Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books. To submit your own idea, email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is from David Farnum, in Greer, South Carolina.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
One of the challenges I have when shaving long sticks is getting a good fit – one that’s not too skinny – where the stick fits into the armbow. For a long time, I drilled a mortise using the same bit as I did for the armbow in a piece of 2x scrap, but the simple slot gauge below makes it much quicker and easier to check the size. I already had the 8″-long piece of maple because that’s what I use to check the height of the armbow. Cutting the slots in that gives me one less thing to keep track of.
The gauge is just a series of notches cut a tiny bit wider than what’s labeled. Making the slots a little bigger keeps me from overshooting – when the stick fits the slot, I can carefully fine-tune the last little bit with a scraper or block plane. The stick doesn’t get jammed like it often did in the mortised 2x scrap and rotating it in the slot quickly shows where the high spots are.
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books. To submit your own idea, email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
From time to time, I get minor gaps around the stick and leg tenons. (I am not the only one, right?) These gaps become more apparent with the finish on, because they don’t reflect light in the same way as the surrounding area.
I read about filling small holes with cyanoacrylate (CA) glue and decided to give it a try.
Does it work? Kind of. But I accidentally discovered that its biggest effect is something else entirely.
Without CA glue.
With CA glue.
You see, it’s relatively easy to plane, scrape or sand the glue residue from the face grain. But it soaks deep into the end grain and darkens it a lot. I don’t know how deep exactly, but I wasn’t able to remove it without making the whole arm thinner.
Owning my mistake, I decided that I like this look.
If you want to replicate it, smear a thin layer of CA glue across the tenon. Even coverage is important to avoid visible streaks. You can go outside the tenon to fill gaps and scrape the area later to clean it up. I would avoid doing this on deeply scooped seats, because some of the end grain is exposed around the leg mortises and can get stained as well.
Try at your own risk on important pieces because it’s hard to undo!
For reference, the illustration shows chairs made from European beech and finished with eight coats of shellac.
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books.
Send us your own ideas! Email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is courtesy of Adam Chevalier. Thanks, Adam!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
I believe Chris has moved from his planing cradle to his carver’s vise for holding legs and sticks [while planing them] because it can be tricky to keep the work from sliding around in a planing cradle.
I tried this, but it raised the work too high for me to keep good pressure on my plane. Instead, I fastened the planing cradle to the bench as if it was a wide board with a stop and doe’s foot.
To keep the work from sliding, I just put some painter’s tape on the inside of the cradle and attached a block with CA (cyanoacrylate) glue to keep the work stationary.
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books.
Send us your own ideas! Email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
In issue 3 of The Stick Chair Journal and on the Never Sponsored Substack, Chris gives a review of and instructions for using the Stanley No. 77 Doweling Machine for creating the round tenons on long and short sticks.
He recommends using the “stock guide plate,” and shares his method for holding the stick and feeding slowly while cranking fast.
I had already been experimenting with the No. 77 for this, but even following these great instructions, including using the Woodka and a spoke pointer to cone the end, I could not get a great, centered cut.
My solution: I had a cheap machinist cross-slide vise lying around for the drill press and decided to bolt it in front of my dowel machine. I can now clamp the stick with no wobble or vibration (I use shims to set the stick height on the vise). I can center the stick perfectly and feed it at a very consistent rate with the vise crank while turning the doweling machine crank at a consistent rate. Additionally, I can stop perfectly on the scribed line for the length.
With so many sticks to do, this method allows me to sit in a comfortable position and also lets me see the work more closely. It works amazingly well, and my tenons are really nice (the ones in the photo are in cherry).
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books.
Send us your own ideas! Email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is courtesy of Rob, from Peachtree City, Georgia. Thanks, Rob!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
This steambending tip is for kiln-dried hardwood.
I am building two staked side chairs from “The Anarchist’s Design Book” to go with our dining room table. Both are built out of kiln-dried cherry and I’m using the simple steambending jig as shown in the book.
The crests are 13/16″ thick and need to be steambent to a 15″ radius.
Typical bending failure.
I have built four of these same chairs previously, two out of ash and two out of cherry. The ash crests all came out well, but I had several failures while bending the cherry crests. Even when using straight-grained wood, cherry is prone to cracking and is a more difficult species to bend than ash or oak. This time around, I had three failures out of my first four attempts. All the failures were on the outside of the curve.
I knew a jig with a compression strap would give better results, but didn’t want to spend the time and energy to build a more complicated, albeit better, jig.
I had seen articles or videos in the past about steaming wood inside a plastic sleeve. While thinking about the best way to do this, I remembered that we have a vacuum sealer machine in our kitchen.
The crest is 18″ long and 2-1/2″ wide before steaming, so an easy size to work with the vacuum sealer. Vacuum sealing makes the bag/wood combination smaller and easier to handle and clamp, but still leaves plenty of moisture.
Here’s my process:
1. Soak the cherry for several days.
2. Put the wet wood in the bag and vacuum seal.
3. Steam for one hour.
4. Put the wood and sleeve in the bending jig together and clamp expeditiously.
5. After the crest has completely cooled and is at room temperature (4 to 6 hours), I unclamp the crest, remove the sleeve and reclamp in the same jig. This helps start the drying process, but it won’t dry very much while in the jig.
6. The next day, I remove the crest and put it in a bar clamp to dry. The wood will still be very wet and there will be some spring back. Tighten the bar clamp to match the 15″ radius of the bending form.
The sleeve retains the moisture during the steaming process, which is more efficient in conducting heat. Steaming without the sleeve heats the wood but also removes much of the moisture. The bag also helps retain heat and slows the cooling process while transferring and clamping in the jig.
If you plan on doing much steambending, my advice is to build a jig with a compression strap. In lieu of a compression strap, I think this is a good workaround.
Previous side chairs.
So far, this technique has worked well after a handful of attempts.
