“As I gazed on the turbaned crowds, the flaunting robes, the huge umbrellas, the passing palankeens, the black sentinels, the strange birds, and even (pardon the climax) the little striped squirrels, which gambolled up and down the pillars of the custom-house sights so new and strange to me, I almost began to doubt my own identity, and to think I had fallen into some new planet.”
— “Memoirs of a Griffin, or a Cadet’s First Year in India” by Capt. Ballew (Wm. H. Allen, 1880)
You might think that after 10 months of hard traveling on three continents that I’d be ready for the dirt nap.
But with my final teaching assignment of 2013 now behind me, I am sitting in a hotel in San Marcos, Texas, with a beer (New Belgium’s Ranger) and a smile on my face as I plan a brutal schedule for the next 58 days.
By Dec. 31, I will finish my book “Campaign Furniture.” I have only two more projects to build and about half of the text of the book already written. And I have reached the point with the book where I am vomiting out more words than I am taking in via my research – an important tipping point.
I really don’t give a crap if you buy this book. Or if you like campaign furniture. Or if you care for the interesting book design I’ve been contriving. Like all of the books I’ve written, this is just something I am compelled to do.
Now I’ve got to go to sleep. I have to dream up a wack-nutty filing jig and catch a plane before sunrise that will take me back to my shop.
— Christopher Schwarz
Work on “Campaign Furniture” is on pace to finish on time – Dec. 31 at midnight is the goal. I have just a few more small projects to build; about half the book is written.
One of the parts of the book I am enamored with is the translation of A.-J. Roubo’s seven pages of text on campaign furniture. While my book focuses on British forms, I wanted to include a little on the French furniture.
Michele Pagan, who translated Roubo for “To Make as Perfectly as Possible,” was happy to translate the sections on French campaign furniture for me. Today, she handed in her translation, which I am working through tonight. The description of beds is quite illuminating, as is the section on tables.
As I have been talking about Roubo’s folding stool, I thought I should give you a peek at a short section of the translation relating to that form. Note that this translation needs a little smoothing – this is the nearly raw version. Still, it is fantastic.
We make yet another type of small seat without a back, which are a very good invention for taking less space when they are folded. These seats are called “echaudés,” and are composed of three uprights of 26 thumbs in length, of a triangular form in their design, such that the three together form a bundle of 2 thumbs [in] diameter. Note that they don’t join exactly at the outer ridge, so as to facilitate their opening. Look at figure 8. These three uprights are held together by three pins made of a single piece, and positioned triangularly, which pass [through] the three uprights, outside of which they are [fastened], such that the uprights spread equally and form the seat. Look at figure 6, which represents the elevation, and figure 7, which represents the design closed as well as opened, where the ends of the uprights are lettered the same on the sides. Look also at figure 5, which represents the “echaudé” completely closed with the rivet seams of the pins, which are placed at 2 thumbs higher than the middle, so as to give more impalement to the seat. The top of this is nothing but a piece of leather or some sort of fabric attached at the end of the three uprights.
— Christopher Schwarz
In addition to the campaign trunk with the clocked screws, my dad and I saw some other good examples of campaign furniture in the shops in Charleston, S.C., on Thursday.
Oh, we also found some poopy examples – stuff from the 1970s where the hardware was all applied to the surfaces – not flush like most of the well-made vintage stuff. I didn’t take photos of those. They hurt my eyes like the time the lady next to me in airport security had to lift up her fat folds for the guards to reveal a forgotten fanny pack.
The highlight was a fairly early mahogany chest we found at the 17 South antiques store. Priced at less than $4,000, I wanted to take it home with me to study.
The hardware was beautifully inset, and the skeletonized hardware suggested it was a fairly early chest – before 1830. Upon inspecting the inside, I found lots of overcuts that pointed out the dovetail layout for the full-blind dovetails that attached the top to the sides.
With this particular example, the tails were on the ends of the chest and the pins were on the tops and bottoms. That’s not always the case.
Also cool: a dovetail liquor box and an Anglo-Indian Campaign secretary found at a shop on King Street.
Collectors differentiate between items made in England and those made in the colonies. Piece like this could have been made anywhere in the world, from the Indies to India to China. Usually the construction isn’t as good as with the British pieces, but sometimes it is just as good.
This piece had some weirdness to it, but I really liked the way the writing slope folded out of the center drawer.
Today I leave Charleston (which always depresses me a bit) to teach at The Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, N.C., for a few days. Then it’s back home to continue work on a campaign trunk I started earlier this week.
— Christopher Schwarz
The following is a composite of letters I’ve received about my personal problem of clocking screws. Note that I don’t think you should clock your screws. in fact, I don’t think you should even think about clocking screws. Think instead about screws with slots at all random angles.
— Christopher Schwarz
Dear Mr. Swartz,
I just read your article about clocking screws and I don’t know where you get the idea that professional cabinetmakers ever clocked their screws. Clocking screws means the screws are either over-tightened or under-tightened, so it is a mark of a poor craftsman with a mental problem.
I bet you line up all your pencils on your desk. Or lick light switches.
Woodworkers wouldn’t have taken the time to clock screws anyway.
I’ll bet you got all your little Communist flags all lined up in your caviar bowls when you have your little anarchist friends over to talk about your anarchosyndicate communes. And you line up your pita crisps, too.
Oh, and good woodworkers never overcut their baselines when dovetailing, either. That – like clocking screws – is just sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.
God Bless America, you Red Overcutting Screw Clocker.
— Lord Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury