I think that writing a good song or designing a nice chair is a skill you can learn.
The problem is that learning to write or design is not like memorizing the capitals of the 50 states. For me, that sort of rote learning is like gathering up a good collection of bottle caps and stashing them in a drawer.
Learning to design and write, on the other hand, is more like building a bottling machine when you’ve never even seen one before. You have to assemble lots of unfamiliar parts and get them working in concert.
One common piece of advice is to visit lots of other bottling plants to see how their machines work. In other words, listen to a lot of really good music to learn to write a song. Look at a lot of really beautiful pieces of furniture to learn to design your own pieces.
I give that piece of advice all the time. But it leaves out an important first step. You first need to learn to see and to listen. And learning to see or listen is damn hard.
That’s because when we look at a piece of furniture or listen to the radio, our brain simplifies the stimulus into a single object or sound, when it really is a combination of a bunch of complex shapes and sounds.
How do you force yourself to see? Here’s how I do it.
It came by accident when I was working on “Campaign Furniture.” Many of the drawings in that book are tracings that I made of photos I’d taken in years prior. As I traced each piece, I was forced to examine the shape of every turning, moulding and component. I had to draw both the major forms and all the minor details. In other words, it forced my brain to stop seeing the whole piece and focus on all the small elements.
As I traced more than 100 pieces, I began to see obvious patterns. The handles of campaign chests were spaced above the centerline of each drawer. The stacking chests had drawers that refused to graduate (Fibonacci is a fibber). Sometimes the pieces got away with awkward drawer arrangements that looked dang good.
I also noticed so many little details. The best chests used drawer blades that were hidden – a detail I missed until I started drawing them. And I got a great feel for the beads and tapered cylinders that made up the feet of the chests.
So when I decided to stop copying old stick chairs and strike out on my own, my first step was to buy a pad of tracing paper at the grocery store. I then opened the enormous folder on my laptop of chairs that I love, picked the 50 best and printed them out. Then I began tracing them.
To be honest, once I started tracing chairs, it was difficult to stop. My pencil forced me to see so many things I had glossed over before. Chair shapes that I thought were complex were reduced to the squares, circles, rectangles and arcs I learned at Robin Wood Elementary.
I saw – for the first time – how certain elements were grouped together. Many beginners think that a design element should be carried throughout the entire piece. Matchy-matchy – like Garanimals. That’s how we got the California Roundover style, the nadir of furniture during my lifetime.
Instead, I learned how circles and rectangles worked together with the occasional irregular curve to make something that looks right.
I know, this is a boring and arduous way to learn design. There’s no Zen koan. Instead, it is a gradual revealing of the structure behind our world – one pencil stroke at a time.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. And if you want to learn to write a good song (and to learn to listen), try this.
I have one of these stools, and use it every year at my neighborhood’s storied Fourth of July Parade and other community events. And it’s seen almost weekly use at outdoor gatherings during the last 18 months or so – the addition of a carrying strap made it particularly comfortable and convenient to sling over my shoulder as I walked to various neighbor’s houses for socially distanced gatherings; the strap left my hands free for carrying bourbon.)
— Fitz
Three-legged folding stools appear in many Western cultures, including the French, English and American. They have been popular with soldiers, sportsmen, campers and artists for at least two centuries.
This stool is a great introductory project to campaign furniture, especially if you are new to turning or working with leather. There are only three pieces of wood, four pieces of leather and some metal hardware. You can easily build one in a day.
Choosing Materials I have seen some of these camp stools built using dowels, and they are strong enough to hold most people. However, I like to build them from mahogany, teak or ash that has dead-straight grain. I’ve had nightmares about getting a stick stuck in my backside from a stool disaster.
If you can build the stool with riven stock (oak or ash are good choices), it will be quite strong. Many original stools used 1″-diameter legs. However, my recommendation is to use stouter stock. I have built reproductions with 1″-diameter legs, and they felt too springy under my 185-pound frame.
You don’t need to make the legs baseball bats, but try for something between 1-1/8″ diameter to 1-1/4″ diameter. The leather can be almost anything 7 ounces (just shy of 1/8″ thick) or heavier. Vegetable-tanned leather that you dye yourself is a particularly strong choice.
You also will need rivets to join the leather pieces – unless you are skilled at hand-stitching. While hollow rivets (sometimes called rapid rivets) are inexpensive, easy to find and strong enough, I prefer the look and unerring permanence of solid copper rivets. I used No. 9 rivets with posts that are 1/2″ long.
To attach the leather to the wooden legs, you’ll need three No. 10 x 1-1/2″-long brass screws plus matching finishing washers.
Finally, you’ll need the hardware that allows the legs to open and shut. Traditionally, this was a three-headed bolt that once was easy to find. Now, that hardware is rare in North America. If you are a blacksmith or have access to a good welder, making a three-way bolt is straightforward. I have seen a couple of these bolts for sale in England, but the price with shipping to the United States was more than the cost of the bolt itself.
So I looked for a different way. Luckily, the Internet is good for something other than photos of cats playing keyboards. One maker of custom stools uses some off-the rack hardware to make an effective three-way bolt and shares that information freely on his web site.
Here’s what you need for legs that are up to 1-1/4″ in diameter:
• A hex-headed bolt with a 5/16″ shank that is long enough to pass through two of the legs and protrude out the other side by 1/2″. A 3″-long hex-head bolt will work with 1-3/16″-diameter legs. • An eyebolt with a 1/4″ or 5/16″ shank that is long enough to pass through one of the legs and protrude out the other side by 1/4″. (Note: You can hacksaw any of this threaded hardware to length. An eyebolt that has a total length of 2-1/2″ should be sufficient.) • Two acorn-headed nuts. • Three washers. • 15 No. 9 copper rivets.
Parts • 2 Legs, 1-1/4″ dia. x 23-3/4″ l • 1 Seat, 7 oz., 13-1/2″ w x 13-1/2″ l • 3 Lips, 7 oz., 3″ w x 8″ l
Turn the Legs The three legs are easy to turn, even if your favorite turning tool is #80-grit sandpaper. Turn the legs to round using a roughing gouge or carbide-tipped roughing tool. Create a smooth, clean cylinder of about 1-1/4″ in diameter with a skew or other finishing tool.
The feet shown are 1-3/16″ in diameter and 5/8″ tall. Make the feet by turning down the foot. Then turn the ankle to 7/8″ in diameter. Round the foot, then taper the rest of the leg down to the ankle. The taper should begin 6″ from the bottom of the leg.
A bulbous foot. The foot can be almost any shape, from a bead similar to the foot of the Roorkee to this teardrop.
I added four small grooves where the hardware holes will go – two above the hardware and two below. Little details such as these grooves and beads make the legs look like something fancier than three store-bought dowels.
Not original. These little grooves add some visual interest to the joint. However, they’re not a detail I found on any original stool. So skip them if you are going for authenticity.
Sand the legs to remove any rough tool marks. I finished the legs on the lathe. First I burnished the surface with a “polissoir” (a French polishing tool made from tightly bound broom corn). Then I applied beeswax to the legs with the workpiece spinning. I used the polissoir to drive the beeswax into the pores of the wood (again, while the lathe was spinning). Then I used a rough cotton cloth (I’d like to be fancy and say it was muslin, but it was an old bag that held corn grits) to buff the wax. Then I applied another coat of wax and buffed that.
If you want to add a little age to the wood, apply a coat of black wax and push it into the grooves and pores. Let the wax set up then buff it.
Wax is not a permanent finish, but it is easily renewed or repaired if your stool is for the drawing room instead of the campsite.
Leg Elevation
Seat Plan
Lips Plan
Bore Three Holes All three holes are located in the same spot on each of the three legs and should be the same diameter – just big enough to allow the hardware to pass through. The holes are located 11-5/8″ down from the top of the legs.
The best way to bore these holes is with a drill press or hand-powered post drill. You want the hole to be dead straight and pass through the middle of the leg. If you are a whiz with a hand drill or cordless drill then go for it.
Dead center. The holes for the hardware need to be bored through the middle so the leg isn’t weak. A cradle helps hold the legs for drilling, no matter how you make the hole. Drill the hole so the brad point of the bit barely pokes through the leg (right). Rotate the leg so the tiny hole left from the brad point is facing up. Finish the hole.
Install the Hardware Strip the hardware of its zinc if you like – I use a citric acid solution for this. Here’s how the hardware goes together:
• Put a washer on the bolt. Push the bolt through one leg. • Place the eyebolt on the post of the bolt. Put the other leg on the bolt. • Add a washer to the end of the bolt, then drive on the acorn nut. • Push the post of the eyebolt through the third leg. Add a washer and acorn nut.
Drill pilot holes that are deep enough to receive the No. 10 screws into the top ends of the legs.
Common hardware. The bolt, eyebolt, washers and nuts are all items found easily at a half-decent hardware store.
Leather Seat The seat is four pieces of material: a triangular seat and three pockets that look a bit like lips when you cut them out. When I cut out leather, I make patterns for my pieces from thin MDF or hardboard – usually 1/4″-thick material.
Knife work. You will probably make more than one stool, so make plywood patterns of the seat parts and cut them out using a sharp utility knife.
Put the patterns on the leather and cut out the seat and three lips using a sharp utility knife.
You can hand-stitch the lips to the seat. If you aren’t up for stitching, rivets work well and give the project a military flair.
First punch. Using a leather punch, make a hole through the seat and pocket piece. I’m using a kitchen cutting board as a backer.
Secure each lip to the seat first with one rivet at one of the tips of the seat. Punch a snug hole for the rivet through both pieces of leather, drive on the washer or “burr,” snip off the excess and peen the post over the burr.
Insert the rivet. Put the rivet through the holes. The flat face of the rivet should be on the top surface of the seat.
Now bend one end of the lip up and rivet the end to the seat about 1/4″ from the end of the lip. Repeat for the other end of the lip. Finally, add two more rivets between the three existing rivets. Repeat the whole process for the other two corners.
Like a washer. The “burr” part of a traditional rivet is what pinches the leather. Place it over the post. Then drive it on the post with a rivet setter.
One quick note on neatness: Be sure to put the burr so it faces the floor for all these joints.
After the pockets are riveted, use a sharp utility knife to trim any little bits of the pocket that aren’t flush to the seat.
If you purchased undyed leather, finish the leather with a dye, oil and wax. Burnish the edges with a piece of wood and a little spit (water will do nicely as well).
Attach the seat to the legs. Punch a clearance hole through each lip that will allow a No. 10 screw to pass. Screw the leather to the legs with a finishing washer under the head of each screw.
That’s all there is to it. You can make the tool easy to transport by making a belt that will go around the girth of the closed stool and screwing that belt to one leg. Or you could make a canvas bag embroidered with your football team’s logo. After all, when going into battle, it’s always best to fly your colors.
A fascinating new lecture on travel to India in the 19th century, which focuses on how passengers traveled, the furniture they brought with them and the companies who supplied them, was recently given by Sean Clarke for the Stow and District Civic Society and is available here.
Sean and his brother, Simon Clarke, are the second generation to run Christopher Clarke Antiques, a shop founded in 1961 that specializes in military campaign furniture and travel items. Sean and Simon are considered leading historians and sellers of campaign furniture and were a great help to Christopher Schwarz when writing “Campaign Furniture.”
While the lecture is illustrated by pictures of campaign furniture, makers’ advertisements and passengers’ receipts, much of the lecture uses officers’ drawings and paintings as a guide to how campaign furniture was used in ships’ cabins.
When showing a series of sketches by Edward Hovell Thurlow, circa 1965, Clarke says, “Thurlow sketched throughout his career as many officers did. All were expected to have a degree in competency in drawing in the age before cameras but some also enjoyed it as a pastime in memory of their service.”
illustrated barracks, Stalag Luft III, WWII
This brought to mind another, more personal illustration, made by my husband’s grandfather, Martin Uhl, a pilot who was captured and held prisoner at Stalag Luft III during WWII. I looked at his illustrated barracks again, this time paying close attention to the furniture in those sparse, cramped conditions – the bunk beds, the tables and benches, the shelving – pieces built for a particular use. And then I thought of Monroe Robinson’s upcoming book about Dick Proenneke, and the wealth of information Dick’s well-photographed cabin contains. Although these images are from different times and places entirely, thinking about them reiterated the importance of documentation, whether painted, illustrated or photographed, of the everyday.
The artwork featured in Clarke’s lecture illustrates the cleverness and ingenuity of multi-use campaign furniture designed for portability and the volatility of life at sea. A secretaire’s iron handles were used not only for easy carrying but also for tying down once aboard the ship. Also featured are small portable bookcases that fold into a box; a ship’s table with flaps that extend, removable legs and a hinged board that reveals a mirror and compartments for use as a washstand; a Gimballed Candlestick; mahogany swing trays that hung from the cabin’s ceiling; and folding chairs.
In one slide an image of 4th Officer G. Webb’s cabin onboard the Asia E.I.C. ship in 1797 shows a cannon in his room, with furniture both built and situated so that it could be moved quite quickly should the sudden need arise to point the cannon out the cabin’s window.
The lecture, which is fewer than 50 minutes, includes a wealth of images and information, and is a delightful way to spend an evening in.
Author’s note: Campaign-style furniture is probably the first style of furniture I became aware of as a child. My grandparents collected it, and my grandfather and father both built pieces in this style while I was growing up.
But it was stupidly impossible a little trying to get my fellow editors at Popular Woodworking Magazine interested in publishing any pieces in this style. I tried for years while I was employed there. Then I proposed several articles as a freelance writer. All were turned down.
Fed up, I threatened to take my proposals to Fine Woodworking instead. And finally, Popular Woodworking got real interested.
The articles were received well enough that I decided to write this book. There are few readily available sources on Campaign furniture, which is amazing as it spanned 200 years and traveled all over the globe (a result of the British Empire’s expansion). Plus, this style influenced many Danish Modern designers.
So I traveled to Great Britain to learn about it first hand from the experts at Christopher Clarke Antiques, and to dig through military records.
“Campaign Furniture” has sold fairly well – we’re in our fourth printing. And someday I hope to write a follow-up book on the furniture that resulted when the woodworkers in the British colonies got a hold of these forms and interpreted them. It’s amazing stuff.
— Christopher Schwarz
Editor’s note: Hmmm…I don’t remember ever turning down a freelance article from Chris…wasn’t me!
— Fitz
The following is excerpted from Christopher Schwarz’s “Campaign Furniture.”
The shelves I built for this book are based on a unit I admired in one of the Christopher Clarke Antiques catalogs. The original was made from teak; mine is mahogany. While the only joinery in the whole project is cutting two dados, you will become quite an expert at installing butt hinges. It takes 12 hinges to get the whole thing to work. And installing the hinges precisely makes the shelf unit sturdier and makes it collapse more smoothly.
Profile
Assembled
Begin With the Uprights
The two ends of the unit – called the uprights – look best if made from a board that is the full 9-1/2″ width and has the grain’s cathedral running up its middle. If wood is scarce, the shelves can be made from narrower boards that are glued up the final width. The shelves are usually covered by books, so they don’t show.
Cut the uprights to 24-1/8″ long. The extra 1/8″ is for the kerf when separating the top from the bottom. Before making this critical crosscut, mark the uprights with a cabinetmaker’s triangle so you can easily distinguish how the pieces should be reassembled with hinges.
Then crosscut the uprights at 11-1/4″ up from the base.
Before installing the hinges, cut the decorative shapes at the top and bottom of the uprights. The base is half of a circle with a 3″ radius. The top is a simple ogee that is 2-1/2″ tall and switches from concave to convex on the center of the width of the upright.
Now is the best time to remove any machine marks from the uprights. You’ll find that planing or sanding the boards after installing the hinges is a bad idea – it can make the mechanism sloppy.
Fig. 10.9 Chop & rout. To cut a hinge mortise, first chop across the grain deeply. Then chop parallel to the grain more shallowly to avoid splitting the work. Pop out the waste with a router plane.
First Install
When you hinge the two pieces of the upright together, you want zero gap between the top and bottom piece. Lay out the location of the hinge mortises with care. Mine are set in 1/2″ from the long edges of the uprights. And before you cut the mortises, clamp the top and bottom of the upright together and show the hinge to your layout lines. They should match.
Chop out the mortises and clean up the bottom of each mortise with a router plane. The depth of these mortises should be the exact thickness of the hinge’s leaf.
Fig. 10.10 Punch it. Clamp the top and bottom together to ensure the parts are aligned and stay that way as you install the hinges. I use a center punch to mark where the screw holes should go. Fig. 10.11 Go for gold. The better the fit, the better the mechanism will work. Plus, unlike with most hinges, these are visible from the outside of the piece.
I install hinges with the assistance of a center punch and a birdcage awl. Punch in at each hole in the hinge leaf. Drill your pilot hole. Follow that up with a few twists of the awl. This three-step process makes a nice tapered hole for the screws.
When installing a lot of brass screws, I make life easier by cutting the threads in my pilot holes with a steel screw that is identical to my brass ones. I’ll drive the steel screw into each hole with an electric drill/driver. Then retract it. This makes it simple to install the brass screws without chewing up their slots.
With the hinges installed on both uprights, determine a good location for the dado that will hold the sliding shelf. The dado has to miss the screws from your hinges and be in a place that will fit your books both above and below the removable shelf. My dado is located 3/4″ up from the bottom edge of the top upright.
Remove the hinges and cut the 3/4″-wide x 3/8″-deep dado on both uprights.
Hinge the Shelves
The next step is to install the hinges on the shelves. Install hinges on the underside of the top shelf and the top surface of the lowest shelf. These hinge mortises are also set 1/2″ in from the long edges of the shelves and the depth of the mortises is the same as the thickness of the hinge leaf.
Fig. 10.12 Not in the way. This 3/4″-wide x 3/8″-deep dado is placed in a spot where it won’t interfere with my hinges’ screws.
Install all eight hinges before attempting to attach anything to the uprights.
The next part is where you need to be careful. If you make a mistake the shelves will not fold flat. Here’s the important fact to remember: The hinge barrels of the top and bottom shelves need to be equidistant from the hinge barrels in the uprights.
On this unit, that magic distance is 7-1/4″.
Put another way, the top surface of the bottom shelf needs to be 7-1/4″ from the hinge barrels in the uprights. And the bottom surface of the top shelf needs to be 7-1/4″ from the hinge barrels in the uprights.
As much as I dislike measuring, this is one place where it’s difficult to avoid. Lay out the location of the hinge mortises on the uprights for the bottom shelf only. Then do something that could very well save your bacon: Place the parts on your bench in a pseudo dry-fit and check your layout a few times.
The hinge mortises in the uprights are different than the mortises everywhere else in this project. For one, they are larger because they have to hold both the leaf and the barrel of each hinge. Second, they need to be deeper than the thickness of the hinge leaf.
If you make these mortises too shallow, the finished unit will wobble. If you make the mortises too deep, the hinge will bind and nothing will open or close.
How deep should each hinge mortise be? The thickness of the hinge plus half of the complete hinge barrel (that’s both the knuckle and the pin). On your first mortise, my advice is to sneak up on the perfect depth. When you find the proper depth, the shelves will stop at a perfect 90° to the upright.
Then lock in that depth on your router plane and don’t change it until you are done mortising.
Screw the bottom shelf in place. The uprights should fold flat against the bottom shelf. With the unit all folded up, you can use the layout marks to put the upper shelf in the correct spot without any real measuring.
Make the four mortises for the top shelf and screw everything together. The unit should fold completely flat. If it won’t fold flat, your mortises are in the wrong place.
The Middle Shelf
Cut the middle shelf to its finished length and plane it until it fits snug but slides smoothly into its dado. To increase the stability of the unit, I added a 2″-wide “dropped edge” to the underside of the shelf. Usually a “dropped” edge acts like a brace to keep a shelf from sagging. In this case it helps stabilize the carcase.
I cut the dropped edge to a too-tight fit between the uprights and used a shooting board and a plane to get it to fit just right. Then I glued it to the underside of the middle shelf while the middle shelf was in place between the uprights.
Fig. 10.14 Deeper mortises. To ensure the stability of the finished unit, these mortises need to be a little deeper so the shelf will stop at 90° to the uprights.
Fig. 10.15 Here’s the trick. Carry the location of the hinge mortise for the lower shelf onto the edge. Then carry that line over to the other upright (which is folded against it). Pull that line down and you have made the most critical layout line for the next set of hinge mortises.
Fig. 10.16 Glued in place. Adding the dropped edge while the case is assembled removes the risk of it sliding around as you apply clamp pressure.
Finishing the Bookshelves
Take the shelves apart and clean up any tool marks you missed before. Remember: The less material you remove the sturdier the shelves will be. Break the boards’ sharp edges with sandpaper or a plane.
This project has a simple finishing schedule: two coats of garnet shellac followed by a coat of black wax. The shellac colors the mahogany a nice dark honey. The black wax gets lodged in the pores and ensures the other people on your voyage to India won’t think you a “griffin” who is out on your first tour.
I’m in Roorkhee chair production mode this weekend. I have two chairs that need to go to a (very patient) customer in December. And I have enough material to eek out a couple more chairs – if I don’t make any mistakes.
(Hey, I might get to keep one of these chairs for myself. Or I can sell it and help pay my daughter’s tuition.)
With this run of chairs, I’m implementing a change to the stretchers that has been in the works for several years. I experimented with it when “Campaign Furniture” first came out, but never put it into production.
The goal is to shore up a weakness in these chairs – the stretchers can split when subject to too many beef brisket sandwiches. Before the book came out, I increased the diameter of the stretchers compared to historical examples and relied on riven or dead-straight material. That helped.
To strengthen them more, I contemplated switching to hickory for this component, which is likely the strongest chairmaking wood. But its color would clash with the mahogany components.
So instead I’ve beefed up the stretchers to 1-7/16” in diameter and have left the center sections octagonal instead of turned round. This does several things:
The stretchers don’t roll around on the floor when assembling and disassembling the Roorkhee.
They are indeed stronger – there’s more material.
You cannot feel the facets when they are wrapped in the 14 oz. latigo leather.
I now make the stretchers before making the legs. The turnings on the stretchers are easy, and that gets me warmed up for the legs, which have sections that transition from round to square. One false move on the leg turnings and you have made pricey firewood.
