Category: To Make as Perfectly as Possible, Roubo Translation

Part Un: Much to my astonishment I noticed (quite literally) just a few minutes ago that our first correspondence for the soon-to-be-in-your-hands To Make As Perfectly As Possible – Roubo on Marquetry was four years ago. Holy cow, where does the time go?  I discovered this oddity while painstakingly working my way through the FINAL chapter  (122 pages on a subject Roubo claimed he knew nothing about!) of that volume and I was checking some previous work.

I am delighted that we are back to full speed ahead after a little bit of choppy water. It is exasperating when the real world of life outside this project intervenes. I realize the level of interest you have for this project and I thank you sincerely for the patience you have exhibited. Even better, rereading some of the earlier work gets my excitement back to fever pitch. I truly hope it is not just my own obsession, and that soon you will join me in amazement of the captivating world of Andre Jacob Roubo.

After conversing with Chris we are now hopeful that the volume will make its premier concurrent with Woodworking in America in Cincinnati the first week in November. Huh, that’s just six weeks before Christmas.  Is that an amazing coincidence or what? If everything falls into place November will be a heady time for us, with the Roubo debut followed by another week examining intensely Mr. H. O. Studley’s tool chest.

Next week I will post a delightful passage from Chapter 14, Part III, Section III – On the Third Type of (Veneered) Cabinetry in General.  I hope this will give you a taste – both in substance and tone – of that which is coming your way.

— Don Williams

Some years ago at a Williamsburg woodworking conference, the inestimable Mack Headley stood on stage, checked the setting of his plane, addressed the workpiece and together they created the near-mystical, crisp “S-S-S-G-G-G-R-R-R-I-I-I-K-K-K” aria so familiar to experienced woodworkers. An audible baritone “Oooohhhh” swept the hall on appreciation of a finely sharpened tool in the hands of a master. It was perhaps the most identifiable moment of a tool speaking that I can recall. And to be sure, the audience of mostly middle-aged men in plaid flannel shirts was listening.

But the phenomenon of tools talking, and us listening, is much more fundamental, an almost visceral component in learning skilled craft. The relationship we have with our tools is among other things, audible and linguistic. Tools speak to us constantly, telling us how we are doing with them.

Last Friday saw the completion of an intense course for aspiring curators called “Historical Technology of Furniture Making” I taught with renowned furniture historian Oscar Fitzgerald (“Four Centuries of American Furniture”). Every day for two weeks Oscar would start us off with a brief overview lecture on a topic, I would follow with a demonstration of the relevant technique or process, and then supervise the students practicing it at the bench. It was a memorable opportunity for them to engage in multiple-sensory learning that they will retain throughout their careers. We started out with a chunk of the oak tree that became the replica Gragg Chair and ended the second week with the laying of gold leaf – with splitting, shaving, sawing, planing, joining, shaping, metal casting, steam bending, veneering and japanning in between.

As you can imagine, since most of the students had near-zero woodworking experience, frustration abounded. As it should. Skilled woodworking is not accomplished on the first try.

One of the phrases I kept repeating through the course was, ”Let the tool do its work.” A tool will tell you what it wants to do, and even more important it will tell you what it does NOT want to do. If the sound is organized and crisp, you are asking the tool to do what it is supposed to do. That’s what Mack Headley’s plane was saying to him and to us in the audience.

Conversely, in the hands of unskilled or unfamiliar practitioners a tool can moan, screech, growl and chatter. My students and interns can confirm that when we are working in the same space, I can hear faulty work from across the room even if my back is turned and my attention directed elsewhere. At first they cannot believe I can hear the tool talking, but over time they become believers, especially when someone newer and less experienced joins us. Then they recognize the mellow tones of their own work versus the often cringe-inducing caterwauling of the newcomers’.

About halfway through the second week of this course I knew we were making headway. I watched from some distance as a student was using a sharp little spokeshave on the mahogany cabriole leg we had made together as a class and she encountered the spokeshave telling her it really, really did not want to do what she was instructing it to do. Without even thinking, in a moment she changed her posture and direction of work, the sound became mellifluous and beautiful shavings spewed forth leaving a glistening, faceted surface. Alone, she sighed and smiled gently, rightfully pleased with the result. That dulcet moment and the little silent smile to herself was as great a reward any as teacher can experience. She had learned the lesson of the talking tool and incorporated it into her work without even thinking about it.

When tools speak, listen.

— Don Williams

I was first introduced to the Schwarz Media Conglomerate on Jan. 10, 2008, with the announcement that we were collaborating on an annotated translation of sections from Roubo’s “L’Art du Menuisier.” The two-year anniversary of that announcement happens to also be a much more important milestone for me as it marks exactly the 40th year of my entrance into the furniture trades. Looking back down the tunnel of those four decades is an exhilarating experience.

I was a high school kid working in a warehouse because it paid more than slinging burgers. Because it was a 25 percent raise, I showed up for work at 1 p.m., Jan. 10, 1972. The job was exactly as promised; all I had to do was keep three warehouses clean for a large commercial furniture store.

I soon discovered the little repair shop in the corner of one of the warehouses, manned periodically by Frank Tautzenberger. How a retired Hungarian house painter became the furniture repairman for a multimillion dollar furniture store is beyond me, and truth be told some of his structural repairs were sketchy, but when it came to matching appearances he was simply a genius. On the days when he was in the shop I found myself literally running through the warehouse to get my chores done in order to spend time with him. watching him make it seem effortless. Imagine the voice of Bela Lugosi telling you over and over, “See, it’s just like this. Easy.”

That experience led me to a number of refinishing and restoration shops over the next few years, punctuated by some time in college. I was on a special program that allowed me to enter college as a junior, on the fast track to law school. But always the lure of working in a shop kept tugging at me, and to this day I can hear the disapproving tones of my adviser, Dr. Stetson, 18 months later after I informed her of my withdrawing from school.

“But Don, there is just no future in the crafts.”

I think she might have been wrong about that one….

I have recounted some of my experiences in the shop of the Schindler’s, but not of one acquaintance who also shaped my career. Nicky Hlopoff was one of the most renowned art conservators in the world, and when he was working for clients in Palm Beach he stopped by Schindler’s for frequent visits. With his encouragement I began focusing on moving toward a career in preserving historic furniture. But still I was only part way down the tunnel.

After another unsuccessful attempt at college, this time as an architecture student, I wound up as the assistant patternmaker of a small custom foundry. It was there where I learned what precise and fearless woodworking was all about, especially large-scale turning. The lathe axle was about throat height and the 10-horsepower motor made sure nothing slowed the workpiece, which was often so large (we were making patterns for giant pumps used in dredging) that I was literally part-way inside the pattern while I was turning it. The first time, my boss Johnny Kuzma simply handed me the chisel and said, “Good luck, kid.” Gazing up at the pockmarks where countless chisels had been dislodged from the hands of timid turners and embedded into the ceiling, I grabbed the chisel with a death grip and dove in. Whenever anyone brags to about turning something big, I ask if they have ever turned a 10’-diameter bowl.

After a final and successful attempt at college, I got my current dream job 28 years ago, which has allowed me to pursue a nearly limitless menu of curiosities and opportunities.

Which brings me to the title of this essay. Long before I had ever heard of Popular Woodworking, much less Chris Schwarz or Lost Art Press, I was re-thinking my acquisitive impulses. Better tools. Fewer tools (well, maybe not really fewer tools, and I have not yet come to the place of discarding superfluous tools). Desire to get increasingly serious about scholarship and my skills. That path has been immensely pleasing.

Like many of my fellow galoots, after 40 years I was even reconsidering the need for a table saw. In the end I decided to keep mine, in part because it is a big, heavy machine that does some things nothing else can do, and to remove it from my tiny basement workshop would require recruiting a large number of stout young men to get it up the narrow stairs. Besides, what would I do with the space if I got rid of it? I would probably put an assembly table there. How is that different than a nice table saw with a piece of Baltic birch plywood on it?

Table saw: a machine with side benefits. So I’m keeping it.

That just about sums up the acquired wisdom of 40 years in the furniture trades.

— Don Williams

Be sure to stop by the Lost Art Press booth at Woodworking in America next week. We won’t have a workbench in our booth (I loaned all mine to the event’s organizers). Nor will we have any booth babes (maybe next year).

But we will have a few surprises.

At the top of that list is that we will have Don Williams, the mastermind behind the massive André Roubo translation project and the author of the forthcoming book on H.O. Studley, the piano maker with the legendary tool chest and almost-as-cool workbench.

Don will be hanging out in our booth answering questions about Roubo and Studley and what he’s learned about both men through his research. And if you are nice to him, he might even show you some photos and etchings….

Don will be around the Northern Kentucky Convention Center for most of the event, but if you want to make sure to talk to him, drop by our booth at 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday and 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

— Christopher Schwarz