Lately I’ve noticed that no matter how careful I am when chopping dovetails that the ends of the tools’ hornbeam handles will become slightly dimpled and dented after striking them with my mallet.
Even more disturbing is that the face of my mallet also becomes slightly dinged when I strike my tools with it.
To remedy this problem, I considered wrapping the handles and the mallet in electrical tape, but I was worried that the adhesive on the backside of the tape would damage the finish on both tools. I experimented with using rubber bands to affix small dollhouse pillows to the mallet, but the rubber bands kept snapping after a few joints.
And so I’ve asked my former shop assistant, Ty Black, to sew up some leather sleeves – condoms, actually – with some elastic openings to keep the leather in place on the tools during use.
I’ve asked him to use veg-tan leather – not chromium tanned – so as to ensure the leather covers will not tarnish my tools.
My hope is that this solution will work well enough that I can also implement it on all my wooden-bodied planes – I have noticed some dents on their wedges lately.
Another disturbing shop problem has been the fact that oil (and perhaps perspiration) from my hands appears to be working its way into the totes of my handplanes, discoloring them in an uneven and unsightly pattern.
I considered wrapping friction tape around them to protect them, but again, I am unsure about how the chemicals in the adhesive will interact with the alkyd varnish on the totes. And so I’ve purchased a pair of ventilated nitrile gloves – nitrile on the palm with a cotton weave on the back – to wear when I am planing.
I know that gloves in the workshop are a safety concern, so I will continue to look for a better solution.
The standard edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” is now available for pre-publication ordering. If you order before Oct. 10, 2013, when the book ships, you will receive free domestic shipping.
The book is $43 and is available in our store here.
We had announced earlier that the book would be $40, but because of some last-minute changes to the printing specifications, we had to raise the price to $43. Apologies.
About the Book
“To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” is the first English-language translation of the most important woodworking book of the 18th century.
A team of translators, writers, woodworkers, editors and artists worked more than six years to bring this first volume of A.-J. Roubo’s work to an English audience. (Future volumes of Roubo’s other works on woodworking are forthcoming.)
While the title of this work implies that it is about marquetry alone, that is not the case. “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” covers a wide range of topics of interest to woodworkers who are interested in hand-tool woodworking or history.
In addition to veneer and marquetry, this volume contains sections on grinding, sharpening, staining, finishing, wood selection, a German workbench, clock-case construction, engraving and casting brasses.
But most of all, “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” provides a window into the woodworking world of the 18th century, a world that is both strangely familiar and foreign.
Roubo laments the decline of the craft in the 18th century. He decries the secrecy many masters employed to protect craft knowledge. He bemoans the cheapening of both goods and the taste of customers.
And he speaks to the reader as a woodworker who is talking to a fellow woodworker. Unlike many chroniclers of his time, Roubo was a journeyman joiner (later a master) who interviewed his fellow tradesmen to produce this stunning work. He engraved many of the plates himself. And he produced this work after many years of study.
The Lost Art Press edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” is printed to high standards rarely seen in the market today. Printed and bound in the United States, the 264-page book is printed on acid-free #60-pound paper in black and white. The pages are Smythe sewn so the book will be durable. And the cover is made from heavy 120-point boards covered in cotton cloth. The book is 8-1/2” x 12”.
In addition to the translated text, essays on the text from author Donald C. Williams and all of the beautiful plates, “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” includes an introduction by W. Patrick Edwards of the American School of French Marquetry, an appendix on the life of Roubo and a complete index.
The book’s table of contents is below and here. You also can download a sample section of the book here on sawing veneer with this link: Roubo sample pages.
“To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” is available direct from Lost Art Press and from our select retailers.
To Make as Perfectly as Possible
The Different Woods Appropriate for Cabinetry
Section I.
Description of the Woods of the Indies, and Their Qualities, Relative to Cabinetmaking
Alphabetic Table of the Foreign Woods
Why Not Dalbergisterie?
Descriptions of French Wood Appropriate for Cabinetry
Colors in general, and the Woods from the Indies and from France with Regards to their different colors and their nuances
The different Compositions of Dyes appropriate for dyeing Woods, and how to use them
Section II.
On the sawing of Wood appropriate for Cabinetmaking
On Sawing Veneer
Description of Cabinetmakers’ Tools
Section III.
The Frames [Cases] appropriate to receive Veneerwork, and how to prepare them and construct them
Of Simple Parquetry, or the Composing of it in General
The Parqueteur’s Tool Kit
Section I.
The diverse sorts of Compositions in general: some detail and the Arrangement of wood veneer
Various sorts of Compositions, straight as well as circular
Make Banding With Roubo’s Template Blocks
The manner of cutting and adjusting the pieces so they are straight, and the proper Tools
Cutting and Assembling Cubic Hexagons
The manner of cutting curved pieces, and the tools that are appropriate
The 18th-century Shoulder Knife
Section II.
The manner of gluing and veneering Marquetry
Why Does Hammer Veneering Work? And How Can it be Made Better? 117
Section III.
The way to finish Veneer Work, and some different types of polish
Finishing Marquetry
Ornate Cabinetry, Called Mosaic Or Painted Wood, An Overview
Section I.
Elementary principles of Perspective, which knowledge is absolutely necessary for Cabinetmakers
Section II.
On the manner of cutting out, shading and inlaying Ornaments of wood
The way to engrave and finish wooden Ornaments
Section III.
How to represent Flowers, Fruits, Pastures and Figures in wood
Floral Marquetry
On the Third Type of (Veneered) Cabinetry in General
Section I.
Description of the different materials that one uses in the construction of the third type of veneered Cabinetry
On the Nature of Tortoiseshell
Mastic and ‘Mastic’
Section II.
Works for which one uses the third type of Cabinetmaking
Section III.
How to work the different materials that are used in the construction of Marquetry, like Shell, Ivory, Horn, etc.
Section IV.
The manner of constructing Inlay and finishing it
I. General Idea of the different types of Mosaic
Metal Casting
II. Ornaments in Bronze in general
III. The way to solder the Metals which one uses for different works of Cabinetry
IV. Description and practice of a Varnish appropriate to varnish and gild copper and other metals
Conclusion to the Art of Woodworking
Planes with movable fences, such as plows and rabbets, have two major defects.
1. In wooden-bodied planes, the fence can be tricky to adjust parallel to the tool’s skate or sidewall. An out-of-square fence can create some horrific results on your wood.
2. In metal planes, it’s difficult to secure the fence so it doesn’t slip. Even if you apply all your strength to the thumbscrews or collets, the fence slips too easily for my taste.
Part of this problem is caused by the tool, and part is caused by the user. When plowing deep grooves, it’s all too easy to tip the tool slightly at the bottom of the groove. If you tip the plane, the leverage against the fence will make it slip. Almost nothing will stop it.
One solution to these two problems is simple: Don’t use fenced planes. Or use planes with fixed fences only – such as standing rabbet planes.
If you aren’t willing or financially able to go down that route, I’ll offer a different solution that I have encountered in several other shops.
It will make you cringe. But here goes: Tighten the fence on your metal planes with pliers. Yes, this will mung the collets or thumbscrews, but it works.
Case in point: Last week I forgot to tell students in my class in North Carolina to tighten the fence with pliers. About half of them had the fence slip. This week in Washington state, I remembered to mention the pliers. And none of the fences slipped.
Sadly, I also use pliers on the depth stop to prevent it from slipping.
I apologize in advance to anyone who puts the pliers to their plane. Your tool will be uglier for it. But your work will be prettier.
This week I am in the “Land of Tolpin” – Port Townsend, Wash., which is where Jim Tolpin lives and works as a woodworker, instructor and writer.
Port Townsend is an odd little corner of the world in many ways, and it is unusual in that many of the woodworkers here are familiar with the concepts that Tolpin and George Walker introduce in “By Hand & Eye.”
The students here are adept with dividers and really do talk in terms of ratios instead of measurements. Yesterday when I was laying out the slope of a bevel on a tool chest, I was asked: what ratio is that? Not: What angle is that?
Interesting.
Now other woodworkers are discovering the ideas in the book and are starting to write about them on the Internet.
Blogger Bob Jones of The Christian Tool Cabinet blog called “By Hand & Eye” “The most original woodworking book in the last decade.” Read the full review here.
J. Norman Reid of Wood News Online says the book is a “unique combination of theory and practice that is destined to become a classic reference for woodworking design.”
This morning I walked to a coffee shop in Port Townsend, Wash., to jolt myself awake. And as the barista handed me my cup he looked at my shirt.
“Is that ‘A’ for ‘anarchy?’” he asked.
“Why yes it is,” I replied, forgetting I was wearing an “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” shirt below my hoodie.
“It also could be for ‘anonymous,’” the barista added.
I wish.
The square on the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” is a cute little thing, and it shows up in surprising places, the wall of the Port Townsend School of Woodworking, Rwanda and in students’ tool boxes.
Yesterday, one of the students, Bill, pulled out a set of them that were graduated in size. All of them had different details and joinery. Very cool.
