“The Art of Joinery” contains Moxon’s chapters on joinery, plus modern commentary. “Mechanick Exercises” contains all of Moxon’s chapters on handcrafts (including the joinery chapters). But no modern commentary.
To reduce confusion and make our lives simpler, here is what we are going to do. We are taking “The Art of Joinery” out of print and giving away its content for free via pdf (much like “The Anarchist’s Workbench”) to everyone. You can download “The Art of Joinery” pdf free via this link. You don’t have to register or give up your email or anything. Just click and the pdf will download to your computer.
We have also reduced the price of the hardcover “The Art of Joinery” book to $20 (it was $31). When we sell out of the current stock, we will not reprint it. So if you ever wanted a physical copy of this book, this is the last chance to get it from us.
We hope this reduces any confusion about which book to buy. It makes us happier because we don’t want to sell you the same content twice. Plus it is one fewer SKU for us to manage in our warehouse.
Moulding machine. The waving engine is a moulding machine that operates off a pattern-cutting principle. The flame mouldings it makes are uncommon today and not generally made with common workshop machinery.
The following is excerpted from “The Art of Joinery,” the first book published by Lost Art Press. It was out of print and unavailable for several years until we released this revised edition in the fall of 2013. It contains:The lightly edited text of Joseph Moxon’s landmark work on joinery – the first English-language text on the topic; modern commentary on every one of Moxon’s sections on tools and techniques by Christopher Schwarz; the original plates; and more.
And later this year, we’ll be offering a beautiful hardcover reprint – with a new introduction by Chris – of all of “Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works,” which also includes smithing, carpentry, turning and brick laying (Peter Nicholson’s “Mechanic’s Companion” was an early 19th-century update to Moxon’s early 18th-century work). This important early woodworking book deserves to be in print at a price everyone can afford (about $25 for a clothbound book with sewn signatures). Plus every book sold will help benefit the Early American Industries Association, which assisted with book production.
The waving engine described in plate 5. fig. 7, hath A B, a long square plank of about seven inches broad, five foot long, and an inch and a half thick. All along the length of this plank on the middle between the two sides runs a rabbet [a raised track], as part of it is seen at C. Upon this rabbet rides a block with a groove in its underside. This block is about three inches square and ten inches long, having near the hinder end of it a wooden handle going through it [that is] about one inch diameter, as D E. At the fore-end of this block is fastened a vise, [that is] somewhat larger than a great hand-vise, as at F. The groove in the block is made to receive the rabbet on the plank.
At the farther end of the plank is erected a square strong piece of wood, about six inches high, and five inches square, as G. This square piece has a square wide mortise in it on the top, as at H. Upon the top of this square piece is a strong square flat iron collar, somewhat loosely fitted on, having two male screws fitted into two female screws, to screw against that part of the wooden piece un-mortised at the top, marked L, that it may draw the iron collar hard against the iron [that cuts the moulding], marked Q, and keep it stiff against the fore-side of the un-mortised piece, marked L, when the piece Q is set to its convenient height. And on the other side the square wooden piece is fitted another iron screw, having to the end of its shank fastened a round iron plate which lies within the hollow of this wooden piece, and therefore cannot in draft be seen in its proper place. But I have described it apart, as at M. {Fig. 9.} Its nut is placed at M on the wooden piece. On the farther side of the wooden piece is fitted a wooden screw called a knob, as at N. Through the farther and hither side of the square wooden piece is fitted a flat piece of iron, about three quarters of an inch broad and one quarter of an inch thick, standing on edge upon the plank; but its upper edge is filed round {the reason you will find by and by}. Its hither end comes through the wooden piece, as at O, and its farther end on the opposite side of the wooden piece.
Upright in the hollow square of the wooden piece stands an iron, as at Q, whose lower end is cut into the form of the moulding you intend your work shall have.
In the fore side of this wooden piece is [a] square hole, as at R, called the mouth.
To this engine belongs a thin flat piece of hard wood, about an inch and a quarter broad and as long as the rabbet. It is disjunct [distinct, unconnected] from the engine, and in fig. 8. is marked S S, called the rack. It hath its under[side] flat cut into those fashioned waves you intend your work shall have. The hollow of these waves are made to comply with the round edge of [the] flat plate of iron marked O {described before}. For when one end of the riglet [workpiece] you wave is, with the vise, screwed to the plain side of the rack, and the other end put through the mouth of the wooden piece, as at T T, so as the hollow of the wave on the underside of the rack may lie upon the round edge of the flat iron plate set on edge, as at O, and the iron Q, is strong fitted down upon the reglet [sic]. Then if you lay hold of the handles of the block D E and strongly draw them, the rack and the riglet will both together slide through the mouth of the wooden piece. And as the rounds of [the] rack ride over the round edge of the flat iron, the rack and reglet will mount up to the iron Q, and as the rounds of the waves on the underside of the rack slides off the iron on edge, the rack and reglet will sink, and so in a progression (or more) the riglet will on its upper side receive the form of the several waves on the underside of the rack, and also the form or moulding that is on the edge of the bottom of the iron. And so at once the riglet will be both moulded and waved.
But before you draw the rack through the engine, you must consider the office of the knob N, and the office of the iron screw M. For by them the rack is screwed evenly under the iron Q. And you must be careful that the groove of the block flip not off the rabbet on the plank. For by these screws, and the rabbet and groove, your work will be evenly gauged all the way (as I said before) under the edge of the iron Q, and keep it from sliding either to the right or left hand, as you draw it through the engine.
Analysis Of course, the No. 1 question you have to have about the “waving engine” entry is what the heck the thing actually does. Is it a planer? A moulding machine? Well, yes. It works like both a planer and a moulding machine to produce what are called rippled or waveform mouldings, which were all the rage during Cromwell’s reign in England.
Wave mouldings show up in many picture frames of the era and reflect light in a most unusual way – thanks to their undulations or ripples.
Moxon’s device seems complex from the description because he is writing about a thing that doesn’t exist in this exact form today. In essence, the waving engine produces rippled mouldings much like a duplicator lathe or a pattern-cutting bit in a router. A flat piece of iron follows a block with the desired pattern cut into it. This moves the stock against a fixed cutter, which gradually (very gradually) cuts away the waste to reveal the final wave shape in the workpiece.
The workpiece, by the way, is pulled through the waving engine by hand. If you are interested in this fascinating machine, I recommend you check out a 2002 article by Jonathan Thornton, who built a close reproduction of Moxon’s waving engine and shows how it developed into a fancier machine that worked with a crank. It’s available in pdf format here: https://wag-aic.org/2002/WAG_02_thornton.pdf
The first cover of the first printing of our first book. Designed in about 15 minutes.
When we sent our first book, “The Art of Joinery,” to press 15 years ago, I was teaching a class at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking in Kentucky and got a phone call from the pre-press shop.
“The interior folio looks fine,” the voice said. “But what are you going to put on the cover?”
I stood there, dumbfounded. John and I hadn’t even thought about the cover.
So on my lunch break I grabbed my laptop and whipped up the cover above in about 15 minutes. I laid out the text and thought: Should we put some image on the cover? I quickly scanned through the images in the book and – with about two seconds of thought – threw the dividers on there. I sent the cover to pre-press and ran back to finish the class.
And that is how we got our company’s logo – dividers.
Believe it or not, it took a while for us to catch on that our books needed cover images. When I worked in corporate publishing, the cover and title were things that were settled and discussed by people way above my pay grade. So it wasn’t something I thought much about.
So “The Essential Woodworker” went through the same oh-crap-I-forgot-the-cover process as “The Art of Joinery.” It really wasn’t until “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” that my head really began thinking much about our books’ covers’.
A quick mock-up of the new diestamp for “The Essential Woodworker.”
These days I spend more time working on the cover – though we don’t fret over the marketing aspect of it. Like all aspects of our books, the cover is a joint decision between the author and me. So many times the cover is remarkably unmarketable. Which I love.
Now that we have Megan on board as the full-time editor, I have more time to breathe, think and look beyond the flaming crisis of the day. So this week I spent some time redesigning the cover of “The Essential Woodworker” by Robert Wearing, which is one of our core books. We are in the process of reprinting it for its 11th printing, and I don’t know when the new cover will appear. Likely this fall. And I don’t know if the cover cloth will be blue. Cloth shortages are wreaking havoc with our titles. (Have you seen the new cloth on “With the Grain?” I like it, but it wasn’t our first choice – or our eighth.)
Lefty plow? This plow plane is a mirror image of a plow, and is different than what Moxon describes in his text. So we’ll have to show you some other plows.
The first book we published at Lost Art Press was “The Art of Joinery,” which was a reprint of the earliest English-language text on woodworking – plus some modern commentary from me. The book did well enough to buy us a few cases of good beer, so John and I decided to publish a second book. And now, 53 books later….
“The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon has always been fascinating reading for me. When I first got my hands on a copy, I thought: Now I will learn the secrets of 17th-century joinery. But after reading Moxon a dozen times, I was shocked by how little had changed between the 17th century and the 21st. The tools, processes and mindset were very familiar (after I got past some unusual spellings).
So why even read the book? It represents one of the foundations of our craft, and it is written by an observer – not a practitioner – of the craft. And so it crackles with excitement as Moxon (a printer by trade) learns about an allied skill. And it is a window to an earlier world that we can easily relate to as Moxon documents sharpening, making boards flat and cutting a mortise-and-tenon joint.
The book was eventually followed up by Peter Nicholson’s “Mechanic’s Companion,” which is still as useful today as it was in 1812 for hand-tool woodworkers. Together, these two books are the foundation of our hand-tool knowledge in English.
“The Art of Joinery” is also unique in our catalog for the way it is printed. The pages have a rough outer edge – called a “deckle” edge – that mimics the look of early books. And the undyed paper was selected because it looks like early rag paper. All-in-all, it’s a fun book to read and contemplate.
S. 8. The use of the plow. The plow marked B 6. is a narrow rabbet plane with some additions to it, including two square staves, marked a a {yet some of them have the upper edges of the staves rounded off for the better compliance [fit] with the hand}. These staves are let through two square mortises in the stock, marked “b b.” The staves are about seven or eight inches long and stand straight and square on the far side of the stock. These two staves have shoulders on the closer side of the stock that reach down to the wooden sole of the plane {for there is also an iron sole belonging to the plow}. To the bottom of these two shoulders is riveted with iron rivets a fence {as workmen call it}, which comes close under the wooden sole, and its depth reaches below the iron sole about half an inch. Because the iron of the plow is very narrow and the sides of it towards the bottom are not to be enclosed in the stock {for the same reason that was given in the rabbet plane}, therefore upon the stock is let in, and strongly nailed, an iron plate that is the thickness of the plow iron. [That is because] wood [alone] of that breadth will not be strong enough to endure the force the lower end of the plow iron is put to. This iron plate is almost of the same thickness that the breadth of a plow iron is. Joiners have several plows for several widths of grooves.
The office of the plow is to plow a narrow, square groove on the edge of a board. The board is set on edge with one end in the bench-screw, and its other edge upon a pin or pins that are put into a hole or holes in the leg or legs of the bench. Such a hole or holes [are chosen that] will most conveniently for height, fit the breadth of the board. Then the fence of the plow is set to that distance off the iron plate of the plow that you intend the groove shall lie off the edge of the board. If you would have the groove lie half an inch off the [edge of the] board, then the two staves must with the mallet be knocked through the mortises in the stock until the fence stands half an inch off the iron plate. And if the staves are fitted stiff enough in the mortises of the stock, it will keep at that distance while you plow the groove. For the fence {lying lower than the iron of the plane}: When you set the iron of the plow upon the edge of the board, [it] will lie flat against the farther edge of the board, and so [it will] keep the iron of the plow all the length of the board at the same distance from the edge of the board that the iron of the plow has [been set by the user] from the fence. Therefore [with] your plow being thus fitted, [you can] plow the groove as you work with other planes; only as you hold on the stock of other planes when you use them, now you must lay hold of the two staves and their shoulders and so thrust your plow forwards until your groove be made to your depth.
If the staves are not stiff enough in the mortises in the stock, you must stiffen them by knocking a little wooden wedge between the staves and their mortises.
Familiar plows. These plows are more typical in English and North American shops. On metal plows, the fence moves on fixed posts (which Moxon calls staves). In Moxon’s description, the staves move through the body of the plow to adjust the fence, as shown in this screw-arm plow.
Analysis Moxon’s plow is widely reported as a mirror image of the same tool in Félibien’s work. And that is why this picture of this plow is like a Gucci bag for sale on an urban street corner. It looks OK from about 10 feet. But on closer inspection, this is not the plow you’re looking for.
Unlike many tools in Moxon, the plow has evolved quite a bit since his description. And you’d be unlikely to find a plow as he describes. Let’s look at the differences between the Moxon plow and some ultra-contemporary (19th-century) ones.
1 The posts or staves. Moxon states that the staves move through the body of the tool to adjust the fence. The fence is fixed to the staves. This kind of wooden plow was common in England and North America but not Europe. In typical European plows (which is what is shown in the accompanying plate) the staves are fixed to the body and the fence slides on them.
2 From many plows, one. Moxon states that the mechanic would have a different plow for every size groove. Modern plows have interchangeable irons in a range of sizes.
3 How the fence is set. In Moxon’s book, the staves and fence are friction-fit into mortises. So you tap the fence and staves to move the fence closer to or farther away from the cutter (with wedges to help). Modern plows use something mechanical to secure the fence, from thumbscrews to screws to far, far more clever mechanisms.
4 No depth stop. All but the most primitive plow planes have a depth stop that stops the plane’s cutting action when you reach your final depth. No mention of a depth stop is made in Moxon.
Begin at the end. The first strokes with a plow are typically taken at the far end of the board, and the work progresses with longer and longer strokes. This helps keep the groove as straight as possible by reducing the chance that the iron will wander in a long cut.
As to actually using the plow, Moxon merely states that you set the fence and thrust it forward like the other planes. This would imply that you start planing at one end and take a shaving to the other end. This can work. However, many craftsmen use a different technique.
Many start near the far end of the board and take a short stroke with the plow to start cutting a groove just a few inches long. Then each following stroke is a little bit longer as the woodworker backs up along the length of the board.
You can indeed do exactly what Moxon suggests, but the chances of your iron wandering by following the grain of the board are greater.
By taking short, advancing strokes, you can keep the plow’s fence against the work during the part of the cut that is new, then the cutter drops into the already-made groove and the tool won’t jump out. Plus, if your plow plane does wander, it will be for a shorter distance, and you’ll get an opportunity to make a correction before the tool wanders so far that your work is ruined. Here’s another tip on use: Give each of your hands only one job to do when working with the plow. Use one hand to thrust the plane forward. Use the other hand to press the fence against the work. Don’t try to make both hands do both jobs.
The following is excerpted from “The Art of Joinery,” by Joseph Moxon. It includes lightly edited text of Moxon’s landmark work on joinery, as well as commentary on every one of Moxon’s sections on tools and techniques by Christopher Schwarz.
S. 26. The use of the saw in general. In my former Exercises, I did not teach you how to choose the tools a smith was to use because it is a smith’s office to make them. And because in those Exercises I [discussed] making the iron work and steel work in general and the making excellently of some tools in particular, which might serve as a general notion for the knowledge of all smith’s workmanship, especially to those who should concern themselves with smithing. But to those who shall concern themselves with joinery, and not with smithing, it will be necessary that I teach them how to choose their tools that are made by smiths, that they may use them with more ease and delight, and make both quicker and nearer work with them.
Moxon’s saw wrest. This old-school tool is designed to set a set of teeth with one twist of the wrist.
All sorts of saws for joiners’ use are to be sold in most ironmongers’ shops, but especially in Foster Lane, London. Choose those that are made of steel {for some are made of iron} for steel of itself is harder and stronger than iron. You may know the steel saws from iron saws thus: The steel saws are generally ground bright and smooth and are {the thickness of the blade considered} stronger than iron saws. But the iron saws are only hammer hardened, and therefore if they could be so hard, yet they cannot be so smooth, as if the irregularities of the hammer were well taken off with the grindstone. See it be free from flaws and very well hammered and smoothly ground {that is, evenly ground}. You may know if it be well hammered by the stiff bending of it; and if it be well ground {that is, evenly ground} it will not bend in one part of it more than in another. For if it do[es], it is a sign that [the] part where it bends most is either too much ground away or too thin[ly] forged in that place. But if it bend into a regular bow all the way and be stiff, the blade is good. It cannot be too stiff because they are but hammer hardened and therefore often bow when they fall under unskillful hands, but [they] never break unless they have been often bowed in that place.
The edge with the teeth is always thicker than the back because the back follows the edge. And if the edge should not make a pretty wide [enough] kerf, [and even] if the back [of the saw] does not strike [jam] in the kerf, yet a little irregular bearing or twisting of the hand awry might stop [the blade and] bow the saw. And {as I said before} with often [frequent] bowing it will break at last.
When workmen light of [find] a good blade, they don’t mind whether the teeth are sharp or deep or set well. For to make them so is a task they take to themselves, and thus they perform it. They wedge the blade of the saw hard into a whetting block, marked P in plate 4. With the handle towards their left hand and the end of the saw to the right, then with a three-square [triangular] file they begin at the left hand end, leaning harder upon the side of the file on the right hand than on that side to the left hand so that they file the upper side of the tooth of the saw aslope towards the right hand, and the underside of the tooth a little aslope towards the left, or almost downright. Having filed one tooth thus, all the rest must be so filed. Then with the saw wrest, marked O, in plate 4, they set the teeth of the saw. That is, they put one of the notches marked a a a of the wrest between the first two teeth on the blade of the saw and then turn the handle horizontally a little towards the end of the saw. That at once turns the first tooth somewhat towards you and the second tooth from you. Then skipping two teeth, they again put one of the notches of the wrest between the third and fourth teeth on the blade of the saw, and then {as before} turn the handle a little towards the end of the saw, and that turns the third tooth somewhat towards you and the fourth somewhat from you. Thus you must skip two teeth at a time and turn the wrest until all the teeth of the saw are set. This setting of the teeth of the saw {as workmen call it} is to make the kerf wide enough for the back to follow the edge. And [each tooth] is set ranker for soft, coarse, cheap stuff, than for hard, fine, and costly stuff. For the ranker the tooth is set, the more stuff is wasted in the kerf. And besides, if the stuff be hard it will require greater labor to tear away a great deal of hard stuff than it will do to tear away but a little of the same stuff.
The pit saw is set so rank for coarse stuff as to make a kerf of almost a quarter of an inch; but for fine and costly stuff they set it finer to save stuff. The whip saw is set somewhat finer than the pit saw. The handsaw and the compass saw [are set] finer than the whip saw. But the tenon saw, frame saw and the bow saw {and the like} are set fine, and [they] have their teeth but very little turned over the sides of their blades so that a kerf made by them is seldom above half a half quarter of an inch [1/16″].
The reason why the teeth are filed to an angle pointing towards the end [toe] of the saw and not towards the handle of the saw or directly straight between the handle and end of the saw is because the saw is designed to cut only in its progress forwards. Man [has] in that activity more strength to rid {in that forward direction} and command of his hands to guide his work than he can have in drawing back his saw. And therefore when he draws back his saw the workman bears it lightly off the un-sawn stuff, which is an ease to his labor, and [this] enables him the longer to continue his several progressions of the saw.
Master workmen, when they direct any of their underlings to saw such a piece of stuff have several phrases for the sawing of it. They seldom say, “Saw that piece of stuff.” But instead, “Draw the saw through it,” “Give that piece of stuff a kerf,” “Lay a kerf in that piece of stuff,” and sometimes {but most unproperly}, “Cut or slit that piece of stuff.” For the saw cannot properly be said to cut or slit the stuff; but it rather breaks or tears away such parts of the stuff from the whole as the points of the teeth prick into. And these parts it so tears away are proportion[ate] to the fineness or rankness of the setting of the teeth.
The excellent [way] of sawing is to keep the kerf exactly in the line marked out to be sawn without wriggling on either or both sides – and straight through the stuff, as workmen call it. That is, in a geometrical term, perpendicular through the upper and underside, if your work requires it, as most work does. But if your work be to be sawn upon is a bevel, as some work sometimes is, then you are to observe that bevel all the length of the stuff.
Analysis Moxon’s entry on saws is interesting because it doesn’t match up well with the line drawings in the plates, which clearly show two European-style frame saws; and because he makes very specific recommendations about what saws to buy, even the name of the street in London.
For the history buff, this long entry suggests that workmen would typically buy their saws (rather than make them) and that they were deeply involved in the sharpening and tuning of them. And – most interestingly – the blades were tapered in their thickness. Latter-day woodworkers tend to send out their saws for sharpening. Perhaps our saws are harder and require less filing. Perhaps we saw less. Perhaps we’re too lazy to learn saw filing. Perhaps all are a bit true.
The other “hand-saw.” Randle Holme’s 1688 work calls the saw above a “hand-saw or a board-saw.”
If you want to buy a saw, Moxon gives you some advice about how to determine junk from a jewel: bend it. If it folds or bends unevenly, it’s junk. If it bends evenly and springs back, buy it. Where the saw bends is the weak point of the saw, where it’s too soft or too thin, and that’s where it will fail when your stroke goes a bit awry.
Today, there’s little to consider about the steel when picking a saw. The steel is universally good, and most of the modern manufacturers even get it from the same mills. The bigger concerns today are how the tool feels in your hand and how well the saw is set up initially. Because most home woodworkers work alone and teach themselves the craft, it’s uncommon to teach yourself to file a saw before you learn to saw.
For his part, Moxon gives you some perfunctory advice for filing and then setting a saw, though nothing that is practically useful for today’s woodworker – though the description of using a saw wrest for setting the teeth is fun to read. Today many woodworkers use an anvil-like setting tool that plunges and bends each tooth to the precise amount of set. Some professional saw sharpeners use a small hammer to tap the teeth in place. In addition to the advice on saw filing and setting, we get to learn some lingo. In other words: “saw” is not a verb. It’s a noun.
