Category: Make a Joint Stool from a Tree

When I visited Peter Follansbee in his shop at Plimoth Plantation in 2012, it looked as if his shop had always been there and always would.

I wouldn’t call it cluttered, exactly. It was quite tidy. But it was filled with 20 years of tools, work and the bits and pieces that come with a joiner’s life. (For photos from my visit, go here.)

But after 20 years, Peter has left Plimoth to strike out on his own. On one hand, I could not be happier for Peter. Walking away from any organization with its meetings, internal politics and hassle is liberating. But it’s also the end of an era at Plimoth. It appears that Plimoth will not replace Peter.

Peter said they were talking about adding a candle-dipper and soap-maker in his place.

While I have nothing against candles or cleanliness, this is a step backward for woodworking research into the 17th century. Peter, Jennie Alexander and a few others have been at the core of exploring and understanding the lively and robust furniture and tools from the 1600s.

(This isn’t a commercial for his book, but if you don’t own “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” and like green woodworking, you are missing out.)

No longer will you be able to visit Plimoth and watch Peter dismantle oak trees with sharp tools and a sharper tongue.

But there is a bright side to all of this. Peter is not slowing down or retiring from joinery. I spoke to him a bit at the Lie-Nielsen Open House last weekend about his new life and he’s keeping quite busy with commercial work, carving spoons and bowls and (I hope) finishing up a book for Lost Art Press.

That book, tentatively titled “Joiner’s Work,” will focus on the tools, methods and typical pieces of a joiner from the 17th century. He’s been at work on the book for some time – now he just needs the shop space to finish it up.

So if you love Peter’s work like we do here at Lost Art Press, you can lend a hand by following his excellent blog, picking up a copy of his book or DVDs from Lie-Nielsen or perhaps buying a spoon or bowl from his web site. Peter’s no charity case, but every little bit helps when you are starting out on your own.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Hey Peter, sorry about the title of this post. I couldn’t think of a good Bob Dylan song to go with this post. Hence, Elvis.

For those of us with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about traditional American tools and furniture, there is one name that makes us all tip our hats: Charles F. Hummel of Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.

Hummel’s impressive career as a champion for American decorative arts – as a scholar, lecturer and author – are the shoulders that many furniture-makers, researchers and historians have stood upon for the last five decades.

You can read a brief synopsis of Hummel’s achievements here at Winterthur’s web site.

For hand-tool woodworkers, Hummel was one of the first to eschew romantic prose about craftsmanship and rely on scholarship as he documented the history of the Dominy workshop in his groundbreaking book “With Hammer in Hand.”

This book, more than any other before it, sketched a portrait of an early American hand-tool shop as a business and not as a quaint and faded painting of days gone by. Hummel pored over the ledgers of the Dominy family and had access to the entire shop (it was moved to Winterthur and is now on display) plus many Dominy pieces, which are also on display at Winterthur. (Psst, go visit Winterthur.)

So I was delighted and simultaneously terrified to see that Mr. Hummel had written a review of “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” by Jennie Alexander and Peter Follansbee for the latest edition of “American Furniture,” the annual publication of the Chipstone Foundation that is edited by Luke Beckerdite.

In his review, Hummel praised “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” throughout the long-form review: “To this reviewer, Alexander and Follansbee’s collaboration results in one of the best ‘how-to-do-it’ books of the last and present century.”

Hummel goes on to state that the book is ideal for woodworkers and that: “The authors also do a great service to collectors of furniture, historians of material culture and of technology, and furniture scholars…. Their book deserves to be on the shelves of everyone interested in nonmachine-made woodwork.”

I could not agree more. “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” is a true labor of love that required decades of work, the construction of innumerable joint stools and trips all over the world to complete. We were honored to publish this book and are gratified by Mr Hummel’s review.

The first edition of “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” is available in our store and from the other fine retailers who stock our books.

— Christopher Schwarz