Category: Mouldings in Practice

When I was in journalism school, the professors said you shouldn’t tell your competitors what you were working on. Ever.

Here is what we are working on this week.

1. “Mouldings in Practice.” This book ships from the printing plant in Michigan on Aug.8 and will hit the mail stream on Aug. 13. So here is the important news: Free shipping for “Mouldings in Practice” ends at midnight Aug. 8. After that, domestic shipping will add $6 to the price. If you want to save $6, place your pre-publication order before Aug. 8.

2. There will be 26 leather-bound and signed editions of “Mouldings in Practice.” These will be available for sale in the store in mid-August. The price will be $185, which includes domestic shipping. These books will be bound in brown calfskin and debossed in gold leaf – all by the good guys at Ohio Book in Cincinnati, Ohio. There will not be a waiting list for these books (please don’t ask). When they are available in the store, they will be available in the store.

3. There will be ePub and Kindle editions of “Mouldings in Practice” available in the fall. We are working on the conversions now.

4. The book “By Hand and Eye” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin is now in our hands and is being edited.

5. All of the essays and scans for the Roubo translation are complete. We are now editing the essays from Don Williams. Even if you have no love of marquetry, this is awesome and strong stuff. I shudder to think how much money we have spent so far on this project, and I am bewildered by how much time and money will be spent ahead. It will be worth every penny.

6. New projects on the horizon: A chair book from Peter Galbert. A book on EVERYTHING about saws by Andrew Lunn. A book on understanding wood by Chris Becksvoort. And a very special surprise for Christmas… a la Francais.

— Christopher Schwarz

I recently had a conversation with a professional woodworker and carver who was shocked that other pros use dovetail jigs for casework when making high-end commissions. I pointed out the irony of his statement: He never makes mouldings by hand before adding carving to them.

Everybody sees the process differently. To each his own.

A lot of people get into this hobby through machinery and then add some sort of handwork. Dovetails appear to be most woodworkers’ transition point. Once you know how to make this joint by hand, your drawers do not have to be made to fit the jig. Even if the jig has variable spacing, dovetails done by hand are nearly unanimously seen to be more attractive than those done by machine. Additionally, the skill is recognized by even the most novice among us. If nothing else, it’s a way to immediately transmit our prowess to others who are in the know. It’s a secret handshake of sorts.

Like making dovetails with a saw and chisel, making mouldings with hollows and rounds has real advantages. You will make profiles that highlight a piece exactly the way you want. You will manipulate the light and shadows to fit the piece and your eye, not in a predetermined fashion made by a manufacturer. By making mouldings by hand you will dictate your results.

Unlike making dovetails by hand, the tooling, method, purpose and starting point for making mouldings with hollows and rounds is not always apparent. After all, any dovetail on furniture can be cut with a single saw. Every moulding cannot be made with two, four or even 10 moulding planes.

The good news is that most of us have no need to be able to make every moulding. Most of our work does not encompass the full range of furniture and decoration. We may all include ogees in our pieces, but not all of us make ogees that range from 1/4” in width to 3”. Most of us do not need a half set of hollows and rounds (nine pairs, 18 planes that range from 1/8” radius up to 1-½”) along with snipes bills, side rounds and plows.

The inevitable question of “where do I begin?” is one I’ve addressed a lot. The first answer is that you must have a way to accurately and efficiently make many varying rabbets. If you are not comfortable with making the following rabbets then you will need a method to do so.

I opt for a rabbet plane (often supplemented with a table saw) to make rabbets. A simple rabbet plane has no fence and no depth stop, which is an absolute advantage. No fence and no depth stop means no adjustments, which means that you can hop from one rabbet to the next in the course of a recoil from a forward stroke.

Like a rabbet plane, hollows and rounds also lack fences and depth stops, which, again, is an advantage to those making small runs of profiles. Hollows and rounds make a specific circumference – not a specific profile. “Mouldings in Practice,” my new book to be published by Lost Art Press, will walk you through the process from holding the planes and setting the irons to making large profiles composed of several different shapes.

With one hollow and one round and a method for making rabbets you are able to make a few dozen profiles. Each profile, however, will be derived from the same circumference. You will learn which tools you need as you learn the process of using them. I think you need at least two pairs to learn how to truly use them.

If you start with two pairs of hollows and rounds, you are able do far more than twice as much. With two pairs you will, of course, be able to make the same moulding profiles in two different dimensions. You will also be able to mix and match the concave with the convex to mimic profiles that are more representative of those that you will see upon the pieces throughout the ages. By adding a second pair of hollows and rounds you are also able to make ovular or elliptical shapes by using two different sized pairs.

With two pairs of hollows and rounds you are able to make multiple moulding profiles that complement each other and are not simply derivatives of the same circle. By adding that second pair of planes to your repertoire you are able to recognize the true versatility that these planes both allow and encourage.

If you do not know where to begin but you know you want to make one specific profile, find the various radii included in the profile with a circle template and you’ll have your answer.

If you still do not know where to begin then I often recommend starting with either pairs of 6s and 10s (radii of 6/16 and 10/16, respectively) or 4s and 8s (radii of 4/16 and 8/16, according to the numbering system to which I subscribe). If the largest piece on your “to do” list is a lowboy or small chest of drawers, then go with the 4s and 8s. If you want to make a high chest of drawers or something larger, go with the 6s and 10s.

These two pairs of planes may be all you ever need to execute the profiles of your choice. If you later decide to add more pairs you will know exactly where to go with the experience you have gained at the bench. Whether you end up with four pairs or 14, these sizes will certainly be included in your ideal set.

Moving the process from your computer to the bench is the most important thing to do in acquiring this skill. As you progress, you will learn to sharpen more accurately, lay profiles out better, and to design as you see the profile take shape knowing that you can change it at any point.

By using the methods I describe on my blog and in my book you will never get to the end of a profile and wonder what went wrong. The answer is always apparent.

But what do you do in a few months when you recognize that your first attempted profiles aren’t perfect? Tell anybody who notices that you once bought cheap router bits and didn’t have the control like you do now. And be content knowing that you’ve distracted them with the great work you have done on your dovetails. That’s the secret handshake that most people know. This one – hand-cut moulding – is still a secret.

— Matt Bickford, author of the forthcoming “Mouldings in Practice”

After years of publishing woodworking information, you often hear that there is nothing new in the craft. Everything has been done before, written before and fully figured out.

I used to believe that was true, until I read the manuscript that was to become “Mouldings in Practice” by Matthew Sheldon Bickford. This books explains how to make mouldings in a simple way that I have never ever encountered – either in print or from an instructor.

The book turns a set of complicated mouldings into a series of predictable rabbets and chamfers that guide your hollow and round planes to make anything – anything – that has been made in the past or that you can envision for your future projects.

During the last several months, we had many proofreaders edit this book and the universal reaction was much like this:

“Well crap. Now I want to buy some of these stupid planes.”

During the past 14 months, Matt and I have been working to make “Mouldings in Practice” into a book that is accessible for even the beginning hand-tool woodworker. It uses more than 200 color illustrations and dozens of photos to explain how to lay out, prepare for and cut any moulding you can draw.

The first half of the book is focused on how to make the tools function, including the tools that help the hollow and round planes – such as the plow and the rabbet. Matt also covers snipes bills and side rounds so you know their role in making mouldings. Once you understand how rabbets and chamfers guide the rounds and chamfers, Matt shows you how to execute the mouldings for eight very sweet Connecticut River Valley period projects using photos and step-by-step illustrations and instruction.

The book has a full index by Suzanne Ellison (the saucy indexer for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”), plus appendices on fixing up old moulding planes, building a sticking board and how to capture moulding profiles in the wild.

This book is, by far, the most complex thing we have published here at Lost Art Press, thanks to the hundreds of illustrations, photographs and geometry involved. Like all our books, “Mouldings in Practice” has been produced entirely in the United States. It has color illustrations with black-and-white photos, and it is printed on #60 white uncoated and acid-free paper. The pages are Smythe sewn to last a long time. And the book is hardbound and covered with cotton. Old school.

You can buy the book now for $37 with free domestic shipping from now until the book arrives from the Michigan printing plant in early August. After the book arrives in our warehouse (read, basement) the book will be $37 plus shipping.

As a bonus, everyone who orders this book through Lost Art Press will also receive an instant download of E.J. Warne’s book “Furniture Mouldings.” We acquired an excellent copy of this hard-to-find book and created a top-notch scan. The book is a collection of full-scale mouldings from historic furniture pieces. It is the perfect companion to “Mouldings in Practice.”

After you check out you’ll get a link to download Warne’s book.

To order the book, click here.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I forgot to mention: The book will be available in ePub, Kindle and leather-bound editions later this summer. More details to follow.

This is about woodworking. You’ll just have to wait for it.

When I edit a book or a magazine article, I always feel shame during the process. Despite all the electronic tools available to me, I have to print the entire book at several stages of the process and work on what we call the “hard copy.”

It is a wasteful process. For example, Matt Bickford’s new book, “Mouldings in Practice,” is more than 250 pages. I think I’ve printed it out at least five times in the last six months. The printouts will get run through the printer again, and then they will be recycled. But still, that is a lot of paper, energy and waste.

I make these printouts because it helps my editing. Changing the format – from electronic to paper – makes me see the words differently. I always find things that I just couldn’t see on the screen. It could be the gestalt of the elements on the page. (You hear that Clem? He said “gestalt.”) I find things that don’t line up. I find enormous errors that I’ve been blind to for months – last night Megan Fitzpatrick (also a dirty paper waster) found a doosie in Matt’s book that everyone has been looking at for three months.

Plus I find more typos and little stuff. For me, paper is magic. I’ve tried changing the format to a tablet or a different computer, and it doesn’t help as much as printing the sucker out and going at it with a pen.

What does this have to do with woodworking? Lots. As I’ve mentioned before, “The map is not the territory.” Your scaled drawing is not the same thing as a full-size drawing, a mock-up or the real piece of furniture. You will see things – problems and triumphs – at every stage you choose to go through. But nothing – nothing – compares to the final product.

Which is why there are still typos in books after 20 people edit them. Because the territory is the territory. The book is the book. The secretary is the secretary.

— Christopher Schwarz

We are finishing up work on Matt Bickford’s “Mouldings in Practice” book this week. It should be off to the printer next week and – barring any wackiness – in stock by the end of July or early August.

First some details on the book and then a warning.

Details. We could have called this “Matt’s Big Book of Mouldings.” It is big. It’s going to be in a 7” x 10” format with more than 250 pages of text, photos and illustrations. And it’s the illustrations that are key. Matt drew more than 200 mouldings in process to show exactly what is going on at each stage.

The book is divided into two major sections. The first is on the moulding planes themselves – how to tune and sharpen them. Then Matt goes on to explain how to lay out and execute the rabbets and chamfers that will create the desired profile.

Wait, rabbets and chamfers? Indeed. We could have called this “Matt’s Big Book of Mostly Rabbets and Chamfers.” These two basic shapes are the key to creating consistent results. There are also chapters on plow planes, side rounds and snipes bills, and their role in making mouldings.

The second section of “Mouldings in Practice” takes eight high-style period pieces and deconstructs the mouldings on them and shows you how to make them, step by step. Matt studied these pieces at Nathan Liverant and Son Antiques in Colchester, Conn. This part of the book is nearly 80 pages long and is very cool. It’s one thing to talk about sample mouldings. It’s another thing to work with the real-deal stuff.

There are also some appendices on sticking boards, capturing moulding shapes from existing pieces and dealing with antique planes. And (wait for it) an index.

Like all Lost Art Press books, this will be produced and printed entirely in the United States. Acid-free paper. Smythe-sewn binding. Cotton-covered hardbound. All the drawings will be in full-color. The photos are black and white. We don’t have a retail price yet – probably less than $40. We will offer pre-orders with free shipping and a bonus digital download (more details on that later). We do not know which (if any) of our retailers will carry the book yet.

Now the warning.

If you’ve been looking for hollows and rounds in preparation for this book, you might have had some trouble. Ed Lebetkin, who runs the shop above The Woodwright’s School, reports that he cannot keep certain sizes in stock because of the high demand.

Likewise, there is going to be some strong demand to take classes from Matt himself. He’ll be teaching his methods at three places this summer. Here are some links. If you want to get a jump-start on this part of the craft, the book and some instruction from Matt are a fantastic way to go.

July 7-9: Using Wooden Moulding Planes at The Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, in Manchester, Conn.

Aug. 18-19: Hand Planed Mouldings at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, Maine.

Sept. 15-16: Molding Planes with Matt Bickford at The Acanthus Workshop in Pottstown, Penn.

— Christopher Schwarz