My blog at Popular Woodworking- Medieval Method Can Improve a Modern DesignI recently finished building an Enzo Mari table from the 1970s as part of an article for Popular Woodworking Magazine, and I have only one worry about the project. It looks great. It feels stout. But I’m worried that the joinery might not last forever. The joinery? Lots of properly installed wood screws, with diagonal bracing to reduce or eliminate racking. […]
- Don’t Sand – Burn off your Machine Marks InsteadShou sugi ban – the Japanese finishing process that chars the outside of wood – is an ideal surface finish for some furniture pieces. One of the unsung advantages of burning the wood is that you can reduce (or even eliminate) sanding or planing your boards before finishing them. There are limits to this, of course. If your jointer, thickness planer or saw le […]
- An Enzo Mari Table – and a Puzzle“Mari is right, everyone should have a project: after all it is the best way to avoid being designed yourself.” — G.C. Argan, L’Espresso, 1974 In 1974, Italian designer Enzo Mari published a series of furniture designs that were free to the public. People were encouraged to use his drawings to produce tables, chairs, beds and bookshelves. What’s more, Mari d […]
- John Brown for the 16th TimeEvery time I read John Brown’s book “Welsh Stick Chairs,” I latch onto something different. When I read the book for the first time in the mid-1990s, I became obsessed with the Welsh stick chair’s form (and I remain so to this day). After a few more readings, I became obsessed with the history of Windsor chairs and wondered if JB was right that the origin of […]
- Medieval Method Can Improve a Modern Design
Category Archives: The Joiner & Cabinet Maker
Two-Foot Rules
This is an excerpt from “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” by Anon, Christopher Schwarz and Joel Moskowitz. The two-foot rule was the standard measuring device for woodworking for hundreds of years. The steel tape was likely invented in the 19th century. Its … Continue reading
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Frame Fight: Coping Saws vs. Fret Saws
This is an excerpt from “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” by Anon, Christopher Schwarz and and Joel Moskowitz. For those of you who chisel out your waste when dovetailing, this section is not for you. Move along. There’s nothing to see … Continue reading
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Clinching Nails
This is an excerpt from “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” by Anon, Christopher Schwarz and Joel Moskowitz. Clinching (sometimes spelled “clenching”) is when you drive a nail that passes through both thicknesses of wood you are fastening. The tip of … Continue reading
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Free Videos for ‘The Joiner & Cabinet Maker’
The Packing Box from Christopher Schwarz on Vimeo. When we published “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker” I had a large number of images that didn’t make it into the book for space reasons. So I put together three narrated slideshows … Continue reading
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The Job of a Cabinet Maker or Joiner
An excerpt from “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” by Anon, Christopher Schwarz and Joel Moskowitz. England, 1839. Victoria has just become Queen of England (1837) and was about to marry Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The Industrial Revolution had begun … Continue reading
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SketchUp Drawings for ‘The Joiner & Cabinet Maker’
Our second book at Lost Art Press was “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker,” a rare and early 19th-century fictional account of an apprenticeship in a rural England shop. It’s a fantastic little book, written by someone who obviously served an … Continue reading
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Get Your Books Signed in Iowa
Several Lost Art Press authors will be available at Handworks to sign your books. If you want to get Don Williams and Narayan Nayar to sign “Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley,” they have set up … Continue reading
