Category: The Anarchist’s Design Book

Quick quiz. There are no right answers. What do you see?

Women baking bread?

A castration?

A feast?

A martyrdom?

Work?

A drinking party?

Doctors consulting with one another?

Or do you see a forgotten way of making furniture?

— Christopher Schwarz

“In all its horrible eccentricity of non-descript Gothic, worse Chinese, and inane rococo, combined though they be with the most exquisite workmanship and occasionally a quaint gracefulness, Chippendale’s style is not in favour with those whose training enables them to discriminate between the true and false in design.”

— D. Adamson, “A Chat About Furniture,” Work magazine, March 23, 1889

Writing a woodworking book is perhaps the dumbest way to make a living. These stupid things take years to do correctly. Mistakes are easy to make and difficult to catch. You have to work quite hard to avoid sounding like a Samsung instruction booklet.

It is honestly the most difficult form of writing I’ve ever attempted. And the audience is tiny.

But some days you get a glimpse of something amazing that touches almost every civilized person who ever lived. It’s a bright string, to steal the phrase of Stephen King. And if you follow the string, no matter where it leads through a dark forest, you will end up in a clearing where you can see for miles, over hills and forests and to the ocean.

All that is usually launched by a single moment. My first book, “Workbenches…,” was set in motion by a single plate in “l’Art du menuisier” and a comment by Dave Raeside, one of my earliest students. “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” came to me while on a run in Maine when I wished for a book that didn’t exist when I was 11. “Campaign Furniture” came about by stumbling into a now-closed antique store in Charleston, S.C., with my dad.

“Furniture of Necessity” was set in motion by a single early image sent to me by Jeff Burks. (No, we don’t know where he is, but we miss him.) I can’t even bear to show you the image because I don’t want to spoil the shock of encountering a hidden truth.

I don’t want to build this up too much because it will seem obvious when you encounter it. People will claim they have been way ahead of me (or way behind) for a long time on this issue. That’s cool. I’m just the guy with the flashlight.

Today I legged up a sawbench, which is the first project in “Furniture of Necessity.” As I felt the sawbench’s pine top flex and give way to the oak legs when I hammered them in I knew I was on the downhill slide on this book.

I have the bright string in hand, now I just have to make sure I don’t let go during the next 12 months.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. For those of you who didn’t like Roorkee Chat No. 1, I can only say that you should not poke the bear.

For chairmaking and other handwork, a small double-screw vise can be handy. Check out Peter Follansbee’s bench and you’ll see these appliances lurking – or in use in surprising ways. Jennie Alexander uses them for many aspects of constructing her iconic chair.

During the last six months, I’ve been working with Alexander and chairmaker Larry Barrett to completely revise Alexander’s “Make a Chair from a Tree.” I don’t have a timeline as to when the project will be done as Alexander and Barrett are rebuilding the book from the roots up.

One of the small things I’m doing to help the project is prototyping a double-screw vise for the book. While all of us would prefer an all-wood vise with wooden screws, the current sorry crop of hand-powered threadboxes has pushed us into introducing a little metal.

The vise above is not the one that is going to be in the book. It still needs work. But it does work well on the bench.

The jaws are 1-1/2” x 2-1/2” x 20″ oak, with the screws on 10” centers. The 1-3/4” x 1-3/4” x 6” mahogany handles drive 3/4” x 12” Acme-threaded rod. Inside the rear jaw is buried plain steel 3/4” x 5 nuts. The handles push against 3/4” steel washers (though these are likely unnecessary).

The threaded rod is simply epoxied into the handles – about 3-1/2” worth. For the final version I’m going to tap the handles and epoxy the rod in place. Nothing like overkill.

I’m sure there will be more design changes to come.

With this vise in the mail to Alexander, I can return to tapering legs for “The Furniture of Necessity.”

— Christopher Schwarz

“This is such a familiar form of construction that a vocabulary of terms has hardly been found to describe it, but some early inventories seem to refer to it as ‘staked,’ or ‘with stake feet.’ Added to this is the fact that it has been largely ignored by serious furniture historians, though its place in the development of furniture design is so important that it is hard to account for this neglect.”

— Victor Chinnery, “Oak Furniture: The British Tradition,” Antique Collectors Club, (1979) p. 75

The aumbry from the upcoming “Furniture of Necessity” book is featured on the cover of the February 2015 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, which will mail to subscribers later this month.

My article discusses the history of the aumbry and how to build it. The book version will be much expanded and more detailed, as I’ll have about 10 times the space. Still – I think it’s a good magazine article; even beginners will be able to tackle the project with the magazine article.

I have to thank Editor Megan Fitzpatrick personally for taking a gamble on this project. Few people have ever heard of an aumbry, and fewer people would tell you they love Gothic furniture. I think the stuff is the cat’s meow. It’s fun to build and uses simple geometry and basic tools to design and construct.

I was allowed to read over the entire February issue before it went to press and was quite impressed (perhaps a bit professionally jealous). There’s a fantastic myth-busting article on teak oil, an excellent piece on making your own copper hardware with simple tools and Peter Follansbee shows you how to build his cool Chinese firewood carrier.

If you don’t subscribe, or if you have let your subscription lapse, this is the time to rectify that. Megan is steering the magazine to explore areas outside the traditional Shaker, Arts & Crafts and Period styles (though those will always be part of the magazine’s fabric). Look for some Japanese, Mid-century Modern and Ruhlmann stuff in forthcoming issues.

OK, back to the shop. I’ve got another project to build for Popular Woodworking.

— Christopher Schwarz