Today I wanted to move to Germany. Buy some lederhosen. Raise some sheep.
Because of an unfortunate flood in eastern Bavaria, Dictum GmbH had to move my Roorkhee chair class to Munich. But the Munich workshop didn’t have enough lathes for the 10 students. So we had to move today’s class to Dictum’s shop in Singerhof, which is located two hours northeast of Munich.
And boy was it worth the drive. The Singerhof shop is located in an old farm (the students guess it dated from the 1700s). The farm was large enough that it had its own chapel. And all the buildings surrounded a common courtyard.
Dictum’s shop on the grounds is in a stone room with vaulted ceilings and stone columns. And for the first time during all my visits to Europe, I wanted to move here.
I told Petra Steinberger, the director of Dictum, that I wanted to purchase the farm.
She shook her head.
“After me,” she said.
It was a great day of turning – introducing many students to the lathe for the first time. Tomorrow we return to Munich to start making the leather for the seats.
If, of course, the rivets we ordered actually arrive.
To all of you who have supported and encouraged us along the path of completion for “To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo On Marquetry,” please congratulate yourselves on making André-Jacob Roubo one happy man. Here is a revealing paragraph from the Conclusion of the original treatise.
“One of the biggest obstacles that I have had to overcome is the cry of the public against big books, which they will not buy because they are too expensive, or they buy but do not read because they are too voluminous. But how could I do otherwise? Should I fool the Public in pandering to their taste but against their interests by giving them an abridged and consequently less expensive edition, but where they will learn nothing, or at the most learn only words or names of the arts? ”
Well said, Monsieur Roubo. In an age where far too many want to know everything without bothering to learn anything, I am happy you have found a home at Lost Art Press.
— Don Williams, Michele Pagan and Philippe Lafargue
During the last 48 hours, I have been hunched over the latest set of paper proofs of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.” And this is the part where the doubt creeps in.
During every book project, I lose my faith on the 10th edit. As I pored over Chapter 12 last night, I read Roubo’s words, but all I could hear were the critics:
“This translation is incomprehensible.”
“Useless information for the 21st century.”
“This is all there is?”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in awe of (and grateful for) the work that Don Williams, Michele Pagan and Phillipe LaFargue have done – not to mention Wesley Tanner, the book’s designer. My doubts are a personal problem I’ve had since the day I began writing.
I know there are typos we won’t catch. I know we will be skewered for choosing one word over another in the translation. That we didn’t do enough to make M. Roubo palatable.
So to cheer myself up I decided to make a list of all the things I learned from this volume.
I couldn’t. The list was too long and involves something on almost every page.
Like Robert Wearing’s “The Essential Woodworker,” this is a document that is far greater than the sum of its parts. It is not just a manual of marquetry. Every page oozes Roubo’s personal view of the craft – the failings of customers, fellow craftsmen, merchants. And their occasional triumphs.
In Roubo’s world, quality work is the job of the individual at the bench – even when the customers won’t pay.
And there is something deeper that is even more important and difficult for me to express. But I’ll try:
One of the dominant modern views of pre-Industrial woodworking was that it was a brutal way to live. The work was hard. Each day was a desperate slog for artisans ekeing out a living in poorly lit and dank situations.
All those things might be true, but that doesn’t mean these menuisiers didn’t love their work. When you read Roubo – who was a compagnon – it’s clear that it was cause for rejoicing when they brought something beautiful and well-made in the world.
Yeah, the work was hard. It still is. Yes, it involved years of practice. It still does. And no, it didn’t pay. It still doesn’t.
But it has been and always will be something that is (and I’m stealing Don Williams’ favorite word here) glorious.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Today I finish up my editing on this book and send the paper back to the designer (about 15 pounds of it). I don’t want to take this stuff on the plane to Germany. Our goal is to send this book to the printer on July 1. I think we can make it.
In the afternoon following the presentation based on my upcoming book, “Virtuoso: The Tool Chest of H.O. Studley” during the HandWorks extravaganza at the Amana Colonies in Iowa, I received many compliments on the talk along with the occasional, “Why did the other guys get all the good stuff?”
Huh?
Sure, I assigned Chris and Narayan the onerous task of providing the tool porn peep show accompanied by silent heavy breathing, but I got to present my burgeoning research on the life history of Studley as best we know it, recount the progress of the project to date beginning with that fateful phone call four years ago from the present owner, and explore one of the great mysteries surrounding the whole toolaholic soap opera.
What’s the deal with those vises?
I must not be the only one interested as the Saturday afternoon at HandWorks found a non-stop stream of attendees examining closely the vise loaned to me for the project by woodworker Tim Cottle.
I have become so enamored of Studley’s bench and vises that I often find myself seduced by their Siren Song. In laying the foundation for ongoing book research, I have been gathering information on the 11 known vises of similar design and function. In one correspondence exchange, an owner indicated a willingness to part with his. He had purchased a bench with two Studley-esque vises at a defunct piano factory auction in 1985. That purchase had provided a robust platform for his furniture design and construction endeavors for almost three decades, and now he was trying to reduce his footprint. In the end he agreed for me to become the next steward of this treasure, and on my way home from Amana I picked it up. He noted it being a bittersweet day, sad at parting with a beloved tool, but excited at finding the perfect new home for it. As we parted he said something like, “There isn’t anyone who should have it more than you.” I am truly honored.
Having spent the intervening week with Jameel and Father John Abraham, much of the time ogling tool pictures on each others’ laptops, my brain was in hyperdrive about the vises as I drove last Monday from Canton, Ohio, to Rochester, N.Y., to Monterey, Va., wearily pulling into the driveway after more than 16 hours on the road. I slept well that night, but I dreamed of heavy iron.
I fully intend to combine the best features of each of these 11 vises into a near-perfect new prototype; each one (or each pair) has unique features that impart wondrous utility. Will my new version be good enough to replace my Emmert K1s in my heart? Who knows. But the potential is spectacular.
I will continue to chronicle the firing-on-all-cylinders research for my Studley book and the pedal-to-the-metal progress of the Roubo volumes here at the Lost Art Press blog (I signed off on the final galleys of Roubo on Marquetry on Saturday morning), while this new part of the adventure will be addressed over at donsbarn.com. At the moment I am even contemplating the acquisition of some mahogany slabs for a new workbench as a new home for these new (to me) vises, but that might seem a pathetic desperate measure to emulate the insane brilliance of the Studley Ensemble.
But isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
After a few blog about “apron hooks” (see here and here), reader Wendy Neathery-Wise decided to do something about it. She made me one.
The hook is her design. Though it looks a bit like the Masonic symbol, it’s not. The compass is the Lost Art Press logo. The square is from the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” And the hook contains the always mysterious letter “E.”
It works great. I attached it to my existing apron strings and there is one less thing I have to fumble with as I get ready to work in the shop.
