Category: Campaign Furniture

This book is not a celebration of war any more than driving a Volkswagen or Porsche is a celebration of the Third Reich.

The plain fact of the matter is that conquest and defense are rich sources of innovation, improvisation and technological advances. The moulded plywood of Charles and Ray Eames was used by the Navy in World War II for splints and stretchers. That knowledge was turned to making moulded plywood furniture, including the iconic Eames chair.

The needs of the British Empire and its far-flung colonies created a style of furniture that was rugged, beautiful and stripped of ornament. There is little doubt in my mind that the utilitarian and plain aspects of campaign furniture represent the roots of Danish modern, Bauhaus and other 20^th-century design trends.

So I do not regret the 28 months I spent researching, building and writing this book. I think the campaign furniture style is one of the most important and overlooked furniture movements of the last 200 years.

But I do have regrets.

When I set out to build the projects for this book, I consciously set aside my aversion to exotic tropical hardwoods. When I write about a historical style, I immerse myself in it as much as possible so I can understand it from the inside. That means ignoring well-known rules about wood movement, technological advances in adhesives and (in this case) deforestation.

When I reject my modern prejudices I usually find gold. I think the past has a lot to teach us. Time and again, I’ve found that old ways of woodworking are usually smarter, more nuanced and more practical than our own.

But when it comes to selecting wood for a project, I’m not so sure. Most pieces of campaign furniture were built using mahogany, camphor, teak, padauk, oak or walnut. The exotics on this list were beyond plentiful in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. (Imagine teak being cheaper than red oak.) The supply at the time seemed almost limitless when you read the accounts of the day.

I know that we furniture makers are not the primary offenders when it comes to stripping the land of tropical hardwoods. But I also know that writing a book featuring tropical hardwoods is no small affair.

So as you are picking out the wood for your first (or next) piece of campaign furniture, consider this: walnut. American and European walnut was a common staple of the campaign furniture trade, and so it’s an appropriate and beautiful choice.

Here in the Ohio River valley, we have so much walnut that we used it to frame houses and make sash. Heck, I have a pile of walnut in my shop that is bigger than a car.

If you choose to use mahogany or another exotic, consider looking for recycled lumber. Some of the wood in this book came from a (trashed) recycled dining set I purchased from a woodworker who finally decided to lay down his tools.

That old and recycled mahogany was darker, finer and more beautiful than any other modern stick of mahogany I have laid my hands on. So finding recycled wood can actually improve your finished piece (as opposed to using old McDLT boxes to make a garden bench).

In the end, it is your choice. I encourage you to ignore every word I have just written and do your own research to make an informed choice.

I don’t want blinded readers anymore than I want to spend a single day living in a totalitarian regime. You are free to make a choice about what you build, how you build it and what materials you use to build. So make it.

— Christopher Schwarz

The last project for the “Campaign Furniture” book isn’t really a piece of campaign furniture. It’s a fairly close reproduction of a Kaare Klint “Safari Chair” in mostly black. Black leather, black-dyed mahogany and silver hardware. I left the strapping in its natural vegetable-tanned color for a little relief from the black.

Today I installed all the leather and strapping to the chair. Ty Black, my former shop assistant, was nice enough to stitch the arms and part of the back for me. Thanks Ty.

I included the chair in the book because the Safari Chair is one of the important links between the Victorians and modernism. It’s also a link between my book having typos and having fewer typos. I’m trading this chair for some editing on the book.

— Christopher Schwarz

About 11 p.m. Christmas Eve, I wrote the final paragraph of “Campaign Furniture” and closed the laptop. Megan Fitzpatrick is editing the text now, and I’m finishing up some hand drawings, photography and scanning to complete the book.

I’ll start designing the pages on Jan. 1, and the finished product should ship to customers in March 2014.

I don’t know if I’m like other writers, but I have about zero point zero confidence about my books when they’re complete. My personal criticisms of my work are worse – way worse, actually – than anything spouted on the forums or lobbed into my inbox.

If I could stop myself from writing, I probably would. Unfortunately, writing and publishing is a compulsion, much like woodworking is a compulsion for me and many of my friends. So here is my pre-publication critique of my book: It’s too short, too shallow and not really funny.

1. Too short. This book clocks in at about 50,000 words. That’s about half the length of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” I did everything I could to condense my thoughts and control my asides for “Campaign Furniture.” A lot of the information in “Campaign Furniture” is visual. There are hundreds of photos, drawings and scans of historical material.

My urge was to write an opus. I certainly have the material to do that. But I don’t have time to read an opus, and I know that many readers have lives that are as crazy busy as mine.

2. Too shallow. Here’s a confession: While I admire academic books and use them in my research, I do not enjoy reading them for fun. I am not an academic. I don’t write like one, I don’t think like one and I could never be one.

So while this book will have an index, a bibliography and some deep appendices, it is not going to impress a librarian or end up quoted in someone’s master’s thesis. The goal of “Campaign Furniture” is to introduce you to the style and – I hope – get you interested in building these pieces.

Campaign furniture, as you will see, is made with top-shelf joinery, beautiful woods and its only real adornment is brasses, which also reinforce the joinery. It is an under-appreciated style, and so much fun to build.

3. Not funny. I think good writing balances information and entertainment. But after writing several chapters in the same frame of mind as “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I ended up rewriting them because the tone just seemed wrong. I find it weird to make jokes about the Napoleonic Wars, colonialism or severe urban overcrowding – all of which are part of the story of campaign furniture.

Some of the darkest and wrongest humor ended up on the cutting room floor. Here’s one bit that got cut. It’s too funny and sick and wrong not to share.

Attention, if you are easily offended, stop reading.

Sir Pratnap Singh, the Maharaja of Idar, was intent on wiping out the Muslim population of India. When an English official pointed out that they shared some Muslim friends, Pratnap replied: “Yes, I liking them too, but very much liking them dead.”

I know. It’s horrible on so many levels.

Despite my self-loathing, I do hope you’ll read the book and join me in researching and building in this fascinating style. I can already think of three more books about the campaign style that need to be written, and I hope this book sparks enough interest for me to continue my work.

— Christopher Schwarz

The covers of our Lost Art Press books are important to me, even though we don’t sell our titles in bookstores, which is where the cover can make or break a book.

I don’t want our covers to say “buy me.” I want them to say “open me.” There’s a difference. I’ve had many non-woodworkers tell me that the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was so oddly compelling that they had to open it and see what was inside.

As I am closing in on the end of the writing for “Campaign Furniture,” my lizard midbrain is turning its attention to the cover. The concept is to make the cover itself look like a campaign chest. There will be ogee (or ovolo or straight bracket) brasses on the corners of the cloth-covered hardcover. In the center will be a pull. It’s my favorite campaign pull, which I found on a piece that is likely from the Indies.

I’ve been trying to draw this pull for the last couple weeks. It’s asymmetrical and doesn’t have a straight line in its profile. I’m getting closer.

— Christopher Schwarz