The through dovetail is straightforward enough to cut, but sometimes there is a slight complication owing to there being a rebate at the edge, or because a mitre is desirable at the corner. There is nothing complicated about it, but it is easy to make a mistake if it has not been within your experience before.
Consider the case of a tray or drawer which is to have its corners through dovetailed together, but with a bottom which has to fit into a rebate. If you cut the normal simple dovetail you will end with the unfortunate result shown in Fig. 1. The rebate, being worked with the rebate plane, has necessarily to be taken right through, and this leaves a gap at the shoulder.
FIG. 2. TOP SHOULDER CUT INTO THE REBATE.
One way out of the difficulty is to set the dovetail in an extra amount to allow for the rebate depth, and make a square cut on the dovetailed piece (not on that with the pins) level with the rebate. The shoulder is then allowed a projection so that it reaches into the rebate as shown in Fig. 2. Note that no cut is needed on the pins since the rebating automatically removes the wood.
FIG. 3. SQUARE MEMBER FILLS IN REBATE.
Alternatively the method in Fig. 3 can be followed. Here the top square cut level with the rebate is made as before, and the corresponding cut is made on the pins, but only down to the rebate. It is thus necessary to gauge in the extent of the rebate first so that the cut can be stopped short.
FIG. 4. MITRED SHOULDER. A REBATE COULD BE WORKED DOWN TO THE MITRE DEPTH
A third method is to use a mitre. This is of special value even when there is no rebate because it gives a neat finish; also because it enables the edges to be rounded over as in Fig. 4, or to be moulded. The joint when there is a rebate is similar to Fig. 4, but the depth of the mitre should equal that of the rebate. Note that there is a square cut level with the rebate on the dovetailed piece, and that this is transferred to that with the pins. It is not cut right through, however (see Fig. 4) but is only cut at the inside at 45 deg. (that is, as far down as the mitre). When cutting the mitre hold the saw on the waste side so that the line is just left in.
The surface patterns of the raw wood can overwhelm the subtleties of the forms.
This is an excerpt from “Chairmaker’s Notebook” written and illustrated by Peter Galbert.
Paint has come a long way from the toxic lead paints of the original Windsors to the stringy enamels of the 20th century. I paint my chairs with milk paint, and while it was not the traditional finish for Windsors, it does a great job of coloring the wood without obscuring the texture. One problem with milk paint is that its manufacturers tend to describe mixing and using it in a way that creates a crude “country” finish. I don’t want this for my chairs, so I mix the paint thinner than recommended and follow a multi-coat process to get the refined look I want.
When done properly, the grain and texture of the wood are clearly visible, and the desirable tool marks and edges are sharp and crisp. Not only is the warmth and depth of the wood present, but it is deepened. Over time, normal use will wear the paint, exposing the edges of the chair and highlighting the shaping. The overall effect is far more striking than one dominated solely by the surfaces and colors of the wood.
Before launching into surface and paint preparation, I feel compelled to talk about samples. Committing making sample boards might just be the toughest lesson in all of woodworking. But until you have a sample – and I mean a completed sample – that you are pleased with, it is more than likely that you will be disappointed in the results on the actual piece.
When working with a new finish, I make samples on the various woods and surface preparations of my piece. I observe all the normal drying times, steps and layers. Lots of notes will help you remember the steps and measurements. Once I love the results, it’s time to work on the actual piece.
Wetting scraped and sanded areas raises the compressed fibers.
Surface Preparation Surface preparation is vital to getting good results. Any surface that was shaved with a sharp blade, such as a drawknife or spokeshave, is ready for finishing without any further preparation – save making sure that it is free from dirt or grime. This is because the cutting action shears the fibers cleanly without compressing the grain. Even parts that have been put through the steamer will show no raised grain where they were shaved with a sharp tool.
Areas that have been scraped and sanded will have some degree of grain compression that will show up as raised rough fibers on the surface once they contact either water, water-based stain or water-based milk paint. For these areas, I sand to #220-grit, then wet them to raise the grain. This is often easier to do before assembling the chair.
Most surfaces on the oak can be finished with spokeshaves, leaving an inviting faceted surface, ready to finish.
It’s important to let the surface dry and harden; letting it sit overnight is best. Then I lightly sand with #220-grit paper, being careful not to apply too much pressure. Instead, I let the sandpaper cut the fibers with multiple light passes. These areas will most likely show raised grain again, but I sand them after the first coat of paint has soaked into them and hardened the fibers. One sanding after the first coat of paint is usually enough, but I inspect those areas carefully to ensure that I am happy with the surface after paint is reapplied.
My turnings in the undercarriage are finished with a skew, but because any burnishing that takes place may resist the paint sticking, I sand lightly with #320-grit while the piece is on the lathe. Be sure to remove the tool rest and any loose clothing before sanding. I also wear a respirator because the fine dust is dangerous. There should be no surface preparation required after that.
Rinsing the seat with naptha cleans the surface and can reveal surface quality.
The seat is perhaps the most critical place for surface preparation. Pine tends to compress when scraped, and it might also contain considerable sap or pitch. It is difficult for paint to adhere to sap, so I heat the surface of the seat with a heat gun until I can see the pores with sap in them liquify. Then I rinse the seat with naptha or grain alcohol. Always wear gloves when handling solvents. I repeat this if the seat seems quite pitchy. Some manufacturers suggest sealing the seat with a coat of shellac or using an acrylic additive to the milk paint to encourage solid adhesion. I have done both, but have found that the brand of milk paint that I use, from the Real Milk Paint Company, doesn’t require help sticking to the surface. If I do use an additive, I only use it on the first coat on the seat and nowhere else on the chair.
If your chair has been sitting around for a while unpainted, oxidation and dust will have contaminated the surface and you might consider wiping the whole chair with solvent such as grain alcohol or naptha before painting.
The first chair Fisher recorded making was in December 1802. This “small chair,” probably for children, seems to have been a trial run for him because a couple weeks after its completion, he began to equip his work shop for a more efficient workflow. He “made a rack (a bending form) for chair backs.” And “made a shaving [?] jack” (probably his shaving horse). With these two appliances, Fisher could refine his chairmaking process by “[making] several chair frames” before undertaking the production of a set of “kitchen” chairs in 1805.
Nancy Goyne Evans’s research into the New England usage of the term “kitchen chair” has shown that it refers to a slat-back side chair. Fisher’s documentation of the construction of these chairs concurs with that assessment.
The flats on the sides of the tenons ensured that when the legs shrunk, they would not split.
February 1805 he made four “little” chairs probably for his four children who would need them: Jonathan, Sally, Betsey and Josiah. Having his children’s sitting needs taken care of, he set out to build the full-size versions. The first one he made that March did not work out well. “Worked upon a chair; broke it putting it together. Began another.” This comment is interesting because it suggests that the method of assembly Fisher used to make his chair required significant force such that there was risk of completely ruining it. When driving the tenons of the rails and stretchers in the “green” legs, it was common practice to make the fit incredibly tight. This way, when the leg dried out, it would pinch the tenon from coming out. Having not yet developed the feel for “how far was too far,” Fisher perhaps fractured one or more members.
The slat-back chair (Cat#16, p 161) in the Fisher collection shows evidence of this kind of assembly. The tenons all have small flats carved on their sides. Thistechnique was a way to remove material on the legs’ cross-grain direction while allowing the top and bottom of the tenon to be oversized when driven in.If the orientation of the flats were reversed (meaning on top and bottom), the driving would split the leg due to the extra thickness of the oversized tenon running cross-grain. This is perhaps where Fisher made his early mistake. The method appears to work incredibly well because although the only pins in the entire chair are in the top slat, it has no wiggle whatsoever – pretty amazing for a 200-year-old chair.
This stout rocking chair was once painted red and had a woven seat. The tablet crest, although unusual for this form, appears to be original to the chair.
Fisher’s shop work during this time on chairs seems a little more focused than usual. Although he made a few visits and “wrote upon sermons” like always, he set aside a surprising amount of time to this batch of chairs.
Tuesday, April 2, Fisher recorded many of the steps of the chairmaking operation: “Primed some chairs. Went into the woods and cut a little chair stuff. Turnedposts and put together a kitchen chair.” During the ensuing weeks of construction, we learn that he “hewedout [his] posts” before turning them. He may have also used his “shaving jack” for further shaping but onlyever recorded using it to “shave … chair backs.” Interestingly, there is a comment on April 19 about “sawing out a few chair backs.” Typically “sawing out” refers to resawing rough material. So it appears that rather than rive backs from the log, he preferred to saw them.
The red paint is clearly visible on the seat rails.
After they were assembled, he painted the chairs, probably with the “1-1/2 gal. oil, 5 lbs. yellow ochre, 5 lbs. red ochre, 1 lb. patent yellow” he purchased from Mr. Witham’s store at the head of the bay during the construction process.
The “bottoming” (seat weaving) of Fisher’s chairs always appears to be connected to the pounding of “basket stuff.” The fact that he didn’t mention weaving baskets after the prep work but instead immediatelybegan weaving the seats seems to imply that they were woven of wood strips rather than the twisted rushes one would expect in northern New England.
I disagree with people who say wood should be partly seasoned for steaming. The best would be ‘cut down yesterday, steam today’. Anyway, as soon as this ash is cut up it starts to dry. The moisture is sap. I drive it home and put it in a butt of water. Then I get my steamer rigged.
Two steamings a year supplies all the bends I need. My steamer consists of a 6′ length of heavy cast-iron pipe, 6″ internal diameter. At one end is a good fitting elm plug with a 1 ⁄2″ hole through it, in which is a copper tube. There is a wooden frame to support this end of the pipe and a pair of ‘scissors’-type gallows to hold the other end. The copper pipe leads into a 2-gallon stainless steel tank. (The tank came from the inside of a liquid vending machine and it is a pressure vessel.) For heat I use a trusty primus stove. The open end of the pipe also has a plug with a handle on it. I also have a small 1 ⁄4″ hole bored through this end with a removable wooden plug. I will explain why later. The whole pipe is lagged, sewn up in old rags and insulating material.
I start early on a steaming morning. Up at 6 a.m., fill the tank with water, light the primus. Everything must be ready and in its place, like an operating theatre. Forty ash sticks, pieces of string to tie round them so that I can pull them out, thick leather gloves, jigs for bending around, cramps, everyone I can lay my hands on, in fact no hold-ups. It’s like the morning of the big fight!
I can get from five to seven pieces in the steamer, it depends how curved they are. Each piece has string which hangs down under the removable bung. Gradually, the whole contraption heats up. By lowering the outer end of the pipe I can drain off excess water, for until the pipe hots up, the first steam condenses. At this stage I leave the small bung, in the 1 ⁄4″ hole that I mentioned, out. Soon, say by about 7.30 a.m., a small jet of steam comes out of this small hole and I know we have ‘steam up’. The lagging of the pipe is so important. What is needed for bending is heat, wet, and pressure. Now I have worked out that if I remove the little plug from the 1 ⁄4″ hole and the steam shoots out 6″ or so – I have pressure!
How long should I leave these pieces in? Difficult to say. About two hours is the norm, but I have left them too long when they get soggy and lose all the natural springy wood-like qualities. Really they want the minimum time that will allow them to bend. There are as many different theories as there are stars in the sky about bending wood with steam. What works for you! Meanwhile, I must prepare my jigs, and have a set of replacement ash blanks ready. I don’t want visitors today!
My jigs are all sorts. The first one is a very fine piece of work. A 2″ piece of elm, looking not unlike a chair seat in outline, nailed to a larger piece of 2″ elm. Around the perimeter of the jig, and about 11 ⁄2″ out from it, are 3⁄4″ holes at 3″ intervals. The idea is to bend the arm around, putting .” dowels into the holes, and then wedging the arm tight to the jig. It takes longer to write than it does to do! I have about four different shapes, and these determine the type of chairs I make. As the year goes on I judge what I will need. Some jigs are old seats that were too hard to chop. I bore slots at intervals about 2″ in from the edge. In making jigs I have to overstate the curve a little, for like all things natural, wood tends to want to go back to where it was.
9.30 a.m. approaches. Jigs are all ready, the first one cramped solidly to a bench. After all these years, the heart still beats faster. On with gloves. If ever the proverb ‘make haste slowly’ applied it is now. Out with the bung, a rush of steam. Pull the string you want, holding hot ash in one hand, replace the bung. Dispose of string and look for centre mark on arm. Now, place it on jig, bang in dowel, and wedge, ease round, no jerks, dowel and wedge, round, dowel and wedge, then the other side, round, dowel and wedge, round, dowel and wedge … it’s there, o.k….no split-outs. The tone is set for the day. And so it goes.
I have steamed six and had one good arm, I have steamed six and had six good arms. I could get masterful results by using a strap contraption. This is a method whereby a thin metal strap is clamped to the hot arm, and it is then bent round the jig. This requires more accuracy than I use. The pieces must be an exact length to fit in the end blocks of the strap. My main objection to this method is that if the arm is going to break or shred, better it happens now than when the chair is in use. Remember those lovely Thonet bentwood chairs? The wood for them was bent in huge numbers. Heated in an autoclave, and bent, dozens at a time in hydraulic presses. I have rarely seen one without a sheer brake, or incipient brake. Steaming is an art; science and technology cannot do it. Sometimes, having successfully bent an arm, I get the next piece out, put it on the jig, start to pull and realise this piece is not ready, although steamed for an identical time, and I put it back in the steamer.
I leave the arms on the jig for a couple of hours until the next lot in the steamer are ready. Then I release them and tie a cord across the open end to maintain the bend. Until they are cool and dry they will not maintain their shape. Steaming vastly accelerates the drying process. The sap is all out, and only water remains. The residual heat rapidly dries them. In one month they are totally dry.
No trespassing. I like to go places that haven’t been interpreted by museum personnel or academics (nothing against these people, but I like to draw my own conclusions). This unrestored coastal artillery facility is nothing like the touristy one down the road.
Sometimes I wonder why I research old workbenches, build them and write about them. I know my critics and friends wonder the same thing.
The truth is, I have a gland – well, it feels like a gland – deep inside my torso. It’s located a bit above my tailbone and in front of the base of my spine. Ever since I was a boy, that area would tingle and throb when I ventured into places I wasn’t allowed.
(My critics would say the location of that gland – or whatever it is – is also where a lot of crap is produced in the human body.)
I was 6 or 7 the first time I felt it. My family attended First Presbyterian Church in Fort Smith, Ark., which is downtown and surrounded by empty buildings from the town’s 19th-century heyday. Next to the church was the derelict Goldman Hotel, a landmark six-story building built in 1910 that was the center of the town’s social scene until World War II.
The building was shut to the public at about the time my family moved to Fort Smith in 1973 (and demolished in the 1990s). But I spent every Sunday and Wednesday in its shadow and soon began sneaking out of Sunday school to explore the hotel through an opening on the building’s west side.
Though the Goldman was dilapidated – it had been an apartment building in its last days – there were remnants of its glory and its rich ornamentation throughout. Furniture. Light fixtures. Tiles. Mouldings.
That was the first time I ever felt that odd tingle. It was better than any high I have achieved with alcohol (or the banana peels I smoked in college). And I have chased after that feeling my entire life.
I have a thing for old and abandoned places. I love to explore overgrown concrete battlements that line harbors and rivers. Abandoned houses – we had a creepy overgrown one on our farm – are like a sip of bourbon. Multi-level factories filled with garbage, graffiti and old equipment are like a multi-day bender.
I knew I was wrong in the head (or the gland) in 2012 when I became halfcrazed about buying an old brewery in Covington, Ky. It had two flooded subbasements and a network of unexplored lagering tunnels that staggered off below the old city.
During a tour of that building, I encountered a deep pit in its basement. I threw a rock down the hole and didn’t hear it splash or hit bottom.
“Where does it go?” I asked the real estate agent.
Her reply: “We have no idea.”
I thought: “I have a flashlight and rope in my truck.” Behind me, I heard my wife, Lucy, call out: “Nope! We are done here!”
It probably was the right decision.
At other times, the gland acts up when I’m not in physical danger, but when I’m on the precipice of obsession. One week I flew to New York City and visited Joel Moskowitz of Tools for Working Wood. The highlight of that trip was paging through his 20th-century reprint of A.J. Roubo’s “l’Art du menuisier.” Like most woodworkers, I had seen the workbench illustrated in Plate 11 of Roubo’s multi-volume book many times before. But I hadn’t seen Roubo’s whole work – nearly 400 pages of plates. And many of the plates showed this simple bench in use for all manner of operations, from installing moulding in an apartment to sandshading veneer for marquetry.
While sitting on Joel’s couch with this giant tome on my lap, I became as intoxicated as the day I first ducked into a broken window at the Goldman Hotel. The feeling was so powerful that it verged on physical pain.
When I returned to Cincinnati, I felt physically compelled to build that workbench. I ripped up the editorial calendar for the 2005 issue of Woodworking Magazine and presented a new plan to the magazine’s staff to satisfy my personal lust: Build the 18th-century Roubo workbench using yellow pine (to make it less expensive).
I offered to do all the work – building, writing and illustrating – so no one objected. Or perhaps they were wary of crossing me because I looked a bit crazed. I had drafted my plan the night before and hadn’t slept much.
Building that first Roubo workbench and putting it to work was like mainlining the unknown for me – like exploring a forgotten Soviet missile silo or finding a passage to catacombs beneath my house.
Building that Roubo bench led to making the Holtzapffel workbench – a German/English hybrid. Then a Nicholson bench – the classic English workbench – and about a dozen variants of benches from Europe, the U.K. and North America.
It has been a 13-year obsession with no end in sight.
