Peter Galbert’s hoop-back on the left, and perch on the right. He uses these two seating forms to teach you the foundations of chairmaking in his new video series.
Part one (available now) focuses on kiln-dried wood and Pete’s “perch” – a stool with a decidedly modern look. In this episode, he discusses chair design and ergonomics, and introduces all the tools and techniques to get you started in chairmaking. And he shows you how to make the perch, of course.
Part two (available soon) will focus on green wood and making a traditional Winsdor hoop-back stool (what some might call a sack back), and introduce some more advanced techniques.
Pete says that his overall goal “is to remove whatever is limiting you from making your chairs. Because really, this technology is as simple as drilling a hole, and whittling a peg to fit in it, and knocking it home.”
The tools Pete introduces/shows you how to use.
Altogether, Pete says there will be 8-10 hours of video instruction in this “foundation” series (all included in the $69.99 price). By the time the series is complete, you’ll have a solid foundation in chairmaking tools and techniques, as well as design and comfort considerations, to make many kinds of seating – and you’ll discover that chairmaking isn’t scary at all!
This link will take you to all of Pete’s Vimeo videos (including his recent series on using milk paint), as well as Vimeo videos featuring Pete’s work (I’d forgotten about that video Chris Schwarz did of “Chairmaker’s Notebook!). To sign up for his new series, click on the trailer for “Foundations.”
Raney has assembled and finished the last of the Crucible Improved Pattern Dividers that were on hand and is offering them for sale through his website. There are not many available. So act now or forever hold your tongue.
The good news is that Raney is working on a way to bring dividers back into production, which he discusses here.
Raney has also made a batch of nice-looking plane-adjusting hammers, which are for sale in his store. This first batch comes with both walnut and rawhide striking faces.
My most recent commission, a built-in for the living-room alcove of a 1920s house, has been as rewarding to design and build as it has been a challenge with respect to budgetary constraints and safety during a pandemic.
My clients, Anke Birkenmaier and Roman Ivanovitch, have a minimalist modern aesthetic, with hardwood floors, pale walls and modernist furniture, some of it from the mid-20th century. Their home’s exterior is solidly American Foursquare, with painted clapboards, original windows and the original front porch, which has a limestone foundation and several limestone steps up from grade. Inside, the original plainsawn oak trim remains, some of it stripped of paint applied by a former homeowner. In contrast, the fireplace surround is more forward-looking in historical terms, a Jazz-Age design with geometric motifs. This focal point provided precedent for something more streamlined than the original built-ins that are typical of my clients’ neighborhood.
Before. The built-in was for the alcove to the right of the fireplace.
Roman is a professor of music. A piano presides over about a third of the living room’s floorspace. Anke is a professor of Spanish. The cabinetry would store musical scores, sheet music, CDs, family board games and lots of books.
I draw inspiration from all sorts of historical sources, but in this case one particular built-in came to mind: a wall of cabinetry and open shelves I’d long admired in a book given to me decades ago, “Contemporary Furniture: An International Review of Modern Furniture, 1950 to the Present,” by Klaus-Juergen Sembach. The modular ensemble was designed by Mogens Koch, a Danish architect whose designs are still produced today. Koch was in his early years of professional practice when what is now my clients’ house was built.
An original piece designed by Mogens Koch. (Click here for source.)
The orderly divisions of the upper section appealed to me and seemed ideal for the kinds of music-related books I’d seen on the freestanding shelves when I first visited the house. After I drew the piece to scale the clients suggested they’d like walnut for the lower cabinets and paint for the uppers.
Almost done. Before I installed the CD shelves and door knobs.
Budget-friendly Details
Unlike those who built Koch’s designs in solid hardwood, with traditional exposed joinery, I was working with a budget that required me to use affordable materials, as well as choose carefully how I invested my time. The final built-in reflects the following considerations:
1″-thick slab doors are far quicker to make than frame-and-panel doors and complement the streamlined aesthetic.
Because they’re quick to install and facilitate adjustment, European hinges are considerably less costly than traditionally mortised butt hinges, which feature in many Mogens Koch designs.
The casework for the base sections with doors is made using an efficient method, from 3/4″ prefinished veneer-core maple plywood with solid walnut faces (using the same basic technique as I describe for kitchen cabinets in “Kitchen Think”). The central base section with open shelves for sheet music is made from 1/2″-thick walnut-veneered veneer-core ply, the shelves fitted in dados.
The upper sections are made from Baltic birch plywood, which could be painted without requiring solid lippings or veneered edges.
A Few Aesthetic Details Worth Noting
For dynamic rhythm I divided the space into three sections across its 96-1/2″ width.
1/2″-thick shelves and verticals (instead of my customary 3/4″) preserve the lightness of the Mogens Koch design. Where verticals are doubled up between modules, the extra thickness visually emphasizes the structure.
The ensemble has a strong central focus, with a section of the upper cabinetry subdivided for CDs, a 1-3/4″ bump-out at the base, and graduated horizontal lines of open shelves for sheet music.
Each of the uppermost three sections increases in height toward the top for happy proportions.
To lighten the appearance of this large built-in, the kicks are slightly recessed.
The scholarship is open to “women and those who identify as female both nationally and internationally and is part of the school’s ongoing efforts to increase diversification in the craft.”
The school and woodworking community worked together, raising more than $7,000 via a raffle. Prizes included handmade furniture, equipment and a deluxe copy of “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture”. Proceeds from the raffle will fund seven week-long class scholarships.
• Name and date of the class you’d like to attend (plus two alternates if your first choice is not available)
• 100-150 word description of why you’d like to attend
If selected, your scholarship will cover the full tuition of the class and, when deemed appropriate, a small travel stipend. Apply now through January 30. Scholarships will be awarded via email between December 31 and February 28. Check out all the details here.
To learn more about the Florida School of Woodwork and its founder, Kate Swann, check out Nancy Hiller’s two-part interview series here.
Fisher’s high valuation of hard work emanated from his constant recognition of the fleeting nature of time and, throughout his life, Fisher lived under a sense of Divine calling. Every moment mattered. He saw himself as a steward entrusted to use his time in this life wisely. Fellow minister, the Rev. Stephen Thurston, couldn’t help but recall that Fisher “was remarkable for his industry, esteeming it a great sin to waste time. Hence he accomplished much – labored on his farm, wrought at his bench, studied much, published several books, wrote more sermons than any man [he had] ever known …”. (9)
It was, at first, hard for me to contextualize Fisher’s level of productivity because I knew many ministers of this period were both well-educated and prolific. It is true that, compared to 21st-century standards, the amount of work Fisher produced is astonishing, but I wondered if that was typical for the 18th and 19th centuries. It turns out my doubts were unfounded.
Fabricating the elaborate clock mechanisms required a careful and skilled hand.
After reading scores of observations from his contemporaries, I found every single comment about the parson’s productivity concurs with this amazement. Even in his day, people could not believe what he accomplished. His son Josiah recalled, “Every moment of the day he was fully occupied from his early rising to about 10 at night. By a systematical division of time he was enabled to perform an amount of labor which is truly surprising.”
Fisher’s entry for Jan. 1, 1790, solemnly reflects on the passing of another year: “The fleeting years roll on in constant succession; seventeen hundred and eighty nine is past forever! Our clocks may stop, our business may be suspended; but the wheels of time will ever move till the grand period, when eternity commences … It is of infinite consequence that we should seize and use the present moment; not in the work of tomorrow, nor in the work of yesterday, but in the work of today, in the work of this instant. Time can never be recovered.” This conviction never abated and, accordingly, his actions throughout life were ordered and punctual. In the words of Candage, “his minutes were as precious to him as money to the miser.” (10)
This prioritization on productivity was apparently enough for Fisher to undertake the construction of a clock during his vacations from Harvard between 1790 and 1792. This “single day time piece,” a complex mechanism of wooden and brass gears of his own design, was a challenge that pushed his intellectual and artistic limits. Even the logwood-dyed clock case must have been something special – he spent three weeks constructing it.
Fisher’s clock face.
It is telling that of all the furniture that Fisher made for himself, this is the only piece that elicited explicit commentary. When Fisher later copied these early journal entries, he added an annotation that it was in his grandfather’s room until 1817, at which point, he brought it to Blue Hill to be installed in his new addition. Once home, he “repaired it and somewhat improved it, and set it up in [his] own house in Bluehill, where to this day, December 31, 1833, it has been a valuable piece of furniture.”
For some unknown reason, the original clock case was discarded in the 1817 restoration process and the clock itself was installed into a built-in closet in his hallway facing the kitchen. As a part of this restoration, Fisher also painted an elegant and florid new face for his clock. Several inscriptions remind the viewer to use their time wisely. At top center, the face reads: “Beholder, thou art NOW alive! Eph 5:16” (which is “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil”). Just below center of the dial, Proverbs 27:1 is written in Hebrew: “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” The bottom of the clock reads: “What is your life?” in French and, “Time irretrievably flees” (a reference to Roman poet, Virgil) in Latin. Fisher saw the new clock face as an opportunity to call attention to the fleeting nature of life. The clock, then, functioned as a minister to him and his family, a preacher of righteousness, calling him to industry.
The mechanical aptitude required to make a clock exceeded that of the average rural craftsman.
But the spiritual value is only one side of the coin because it is hard to overestimate the significance of clocks in the late 18th century. To be able to tell time to the minute was an indication of sophistication and intellect. Scholars, ministers and gentlemen had clocks. Farmers had no use for the second hand – they thought in terms of morning and evening. But the urban elite had meetings and appointments. For a rural frontier minister to not only own a clock, but build it himself, is noteworthy.
The mechanical aptitude necessary to produce such a device was outside that of the average “mechanic” in the 18th century. Designing and fabricating the clockworks during vacations from college was the epitome of the marriage of head work and hand work. Such complex mechanisms demanded thorough planning and a careful hand in a way that none of his cabinetmaking did.
The clock was installed into this built-in closet in the main hall of his 1814 addition.
This clock face vividly illustrates how the intellectual, spiritual and creative vision Fisher had could collaborate to produce an object that asserts the power of all three at once. This complexity of abilities and motivations makes Fisher a fascinating study. To see an educated man who was just as comfortable conversing with the intelligentsia of his day as he was hewing out posts for his kitchen chairs is inspiring, to say the least.
(9) From Fisher’s funeral sermon delivered by the Rev. Stephen Thurston. (10) Candage, Rufus George Frederick, Memoir of Jonathan Fisher, of Blue Hill, Maine (1889), Kessinger Publishing, 2009, p 226.
