Lost Art Press

Category: Roubo Translation

The Benefits of Mandatory Inactivity

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Editor’s note: The following is a special update from Don Williams on his forthcoming To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making. For those of you unfamiliar with Don, he is the mastermind behind our editions of Roubo on marquetry, Roubo on furniture making (forthcoming), Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley, and the Virtuoso DVD (forthcoming). Don is also a former conservator for the Smithsonian Institute. You can read more of his writings on donsbarn.com.

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Thanks to my recent bone-crunching encounter with a gravel-laden wheelbarrow, I am essentially recliner-bound for the next month.  Starting this week I get to putter in my studio, provided I sit in my rolling office chair or use a grandma-style walker. But mostly for the past fortnight and the next four weeks, I must sit and undertake isometric exercises.

Fortunately, I am well stocked with productive tasks. The main “benefit” to all this is that I can devote my undivided attention to To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making. A tote bag from Chris, overflowing with printouts for the book, has been sitting next to my desk for many moons, patiently awaiting my return from other endeavors. Chris’s edits are finished, and now I am diligently working through them to either approve or disapprove his revisions. (Yes, I do get to tell him when and where he is wrong, but his comments are usually correct.) I will also add my final set of revisions before releasing the manuscript to the ministrations of copy editing and layout.

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It is fun work, actually, as I have not looked through the manuscript carefully since the  H.O. Studley projects went supernova last summer. Looking at Roubo on Furniture Making with fresh eyes has been very enjoyable. Far from being displeased with the text, I continue to marvel at this trove of wisdom from an age long past.

I am also enjoying reviewing the essays that we have curated to accompany Roubo’s original text. In his contribution, Chris reflects on the Roubo bench illustrated in Plate 11. Mike Mascelli’s essay examines historic upholstery methods.

Philippe Lafargue and Michele Pagan, two of my colleagues for the book, also add tremendous insight. Philippe’s essay is about his training as a classical chair maker at the École Boulle. Michele’s piece sheds light onto 18th century bed linens.

The book is chock full of good stuff. Another of my favorite contributions is Jonathan Thornton’s narrative about how he reproduced the wave moulding machine that even Roubo admitted he had never seen.

In addition to these remarkable essays are a dozen or so expositions I’ve authored on the tools and techniques that Roubo describes in the text. After I finish this final round of edits, it should only be another few weeks until I am released from the recliner gulag.

– Donald C. Williams.

The Spaghetti Bowl

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Studley-cover-2(3)As I recall from years long past there is in Miami a notorious interchange known as “The Spaghetti Bowl,” no doubt the result of some distant urban planner making a dot on a map and saying, “This is where all the highways meet!” I have no doubt that similar complexes exist in many metropolitan areas, but the one in Miami is especially memorable due to the highway routes being stacked five high as they weave together, merging and departing with and from each other.

This absurd traffic construct serves as a nearly perfect metaphor for the current fortnight.  It seems that the threads of LAP and other projects are stacked about five high.

Last night I sent off my final review of the page proofs for “Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley,” which Chris sent me last week when I was in Florida on a speaking engagement talking about my favorite topic – historic wood finishing – and reveling in a reunion with my mom and all of my siblings. I spent what time I could on the review, but did not actually finish until midnight last night. I feel about 500 pounds lighter today.

I am not displeased with the product (that is Donspeak for “Holy cow, this is great!” If I wasn’t such a Calvinist I would be really proud). Narayan’s photos and Wesley’s design make the book a nearly decadent experience. The book goes to press very soon (Ed note: Next week), and I am very much anticipating the first of several boxes of books arriving on my doorstep. (I owe copies to about two score contributors to the effort.)

The preparations for the accompanying H.O. Studley exhibit are in red-hot mode, as my fabrication of the exhibit accouterments are well underway, the first slate of big checks have flowed out for the exhibit hall rental, platform and vitrine fabrication, insurance, graphics, lighting, secured shipping, etc.… Tickets are still available, so if you ever wanted to get up close and personal with Studley’s tool cabinet and workbench, this may be your one and only chance.

On Saturday past I presented “Making New Finishes Look Old” for the Society of American Period Furniture Makers’ Tidewater chapter, a test run for my demonstration at the SAPFM Mid-Year meeting in Knoxville, Tenn., in June. Increasingly I find my mind wandering and fingers noodling on the keyboard in crafting my magnum opus “Historic Finisher’s Handbook” (HFH), which will begin in earnest as soon as I complete the revisions for “Roubo on Furniture Making” this summer, and then take the following three years. If I go “dark” this autumn it is because I’m up in the barn having too much fun working through the dozens of recipes detailed in HFH.

And today I spent some time conserving a Roentgen desk; tonight I’m wrapping up the conservation of a c.1720 Italian tortoiseshell veneer mirror frame with another dozen conservation projects in wait.

Yeah, I think the “Spaghetti Bowl” description is just about right.

— Don Williams

www.donsbarn.com

Thank You ‘Book of Plates’

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Whether or not you purchase “l’Art du Menuisier: The Book of Plates” makes no difference to me personally. I have my copy, and it is making my woodworking life more interesting.

Today I finished up the first edit of the final bit of our forthcoming translation of A.J. Roubo’s writings on furniture and tools. (Don’t get too excited, it still has to travel a long way to arrive at the end of the goose – look for it in early summer.)

Today was devoted to plate 265, which describes “Autre Secretarie mobile Pupitre, et Petite Table a Ecrie.” AKA, an incredible unfolding, mechanical secretarie that I am hopelessly in love with. It is one part simple Creole-style side table, one part Transformer and two parts Jere Osgood’s Shell Desk.

As I edited the translated text, the words alone weren’t clear as to how the desk’s pigeonhole section pivots up. I had some detail drawings, but those weren’t enough to make the mechanism clear. Only when I opened “The Book of Plates” and took in the entire plate in full size did the scales fall from eyes. I immediately “got it” – like a Zen koan.

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After that, the editing was a snap. I knew how the desk worked and could build it myself. My copy of “The Book of Plates” just paid for itself.

By the way, reader response to “The Book of Plates” has been incredibly positive (custom wooden box issues aside). It was a financial gamble that just might pay off. You can still get one before Christmas if you order it by Dec. 19 – all books are now shipping Priority mail, which will arrive in three business days.

Though it’s only 3:30 p.m., finishing plate 265 (and the other 87 plates) calls for a beer.

— Christopher Schwarz

An Improved ‘Doe’s Foot’ Appliance

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After writing last month about the “doe’s foot” appliance in A.-J. Roubo’s plate 14, I decided to make a couple of these devices that resembled the ones shown in the plate.

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For the last couple years, I’ve been using a doe’s foot that is about 1/4” x 2” x 24”. Roubo’s looks shorter and wider. So today I made two doe’s feet that were 3/8” x 5” x 14” and tried them out on the bench.

The big advantage of the ones shown in Roubo is that their increased size makes it easier for them to be positioned anywhere on the bench. Because they are wider, a holdfast is much more likely to find them.

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Its shorter length makes it easier to secure the doe’s foot without hitting the shop wall – assuming your bench is up against a wall.

Because I am a woodworker, I couldn’t help trying to improve the doe’s foot a bit. While it works fine as-is, I added stick-on sandpaper (#150-grit) to the underside of one of the appliances and tried the two side-by-side to compare, naked vs. grippy.

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The one with the sandpaper was almost impossible to slide laterally. The one without sandpaper was secure enough, but I could rotate it with the pad of the holdfast serving as the centerpoint. So I like the addition of the sandpaper.

— Christopher Schwarz

Plate 14 and 384 more plates are all shown in our forthcoming “l’Art du Menuisier: The Book of Plates.” You can still order this book with free domestic shipping until Nov. 19, 2014. The book ships on Nov. 19.

André’s Big Coloring Book of Bois

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When we announced the upcoming publication of “l’Art du menuisier: The Book of Plates,” I received an unusual e-mail from Suzanne Ellison, a Lost Art Press contributing editor, researcher and indexer.

“I’m getting out my colored pencils.”

Yup, Suzanne is going to color some of the 384 full-size plates in “The Book of Plates,” which will delight Ted Turner and horrify some scholars (especially when she adds those parrots to the woodlot in plate 4).

To encourage her artistic vandalism endeavor, I sent her a pre-publication proof of the book and she has been making plans and even coloring some of the low-resolution plates.

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My favorite so far is a diorama she made using plate 99, which shows the menuisiers fitting out a room with paneling and windows.

“The Book of Plates” is at the printer and is expected in November. It will be available from Lost Art Press and these retailers. The price will be $100 – crayons not included.

— Christopher Schwarz