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Kris uses the John Brown/Chris Williams method for shaving a round tenon. Today’s class: Staked High Stool.Sharp fixes everything. Even the saddle of a curly oak seat. Still thankful to the guy who showed me how to sharpen card scrapers 23 years ago.December of 1802 was Fisher’s first foray into chairmaking. After making a “rack for chair backs,” he constructed a “shaving jack” on which he “shaved chair backs.” The term “shaving jack” appears to be unique to Fisher but the immediate context of beginning to shave chair parts after its completion suggests the tool is what is today commonly known as a “shaving horse.” The use of the word “jack” to describe a workshop appliance has its etymological roots in the fact that “Jack” was a name for “‘any common fellow,’ and [was] thereafter extended to various appliances which do the work of common servants” such as holding things for the master craftsman. Readers may be familiar this kind of usage in the term “board jack” – a tool used to hold up the end of a large board for edge planing. Because Fisher does not record making any other shaving horse, it is assumed this is the one he refers to. The design is suited to chairmaking because of its dumbhead design – large enough for that kind of work but not much more. The head is mortised off-center to maximize the clamping area on the proper left side. The head’s grip on the stock was enhanced by the addition of leather strips nailed on only that side. It is obvious that the far end of the horse was used as a chopping block for quite some time because of a dished area almost a foot wide and several inches deep made by an axe. Evidently, Fisher was not precious about his tools. This pre-industrial irreverence toward workbenches was rooted in the craftsman’s pragmatism. — from “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847)” by Joshua A. Klein #Hands_Employed_Aright@RudeMechanic on Twitter
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Category Archives: The Joiner & Cabinet Maker
Chisels Needed for Dovetailing
This is an excerpt of “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” by Anon, Christopher Schwarz and Joel Moskowitz. After years of dovetailing, I noticed that two of my chisels were seeing almost all the action: the 1/4″-wide and a 3/4″-wide tools. I … Continue reading
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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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