Lost Art Press

Category: Projects

More Roubo – in Wood, Not Words

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I finished up an Andre Roubo try square last night – this one in row-grain mahogany,

The funny thing about this square is that it is the first one I’ve made in a species that Roubo himself might actually have used. All the other French squares I’ve made have been using North American species: American beech, maple, walnut and cherry.

ROUBO212PrWhat’s funny about that? Of all the squares I’ve made, I like this one the least. The square’s blade is perfectly quartersawn and has that row grain that is a result of the interlocked grain. I think it’s visually distracting, even though it’s proper, and I’ve seen many wooden tools that look this way.

The bridle joint also has a small gash at the baseline when my chisel slipped. But the square is square and is nice and lightweight. So maybe I’ll come to like it after it gets grungy.

On the docket today is a full load of Roubo. I’m editing the last chapter of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.” I’m also building a three-legged campaign stool from his original 18th-century text.

This should be a fun build, and an opportunity to use up some of the small leather scraps from our last run of Roorkhee chairs. The only trick to the stool is the hardware. I found a way to make it without welding, which was the traditional method.

As always, details and photos to come.

— Christopher Schwarz

Ty Black Builds a Work Table for a Tough Customer

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So I received this commission from my wife that starts like this:

“When are you going to make something for me that I want? I mean I appreciate the Roubo bookstand but it’s too fancy with all the curves at the top. That blanket chest looks unfinished. It’s not sanded well and it has those nails poking out like some sort of …like a kindergartner nailed it together. I like simple things; clean lines.”

I proceeded to defend the works and explain all their merits, for the third time. The problem is that my wife comes from a family of furniture and cabinetmakers. She was carving entry doors when she was in 10th grade. Me, on the other hand, I am new to this (comparatively) and tend to be clumsy compared to my wife who… let’s just say she has a knack for infant airway reconstruction. With all that in mind I have the determination to make something as perfectly as I can.

This is the actual commission’s description:

“It needs to be ‘yea’ big,” she says as she holds out her arms. “And about this deep.” More arm flailing. “I also want the bottom drawer to hold paint brushes standing up and a can of thinner. The top drawer needs to hold full-size drawing pads – you know the big ones.”

I reply with humph. She continues, “I want it to be Shaker-ish, Moser-ish, with clean lines, no crap and I want your best.”

To me that looks like 45″ x 31″ for the top, 24″ wide for the drawers and the bottom drawer is 12″ tall.

So here is the sketch that I came up with.

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I prepped the boards and started gluing up the major panels. Once that is done I’ll go back and correct the drawing to match the actual size of the panels.

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Now the only problem is one of these eight boards that make up the top is flipped over, and my wife will surely notice. With that in mind I’m scraping the boards and having a drink. For tomorrow, I’ll cut it apart and fix it.

— Ty Black

The Driving Dutchman

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When measuring my car and drawing up the plans for my first Dutch chest, I forgot two things: the handles and the caster assembly.

Which means, as you probably can guess, that the chest does not fit in my car.

After considering all the options – remake the handles, saw the chest in two like a lady at a magic show, going to Home Depot and buying tool bags – I concluded it would be faster (and more fun) to build a smaller Dutch chest.

This one is a mix between the first chest, some other historical examples and one that Roy Underhill owns that I examined last year (read about that chest here).

I also took the opportunity to try some different things in this chest.

1. The top has clamps (breadboard ends). I did this – instead of battens – to make a sawtill that was lower in profile.

2. The removable front panel has battens that extend beyond the bottom edge of the panel. These allow me to use a simpler locking mechanism (more on this later).

3. I used wrought nails from blacksmith Peter Ross. My one-word review: Dang.

Anyway, I’m going to paint this sucker today and will talk more about it in a bit.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Also, I’m going to build a lower unit for this chest – a la campaign furniture – after a suggestion from a reader.

Another Workbench? Seriously? (Eyeroll) Wait, Two?

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Several years ago during a breakfast with some woodworkers, I floated the idea of a workbench for the woodworker without a shop.

In essence, it was going to be like the Hammacher Schlemmer “Gnome Brand” of workbench – a nice piece of furniture that would unfold into a workbench and tool chest. But unlike the Hammacher Schlemmer bench, my design would be a bench that could be used for serious woodwork.

I was already making preliminary drawings. It was going to be a lot of fun to build.

In the end, I didn’t build that bench. Why? One of the woodworkers said the following thing while forking his scrambled eggs:

“Wow. That sounds like a lot to build for an apartment-dweller.”

Bingo. So I changed gears. This bench is that gear. Based on a historical example I’ve spotted in Europe and Australia, this bench will clamp to a sturdy table or countertop and give the woodworker a lot of functionality for something that is only about 32” long.

It will dovetail an 18”-wide case. It will hold almost any piece for tenoning. It will hold many reasonably sized pieces between dogs. It has square bench dogs, a wagon vise and a twin-screw vise that is like no other (details to come).

I made some small changes to the original design – simplifying the mechanism you use to clamp it to a stout surface, strengthening a couple points of the original that had become stressed during the last 50 years. And changing the material to maple – beech is hard to find at lumberyards in Kentucky.

I began the project yesterday and should be almost finished building a pair of these benches by tomorrow. One is for me – for traveling – and the other is for a customer.

More details in the coming days. And if you can wait a few months I’ll have an article on this bench in Popular Woodworking Magazine.

— Christopher Schwarz

The 2012 Sawbench in 60 Minutes or Less (or More)

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People gripe about my plans for sawbenches. They require too many tools, skills or shop time to complete. These are not baseless complaints: The first sawbench I built incorporated drawbored and wedged through-tenons. It’s an awesome beast that will never die, but it is a tad difficult to build if you don’t own a shop or a workbench.

So during the last five years I’ve simplified their construction, shortened the must-have tool list and made them quick to build. And I’ve done this without sacrificing their functional characteristics.

This weekend at Woodworking in America in Pasadena, Calif., I’ll be building a couple of these sawbenches and giving them away. The parlor trick is that I’ll be building them in 60 minutes or less. I hope.

During the last week I’ve built four of these sawbenches to refine their construction details. These sawbenches have legs with a compound splay, but all the layout is done with a steel square. If you can identify the numbers 5 and 21, then you can do the geometry.

The hardest part of building these sawbenches was making my tools work with the construction-grade lumber. My handsaw is tuned for dry hardwoods. How do you then cut wet softwoods without jamming your saw? (I found the trick. It’s cutting geometry, of course). Plus, I had to figure out how to do everything with one saw, one plane and no real workbench. This sawbench can be built on a kitchen countertop with the help of two 5-gallon buckets. (Thanks to Mike Siemsen for a tip on that.)

I’ll share more details of this project after I survive Woodworking in America. I still have to get all my presentations for the conference complete before I get on a plane Thursday.

— Christopher Schwarz