Lost Art Press

Author: meghanlostartpress

I Used to Do What You Do

Posted on by meghanlostartpress

The following is excerpted from Nancy R. Hiller’s “Making Things Work: Tales from A Cabinetmaker’s Life.”  Hiller’s funny and occasionally delightfully crass stories tell of her years as a professional cabinetmaker who relished both the highs and the lows of the job.

“How much time do you spend in the shop, and how much in writing?” asked a friend of a friend who’d waved me over to sit with him at a holiday party. He’d noticed my bio in the list of contributors to an area magazine and knew I’d written a couple of books.

“I pretty much write in my spare time,” I said. “Mainly on weekends, if work in the shop doesn’t require my presence there. The books in effect pay nothing. The magazines at least pay something, but it’s not enough to cover my overhead and operating expenses, let alone live on.”

When I really cranked out articles for the local magazine where this acquaintance had seen my bio, I could make about $15 an hour. But this calculus relates to net income, not the gross revenue required to maintain a business – and certainly not my cabinetmaking business. It doesn’t matter whether I’m writing, sleeping, or working billable hours; a host of fixed and related expenses still have to be paid.

“Oh, please,” he said dismissively. “What kind of overhead and operating expenses do you have? You work from home and have no employees.”

I was taken aback. Why did he think he knew anything about my business? We scarcely knew each other. Did he think I was posturing as a professional while secretly just “crafting” in my garage?

“You know,” he added, rolling his eyes. “I used to do what you do.” He’d mentioned once that he had worked briefly as a carpenter during what he called his hippie youth; as part of this personal exploration he’d tried his hand at cabinetmaking before concluding that, while he loved the work itself, doing it for a living involved more tedium and less creative freedom than he could bear. Some years later he got a job as assistant art director at a major magazine and worked his way up to a well-paid position, from which he had recently retired. He pushed his chair back from the table and walked away without giving me a chance to respond.“

“Tosser,” I said under my breath as he sought out someone else to use as sounding board for his oversized ego. Then again, I realized, I had no idea how I would have responded had he stayed. If he really was that ignorant of the costs involved in operating a microenterprise – aboveboard, mind you, not under the table – a meaningful, non-defensive response would take some time for me to articulate, not to mention a willingness on his part to listen.

I grabbed his unused napkin and pulled a pen out of my bag. The numbers were fresh in my head; I’d spent the previous weekend going through the year’s accounts to get a jump on tax preparation.

“Overhead and operating expenses, 2014,” I wrote at the top of the napkin. That pompous jerk was not going to get away so easily. Between bites of salad Ilisted the categories I could remember, adding a few explanatory notes:

• “Business insurance (coverage of shop building and contents, liability, goods in transit, etc.)
• Equipment rental (e.g., trailers for delivering large jobs)
• Health insurance. (Many people whose health insurance premiums are subsidized by their employer have NO CLUE what it costs. Mine is $506 a month for so-called “wellness coverage,” i.e. I have to pay for almost everything out of pocket, and with a $6,000 deductible. My husband and I are both self-employed, so we each pay through the nose.)
• Permits (e.g., for parking in our highly regulated city)
• Accountant’s fees
• Mileage

At this point I realized I had lapsed into completely irrational behavior. He would never read such a list, not to mention the parenthetical notes, which were likely to grow in length now that I was getting warmed up. But perhaps the sheer number of items listed would at least impress on him that I run a business with real-world operating expenses. So I continued writing.

• Packing & shipping
• Website-related expenses
• Office supplies & printing
• Subscriptions to trade publications
• Disposal of non-recyclable, non-compostable shop & jobsite waste
• Phone & internet at shop
• Dues to professional organizations
• Shop utilities (electricity & water; the insurance industry now pretty much refuses to cover woodworking shops that are heated by means of a woodstove, and there is no way I’m going to run a business like this one without insurance)
• Repair & maintenance of equipment; replacement blades, cutters, etc.
• Bank charges (e.g., the cost of checks) for business account
• Business travel expenses; I do sometimes teach, speak, & deliver furniture out of state. (These are not vacations, like those publishing-world boondoggles you brag about at cocktail parties.They are bona fide working trips.)
• Business tangible property tax
• Professional photography for the portfolio, when I can afford it
• Taxes related to payroll: state unemployment tax, Medicare & Social Security matching taxes, etc. Years ago, my accountant advised me to organize my business as a Subchapter-S corporation instead of continuing as a self-employed proprietor.”

My hand was cramping, so I put down the pen and took a sip of cabernet. The cheese board at this bash was always a vision of abundance. I added a wedge of crumbly aged cheddar and some crackers to my plate – along with the wine, a perfect combination. By this time I had completely covered the napkin on both sides, but I sensed that I was far from finished. Grabbing a couple more napkins from the buffet, I got back to work.

“All of the above (and more) must be covered before I pay myself a penny. And this is not including investment in new tools, machinery, etc., which amounts to thousands of dollars. In 2014 the above expenses came to just over $20,000. I don’t know…maybe that’s chump change to you. Not to me.”

“And yes, my shop is behind my house. But I no longer live in the house. I had to move out during the recession, which absolutely gutted my business. During the worst year, my gross sales (i.e.,including materials) were $17,000. I slashed the overhead and everything else to the bone. I relied on my credit card to pay lots of bills, a debt that took the following two years to pay off. I’m incredibly lucky that my boyfriend at the time – now my husband – invited me to move in with him; at least that way I no longer had to pay for all my living expenses on one decimated income.”

“That year from hell, I obviously could not even pay myself minimum wageafter covering the overheads. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just go out and get a couple of jobs – you know, bagging groceries, cleaning toilets at the office supply store. (BTW, there were none of those jobs available. Because recession.) Believe me, I thought about it. One friend, a nationally recognized furniture artisan, confided that he was seriously contemplating a job flipping burgers because he wasn’t getting orders. Another put his business in a holding pattern and relied on his wife to support him (he was lucky she could). But I calculated that doing spec pieces and writing would be a worthwhile investment in future business opportunities, even if I had to rely on my credit card to make that investment. Thank God my bet paid off.”

“I have been renting my house out to cover the mortgage & property taxes. You probably think this means I have Even. More. Income. But no. Renting the house increased the monthly payment because I no longer qualified for the homestead tax exemption. Also, insurance rates for a rented property are quite a bit higher than for one that’s owner-occupied. So the income from rent just barely covers the monthly payment. But at least I still have my shop, for which I am profoundly grateful.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I could, in fact, make more money if I only worked in the shop seven days a week and didn’t do the writing. But going back and forth between these kinds of work is critical to my sanity.”

“All of which is to say that yes, I do have overheads and operating expenses.”

I folded the napkins in half, put them in my pocket, and made my way through the crowded room over to the dessert table. I was balancing a slice of chocolate hazelnut torte on a cake knife when I spotted him spooning tiramisu seductively into the mouth of a woman who looked young enough to be his daughter. I stood there holding the torte on the knife while she closed her lips around the spoon and shut her eyes with an expression of orgasmic delight. Once she had recovered I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Rafi,”I said, pulling the napkins out of my pocket, “I have something for you.” I unfolded them and laid them on the table in front of him.

“OK,” he said distractedly as he scooped up another spoonful for his friend, who seemed to be incapable of feeding herself even though she was old enough to drink wine. “Thanks.”

I happened to pass their table on my way out a half-hour later. The napkins were just where I’d placed them, but crumpled now, the ink smudged into a dark blue blur. Seeing me roll my eyes, a man at the next table said, “I don’t know what was written on those napkins, but it sure must have been funny. The guy sitting there was reading it to his daughter – or was she his girlfriend? – and at one point she laughed so hard she spat out a mouthful of pudding. Geez, what a sticky mess.”

Reproducing and Using Moxon’s ‘Waving Engine’

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
Fig. 5.1 “Waving Engine” from Mechanick Exercises, Joseph Moxon, 1678–80.

This is an excerpt from “With all the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.” It is a follow-up to the post from a couple weeks ago that described a “machine for making waves.” Below is a portion of an essay by Jonathan Thornton that was written after he made one of these machines based off of historical descriptions of the machine.

The book “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” is the result of more than a decade of work by an international team that produced the first English translation of the 18th-century woodworking masterpiece: “l’art du Menuisier” by André-Jacob Roubo. This translation covers Roubo’s writing on woodworking tools, the workshop, joinery and building furniture.

In addition to the translated text and color images from the original, “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” also includes five contemporary essays on Roubo’s writing by craftsmen Christopher Schwarz, Don Williams, Michael Mascelli, Philippe Lafargue and Jonathan Thornton.

Introduction
Anyone with longstanding interests in woodworking and the history and technology of picture frames could not help but be intrigued by the complex rippled mouldings that are most commonly seen surrounding paintings of the Baroque period. If that person is also a maker and collector of tools, as I am, then the construction of a device to make them is a strong temptation. It was years ago now that the temptation became almost an inevitability with my discovery of an engraving of such a device in Joseph Moxon’s seminal work on technology, “Mechanick Exercises.” 1 All I needed was the time, which was furnished by a semester sabbatical in 1994. I built a close reproduction of his device and have been exploring its capabilities as well as the literature on the subject ever since.

Moxon’s device intrigued me for several reasons: it was neglected or misunderstood in the available literature, it appeared that it would be capable of producing a variety of complex waveforms and it was the only type of such devices that to my knowledge had not been faithfully reproduced (although a somewhat modified version had been published in Fine Woodworking in 19862). The device, called the “Waving Engine” by Moxon (Fig. 5.1), works on a relatively simple principle. A stock piece is fastened to a guide or template rod carved into a waveform, and they are pulled together through a stationary cutter. As the guide rod rises and falls over a polished feeler bar, the waveform is gradually cut into the stock piece by a fixed blade. While the principle is simple, the devil is in the details.

Fig. 5.5 Overall view of a reproduction “Waving Engine” of the Moxon type. (drawing by Thornton)

Making the Machine
The illustration of the device that Moxon provides (from a plate almost certainly engraved by himself) presents a few problems of interpretation, and Moxon’s description, while fairly thorough, omits some important information. My intent was to make Moxon’s “engine” to his specifications, and if modifications had to be made, the reproduction itself would tell me what to do, and not my own second-guessing.

“The Waving Engine…hath a long square Plank…All along the length of this Plank, on the middle between the two sides, runs a Rabbet…Upon this Rabbet rides a Block with a Groove in its under side…the Groove in the Block is made fit to receive the Rabbet on the Plank.” (Joseph Moxon)

Fig. 5.6 Detail of pulling block and height adjust mechanism. (drawing by Thornton)

I made the plank from quartersawn sycamore. The rabbet I made from hard sugar maple, likewise the block that rides on it. This is the block that pulls both the patterned template and the stock piece through the cutterhead. Moxon attaches these elements to the block with a “Vice, somewhat larger than a great Handvice….” In considering this, I made the only major deviation from Moxon’s machine. I didn’t see how a fixed vice could easily follow the up-and-down motion of the guide rod (“rack”) and stock (“riglet”), let alone the gradual raising of these strips as the molding was cut. I suspect that simple looseness of fit allowed Moxon’s machine to accommodate these movements. In place of the hand-vice, I forged a tongue with a hinged box joint (mortise and tenon) much like the joint in a pair of pliers. The tongue would move to accommodate any adjustment upwards. The tongue itself was fastened into the block with a rod, which threads through it and also penetrates the block (at an angle — the purpose of which I will make clear). By means of this rod, I can adjust the attachment point to accommodate different widths of stock. In addition, I placed a support rod and knob under the end of the tongue and likewise threaded into the block, so that I could raise the attachment tongue correspondingly as the strips rose. This modification does not alter Moxon’s method in any important way, while making the machine easier to use.

“At the farther end of the Plank is erected a square ∫trong piece of Wood…This square piece hath a square wide Morte∫s in it on the Top…upon the top of this is a strong square flat Iron Coller…”

Fig. 5.7 Detail of cutterhead and slide board clamped into the end-Vise of a cabinetmaker’s workbench. The device is set up to make a side-to-side (flammleisten) waveform moulding (drawing by Thornton)

This is the business end of Moxon’s device which I call the “cutterhead.” My upright block was made of a single piece of maple, with the appropriate mortises as described. I added two projecting through-tenons to fasten the block into the plank, so that they could be gripped by the end-Vise of my workbench when the machine was in use, and allow me to easily disassemble the machine when it was not. The purpose of the collar is to clamp the fixed scraper-type blade perpendicular to the stock piece. My collar was forged from mild steel, as were the screws that tighten it on the block. Like Moxon, I forged perforated disks on the ends of the screws, so that a bar could be inserted to tighten them with lever action. It is important that the blade not move while in use.

Moxon is at his sketchiest when it comes to how the depth of cut is gradually increased, although the engraving seems to show what the description omits. A bar is shown penetrating the block underneath the “rack” that appears to be both tapered and furnished with a threaded rod for gradually advancing it under the work. There can be no other way to do this in a controlled way. Jutzi and Ringger in their discussion of Moxon’s machine had a different interpretation.19 They speculate that this knob, projecting out of the far side of the machine, was used manually by a helper to lift the guide rod and workpiece against the blade. Moxon however, refers to this as “a wooden screw called a Knob.” He also appears to illustrate, though he does not discuss, the taper of the polished rod that is advanced by this screw-knob. It seemed clear to me what he intended: I made a steel bar with a T-shaped cross section that would slide through T-shaped slots in the block. I put the taper side up, as Moxon appears to do, and simply accounted for this cant in the rack and “riglet,” by setting my attachment-tongue into the pulling block at the same angle.

Fig. 5.8 Making a
moulding on the Moxon “Waving Engine.”

I captured the end of my adjusting screw-rod with a sort of clutch lever that would allow me to easily disassemble the machine, an alteration necessitated by my own tight space that again, did not alter Moxon’s device in any important way. The screwrod uses a fine thread so that I can very gradually raise the work under the cutter. In use, one or two revolutions of a rosewood knob on the end of this screw increases the depth enough for the next cutting pull. The handles on my pulling block were also made of turned and polished rosewood, press-fitted onto a steel rod, which runs through the block, again for ease of knock-down.

“But before you draw the Rack through the Engine, you must consider the Office…of the iron screw…for by these screws, and the Rabbet and Groove, your work will be evenly gaged all the way…under the edge of the iron.”

Moxon shows only one screw, though he refers to them in the plural. These screws serve to keep the work “gaged” under the blade. The end of the screw shown was fitted with a flat iron disk, that appears to be a sort of wear-plate against the moving template and workpiece, called the “rack” and “riglet” respectively by Moxon. Jutzi and Ringger speculate on two screws, one from each side, that enter at an angle. Their drawings are interpretive reconstructions as they did not build such a device.

I believe that Moxon clearly shows a screw entering perpendicular to the cutter-head block. I also decided to use two screws, so that I would have greater flexibility than could be achieved with just one, though the inside surface of the cutterhead could have conceivably gauged the other side of the strips. Instead of iron, I made my screws from lemon-wood (Calycophyllum candidissimum), a beautiful close grained relative of boxwood, and equally hard-wearing. I threaded these with the Beall router attachment, and made decorative double volute-shaped flanges on the ends similar to the screw end shown by Moxon. I decided that locking washers were a good idea if I wanted to keep my work well “gaged.” I made these from rosewood also, and placed them on the outside of my block where they are easier to get at.

My blades were made from 01 steel, a high-carbon, oil-quenching tool-steel that has low warp characteristics in hardening, and can be tempered to create a tough and hard blade. The blade “whose lower end is cut into the form of the Molding you intend your work shall have…” has a single bevel facing toward the pulling block. I filed and ground the shapes before hardening the blades. I sharpened them once on the bevel, then subsequently only on the flat side.

“Then if you lay hold of the handles of the Block…and strongly draw upon them, the Rack and Riglet will both together slide through the Mouth of the wooden piece…and as the rounds of the Rack rid over the round edge of the flat iron…the Riglet will on its upper side receive the Form of the several Waves on the under side of the Rack, and also the Form, or Molding that is on the edge of the bottom of the iron, (blade) and so the Riglet will be both molded and waved.”

The final form of the mouldings is dictated by the shape of the blade, by the form of the template or combined templates, and by the attachment point of the pulling block. The number of possible designs is multiplied by the addition of any of these elements, and quickly becomes astronomical. Even with my still limited stock of blades and templates, I will probably never produce all of the possibilities.

Fig. 5.9 A selection of mouldings made on the Moxon “Waving Engine.”

Using the Machine
I have continued to explore the capabilities of this tool in the years since I first made it, and it has provided both mental and physical exercise. In action, I hold the tongue down with my finger as I push the strips through the machine for the return stroke, then I “draw strongly” on my handles. Depending on how deep the moulding is going to be, and this is dependent on the wave amplitude of the template, I will continue to make cutting strokes until the mouldings are complete. I take coarse cuts (Moxon would say “rank”) to start out with, but by the end, when the blade is bearing more-or-less continuously, the shaving needs to be thinner than paper. I can complete some moulding strips in 15 to 20 minutes, but deep mouldings in a hard wood take more time.

Any wood that is hard and relatively dense will work well for the moulding strips. Cherry is excellent, as are pear and maple. Many of the period mouldings are executed in either ebony or a fruitwood stained to look like ebony (ebonized). I have gotten by with poplar for moulding with a gentle wave. It’s best if the grain rises away from the pulling block so that the wood fibers are severed more obliquely. Earlier on, I mounted the moulding strips to the “racks” or guide bars with a few drywall screws shortened so that they did not come through the surface of my mouldings. I still had to make them relatively thick however, and they were only held firmly in a few places. Now I prefer to use the wood turner’s trick of gluing the stock piece to the template with pieces of heavy brown paper. The finished moulding is then taken off by splitting the paper interleaves, and scraping the glue and paper residue away.

Fig. 5.10 Two views of the author’s waving engine.

The “racks” are made of hard maple. I have hand-carved some of them after stepping off the intervals with a divider, by using the same gouge across the grain both bevel side up and bevel side down. I have also used a pin-indexing jig on my table saw and router table T-slide like those jigs used to cut box joints. I did this to create bars with tight waves that would have consumed a lot of time in carving. The mathematical accuracy of this method can be both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on your point of view. Historic ripple mouldings have subtle variation and character.

No sanding is required on a properly cut moulding. The blade leaves an almost polished surface in a wood like cherry. I also discovered that pushing the moulding back through the cutter-head for the return stroke burnishes the moulding against the polished bevel of the blade. Stain will greatly accentuate the wave appearance by selectively penetrating the severed wood fibers on the insides of the wave troughs.

1. Moxon, Joseph (reprinted from the 1703 edition). Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Scarsdale, NY, The Early American Industries Association (1979).

2. Robinson, T. “Handscraped Waves.” Fine Woodworking, 58 May/June (1986) 64.

19. Jutzi and Ringger, 46.

The Tool for Waves

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
Plate 314. Machine Appropriate for Making Flat Wavy Mouldings

The following is an excerpt from “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.” This book is the result of more than a decade of work by an international team that produced the first English translation of the 18th-century woodworking masterpiece: “l’art du Menuisier” by André-Jacob Roubo. This translation covers Roubo’s writing on woodworking tools, the workshop, joinery and building furniture.

In addition to the translated text and color images from the original, “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” also includes five contemporary essays on Roubo’s writing by craftsmen Christopher Schwarz, Don Williams, Michael Mascelli, Philippe Lafargue and Jonathan Thornton.

The excerpt below details a machine that had gone out general use even before Roubo wrote the original text. However, there is no denying that the illustrations and explanation of the device are captivating. The details on it inspired Jonathan Thornton to recreate one of these machines and write an essay on it for “With All the Precision Possible.” A portion of the essay will be the excerpt for next week.

Description of the Machine commonly called the tool for waves, and the way of making use of
it in different ways
The machine that I am going to describe is the largest and the most complicated of all the cabinetry tools, which once were much used. Now they are not used much, since they are only used for works of applied wood [moldings] and they have, so to speak, combined all their science to veneer the wood properly. However, since this tool is ingenious, and you cannot find it anywhere, I thought I must include it here, in order to save it for posterity, supposing that this work succeeds.3

The use of the wave-cutting Tool represented in Fig. 1 is for cutting onto the wood wave-mouldings, or patterns, precise intricate repetitive designs, whether flat, on the face or even in both directions at the same time.

It is composed of a box from 7 to 8 feet in length, by one foot wide and 9 to 10 thumbs in height, exterior outside measurements. This box is open on top and at the ends, such that the distance between the two sides is retained only by cross-pieces A and B, Figs. 1 & 2, placed at two ends of the box, where they are assembled by mortise and tenon. At about the middle of the height of the box is placed a plank C–D, Fig. 2, about 2–thumbs thick, called a sommier [or platform, mattress; in similar machines for printing lithographs this is called the couch or the cooch]. This, for more strength, should be fit together at the ends and braced from below. This plank, or sommier [platform], is held in a groove in the two sides of the box (which should not be less than one–and-a-half thumb in thickness) and serves to hold the mouldings to be wave-cut, as I will explain later, and which you can see in Fig. 2, which represents the machine viewed from above.

In the middle of the box is placed a square frame of about a foot in width, viewed from the side, and which extends from 9 to 10 thumbs above the box, to the sides of which it is attached with some screws, and in which it enters by tenon and a notch, as you can see in the evolution of this machine, represented in the following Plate [315] Figs. 5 & 6.

The width of this frame is determined by the width of the box, the sides of which the uprights of the latter are flush on the interior. It is in this frame that is placed a spring which presses on the toolholder [the cutterhead] E, Fig. 1. This spring is raised and lowered by means of the screw F, Figs. 1 & 2.

The whole machine is held on a base of a solid construction and widened [splayed] in the form of a trestle to give it a better footing. The height of this base should be from 2 feet 8 to 10 thumbs, so that is has about 3 feet in height from the axis of the crank handle G to the ground. This is the most comfortable height for the person who turns this crank handle to have all his strength, whether raising or lowering it.

There are in this machine two movements: one is horizontal, which is done by means of the handle G, Fig. 1, which by making the pinion turn placed in the interior of the box, moves the sommier A–B, Fig. 2, and consequently the work which is held above.

The other movement is vertical, downwards, and depends on the first. The rod, or wave guide/ channel H–H, Figs. 1 & 2 [Plate 315], which is held on the sommier, moves therefore with the latter, is raising the tool-holder F, Fig. 1, left, which then lowers immediately by itself, both by its own weight and by the pressure of the spring placed above. See Fig. 4, which represents a wave channel the size of the execution [ full-size/scale] Fig. 5, [which] represents a moulding completely wave-formed, according to the sinuosity of the wave channel in Fig. 4. Also see Fig. 3, which represents the cross-section of the tool-holder, which I will describe here later.

Fig. 6 represents a cutting blade viewed with different profiles, as large as the execution [ full-size/scale].

Figures 1 & 2 of this plate represent one of the transverse cross-sections of the machine, taken at the location of the pinions and the other the longitudinal cross-section of the same machine, so as to better understand the details of its construction and the mechanism of its operations.

Axis A–B, should be placed in the copper collars, a, b, so that they turn more easily. One should note at one of the sides of the box [is] a squared opening capable of letting pass pinions C–D, supposing that it is necessary to remove the axis outside. Pinions C–D, engaged in the toothed rack c, d, Fig. 1, and E, F, Fig. 2, which are embedded on the underside of the carriage [platform] G–G, same Figure, about 9–lines deep, and are held there by pegs, placed together in the sides of the latter, observing that the toothed racks are well positioned vis-a-vis the other, so that the two pinions C–D, Fig. 1, are contacted equally by the racks [platform] above. However, as it can happen that the teeth of the pinions are not well positioned vis-a-vis the other, one would do well, after having stopped/blocked one of the toothed racks, not to attach [secure] the other until after verifying that it fits well with its pinions, so as to be able to set it back or advance it as necessary.

Plate 315. The Development of the Machine Represented in the Preceding Plate

These racks can be made of iron or copper, which makes no difference for the machine, however it would be good that they be made of copper, given that the rubbing of two different metals is smoother and wears less than if the two pieces, that is to say, the rack and pinions, be of the same metal. [See Plate 314.]

The rods or wave conduits [channels or guide rails for the work piece] e, f, Fig. 1, and H, H, Figs. 2 & 6, should be also made of copper, and they should be bent at a right angle to have the ability of attaching them with screws on the carriage [platform] in which they are notched in all their thickness, as one can see in Figs. 1 & 6.

When you put these [wave] channels on the platform, you must pay the greatest attention that the guilloche [pattern] be not only fit well together, but also that they match at the same point of their contour with the contact of the tool-stand which bears on top of it, as you can see in Fig. 4. This represents the machine viewed from the end, and even better in Fig. 7, which shows the toolstand [tracing and cutting head] where you have removed the cheek [ fence] which holds the iron in place, as I will explain later.

The tool-stand is a frame I–L, M–N, Figs. 2 & 5, of about 2 feet in length, by a width equal to the interior of the box, less the necessary play to prevent any rubbing, which you avoid by diminishing the thickness of the uprights in the entire length, and reserving there some heels at the ends, so that the frame is held against the sides of the box, and cannot get out of place when you move it.

The frame of the tool-stand is attached at the sides of the box by means of two threaded bolts, represented in Fig. 3, half as large as executed here, where the extremity o ends in a cone, and bears on a copper collar embedded in the side of the box.

This screw is held in place in the frame by a nut placed in the middle of its thickness, normally. To prevent the movement of the frame so that it does not turn the screw, you put a counter-screw P outside, which you tighten against the frame, which prevents the screw from making any movement. See Figs. 3 & 5.

As it is sometimes found where it is necessary to lift the point of the movement of the toolstand, you pierce many holes in the copper collar attached to the side of the box, as I did in Fig. 2.

At the other end of the tool-stand, that is to say, where the cutting iron is secured/fitted, the cross-piece I, Fig. 2, should be very strong and assembled with a cover from above so as to present a uniform surface all along the length, which is the width of the tool-stand. Then you apply from above a piece of iron attached with some screws with countersunk heads, of a length equal to the width of the latter. And you make it overlap by about 5 or 6 lines at both ends, to make two frets that bear on the wave pattern [channels], and you make a notch in the middle of this piece of the size of the iron for positioning the cutting iron of the tool, as you can see in Fig. 7.

This iron is held in place by a cheek [ fence] (whether of iron or copper, either is equal), that you hold in place by means of two square-headed screws, g–g, Figs. 2, 4 & 5, where the nut is placed in the thickness of the cross-piece of the frame. See Fig. 3 of Plate 314, where I showed the cross-section of the tool-stand, with the contact I, the iron L, and the exterior cheek [ fence] M, which comes down as low as possible, that is to say, just to the bottom of the part the most hollowed of the latter.

The bottom of contact I [Plate 314] should be the thinnest possible (without however being a sharp edge), so that it follows well all the contours of the wavy pattern N–O. You must take great care that the point of contact for the fret be in the same direction as the iron cutting edge [both bevels are in the same direction], as I noted in this figure, so that the movement of the tool (which is made in describing an arc, where the center is found at the end of the frame) be less noticeable. I have partially remedied this by lengthening the point of the center of movement as much as has been possible.

The weight of the tool-stand should be almost sufficient to make the cutting iron bite into the surface of the wood workpiece. However, one must always put a spring there, both for augmenting the weight of the tool, supposing that it be necessary, and preventing it [ from] jumping around.

This spring h–i, Fig. 2, does not bear immediately on the tool-stand, but on a lever where its arms are loosely attached to the uprights of the movable frame of the box at m, Figs. 2 & 5.

The other end bears on the cross-piece of the tool-stand at n, which augments at the same time the strength and the elasticity of the spring, where the upper part is held below the small shelf O, Fig. 2, with screw P, where the nut is placed in the top of the frame Q. This screw serves, as I already said, to increase or diminish the pressure of the spring. The small shelf O through which passes the lower end of the screw, serves nothing but to hold it in place, and to press the heel o of the spring. As this small shelf is movable, you hold it from the opposite side of the screw with two pins, which you place across the uprights of the frame, as indicated by points p–p.

I made the head of the screw P in the form of a screw-eye, so that one cannot tighten it or loosen it by simply touching it, and so that you have need for a little pry bar or crank handle to do it. Those who approach the machine while it is adjusted cannot disturb anything there by simply touching it.

It is for this same reason that I prefer the screws with squared heads for closing the cheek [ fence] of the tool-stand, because a wrench is necessary to move these sorts of screws. You can eliminate their access from everyone’s hands, and consequently prevent anyone from changing anything on the tool.

As to the manner of using this machine, it is very simple. You begin by planing some wooden strips to the thickness of the profile that you have chosen, and the projection of the waves. This being done, you put in the tool-stand a smooth iron, which you adjust to the height equal to the projection of the moulding. You hold the strip on the platform, by means of little iron points placed [on the latter by equal distances from each other], and you make the machine move by turning the crank handle, which advances the platform forward. Consequently, the strip that is attached to the platform, after having passed many times under the smooth iron, is found to be wavy on its surface.

When the strip is thus finished, you remove the smooth iron, and you substitute the one that is shaped with a profile, and you begin the operation again, just until the iron is not cutting the wood any more, and consequently the moulding is perfectly finished.

You must take great care before running the moulding to verify that the wooden strip is placed truly parallel, which you know by making it pass the entire length under the blade that you hold elevated above. You should secure the strip on the platform only after having taken this precaution. You must also note that the pins that you place in the platform to hold the mouldings are positioned in the middle of their width [thickness of the moulding stock], and that they do not project enough to be able to meet the blade and cause any breakage, which you must take great care to avoid.

The blade of the waving tool is always placed perpendicular to the workpiece, which makes it scrape enough to cut, which cannot be otherwise, given that if you slant it in the normal way with moulding planes, it would scratch/drag on the wood as it comes against the grain, which happens at each undulation. What’s more, the blade thus slanted will no more be found in the same direction in all parts, which you must avoid as much as possible.

Since you can make many different blades, you must pay attention that they be all the same width, so that they completely fill the notch made in the piece which makes the cuts. You must also pay attention that they are all the same thickness, and that this thickness be considerable, to better resist the force of the wood in passing below.

The handle with which you move the waving tool can be placed to the right of the machine, as in Fig. 6, or to the left, as in Figs. 1 & 4, which makes no difference.

Each of these ways placing the handle has its advantages and disadvantages. If you place it to the right, which is the most natural way (since you made some effort pushing it), you cannot see the work well, behind which you position yourself. If on the contrary you place it to the left, you see the work clearly, but you are required to turn the handle in reverse. That is why, in order to eliminate these two inconveniences, I believe it would be better to position the two ends of the axis so that each one can receive a handle, like in Fig. 5, such that you can use it as you judge appropriate, whether on the right or on the left, or even from both sides at the same time.

3 It has not been possible to find a surviving wave-cutting Tool to make a good description of it. I have had only two iron blades, sold with other scrap metal which have nevertheless been very useful for fixing certain sizes, that I could not have known except for the description that Mr. Felibien made of this tool, which is otherwise very succinct, but imprecise, such that it could serve only to give me an idea of this machine, which I have then arranged in such a manner that it appeared to me the most likely. It has been greatly wished that those who have described this Machine in the Encyclopedia [of Diderot] had done something other than copy Mr. Felibien, instead of adding to the obscurity and inexactitude, as they have done. It would have been very useful to the public, and in particular to cabinetmakers, for whom they would have saved, or better said, presented one of their principal tools.

Doormaking and Window-Making – The Introduction

Posted on by meghanlostartpress

As the Industrial Revolution mechanized the jobs of the joiner – building doors and windows by hand – one anonymous joiner watched the traditional skills disappear and decided to do something about it.

That joiner wrote two short illustrated booklets that explained how to build doors and windows by hand. And what was most unusual about the booklets is that they focused on the basics of construction, from layout to joinery to construction – for both doors and windows.

Plenty of books exist on building windows and doors, but most of them assume you have had a seven-year apprenticeship and don’t need to know the basic skills of the house joiner. Or the doors and windows these books describe are impossibly complex or ornamental.

“Doormaking and Window-Making” starts you off at the beginning, with simple tools and simple assemblies; then it moves you step-by-step into the more complex doors and windows.

Every step in the layout and construction process is shown with handmade line drawings and clear text. The booklets are written from a voice of authority – someone who has clearly done this for a long time.

During the last 100 years, most of these booklets disappeared. Soft-cover and stapled booklets don’t survive as well as books. And so we were thrilled when we were approached by joiner Richard Arnold in England, who presented us with a copy of each booklet to scan and reproduce for a book.

Below is the introduction that Richard Arnold wrote for us. It is a family story that comes full circle and brings these booklets with it.

The story of how this book has come to be republished is a tale that goes back more than 100 years.

At the end of World War I, one of the lucky survivors of the trenches came home to England and started a new career as a carpenter and joiner. He was my grandfather, and his name was Cecil Incles.

Sometime during his apprenticeship, he managed to purchase a tool chest – complete with tools – that had belonged to a joiner by the name of G. Shelton. To date I have not been able to find any clues as to who Mr. Shelton was, but by dating the tools in his chest, it is reasonably safe to assume he assembled them sometime around the end of the 19th century. Judging by the types of tools in his chest it is obvious that he was a joiner, and amongst other things, he would have spent a lot of his time making doors and windows.

Lying in the bottom of the chest were two well-worn little booklets on door and window-making. They date from around 1910, so I think it is safe to assume they were first purchased by Mr. Shelton. I’m sure he found them helpful, as I presume my grandfather did after him.

On completion of his apprenticeship, my grandfather moved back to his birthplace and started work for a small building firm in a nearby market town. For the next 50 years, he worked as a joiner for the same company right up to his retirement. After his death in 1976, my father decided to hang on to my grandfather’s old tool chest, along with its contents, a decision that I am forever grateful for.

Two years after my grandfather’s death, I left school at age 16 with no clear idea of what I was going to do with my life. As luck would have it, the old building firm that my grandfather had worked for was looking for an apprentice to train in its joiners’ shop. So with hardly any woodworking experience at all, I found myself working under the watchful eye of “old Arthur.” Coincidently, Arthur had been one of my grandfather’s apprentices. My father had no great interest in woodwork, so he was happy to pass the tool chest and its contents to myself to use in my new career.

It is no exaggeration to say that this tool chest, and more importantly its contents, changed my life. Most of the tools in the chest were of no use in a modern working environment, but I became fascinated as to what they had been used for and how they were used. This led to a lifelong passion for anything to do with the history of woodworking, and the tools and techniques that surround the subject.

I soon discovered the two little booklets in the bottom of the chest, and I was surprised as to how relevant the information within them was to my everyday work. In time, they became my main point of reference whenever I’m working on doors or windows.

In the age where doors and windows were made by hand, the apprentice learned the basics under the watchful eye of his master. No one expected to have to record these skills; they were merely the basics, passed down from one generation to the next. But with the onset of the machine age and mass production, a lot of these techniques were soon lost.

The anonymous author of these booklets must have had the foresight to see this coming, and we should be forever grateful to him for recording his obvious years of experience making doors and windows as a joiner.

For years, I have recommended these wonderful booklets to fellow craftsmen, but sadly I could offer them no hope of finding copies for themselves because they rarely, if ever, came onto the open market. I would like to applaud Lost Art Press for making them available once again to everyone with an interest in keeping these traditional skills alive.

Richard Arnold
November 2013
Northamptonshire, England

Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
Nearby Maryland offers amusements just a streetcar ride away! Glen Echo Park provides thrills on the
coaster dips — and on the dance floor of the beautiful Spanish ballroom!

The following is an excerpt from “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker! A Novel With Measured Drawings” by Roy Underhill.

Across the studio, behind a grove of microphones on stands, the piano sat silent under a quilted cover like a sleeping racehorse. Calvin leaned forward in his chair staring at it, trying to strike an intense, artistic pose as Bubby read over his script. A figure in the hallway passed the small window in the studio door and Calvin whipped his head up painfully quick. He glanced at the clock. Bubby said they would have the studio to themselves until four. The chair creaked as he leaned back, shifting his pose to one of relaxed confidence — which would do just as well if Kathryn Dale Harper should happen by. But this pose quickly grew tiresome as well, and he leaned forward again to poke quietly at the saws, augers and gouges in his pasteboard box. Bubby finally handed the script back to Calvin. “Okay. You need to write an introduction. You need to say who you are, what you’re doing, and who it’s for. You need say the title and set the stage. And you have to state that it’s a transcribed show at the beginning and at the end. That’s a federal regulation.”

“Do you want me to write all that now?”

“Nah, its just boilerplate to me. Same on every show, time-wise. Like the ending, it’ll be something like—

If you would like a measured drawing to make your own folding ladder of liberty, handy around the farm and home, just write to Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air, care of the National Farm and Home Hour, US Department of Agriculture, Washington 25, D.C. Be sure to include a three-cent stamp to cover the cost of duplication. This has been Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air, transcribed from Washington, D.C.

“So ‘Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air,’ that’s the title?”

Bubby pinched at a weeping blister on his left hand. “Hattersley’s suggestion, so I’d go with it, if I were you.”

“I thought it had a certain buoyancy about it!”

“Thought you’d like it.” He grinned at his friend. “Okay, after the close, you need a signature sign-off. Something that will stick with ’em.”

Calvin leaned over toward the sound effects table in the center of the studio as he thought. “How about:

This is Calvin Cobb wishing that, as you slide down that banister of life, all the splinters go in your direction!”

Bubby nodded enthusiastically. “Believe me, that’s not too corny.” Calvin rubbed the canvas cover of the wind machine. “Nah! You know we can’t end each show with a confucius-say joke about splinters in the ass.”

“Well, it’s borderline. So, got any theme music?”

“Not yet.”

“This is very psychological, now. You need some old music that’s gone out of fashion, but that still has positive associations. Gotta pluck the right strings.”

Calvin stared at the piano and flipped through mental images of tattered sheet music. Willow Weep for Me?

Bubby shook his head. “It doesn’t have to have a wood reference.”

“Something by Bela-Bale, maybe, then. ”He waved away his comment. “Sorry, uh, how bout Nola?”

Bubby hummed the tune to himself for a second. “It’s bouncy.”

“Yes, but is it buoyant?”

“Buoyant enough for government work. Okay, Nola for now, and your first sound effect is what?”

Calvin looked at the script. “The auger, I guess.”

Bubby wrote the cue on a notepad. “Right, okay, I’ll do peanut shells in a meat grinder for that.”

“I brought over an auger and a brace,” said Calvin, rummaging in his box of tools.

“Wouldn’t sound right. Okay, you got sawing here too. Let me hear you saw.”

“Rip or crosscut?”

“Both. And I’ll do Washington’s snoring since you’ll be doing the character voices over it.”

Calvin pulled his five-and-a-half point Disston No. 9 from the box and rip-sawed down the length of a pine plank spanning two sawhorses. Bubby made snoring sounds, striving for a comic asynchrony. He signaled Calvin to stop. “You know, if this was a union job they’d have to give me actor’s pay for the snoring. Alright, lets hear the crosscut.”

Calvin changed saws and began cutting across the grain.

Bubby snored while studying the bouncing needle on a meter. He shook his head. “Get a thinner board so it’s a little crisper, and I’d better do the sawing too. I can make it funnier.”

“Right! Tell me how you can saw funnier than me.” Calvin plunked the saw blade with his thumb, making it ring with a “boing” sound.

“It’s all in the timing. And that ‘boing’ you just did is a perfect rimshot for the punchline.” Bubby reached with his toe to level the gravel in a big shallow box on the floor. “So, here’s your hessian on guard duty.” He stepped in the box, marched in place for a few steps, then swiveled and marched in place again. “We’re going to be making history, you know that.”

“Well, it’s not very good history.”

Bubby frowned at him for a second, then grinned and slapped at Calvin’s script. “No, not your story itself! Just that it’s going to be the first recorded program ever on the networks.”

“You mean the second. You did the first. And what’s the big deal, anyway?” said Calvin, trying to shift the subject. “Unless there’s a scratch or a skip on the record, you can’t tell if it’s recorded or live — or is that the problem?”

“Oh, that’s what they say, but it’s just money.” Bubby leveled the sound effects gravel with his toe. “It’s like Rockefeller oil. Once you control the pipeline, you can strangle the little guys. NBC and CBS put all this dough into their wire networks. But if anyone bypasses them by mailing out shows on disks, there goes the hegemonic power of the dastardly duopoly.” He laughed. “I sound like Kathryn Harper.”

Calvin glanced at the window and stretched his arms over his head in an exaggerated show of nonchalance. “Are you suggesting that the voice of the American homemaker is a red?”

“Oh, she’s very in with that popular front jazz.” He tossed his head back, regarding Calvin through narrowed eyes. “Are you surprised?”

“Well, it is kind of an odd fit — slip covers and surplus value.”

Bubby shrugged. “Lots o’ radishes out there still — all stylishly red on the outside but white underneath. But me? I’ve got you some surplus value right here.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed Calvin two blue tickets.

“Holy cow! Tommy Dorsey! How’d you get these?”

Making a show of adjusting his collar, Bubby affected a hoity-toity voice. “I’m a celebrity now, don’t you know? Such things come my way.”

“But don’t you want go?”

Bubby shook his head slowly. “The dance is out at Glen Echo, right next to the roller coaster. I’ve heard all the screaming I need to hear for a while. ”He blew out a breath and sat on one of the sawhorses. “I just burn my hands trying to pull some stupid girder and the next thing you know my name is in the paper and everybody’s being nice to me!” He stood, taking control of his breathing before reaching into a bag beneath his table and pulling out a head of cabbage. “So here’s when your Kraut gets clubbed.” He whacked the cabbage with a short billy club, let a half second of silence pass and grunted “Unhh!” A sequential flopping of his elbow, forearm and fist onto the tabletop made the sound of a body hitting the ground. “Trust me, it’s perfect when you can’t see it.” Bubby nodded slowly as he looked in his little spiral-bound notebook. “Okay, we got the prison door.” He leaned over and patted the chain-festooned iron fire-box door standing on a short wooden frame. “Got the tunnel.” He patted the empty trash drum beside him. “Got your wood gouges, creaking gridiron and unfolding ladder.”

Calvin took up the challenge and pointed to a yellow balloon on the cart. “All right. Thumb dragged across the balloon for the creaking gridiron. Where’s the folding ladder?”

Bubby picked up a short cedar box with a paddle-shaped cedar lid. He held the lid handle and rubbed it down the edge of the box to make a squeaky opening and closing sound. “It’s a turkey call.”

Calvin nodded appreciatively. “And the gouges?”

Bubby took up a serving spoon and swept it repeatedly across the tabletop, slowly rolling its point of contact from the bowl of the spoon to finish the sweep with its edge. He bounced his eyebrows in happy triumph and popped Calvin on the shoulder with the spoon. “We’re going to be on a tight schedule, so I’m going to give you a production calendar for the whole summer. Enjoy the dance, ’cause you sure won’t have much time for a social life once we get going.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “Ah! Let’s get this place cleaned up.”