Here in Indy the big race is over and people have time to get back to their hobbies. Hopefully free time has come your way, too. Or maybe your kids are out of school and you are drowning in chaos? Whatever life is bringing your way, it seems like people are finding time to build and are looking for advice. Remember, if you have a question about our products, procedures in our books or anything related to Lost Art Press, the fastest way to get an answer is our forum. Check it out here.
Sliding Dovetails Ralph wants input on whether he can use sliding dovetails instead of dados on his bookcase. Would it work? Can it be done with nails as well? Or is that overkill?
When to Rive a Log
James had a question about splitting live oak, which has turned into quite a discussion. Take a look at the comments about splitting, the treatment of the wood, and the regions where live oak can be found.
Staked Coffee Table
The staked coffee table we have been keeping an eye on is done and in place (picture at top). It looks great and is an adaptation of a design from “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” See the detailed pictures here.
Tongue and Groove Planes Mark is ready to get a tongue in groove plane and is looking for suggestions. Lie-Nielsen planes or the Lee Valley conversion kit for the small plow are at the top of his list. Help a guy out and give him your two cents.
Boot Bench Design Feedback
Here is the picture, now give some feedback. We all know what it is like to think about something so long that we aren’t sure whether the design is quite right. Let’s get Chris started on his project.
Jan Joris Van Vliet’s etching depicts a typical turner’s shop in 1630s Holland. Shown are a simple lathe, a few tools and various products of the craft – the turned chair and spinning wheel being the turner’s work. Based on records from London and Boston, turners often sold products made by others, which accounts for the yoke, foot warmers and bentwood boxes. Courtesy of the Early American Industries Association
Most joined stools have a bit of turned decoration between the squared blocks containing the joinery. This turned work is simple enough, but entire books and courses are dedicated to learning the turner’s art. Refer to the bibliography for full details on turning. Here we will only touch on the techniques required to get the stool done.
We use two different lathes. (Jennie) Alexander uses a modern electric lathe; (Peter) Follansbee uses a shop-made pole lathe. The techniques of organizing and cutting the decoration remain essentially the same. If you use an electric lathe, work at the slowest speed available. The following description refers to Follansbee’s pole lathe.
This simple lathe is made of large oak timbers fastened together and is quite stable. The pole lathe’s slow speed allows you to see how the tools are cutting as you learn to maneuver them. Keep the number of tools to a minimum, and keep them sharp.
Introduction to the Pole Lathe The pole lathe is often depicted in period artwork; its basic notion is always the same while the details vary. The 1635 engraving by Jan van Vliet shows a simple lathe with the horizontal members fixed to uprights, and between them a movable puppet to secure the workpiece upon the iron points, called the screw and pike. A pole in the ceiling connected by a cord to a foot treadle completes the arrangement. The turner steps on the treadle to begin the action. The workpiece, having the cord wound around it, spins toward the turner on the downward stroke. This is when the cutting action takes place. At the bottom of the stroke, the turner releases the pressure and the pole springs back, spinning the workpiece backwards. This reciprocating motion is often misunderstood. Many think that you should withdraw the tool on the return stroke. In fact, the workpiece just rubs against the cutting edge as it travels back. Keep the tool in place so you can resume cutting as it comes around again.
From the story stick, your stiles should have scribed marks defining the limits of the turned portions: a central section about 9-1⁄2″ long between the blocks and the foot below the bottom block. It’s best to carry these lines all around the stock.
Mark and Mount
Mark the centers of your stiles. One method uses a miter square to strike diagonal lines across the end grain. Keep in mind that the cross-section might not be a fully squared piece, so you will need to line up the diagonals from two outer corners. Another method is to use a compass set to nearly 2″ to scribe the circle defined by the square. A little trial and error with this method will find your centers.
Once you locate the centers, emphasize them with a centerpunch and apply a bit of beeswax. Then mount the workpiece on the pole lathe for turning. Wrap the cord twice around the midst of the stock, then line the stile up with the centers and tighten the wedge that secures the moveable puppet. Get in the habit of placing each stile on the lathe in the same orientation. In this case we usually work with the foot of the stile to our right. Where the foot goes doesn’t matter as much as consistency does; the cuts are easiest when you make them in the same order on each stile.
Once you’re satisfied that the turning is mounted properly, then check the tool rest. Adjust it so it is as close to the turning as possible, and that it is made tight. That can require some fumbling around with wedges and such, but it takes only a minute.
You shouldn’t need to grip the tool tightly. While the left hand is guiding the gouge it also is keeping it registered against the tool rest. Watch out you don’t hit the cord!
Roughing Start with the largest gouge and lightly remove the corners off the stock between the blocks and at the stile’s foot. At first cut well inside the scribed lines. The idea is to get the stock roughed out as quickly as possible. Once it’s round enough, it spins faster and easier on the lathe. You’ll need to move the cord sideways when it’s in the way. For a right-handed turner, the left hand moves the gouge laterally and the right hand rolls the gouge left and right to use the whole cutting edge in turn. Create the cylinder right up to the scribed lines, making a bevel up to these lines.
This is a cut to practice on scrap stock before working your stool’s parts. Angle the skew’s handle to orient the bevel so that it’s perpendicular to the turning’s axis.
Now comes the hard part: cutting the transition from the square mortised blocks to the turned cylinder. Use a sharp skew chisel, and with some practice it will come. First, cut into the turned portion right up to the line of transition with the skew. Then define the corners. Use the “long” point of the skew and aim the tool just about directly in line with the mark where you want to cut. At the beginning of this cut, your right hand is low, and the tool is aimed high at the stock. As it enters the wood, the right hand comes up, bringing the point of the tool down into the wood. Light cuts are key.
Memorial Day weekend is a good time to remember the fallen, get some woodworking done and check out the Lost Art Press forum. Remember, if you have a question about our products, procedures in our books or anything related to Lost Art Press, the fastest way to get an answer is our forum. Check it out here.
Trestle Desk
It’s interesting to see how one reader took the trestle table from “The Anarchist’s Design Book” and improved it with dovetail-shaped battens underneath. (Shown at top and below.) Very clever. And very nice work.
Keeping Waterstones Flat
Interesting discussion of the DiaFlat diamond stone. Does it make stones flat? Does it last?
Help Identifying a Chair Drawing by John Muir
A very mysterious drawing of a a device attached to a chair. The drawing is attributed to John Muir, the famous naturalist. We think it’s a jig for locating the front stretcher. But we could be wrong. Solve the mystery if you can.
Hollows and Rounds
Dan is making a partial set of hollows and rounds to reproduce some moldings in his older home but has some questions about the measurements. Want to weigh in?
What to Put on Cast Iron Tops What do you use on your table saw to protect it from rust and provide lubrication? WD40? Paste wax? Bowling alley wax? All have been suggested. Put in your 2 cents.
Some sample pages from “Skyring’s Builder’s Prices” (1833). Price books such as Skyring were the main guide for labor and materials costs for joiners, carpenters and others in the building trades.
England, 1839. Victoria has just become Queen of England (1837) and was about to marry Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The Industrial Revolution had begun changing the lifeblood of England. New ways of manufacturing iron and steel arose, changing everything. Factories and mass production began replacing the small craft shop. The woodworking industries were also beginning to change, and “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” was first published.
In 1839, the craft trades were highly differentiated. Specialization allowed speed – which was critical for commercial success. It’s a mistake to assume that the factories of the early 19th century produced low-cost goods because of mechanization. While that was partially true, the real cost savings came from division of labor and specialization. Most crafts people did highly specialized work. A razor grinder in Sheffield, for example, needed considerable skill to freehand-grind straight razors so that they were thin and flexible, without drawing the steel’s temper (softening the steel through excess heat). But that’s all the razor grinder did. Someone else, equally skilled, would forge the blanks; someone else would make the handles. In these factory-like situations, craftspeople were paid by piecework. In many cases, complicated documents were written that specified exactly what each sub-craft did and how much was paid for the work. In the case of furniture, the chairmaking industry in England was centered in High Wycombe, where they made nothing but chairs in a factory system of highly divided skills and a complicated piecework formula. In 1872, the High Wycombe chairmakers had a printed list of prices detailing charges for more than 250 different processes (of which only one was a process using machines for assistance) divided over about nine or 10 distinct trades. It would have been difficult for a local craftsperson to compete on a lower-priced chair for an occasional customer when a group of specialists did nothing but make cheap chairs by hand, all day, every day.
The job of the joiner varied depending on where he lived. In urban areas, joiners were carpenters who specialized in finish carpentry, built-in furniture, windows, doors and any other trim that was made on-site. Ideally, joiners did their preparation work in a workshop but then moved the parts to the job site for installation and finishing. Even within the basic job description of “joiner,” some would specialize in making windows, some on doors, and others focused on mouldings and trim. Stair making was the most complex area of joinery, and these specialists were used for all except the simplest of staircases.
A cabinet maker was a person who made free-standing furniture, usually of a fancy, custom nature. The cabinet maker would do only the joinery and casework. Turnings, carvings, inlay and other details were done by other specialists. In rural regions, small cities and towns (where it is implied that Thomas, the hero of the book, does his apprenticeship), there wouldn’t have been a work demand to sustain completely separate trades. There, a joiner would be called on to do a range of work, from finish carpentry to rough furniture to fine work – anything that required working in wood. But in large cities such as London, everyone specialized.
In “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” Thomas is called on to make everything from a rough shipping box to a fine dresser. But it should be realized that Thomas really doesn’t learn how to do the finest work, with lots of inlay or carving, because typically there would not have been the demand for that in rural areas. If someone wealthy in the hamlet wanted to commission such a piece, he or she would go to a shop in a major city where they had the specialists. By the same token, an average middle-class person in his area, say a farmer, would have been happy to hire Thomas’s shop to fit out a barn or make a door, but would have purchased mundane items such as chairs by buying them mass-produced and ready-made, in the latest style, shipped via railroad or one of the canals that covered the country, from the great chairmaking city of High Wycombe. There is no mention of a lathe in the shop in “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” and in the few places where turned work is mentioned, the text implies that the work would have been either bought finished as a stock item or jobbed out to a local turner.
Discussions on the forum this week have covered everything from dried hide glue clean-up to a wife’s innocent offer to frame the ATC letterpress poster at IKEA. Remember, if you have a question about our products, procedures in our books or anything related to Lost Art Press, the fastest way to get an answer is our forum. Check it out here.
Heavy Timber Roubo Knockoff Jarrett Seiple has 6×8 timbers and wants to build a bench. The thread has gone on to discuss the pros and cons of building a bench with beams. Want to weigh in or see what people’s thoughts are?
Stacked Cupboard Marselle Bredemeyer is looking for advice on building a cupboard but isn’t sure how to connect the top and bottom pieces. It has been suggested to dowel the two together but cold feet have set in due to inexperience with the method. Recommendations are being requested for what you would do with the provided sketch.
Nicholson Workbench Legs Ed is building a Nicholson bench and is ready to add the legs. Since he knows his top has a bit of a twist to it, he is wondering if he can make sure the legs are parallel to the ground instead of squaring them to the underside of the top. Thoughts?
Staked Furniture in GoT Anyone else notice the staked bench in “Game of Thrones?”
