When I work on a complex design, such as this simple chair, I find the best way to modify the design is to take photos of the project from all angles, even awkward ones. Then I print them out and start sketching on them.
This process saves me hours of prototyping. In this case, I’m working on the crest rail of the chair, mostly the angle that is cut on the ends and its overall length.
For me, this is easier than modeling complex pieces in CAD. I know it looks primitive, but it works surprisingly well.
“Helped by the increasing use of machinery, which made short work of complicated curves and serpentines, (Edward Barnsley’s) work became the last word in cabinetmaking skills, surpassing that of any previous century, and it found a ready appreciation amongst a growing clientele and an interested public.
“Only time will tell if this switch in emphasis in mid-stream was a step forwards or backwards.”
— Alan Peters, “Cabinetmaking: The Professional Approach, 2nd Edition” (Linden, 2009)
Our future headquarters (fingers crossed) shown in situ on Willard Street.
We aren’t. So you can stop asking poor Megan Fitzpatrick at Popular Woodworking Magazine that question and start getting the same answer from Brian Clites, your new moderator (brian@lostartpress.com). He’s happy to be abused.
So what are we going to do at the new Lost Art Press headquarters in Covington, Ky.? Well first we have to close the deal on the building next month. Then we’ll get to work on a few mechanical issues – leaks, condensation problems and some basement drainage.
After that, the building will become the offices of our small publishing company with workstations, a photography studio, proofing and scanning stations, our research library, an 1890s wet bar and a hand-tool workshop on the ground floor.
No school. Promise.
This building will allow us to have some public events. I hope to have a book release party for “The Furniture of Necessity” there next spring in our biergarten, and it will be open to the public. Also, the library and shop will be available at times for hands-on research (more details on that later). But it absolutely will not be a school.
Last week I spent a day measuring the entire building, plus the outbuilding and biergarten. I’ve posted a few photos here of the ground floor spaces. The two floors above are very nice, but as they are occupied by tenants, I’d like to keep those private.
The outbuilding that will be a machine room.
Looking from the rear area to the front. No, we don’t get to keep the popcorn machine.
The brick archway to the rear area.
The rear area behind the main bar area. Guest room? Library?
The front windows of the shop. Tons of light.
The bar on the north wall. It’s actually quite nice Victorian construction.
Here are some details:
The storefront is on the corner of West Ninth and Willard streets in a quiet residential area of Covington, one block off Main Street and one block off Pike Street – the main commercial street in the city. Willard is nice and tree-lined, with 11’-wide sidewalks.
The front area of the storefront is huge, 26’ wide by 39’ deep. That space is almost three times the space of my current shop. And it has 11’ ceilings.
The large bar attached to the north wall stays with the building (the plywood bar will be removed). The oak bar is either original to the building or is at least contemporaneous to it.
Behind the brick archway is another room that measures 16’ x 13’ – this will either become the library or a guest bedroom, depending on whether Lucy or I win the leg-wrestling match.
And behind that room are bathrooms and a utility/slop sink area – 10’ x 17’. The fate of this area also rests on the results of the pay-per-view leg wrestling match mentioned above.
The biergarten measures roughly 24’ x 14’ and is enclosed by fences and the wall to the garage/machine room.
The garage/machine room is 19’ x 23’ – bigger than my current shop.
It’s an exciting – and totally frightening – time for us. Lucy and I have been planning for this moment for more than three years. But it’s like having a child. Nothing can really prepare you for what’s ahead.
“He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.”
— “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” by Susanna Clarke
Warning: This is one of those blog entries that will make some of you wonder why you bother visiting here. You might just want to skip this entry and go play with your safety gear, micrometers and “Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition.”
As I’m waiting for the epoxy to harden on the half-scale model of a chair shown above, I’ve poured myself a stiff drink and am raising a toast to Jonathan Strange.
Strange is a magician in my favorite contemporary novel: “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” by Susanna Clarke. I’ve been quite obsessed with this book since it came out in 2004. It is, and I do not say this lightly, the most finely crafted piece of fiction I’ve read as an adult. Every footnote is pure genius. And it reeks of a work that has been finely combed over like the garden at Versailles.
(Oh, and If I ever get a tattoo, it will be the silhouette of the raven in the book. Also: I am just as likely to get a tattoo as I am to start vaping my own ear wax.)
So Strange, the radical magician in the book, figures out that to do really interesting magic, one needs to be somewhat mad. The insane kind of mad; not the Lumberjocks sort of mad. As Strange is quite sane at first, he gins up all sorts of ways to induce madness. In the end, it involves cats (naturally) and drinking something awful.
And that describes my ideal writing and design process.
“I’m not going to a party; I’m a writer.” That’s what I tell the nice people at the liquor store when I arrive at the register with two boxes of wine and four six packs of potent beer. The wine is for my wife (also a writer); the beer is for me.
Lucy and I very rarely get drunk. The last time I got drunk was by accident (Note to self: Never drink casually with the Irish.) But Lucy and I do have a drink with dinner and then we have a drink after dinner. Then we write and talk and write.
I know that some odd souls are fantastic writers and designers when they are dead sober. I am not. I find that a drink helps. As does fatigue, stress, incredibly loud music and stupid external constraints.
Why? Who cares why. Feel free to make up a theory. I’d rather just use these tools that have worked (since 1986) to write and design stuff at 5 p.m. that seems out of my league at 11 a.m. And with these tools I don’t have to bifurcate my private parts (thank you, Mayan civilization) or vape my boogers.
So I say to the Stone Saison in my glass tonight: Bring on the madness.
“Most of (Hans) Wegner’s furniture is delivered untreated – only buffed and treated with soap and water, so that the fine wood is ready to become more beautiful with use. Some furniture is delivered with a clear lacquer finish.”
— “Hans J. Wegner: Hacedor de Sillas (Chairmaker)” by Jens Bernsen (Danish Design Centre, 1998)
I’m in the middle of building a new chair design in ash and am planning on finishing the chair in soap and water – a finish that is common in Denmark.
It’s a simple, easy-to-mess-up finish that I first heard about from Bob Flexner while I edited his column “Flexner on Finishing.” You can read a 2010 column by Flexner on the finish here at Woodshop News. For more details, including photos of the mixing process, check out this blog entry from Caleb James.
I’ve seen this finish on some vintage pieces at a couple stores that carry Danish Modern pieces here in Cincinnati. I visited one of the stores yesterday to get some photos, but they had filled the showroom with giant live-edge tables. Dipped in plastic. Not good.
So the photo above is one of Wegner’s pieces.
Like paint, oil or beeswax, the soap finish appeals to me because it doesn’t require special equipment (spraying lacquer) or years of experience (a shellac polish) to execute. It’s a good place for beginners to start when finishing furniture (or floors). I’ll post photos of the finish next month when the chair is complete.
