Lost Art Press

Category: Campaign Furniture

Dovetail Tips from Dead Guys

Posted on by Lost Art Press

This morning I’m finishing up all the small drawers for the gallery in this campaign secretary. The dovetails are little buggers, and the mahogany drawer front material is really dark stuff.

So I stole some of my daughter’s sidewalk chalk.

Chalking your knife lines and gauge lines makes your lines really easy to see, even in walnut. I usually rub some chalk onto the board coarsely, knife in my lines and then rub the chalk into the lines. This removes it from the face of the board and leaves it in the crevices.

However, today I learned something new, thanks to the kinda-creepy mind-reading power of carpenter Jeff Burks. He sent me a nice little article from an 1869 edition of The Manufacturer and Builder on dovetails.

There are some interesting tidbits in there, and in the discussion of chalk it implied you could pencil over the chalk. As I am somewhat dense at times, this had never occurred to me. So this morning I chalked my pin boards, knifed in the pins and then penciled in the vertical lines on the inside face.

It worked great.

Thanks dead guys. You’re the best.

You can download and read the entire article here.

http://www.carpentryarchive.org/files/dove-tail_joints_1869.pdf

— Christopher Schwarz

A Man by Himself in the Jungle

Posted on by Lost Art Press

If you lost your self-respect you were not looked upon in a respectful and proper manner. So in order to maintain my self-respect I put on a dinner jacket and dressed for dinner and I said to my servants, who were quite likely to get a bit slack just looking after a man by himself in the middle of the jungle, “Now this is a dinner party and you will serve me my dinner as though there are other people at the dinner table.”

— Kenneth Warren, a British officer serving in a tea garden in Assam from 1906-1913

Broad and Simple Rules

Posted on by Lost Art Press

“1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not strictly necessary, in the production of which Invention has no share.
2. Never demand exact finish for its own sake, but only for a practical or noble end.
3. Never encourage copying or imitation of any kind, except for the preserving of great works.”

— John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (1854)

For more thoughts on Ruskin and thoughts on furniture design, visit James Watriss’s blog.

Planing: A Veritable Donkey’s Bridge

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Jeff Burks is a finish carpenter, dogged researcher and definitely a member of the “inner circle” of the world’s wood nerds. His healthy obsession with old books and trade magazines in particular has led me down some fun rabbet holes.

And this week, he has done it again with an article called “How to Plane a Piece of Wood,” which was printed in the June 10, 1892, edition of English Mechanic and World of Science and Art and likely penned by Joseph Gregory Horner.

The author of this fantastic piece of writing is one of the “cranky old dudes” who show up in these trade magazines from time to time to show young apprentices how it is done. I love the cranky old dudes (and they love to e-mail me).

So while your boss isn’t looking or you are pretending to listen to your spouse, download this article from Jeff’s web site, carpentryarchive.org.

Here’s the direct link for a pdf that Jeff made: http://www.carpentryarchive.org/files/english_mechanic_1892.pdf

It is, quite possibly, one of the most entertaining articles on planing I’ve ever read, and I’ll bet you a doughnut that you’ll start using the expression “a veritable donkey’s bridge” after you read it.

Thanks to Jeff, who has given me a lot to read this week. More to come, just as soon as I finishing packing these outstanding book orders.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Box Inside a Box that’s Inside a Box…

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Whenever visitors stop by, they look at the secretary I’m building, scratch their heads and say something like: “I don’t get how this works.”

So here is a photo of the secretary’s gallery inside the top drawer, which is missing its drop-front right now. I think this project is starting to look like something.

As I was fitting the gallery inside the top drawer and fitting the top drawer inside the carcase today, I had an odd thought: How do people do this process with only power tools? It’s not a snide remark, really, just my plain ignorance. I’ve never fit a drawer with power tools, so I have absolutely no clue how it’s done.

I think I know what my old boss, Steve Shanesy, would say: Build it right, and it will fit perfectly the first time.

But I know that’s not typical. Even a little bit of bow or wind can jam a drawer.

The only thing I could come up with is using a dull block plane and then sanding away the tool marks. And I once saw cabinetmaker Troy Sexton fit a drawer on a 8” jointer – no lie – and he wasn’t even wearing Depends.

Surely one doesn’t use a belt sander?

— Christopher Schwarz