My good friend Carl Bilderback passed away tonight after a hard-fought battle with cancer.
If you are a member of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association (M-WTCA), then you almost certainly knew him. (And if you are not a member, then he most certainly would want me to twist your arm to do so.)
I first encountered Carl when I was a junior-level editor at Popular Woodworking Magazine in the 1990s. Carl subscribed to all the magazines, and he enjoyed calling up editors and pointing out their factual errors and typos. But he was also generous with his praise when you did something well.
After years of phone calls I finally got to meet Carl in person at a M-WTCA meeting and we became fast friends. For the next decade or so whenever we met at shows or woodworking events, he’d take me aside to show me something.
Usually it was a cache of gorgeous user-grade tools. And he’d ask: Do you know any young woodworkers here who could use these tools?
I usually did. And Carl would seek them out and give them the tools – no strings attached.
He did this all over the country. Sometimes he’d read about a young woodworker and simply send them some tools they could use. He knew that the future of the craft depended on us helping young woodworkers take their first steps into the craft.
For me, he personally stood as an example of both intellectual rigor and endless generosity. He never pulled punches when he thought you were wrong. He wanted the written record of hand tools and techniques to be correct. But he never hesitated in helping you with information, tools or encouragement.
He also was a ridiculous showboater and prankster.
Carl, a union carpenter, had a voice like an angel and would amaze the members of M-WTCA when he would sing at their shows. He also sang at church, funerals, weddings and (occasionally) at a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event.
During one event in Cincinnati, Carl walked into my office wearing a blonde wig and began signing a pitch-perfect rendition of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” a la Tiny Tim for show attendees.
And even to the end, he sang at karaoke bars with his girlfriend Sue (though they are both teetotalers). She sang country and western. He sang show tunes.
And it was this funny combination of being a carpenter, singer and prankster that leads to my favorite Carl Bilderback story of all time. It’s just slightly off-color, but in a sweet way.
Carl worked as a carpenter mostly in the Chicago area, and during his career he was in charge of a remodeling job at Oprah Winfrey’s place. Winfrey (or her interior designer) had requested that all the screws used for attaching the switchplates be gold plated.
So they sent out all the screws to be plated. When they came back, Carl was put in charge of them so they didn’t get “lost.” At the end of the job, there were a few left, and Carl got to keep them.
Carl traveled a lot as a carpenter. And when he landed in a new town he’d seek out a piano bar or karaoke bar so he might get to sing. When he walked into the place, he’d sit next to a woman who was alone.
After some small talk, he’d tell the woman: “I am going to give you the most incredible screw of your life.” And then Carl would give them one of Oprah Winfrey’s gold screws and tell them the story.
I sometimes wonder where those gold screws are. And I wonder where all the block planes, chisels, miter boxes and saws are that Carl gave people over the years. I hope they’re in good hands and bring joy every time they come out.
NOTE: If you comment on this entry, please don’t try to guess who the manufacturers are in the stories below. Chances are you will libel someone. I’ll delete any comments that attempt to guess their identity. Thanks for your understanding.
One of the things I won’t miss about public life is the occasional threat of violence.
I think a lot of woodworkers think hand tool woodworkers and toolmakers are laid back and everyone gets along. That’s not always the case.
To be honest, the people on the power tool side of manufacturing are (on the whole) far more professional and easy to deal with. They understand how tool reviews work and see the long game in developing a relationship with a writer.
The hand tool people are more like an Italian family.
It started with a few e-mail messages when I was at Popular Woodworking from people who threatened to beat me up if they ever saw me or met me in a dark alley.
Then, during a show several years ago, one of the vendors cornered me about why I wouldn’t review his tool.
“Honestly, I’m not interested in your tool at this time,” I told him.
The dude got in my face, and I thought he was going to punch me. All I could think was, “If he hits me, that sure would make a good blog entry. And I’ll be sure to mention his tool.”
But he backed down without whacking me.
My favorite encounter was with a company that sold sharpening supplies. After reviewing one of the company’s products (a favorable review in my estimation; they disagreed), their people asked to have a chat during a show.
They showed me one of their edges on a chisel.
“Tell me that’s not perfectly shiny and sharp.”
I looked at the tool.
“Shiny doesn’t mean sharp,” I said. “And I think I see some dubbing on the edge,” pointing to the glint on the tip.
“Why don’t you try cutting your own throat with it? See if it’s sharp.”
I handed the tool back.
That’s when the countdown to the Year(s) of the Hermit went into overdrive.
After checking out the first two days of this year’s French Oak Roubo Rodeo and seeing those manly men wrestling and wrangling with massive slabs of oak I had to break out my Japanese fan to cool myself down, because Oh La La, that French Oak!
The French have a great admiration for their oak trees with the best lumber being used for wine barrels. One of the oldest of the French oak forests is the Forest of Troncais, developed beginning in 1670 under the direction of Jean-Batiste Colbert, Minister of Finances and Secretary of State of the Navy for Louis XIV (the Sun King). The oaks were grown and managed specifically for shipbuilding. While reading about trees and boatbuilding I learned about Troncais (and there might be a future post named “Make a Boat From a Tree”).
In the Forest of Troncais.
The primary oak species in Troncais is Quercus petraea. Trees are harvested when they are around 160 to 200 years old and average about 120 feet high. Today, Troncais oaks are highly prized for wine barrels for aging cognac and Bordeaux wines. There are several other esteemed forests, also under the protection of the French government, that supply oak for wine production and other specialized uses.
If you haven’t read about FORP I held in August 2013 and the American roots of some of the oak used you can read about it here.
The Wye Oak.
Since I live in Maryland (also known as Merlin) I must mention our famous white oak, the Wye Oak, of Talbot County on the Eastern Shore. This great old tree was 96 feet high, almost 32 feet around and watched over us for 450 years when it was brought down by high winds during a thunder storm in June 2002. The Wye was thought to be the oldest and biggest white oak in the United States.
The last big tree of note is giantCypress, the blog of Wilbur Pan. If you have questions on Japanese tools, need book and website references, New Jersey fun facts, or need to know how to handle cheese cake with chop sticks, then giant Cypress is the place to go here. And every year on this date Wilbur has a special tribute for veterans.
While those scamps, Chris and John, are on their way to Georgia for the French Oak Roubo Project-Part Deux (and we wait for their daily updates) let’s take a look at a few stained glass tributes to woodworkers.
In the Cathedral at Chartes there are 13th century jewel-like scenes of carpenters, a wheelwright and a cooper working away on biblical constructions.
Chartes Cathedral.
Woodworkers of the biblical kind are fairly easy to find in stone, mosaic and stained glass. But what about the modern craftsmen? Where are they in the stained glass world? I found a few.
Maryhill Burgh Halls, 1878, Glasgow, Scotland.
The Maryhill woodworkers are one of twenty panels depicting a variety of trades and industries. The artist is Stephen Adams.
St. Nicholas Church, 1997, Potterspury, Northamptonshire, England.
The Potterspury window was designed by Chris Fiddes and made by Nicholas Bechgaard.
St. Lawrence Jewry-Next-Guildhall, est. 1957, London.
This section is from the Wren Window. Christopher Wren rebuilt the church after the Great Fire of London. The church was struck during the Blitz and rebuilt again after World War II. The artist is Bill Forbes.
St. Mary Isleworth, 1954, London.
This last window is by Thomas Derrick and is my favorite. The craftsman is positioned on his own small island and we look in on him as though through a skylight. He works away undisturbed and serene. His myriad tools frame him and his life’s work.
In each window the stained glass artists are honoring their fellow craftsmen that have helped build and maintain the local churches, town halls and guildhalls. The windows help record the history of place and craft. And although each window shows just one or two men, they stand in for all woodworkers.
Sometimes a tribute is a small plaque on a wall and sometimes the tribute, the thanks for your skill and hard work, takes the form of a gorgeous glowing window.
In late October 1716 Jacob Arend, a journeyman cabinetmaker, was 28 years old and at a crossroads. He and his fellow journeyman, Johannes Witthalm, had recently finished work on a writing cabinet. They both worked for Servacius Arend, Jacob’s older brother and the cabinetmaker to the court of Würzburg in Germany. The writing cabinet was a masterpiece but Jacob felt the need to write a letter and conceal it in the cabinet. He made sure it would not be easily found and he was very successful in this endeavor. The letter was not found until December 1967 and it wasn’t until 2014 that the letter was translated and studied.
City of Würzburg
Before examining the letter let’s take a look at the last piece Jacob and Johannes made in the Würzburg workshop. The writing cabinet is a Baroque behemouth bursting with curved surfaces and marquetry. The cabinet is almost 71 inches high (180 cm), 65 inches wide (165 cm) and the depth is almost 31 inches (78 cm). It appears to be in three pieces but is actually in two pieces. The writing cabinet was made for Jacob Gallus von Hohlach. The double doors of the top section bear von Holhlach’s arms and the writing flap his cypher — JEALUS JACOB.
Cabinet with writing flap open.
The carcase is pine with veneering in walnut. Marquetry woods are burr walnut, sycamore, tulipwood, boxwood, ebonized and stained woods; other materials include ivory, bone, turtle shell, pewter and brass. The cypher of von Hohlach is laid into snakewood. The drawers are lined with embossed decorative papers; cupboards are lined with red silk.
Marquetry of Jacob Gallus von Hohlach’s arms.
Some time after the writing cabinet was finished Jacob Arend wrote his letter filling both sides of one piece of paper. The letter was put in a recess under the lower right hand drawer; the drawer can be seen when the writing flap is open. Secret compartments were not a novelty in 18th-century furniture but Jacob took the additional measure of gluing down the two pieces of wood that protected his hiding place.
Left: the base of the lower right-hand drawer. Right: the hiding place.
The writing cabinet and Jacob’s letter are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This translation is provided by the V&A.
“This cabinet was made by Jacob Arend of Koblenz and Johannes Witthalm of Vienna, who are at present journeymen cabinetmakers in the service of Master Servacius Arend, court cabinetmaker in Würzburg. It was made in the year 1716, when cabbage and peas often were the best meal we could obtain. As a result we have grown so fat that we can hardly climb the stairs any more, but meat has been in very short supply for us, God pity us. There was seldom warm bread in our kitchen, but the wine has always tasted good; when we have earned one week’s wage, two have already been drunk, for wine has become dear this year with the vintage having been poor the last four years. This year there has also been a great war in Hungary against the Turks.”
On the back of the page:
“I, Jacob Arend, invented this cabinet in my own mind and have drafted it all and marked it out. I have cut it [the marquetry] with a fret-saw and shaded it. This was done in the Sander quarter, near Korn Gasse by the river Main. But neither of us will be staying here much longer. This cabinet has been completed in the winter month[s], and we would like to go elsewhere, for little meat and a great deal of cabbage and turnips have driven us out of Würzburg. We ask him who finds this note to drink our health and if we are no longer living then, may God grant us eternal rest and salvation. This 22nd day of October in the year 1716.”
Jacob’s letter gives us a window into a workshop capable of producing a writing cabinet using materials from at least three continents while the craftsmen were living in very straitened circumstances. The contrast between the rich details and opulence of the cabinet and the makers’ steady diet of cabbage and peas is startling. Jacob was working in his brother’s court-appointed workshop, which probably gave him some level of security, but had reached a point of desperation. How had living conditions deteriorated to the extent he and Johannes decided they had to leave? Life traveling from town to town seeking work was not only dangerous there was also no guarantee they would find enough work and wages to survive.
In describing their diet and lack of bread and meat Jacob gives us a key to what had happened to their food supply. In the V&A analysis the harsh winter of 1714-15 was noted as having a dire impact on the following year’s harvest. I did my own investigation to learn more about the weather conditions.
Europe at that time was in a weather pattern called the Late Maunder Minimum (LMM) also known as “The Little Ice Age.” The winter of 1714-15 was very cold and dry and the beginning of a drought that would cause crop failures. There were also more instances of forest fires. With a shortage of grains, prices were raised, farmers could afford to feed fewer livestock and grains for bread and other foodstuffs became more scarce. Drought conditions caused water levels to drop and transport of goods, including lumber, became more difficult and costly. Jacob mentions the poor grape harvest the last four years (and increased price of wine) indicating an extended period of poor crop yields. Jacob writes in a joking manner, “…we have grown so fat that we can hardly climb the stairs any more.” The V&A analysis indicated the term fat may mean bloating from the diet of cabbage and peas or could be the much more serious symptom of prolonged starvation. In the German text there is some ambiguity on whether Jacob had written about the lack of ‘broden’ (bread) or ‘braden’ (roast meat). If they were at the point of a scarcity of bread their level of hunger was more severe.
An additional factor adding instability to the region was another war with Ottoman forces. European forces led by Prince Eugene of Savoy won the Battle of Peterwardein in August 1716. The recipient of the fancy cabinet (von Hohlach) supplied troops and supplies to Prince Eugene and this likely caused an additional drain on local resources.
Based on the workmanship in the writing cabinet and the fact that Jacob was from Koblentz it is thought he may have trained in Mainz (further up the river Main). As journeymen Jacob and Johannes probably had some familiarity with the conditions and dangers they would face once they became itinerant craftsmen. Besides the hunger they were suffering, I wonder if the workshop had already experienced a significant decrease in the quantity of work coming in. Also, Jacob was a bachelor and may have thought about how he could reduce the economic burden on his brother’s family. One or two less mouths to feed could certainly make a difference.
With the writing cabinet completed and the decision made to leave the shop, Jacob wrote his “message in a bottle.” I don’t see any great mystery on why he wrote his letter and why he hid it. The workshop had endured months of growing hunger while building a magnificent monster. Facing an extremely difficult and perilous future Jacob was saying “I was here and I made this!” The cabinet was his design; he worked on the marquetry and the veneer. He was proud of the cabinet while at the same time very aware that it might be the last piece he would ever make. As a journeyman this was the only way he had of signing his work. Jacob built the cabinet with his talent and sweat and with the letter he was adding one last and very personal part of himself to the piece. He wanted to be remembered.
So what happened to the two journeymen? There is no other record of Johannes Witthalm. Ten years after leaving Würzburg Jacob Arend was appointed cabinetmaker at the court of Fulda and in 1744 he died at age 56. Two years later his son, Carl Philip, was appointed cabinetmaker to the court at Fulda.
City of Fulda
The owner of the Würzburg writing cabinet, von Hohlach, was booted out of his position not long after the cabinet was completed. The cabinet and other court furniture were sold to England early in the 19th century when Würzburg became part of Bavaria. The last English owners were the Gibbons. The cabinet is in the background of the 1846 painting “The Shell” by Charles Robert Leslie (commissioned by John Gibbons). On December 26, 1967 two young Gibbons boys were searching for secret compartments and found Jacob Arend’s letter. The cabinet was loaned to the V&A in 1968 and sold to the museum in 1977.
–Suzanne Ellison
Von Hohlach’s cypher on open writing flap.
Marquetry at top most section, left side.
“The Shell” painting, 1846, writing cabinet in background.
