I’ve always been surprised how hard it is to find Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises” in the public domain. A few years ago I stumbled on a link from that HathiTrust and totally forgot about it.
While doing some research on S.W. Silver (makers of campaign furniture), I stumbled on HathiTrust again.
If you don’t have a copy of “Mechanick Exercises,” go here.
The link is for the section on joinery. To download the entire book for free as a pdf, look at the left rail of the page and click on the link “Download Whole Book.” A couple clicks later and the entire “Mechanick Exercises” from 1703 will be on your hard drive, with the plates intact.
Here is our Christmas/holiday present to you, our readers – a fully produced version of the “Irish Joiner,” a fun 1825 tune about how all professions are similar to woodworking.
The “Irish Joiner” was brought to life by woodworker Dan Miller who performed the vocals, octave mandolin and Irish whistle. He is accompanied by Peter Connolly on the Irish whistle, guitar and Irish drum. If you like the “Irish Joiner,” I think you’ll like Dan and Peter’s CD “A Parcel of Rogues,” from their group, Finagle. Check it out here on Amazon.
The original score was dug up by (who else) Jeff Burks, who found it featured in the play “The Shepherd of Derwent Vale; Or, The Innocent Culprit: a Traditionary Drama, in Two Acts, Adapted (and Augmented) from the French by Joseph Lunn.” Read the entire play here.
Rooney O’Chisel, the Irish joiner, is a supporting character in this tale of two brothers and treachery. He’s a joiner who was robbed of his business and then becomes a jailer.
You can download the mp3 using the link below. Then you can add it to iTunes, an mp3 player or just double-click so it will play on your computer. I think it’s a perfect piece of shop music, and I am pondering a sing-along at the next woodworking event I attend.
Thanks to everyone involved in this project. I hope you enjoy the song, and you whistle it on your way to work.
— Christopher Schwarz
Irish Joiner
I’m a joiner by trade, and O’Chisel’s my name;
From the sod, to make shavings and money I came:
But myself I was never consarning
‘Bout the lessons of schools;
For my own chest of tools
And my shop were a college for larning.
For by cutting, contriving,
And boring, and driving,
Each larned profession gains bread;
And they’re sure to succeed,
If they only take heed
To strike the right nail on the head.
Whack! whack! hubbaboo, gramachree;
All the dons in the nation are joiners like me.
Whack! whack! hubbaboo, gramachree;
All the dons in the nation are joiners like me.
The lawyers, like carpenters, work on a binch,
And their trade’s just the same as my own to an inch;
For clients, whenever they dive in it,
Soon find the cash fail;
For the law’s a big nail,
An’ the ‘torneys are hammers for driving it.
For by cutting, &c.
Then each Sunday, at church, by the parson we’re tould,
By line, square, and compass, our actions to mould;
And at joining himself the right sort is;
For he pins man and wife
Together for life,
Just as firm as a tenon and mortise.
For by cutting, &c.
And the heroes who sarve in our army and ships,
When they’re fighting our battles, are all brotherchips,
So entirely our trades are according;
For, with tools of sharp steel,
Soldiers cut a great deal,
And the tars are nate workmen at boarding.
For by cutting, &c.
Then our nobles and marchants, and stock-jobbing lads,
Like joiners, work best when they’ve plenty of brads.
Each projector’s a great undertaker;
And, to clinch up the whole,
Our good king, bless his soul!
Is an elegant cabinet-maker.
For by cutting, &c.
If you attended one of my sessions at Woodworking in America in Pasadena, Calif., on Saturday, this is the blog entry you are looking for. The rest of you can go about your business – or download these and be slightly confused.
Campaign Furniture: Below are two links. One is an all-too short bibliography on this style of furniture. The other is a .pdf version of my presentation.
The Furniture Style With No Name: Below is my “recipe” for a six-board chest. There is a .pdf document that explains the tools required and the cutting and assembly procedure I use. The second document is a SketchUp file that shows the construction steps in a visual way. After you open the model in SketchUp, click on the different tabs at the top of its window to move through the different scenes.
If you weren’t at my “60-minute Sawbench Class” yesterday at Woodworking in America, this download might not make total sense to you.
But as promised, below are the illustrated directions for cutting the compound angles on the legs of the sawbench. Plus there’s a tool list and a materials list for the sawbench I built during the class.
Two things I forgot to mention during the presentation:
1. Hammer the points of your nails to blunt them before driving them in. This will reduce the fir’s tendency to split.
2. If you have some woodworking machines handy, Take a few extra minutes to dress the dimensional stock to remove the ugly rounded corners. The sawbench will look much nicer.
Matt Bickford’s book, “Mouldings in Practice,” sets out to remake the way you look at, cut and apply the mouldings to your projects.
It is quite unlike any other book we have ever encountered. Why? Bickford grapples with a core idea that has plagued woodworkers for generations: Cutting mouldings by hand requires years of practice, patience and the acquisition of high-level skills.
After reading this book, I think you will say about that old idea: “Wow. That’s crap.”
To kick-start your education in cutting mouldings, we are offering a free download of a critical chapter of “Mouldings in Practice.” This short chapter lays out the basic principles of the book and shows the landscape that it covers.
To download the chapter, simply click here. You don’t have to register, give up some special bodily cells or even your e-mail address.
If you like what you see and read, you can order “Mouldings in Practice” with free domestic shipping by clicking here. This offer of free shipping is valid only until Aug. 8, which is when the book leaves the printing plant in Michigan. After that, you’ll have to pay shipping, just like any other stiff.
Long-time customers can tell you that this is the only sort of promotion we run on our products. We don’t put stuff on fake “sales.” The price is the price. This pre-publication special is the only one you will ever see on this book.
So take a look at the chapter and decide if you really want to continue making mouldings with that spinning, noisy, dangerous machine in your shop. Or if you want to make any moulding you can imagine with just a few simple tools and the ideas in “Mouldings in Practice.”
I’ve always been surprised how hard it is to find Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises” in the public domain. A few years ago I stumbled on a link from that HathiTrust and totally forgot about it.
