoping” that a new shiny gee-gaw will make you a better woodworker. Don’t buy a tool that you can’t maintain unless you plan to pay to have someone else do the maintenance. You cannot buy your way in.
Say you buy a shop full of tools and equipment and a pile of wood, now what? Buy some plans? Hire somebody to come in and do the work?
—Mike Siemsen, Mike Siemsen School of Woodworking
Editor’s note: We are in the final stages of Mike’s new DVD “The Naked Woodworker.” It will be a two-DVD set. More details in the coming week.
Like a sharp knife, cutting lists are helpful when used properly but downright dangerous in the wrong hands.
Case-in-point: In the 1990s I wrote an article on building a Limbert bookcase and had an error in my cutting list. I think I had the kick piece as the wrong width. Anyway, I soon got a phone call from an angry reader. He was making a run of these bookcases to sell and had cut out all the parts to the exact sizes in the cutting list. When it came time to assemble his bookcases, he discovered my error.
He demanded that I reimburse him for the wood he wasted because of the mistake.
When someone gives me a cutting list, I consider it as accurate as a map sketched on a napkin. It will probably get me where I’m going, but only with some interpretation, flexibility and wrong turns.
If I’m going to build a run of something, then I need to develop a cutting list that will account for small variations in the construction process. It needs to be a map that will get me to my destination every time.
That is the sort of cutting list that I design when teaching classes. The school needs a cutting list with finished sizes so their employees can cut everything before the class begins. Each student needs a pile of boards that will always create the desired object.
For example, here is the cutting list I’ve developed for the Dutch tool chest class. It is different than the cutting list I published in Popular Woodworking Magazine. If you cut all these parts to the exact sizes listed below, then you will be able to build the chest, even if you make a slight flub or two.
Item T W L
2 Sides .75” 11.25” 24”
1 Bottom .75” 11.25” 27”
1 Shelf .75” 11.25” 26.5”*
1 Front .75” 7.5” 27.125”*
1 Bottom lip .75” 1.5” 27.125”*
1 Lid .75” 16”* 28”
2 Skids .75” 1.25” 11”
4 Back boards .75” 7.25” 27.125”*
1 Fall-front .75” 9”* 27.125”*
2 Panel battens .5” 1.5” 8”
1 Catch .75” .75” 4”
1 Lock .25” 2” 18”*
* This dimension is slightly oversized for trimming
Note that some pieces are marked as “oversized.” These oversized pieces accommodate the most common mistakes people make when building this chest:
1. The shelf is overlong in case you make the dados in the sides too deep.
2. The bottom lip and fall-front are over-long so you can trim them to the final size of your chest.
3. The backboards are (in aggregate) wider than necessary because some people mess up the tongue-and-groove joint and need the forgiveness.
4. The lid, fall-front and front pieces of the chest are over-wide because some students muck up the 30° angle on the case’s sides. If the angle is too steep or too shallow, then these dimensions need to change.
Bottom line: Never trust a cutting list. Or, as we were taught in journalism school: “If your mother says she loves you, verify it.”
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The photo above shows my small Dutch chest with its new lower case. You can read more about it on my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine here.
After wallowing in images of campaign furniture for the last three years, it became clear to me that many of its core principles – clean design, good joinery, nice wood – had been grafted onto the Danish Modern style.
Some of the connections are obvious, such as the relationship between the Roorkee chair and Kaare Klint’s Safari Chair, which I point out in my book “Campaign Furniture.” But today, Caleb James made another important connection between the two styles.
Caleb has long been a fan and a maker of Danish Modern furniture, though now he focuses more on planemaking and Windsor chairs.
Caleb sent me photos of a secretary by Peter Hvidt (1916–1986), which has many of the hallmarks (or perhaps vestigial organs) of campaign furniture. A little more research turned up some other close stylistic connections between Hvidt’s designs and those from the Victorian campaign style. Let’s take a look.
1. It’s a dresser on a low stand. Like campaign pieces, Hvidt’s case pieces commonly have a plinth that mimics the turned feet that are common on campaign pieces.
2. Recessed pulls. Like campaign pieces, Hvidt’s “pulls” are recessed into the case and suggest the traditional swan-neck pulls on old chests of drawers – just like campaign pieces.
3. A horizontal line between the cases. Though most of Hvidt’s cases don’t break down into two separate carcases, he put in a blade in the middle of the case that echos the division of the two case pieces in campaign furniture.
4. Excellent joinery. Hvidt’s cases are characterized by strong joinery, such as finger joints and dovetails. Campaign stuff is all about joinery that can survive rough treatment.
5. Nice wood. Lots of Hvidt’s pieces are wide teak boards. Lots of campaign pieces are wide teak boards.
Here are some other Hvidt pieces to explore.
Thanks to Caleb for sending these on. More research to come….
— Christopher Schwarz
If you want to get more tools into your Dutch tool chest, check this out.
Mike Siemsen, host of the forthcoming “The Naked Woodworker” DVD, built a Dutch tool chest with (at least) two interesting twists.
1. He added an extra tool rack to the fall-front of the chest to hold small tools. Many students have threatened to transform their fall-fronts into something useful, such as a shooting board or bench hook. But I have yet to see any who succeeded. Mike’s idea definitely works. (So far, the only other successful adaptation has been to use the fall-front as a cheese board.)
2. Mike transformed his two sliding locks into winding sticks. Actually, they always were winding sticks. But he painted one stick black to make them easier to use.
Caleb James, a planemaker, chairmaker and (I hope) soon-to-be-author, made a nice Dutch chest that he brought along to the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in Charleston, S.C., this spring. (He also brought along a knock-down Nicholson workbench that I didn’t get to photograph. Curses.)
Caleb did something very cool with his sliding locks. He made them into notched battens that he could use with holdfasts on his workbench. You can see one of the sliding locks on his workbench in the photo above, but the notched section is covered by a handplane.
If you cannot visualize a notch there, check out this entry that explains things.
— Christopher Schwarz