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The more I thought about it, the more I realised this is how most people feel when faced with doing a new design. Scared. Scared big time. You want to make a special piece, but you are facing the probability that it won’t actually be that special…and you don’t want that. This was to be a lovely writing table for my beautiful wife, Carol, and with it a special chair. We have made lots of chairs through the years, and I have built a reputation for it. I wanted a chair that would sum this up in one piece. I wanted it to be elegant but not overly complex, to be the most difficult piece in the book, but makeable for the careful amateur maker. If you are like me, you carry images in your head of the pieces you want to make. They may not be in clear focus or show the whole piece of work. But they show us bits of it – a leg, or a detail for a flashing moment of clarity on the drive to work, or whilst soaking in the bath. But nobody else can see it there between your ears. You can tell people of your blinding ideas and they will look at you as if you needed a kind, helping nurse. Poor sad old devil; can’t get it up any more. So, you go to downloading. This is the process of getting it down somewhere in sketchy notes. Three or four lines in ink on a Post-It Note can do the job. Which was all I had at the start of the chair. — from “The Intelligent Hand” by David Binnington Savage @finefurnituremaker #The_Intelligent_HandI’m closing in on finishing this Nicholson campaign chest for a (very patient) customer. Today I cut all the mortises for the brass strapwork (not shown). Tomorrow I’ll install the drawer stops and do the “make pretty.” If the weather cooperates, I’ll apply shellac Wednesday or Thursday.Forming a volute - an arc that continues to descend. After each arc, move the (compass) point to the next focal point and reset the line. — from “By Hound and Eye” by Geo. R. Walker @georgewalker.design and Jim Tolpin @jimtolpin #By_Hound_and_Eye@RudeMechanic on Twitter
- RT @merrittk: it is my firm belief that anyone's personality can be described as a point on a triangle whose vertices are labeled "mark," "… 1 day ago
- Begin at the Bottom (or Back) blog.lostartpress.com/2019/06/24/beg… https://t.co/qj1i1h2kfe 2 days ago
- RT @WhiteHouseHstry: This writing arm Windsor chair was used by President James Madison to write dispatches in Brookeville, MD, where he to… 2 days ago
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Category Archives: Sharpen This
Round the Corners of a Plane Iron
If the corners of a handplane’s cutter are not supposed to cut wood, then I remove them. OK, let me put that a different way. Some handplanes are supposed to cut into corners: rabbet planes, shoulder planes, moulding planes and … Continue reading
Posted in Sharpen This
13 Comments
Sharp Edges Cut Out Profanity
That’s a pretty good incentive don’t you think? Sharpen your tools and stop swearing. Everybody Does It – A Sharpening World Tour Neolithic polissoirs, characterized by straight grooves and a shallow basin, were used to sharpen axes, arrows and blades. … Continue reading
Posted in Sharpen This
26 Comments
The ‘Sharpen This’ Speech – Now Available
Highland Woodworking has published my “Sharpen This – the Hand-tool Backlash” speech that I gave at the Lie-Nielsen Open House a couple years ago. You can read the whole thing in Highland’s newsletter here. (Note: You can subscribe to the … Continue reading
Posted in Sharpen This
28 Comments
Sept. 9 at Our Storefront: ‘Sharpenday’
Next Saturday, Sept. 9, is our regularly scheduled open day for Lost Art Press. We’ll have our complete line of books plus a good number of slightly damaged books at 50 percent of retail (cash only). And T-shirts. Coffee. Stickers. … Continue reading
Sharpen This, Part 10: Oh, Stewardess! I Speak Jive
Some days I wish there were a Google Translate filter for woodworking forums and podcasts. It would allow people to understand what is really being said. Below are some actual quotes I’ve heard through the years and my rough translation … Continue reading
Posted in Sharpen This
Sharpen This, Part 9: Guided by Voices
Read the other installments in the “Sharpen This” series via this link. When it comes to the topic of honing guides, I’d sooner have a double colonoscopy than discuss them. But here goes. Honing guides are jigs. They hold a … Continue reading
Posted in Sharpen This
Sharpen This, Part 8: Polish & Get Back to Work
Read the other installments in the “Sharpen This” series via this link. One of the misguided mantras in sharpening is this: Polish the edge until you remove all the scratches left from the previous grit. Then move to the next … Continue reading
Posted in Sharpen This
