Lost Art Press

Author: meghanlostartpress

Jointing the Stone

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Basically, a mortice is a hole. With hand tools, you can chop it out with mortice chisels or drill out the waste and pare to the lines. But we use a morticing machine.


This is an excerpt from “The Intelligent Hand” by David Binnington Savage.

Joinery – that’s what this is about. Joints that hold components together. In this case, versions of one joint, the mortice and tenon. There are on this bench frame three different versions: stub mortices and tenons; through-wedged mortices and tenons; and through dry-tusk-wedged mortices and tenons. So that you can take this structure apart to move it, the tusk wedges are just friction fit, but the bench is solid as a rock when assembled.

To gain strength, we use wedges in two of the three joints. In the knockdown joint, the top of the mortice is angled – a wedge is driven in above it to hold the structure. But this is getting too complex too soon – let’s look at the simple through-wedged mortice-and-tenon joint.

Basically, a mortice is a hole. With hand tools, you can chop it out with mortice chisels or drill out the waste and pare to the lines. But we use a morticing machine, which saves lots of work. This is basically a drill bit that cuts slightly ahead of a square cutter that chops out the corners.

First let’s get into marking-out mode. This diagram gives you the idea. Mark distinctly both the component position and the mortice position. Mark the mortice with a mortice gauge, with the knives set 30mm apart. As always, mark from the face side of each component.

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This is the type of drawing that I like to see every student make before making a joint – it helps one to think about what is being done, and to think about the mechanics of this joint. This is not just a peg in a hole with glue; it’s a mechanically effective joint that would hold up without any glue. The two small wedges turn the tenon into a dovetail, splayed wider at the outside than the inside. It’s as tough as old boots.

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The completed mortices.

First make the hole (the mortice) then the plug (the tenon) to fill it. Our morticer cuts pretty cleanly; I like and use machines that save me time and do a better job than I could. Chopping out a mortice by hand is nice and sweaty work – and some of you will be happy doing it.

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The tenon gets marked out with the same mortice gauge setup (30mm, marked from the face edge). We use a setup on the band saw to cut those tenon cheeks to exactly the right size. Because this joint gets cut a lot, a dedicated setup for it makes good sense.

Have a careful look at the drawing above right, noting the stop and spacer at the bottom of the page. This stop is simply a block of wood cramped to the band saw table. Next to it is 31.5mm-wide spacer against the fence. The fence has a stop at the end to prevent you from going too deep past the shoulders. The idea is this: After the first cut, you need to move the fence 31.5mm to make the second cut and get a 30mm tenon. Try it out with some scrap. Cut one tenon cheek, take the spacer out, move the fence then cut the second shoulder. Does this give you the tenon you want? If not, cut a new spacer, thicker or thinner, as needed.

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Band saw setup for cutting tenons, plan view.

Make sure your blade is good and sharp and that you run slowly into the blade. Chunka, chunka, chunka….

We cut the tenon shoulders at the table saw. The blade height will be the same for all; the shoulder position will be measured for all and a stop set up probably off the end length. Tenon lengths will be different for the different kinds of joints.

— Meghan B.

Snob Stick and Curtain Rod

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This is an excerpt from “Slöjd in Wood” by Jögge Sundqvist.

The snob stick is a long sallow (willow) stick with a knob on the end, on which the bark has been peeled off in a spiral shape. The snob holds the stick by the knob while he haughtily struts around in town. The idea comes from the woodworker Bengt Lidström in Kassjö. As a child, he would pretend he was a snob after he saw haberdashery ads in Västerbottens-Kuriren, the local newspaper. The snob stick makes a nice feature and a support for the flowers in your garden border, in the flower box or the flower pot. If you don’t have a need for snob stick, you can use it as a walking stick instead.

The curtain rod is made from a young, straight-grown birch. The knobs have holes in which are attached rod tenons. The curtain rod can be hung from brackets made from birch crooks.

Tools: Knife, brace, bit, drawknife, wooden mallet, spokeshave.

Material: Dry birch blank for knobs. Dry, straight birch, 25mm to 35mm (1″ to 1-1/2″) for rods. Thin sapling or withy from birch, sallow or hazel about 15mm (9/16″) in diameter for the stick..

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Start with the stick. Select the blank in the early summer, when the bark comes off the wood. Cut a spiral in the bark with the knife using your knee as a support. Hold the knife edge at an angle and rotate until you have scored the entire stick (see illustration below). Leave a space of around 25mm (1″) between the score lines for the next spiral cut. Score the stick again parallel to the first scoring line. Carefully peel off the bark between the cuts, leaving a spiral pattern of bark. After the withy has dried for a couple of days, carve a 20mm (13/16″) tenon on top with a smaller dimension than the stick. A diameter of 12mm (1/2″) is good.

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Sawing and splitting of the blank for two knobs has begun.
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Snob stick made of birch, detail on the knob.

KNOB
Split out a square blank with the same diameter as the finished knob. Cut the blank so it is twice as long as the length of the knob. A total length of 15cm (5-15/16″) is about right. Now you have supporting material at one end that makes it easier to hold, either in your hand or clamped in the shaving horse. At this point, making two knobs is an option, matching the dimensions and design.

Shape the blank smooth and square in the shaving horse or with a small axe and knife. Lay out centerlines on all sides, checking that all angles are 90. including the end faces.

When making two knobs, drill a round mortise in each end with an auger bit with the same diameter as the tenon on the stick. The centerlines act as sightlines so you can align your eye with the drill as you are drilling. Lay out the form on all four sides:

Start by drawing lines that indicate depth, then saw kerfs on the four long sides. Plan the order of work to systematically split off excess material with a knife and hammer to facilitate the carving phase. For example, after the first rough split, you can saw more grooves and split closer to the final form.

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Curtain rod finials made from birch. Snob sticks or flower sticks of birch and sallow. Curtain rod bracket of birch trunk with branch.
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Bracket for the curtain rod. Choose a branch that has grown in a 90° angle before it turns upward.

When you have finished the initial square shaping, continue shaping into octagonal facets. Finally, carve the shape of the knob smooth with the knife. Go for octagonal or round shapes. For knife grips, see Knobs and Latches on pages 34 and 35.

CURTAIN ROD WITH BRACKET
Make curtain rod finials the same way as the knob of the snob stick. Use straight-grained birch, rowan or hazel for the rod. Carve it octagonal or round. For strength, it is a good idea to make the middle part of the rod a little bit thicker. Look for nice bracket blanks when you are out in the woods. Carve the brackets for the curtain rod in the same way as the coat hook. Decorate and go all in with colors and patterns!

— Meghan B.

Characteristics of Welsh Stick Chairs

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This is the earliest representation of a Windsor chair. It is from a mid 12th century manuscript of the Laws of Hywel Dda. The picture is of a judge sitting on a chair. Note the tapered legs, arm rests and high back.


This is an excerpt from “Welsh Stick Chairs” by John Brown.

Probably the first record of a back chair is in the manuscript of the laws of Hywel Dda (Howell the Good), a 10th century Welsh king. The surviving document, inscribed in the middle of the 12th century, has an illustration of a judge sitting on what is clearly a back or stick chair.

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Plate 14. “Pura Wallia …” These three arm-chairs are all of similar type: (a) is from Caernarvonshire; (b) from Cardiganshire, and (c) from Radnorshire. They represent a total Welshness from the mid 18th century.

The history of the English chair since about 1800 is well recorded. The first chair factories with division of labour were working during the Napoleonic Wars. There are no such records of the early Welsh chairs, or the late ones for that matter. The stick chair on this side of the Atlantic is a peasants’ chair, of little value, and therefore not worth recording. Welsh stick chairs were not built by chair-makers, but almost certainly were the work of the village carpenter, wheelwright or coffin-maker. A house would be built by a group of people from the area, men of various skills who could afford the time. They were not builders as such. The trades were for the important things in life, the blacksmith and the wheelwright for agriculture. Household wares, such as furniture, were the luxuries of life which came after the provision of food. People had to do several things. A farmer might be a good hand at plastering, or the blacksmith’s wife made candles. Furniture was made by men who were handy with tools. We see only the best of it, poorly made pieces have long since fallen apart. Many of the implements used on the farm had components of wood: plough beams, harrows, wheelbarrows, sleds and gates, and for economic reasons a good proportion of these would have been user-made.

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Plate 8. (a) and (c) are examples of chairs which seem to come from mid to north Wales and have three or four heavy untapped sticks; (b) is a handsome chair with a slightly ‘saddled’ seat. Chair (d) has great charm, and has been ‘modified’. The heavy arm and turned posts are interesting.

Tracing the provenance of individual country chairs is a complicated business, probably with few exceptions, impossible. There is no scholarly standard work to refer to. Chairs with similar characteristics are found in different parts of the country (Plate 14). They cannot, with any certainty, be regionalised. Carmarthenshire, with large areas of good farming land and a high proportion of better houses, is known for the quality and elegance of its locally-built furniture. Chairs found in the county, whilst unmistakably Welsh, have a greater sophistication than those made in the more remote parts further north (Plate 20). Dating Welsh stick chairs is very difficult. Whether these Carmarthenshire chairs were made concurrently with their more ‘folk art’ cousins from further north is difficult to say, but it looks as though they might have been. There is the possibility of another regional style. Some Welsh chairs have a wide lozenge- shaped seat, with only three or four untapered, heavier long sticks at the back. This type appears to come from the north (Plate 8, a & c).

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Plate 20. A pair of chairs from Carmarthenshire, probably dating from the last quarter of the 18th century.

As the standard of living improved, throughout Wales primitive furniture and chairs were made. By whom and for whom it is difficult to say. For certain, these items did not find their way into the squire’s house and they were almost entirely rural. The one thing about the chairs is that they all fulfilled the strict definition of ‘Windsor’, in that they grew from a solid wooden seat, having legs and sticks socketed into that seat. The termination of the long back sticks was normally a comb, that is a piece of wood, sometimes curved, sometimes straight, into which the tops of the sticks were mortised. Rarely, a few later chairs have a steamed bow or hoop (Plates 16 & 20). Many of the chairs terminated at the arm, that is the rear sticks did not come up to the level of shoulders or head. These arm-chairs, quite common, are the forerunner of the smoker’s bow or captain’s chair (Plate 14).

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Plate 16. This chair illustrates what happens when a country-maker tries to copy his more sophisticated cousins. This is an English chair, made in Wales.

What is it that makes these chairs so attractive that now they have become highly sought after collectors’ items? Could it be some extension of the old Celtic art which makes them so appealing? – a naive folk art uncluttered by association with the contemporary urban styles. Many characteristics of the design are extremely good, and represent what we look for today in a well proportioned chair.

— Meghan B.

Derek Parkes

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This is an excerpt from “The Intelligent Hand” by David Binnington Savage. 

It began with a walnut desk that had been commissioned by a London architect friend. This was a prestige job for a building conversion in London’s Covent Garden. It was right on the Piazza – a prime spot. My desk was to fit diagonally across the reception area. Malcolm and I worked and worked to get this spot-on. Table delivered, everyone delighted, craftsmen paid.

A few weeks later I get a call: “The building has been sold. The new owners don’t want your table, so it has been taken by the managing director of the developing company for his Dorset house. We suggest you get in touch with Derek’s wife, Mary.”

WHAAAAT!!!!…. I hated this. Malcolm and I had made this table for a specific place in the centre of London. Now it was going into some rich dude’s country house – a disaster I sulked over for days. It turned into something unexpected.

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Getting hold of Mary Parkes was not easy, and I didn’t really want to do it. Making the phone call took me ages. When I did talk to her it was, “Oh I love your table! We are restoring a house in Dorset and we have put it there. We need some special dining furniture. Can you help us?”

I remember feeling extremely scared before I met Mary. I went trembling to a very smart address just off the Kings Road in West London. I came with some draft ideas of chairs and tables. Derek arrived later; he was genial and friendly and very much the worse for a few drinks. We settled nothing but agreed to meet at their Dorset house sometime later.

When we met again, Derek was on great form. He spent a whole morning showing me around a wonderful old house. He proudly showed me some of the restoration work. It was incredibly expensive but almost invisible. Derek took great pride and pleasure in what he was able to do to restore that beautiful old house. He introduced me to the gardeners and household staff; he knew each by name and knew about their families and children. This man was operating socially on a completely different plane to the rest of us. To me, he was amazing; I was bowled over. He liked making things, and enabling things to be made.

Mary and I worked on her ideas. Derek wanted chairs in which he “could have a great dinner party, consume a bottle of claret and not damage himself falling out of the chair.” I remember Mary doing sketches of chair backs that I recognised from chairs in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. I picked that up and developed it.

We made a table in solid English cherry and a set of chairs. It was the biggest job I had ever done. I remember Malcolm and Neil sweating blood over it. Mary wanted holly and dyed blue veneer details to match her fabrics.

“We can do that,” I said with complete conviction and total ignorance. We would find a way.

We delivered the pieces, the bill was paid and the client was happy. I brought over my photographer, John Gollop, to take a shot of the pieces in location. John did that, then did something that was to me extraordinary. He picked up a chair, carried it into the next room and put it in front of a full-length window. There was a huge potted plant behind it. The photo he took changed everything.

Derek and Mary were happy if I made versions of their chairs. I thought I might make two or three. John’s photo and versions of it were in every glossy magazine for what seemed like months – the 1980s equivalent of going viral. It was an early confirmation of what furniture maker Garry Knox Bennett much later told me: “Dave, we are all in a giant photographic competition.”

We were making these damn chairs in various timbers for clients all over the country for the next few years. But more important, it told me that I could do this: I could talk with people, nice people, such as Mary and Derek Parkes, and come back with ideas for furniture that would make their homes better places to live. I could listen to what they wanted and translate that into an image that fitted them like a good suit of clothes.

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Thankfully, I was a good listener; the stammer had taught me that. The first quality of a designer is to be a good listener, to take the brief and hear what is not always said. Then take the idea back to the workshop and make it. The making would be done without compromise; we would make as well as we could. Mary and Derek hadn’t quibbled over price; they wanted something special – something like the house they were living in, something new but worthy of the place. IKEA wouldn’t quite work here. The idea of “designing for clients” came directly from this job.

When I met Derek again nearly 30 years later, he was still at Blackdown House. His life has become a tribute to a wonderful English country house. We made another piece for the same room. I love that – do the job well enough and you will be working for a small group of clients for 40 years. They will always want you to make another piece.

— Meghan B.

Pricing Your Work

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The office corner in my shop. My stand-up desk, file cabinet, bookcases, catalogs and, yes, a dial telephone on the file cabinet. It has a ring that cuts through any machinery noise.


This is an excerpt from “Shaker Inspiration: Five Decades of Fine Craftsmanship” by Christian Becksvoort. 

One of the most difficult tasks when starting a business is pricing your work or product. Many woodworkers, especially those just beginning, seriously underprice their work. Hobbyists, especially, have no idea. Let me tell you, it’s really tough to be at a show next to Joe Basement, who is selling his very nice coffee table. He has no concept of the actual hours he spent, but his $140 worth of wood has turned into a $200 table. Wow, a $60 profit…wrong. The most basic pricing involves the cost of materials + overhead + profit. Let’s take a look at these one at a time.

Materials are your wood, hardware, glue and finishes – anything that ends up in the customer’s possession. When working with a variety of woods, you’ll have to refigure the price for each species. That can run the gamut from a couple of bucks for No. 3 pine or poplar to $60 per board foot for exotics, to more than $100 per sheet for top-grade plywood with fancy veneers (in 2017 dollars, as are all prices in this book).

Working almost exclusively in cherry, and paying roughly the same amount for the past 20 years, makes pricing for me much easier. Not only that, but I get to use leftovers and offcuts for the next project. At this point in my career, I know the exact board footage for all pieces in my catalog. When starting out, you’ll have to do a bit more math. When you come up with the board footage, add 10-20 percent for waste, depending on how fussy or frugal you are regarding knots, defects, sapwood and general waste. Besides the wood, also include screws, hinges, locks, knobs, glides, glass, hangers and your glue and finish of choice. Speaking of hardware, I always buy the top grade. It takes just as long to install a cheap hinge as an expensive one. Cheap hardware will come back to haunt you, and result in unhappy customers.

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Buy the best-quality hardware you can get your hands on – including extruded hinges and cast locks. It takes just as long to install cheap hardware as that of highest quality. These are by Whitechapel, Horton Brasses and Ball & Ball.

Overhead is an all-encompassing term that includes the expenses you pay as the cost of doing business, but of which the customer does not take possession. Here is a partial list: your shop building or rent or mortgage, insurance, vehicle, electricity, heat, office supplies, telephone, internet, tools, advertising, freight charges, accounting, postage, licenses and taxes, and a few others that I may have overlooked. The bigger items, such as the mortgage, vehicle and large power tools can be amortized over a long period of time. Don’t, however, forget to include small tools such as routers that need to be replaced, specialty bits and tooling for a specific project, etc. Again, it will be difficult to estimate these costs when first starting, but after a year or more of good bookkeeping, you’ll have a pretty good handle on what it takes to run your shop. Divide the yearly total expenses by 12 to give you a monthly figure, divide that by 30 to give you a daily figure, and divide the last by eight to give you an hourly overhead cost.

Finally, your profit. Yes, we’d all like to make $100 per hour take-home pay, but let’s be reasonable, especially when you’re just starting out. My profit, or hourly wage, when I opened my shop in the mid ’80s was $20 – which I thought was pretty good. It has since gone up considerably, but only after a few years. You can’t start out with astronomical prices when you have no track record, no reputation and no customer base. That comes with time, working efficiently, keeping your nose clean and keeping your customers happy.

A few random thoughts on prices and shop finances in general. First, if you give a customer a price quote, stick with it. You’re only as good as your word, and your word is your reputation. I’ve eaten my fair share of underpriced projects. It’s all part of the learning curve. Customers don’t want to hear “This took a lot longer than I thought….” They want results, not excuses. On the other hand, if a customer request changes for alterations to the original design, then a change in price is warranted. Keep track of any additions or alterations made after the original quote.

I don’t dicker, and I try to be fair. I don’t gouge customers because they drive up in a Mercedes. The same hourly rate applies to everyone. Once that price is established, it’s fixed, unless times and circumstances change. My shop rate is based not just on time, materials, overhead and profit, but also on my experience, craftsmanship and reputation as a craftsperson. When potential customers try to talk my prices down, I tactfully end the conversation. Now they are messing with my self-worth. Remember, once a customer asks for and receives a discount, they will expect one from then on. And word spreads.

— Meghan B.