I’ve just posted a blog entry that shows the evolution of the Crucible Improved Pattern Dividers (and explained why they have that name. Check it out here.
— Christopher Schwarz
Category: Uncategorized
Some of our Defences
“ … For the comfort and seemliness of our furniture will decide the background of our home; whether it is to be a place we can truly rejoice in and be proud of, or whether it is to be a shoddy sort of place, a mean, vulgar sort of place. And these things do not depend upon whether a man is rich or poor. A rich man’s house can be innately vulgar, and a poor man’s house have real charm. It all depends upon what we are trying to do and how we set about doing it.
It is all part of the last defence, which is honesty of workmanship and purpose, qualities that were by no means the hallmark of the mass-produced furniture that flooded the market before the war, much of which had for its only purpose to tempt people to buy meretricious stuff which they did not really need and to push good, honest workmanship into the background. The man who has sufficient skill to make his own furniture need never succumb to this kind of temptation. For he at least knows how things ought to be done, he understands good construction and should have a keen eye for all the paltry makeshifts by which weaknesses and defects are hidden in the shoddy article. It is one of the evils of our time that so many men do not know how things are done. The nature of their work has been divorced from making; and it is from making, something, anything, soundly and well, that we get our main training of eye as well as hand.
Allied with this last defence comes beauty a shy quality in which good taste must combine with good workmanship and which even then refuses to be exactly defined. So many things in the home contribute to it; comfort, order, colour, charm, all reflecting something of the personality of the man and woman about whom the home centres, so that in thinking of “home” we think of a unity into which all are gathered—father, mother, children, background. And beauty becomes the first defence of the home as well as the last when it helps to keep boys or girls poised and steady when they are away from it, seeing it with new eyes just because they are away and are no longer blinded by familiarity, and giving them a standard by which to judge the outer world. The man who is honest with himself, honest with his work, and anxious to make good, honest things, is laying the foundation of such a standard. And beauty will not be far behind, indeed must follow, if he will put the best of his mind and will to it:
‘ … look where our dizziest spires are saying
What the hands of a man did up in the sky;
Drenched before you have heard the thunder,
White before you have felt the snow;
For the giants lift up their hands to wonder
How high the hands of a man could go.’ ”
—Charles Hayward, The Woodworker magazine, 1942; the poem Hayward references at the end is by G. K. Chesterton, titled “For Four Guilds: III. The Stone-Masons,” from the book “The Ballad of St. Barbara: And Other Verses”
Build a Welsh Stick Chair with Chris Williams
As many of you know, Chris Williams is writing a book about the 10 years he spent with Welsh chairmaker John Brown, who was Chris’s mentor and friend. The book, which is well underway, will detail John Brown’s woodworking life using Chris’s personal story, interviews with woodworkers all over the world and 20 of John Brown’s best columns for Good Woodworking magazine.
In addition to the narrative of this influential woodworker and writer, the book will detail how John Brown built his chairs using the techniques and patterns handed down to Chris.
This is not the same chair shown in John Brown’s book “Welsh Stick Chairs.” That chair was one of his early forms. After more than a decade of work, the design of John Brown’s chairs evolved into something else entirely. Something spectacular, really. Readers of Good Woodworking got a glimpse of these chairs in the 1990s, and these later chairs are what made me take up the tools and make chairs myself.
For a glimpse of this sort of work, I encourage you to visit Chris’s website and, more importantly, follow Chris on Instagram for a near daily look at his work.
To help re-introduce this style of chair to North America, we hope to bring Chris to our shop here in Covington, Ky., May 21-25, 2018, to lead a group of six woodworkers in building this chair. The class would be held in our storefront on Willard Street. Because of the intense nature of this class, we would encourage participants to have some chairmaking experience under their belts (or a lot of experience with handwork).
The Cost of the Class
The class would be $1,500 for the week plus a small fee for materials. This is a considerable expense for a week-long class, so an explanation is in order. For starters, this will be an intimate class – just six students, one instructor and an assistant (me). It will be a different experience than schools that have 12, 18 or even 30 students in a class. Second, we have to get Chris and his tools to Kentucky all the way from Wales. And, most importantly, we have to make it worth his while. This is not a Lost Art Press venture. Neither I nor Lost Art Press will make a dime off of this event. All the proceeds go to Chris to support his important work.
In addition to learning to make this gorgeous chair, participants also will learn a lot about John Brown. Chris is filled with great stories about the man that could be pried loose with a pint or a glass of wine.
The Setting
Covington is a nice little city in the shadow of downtown Cincinnati. And the shop is walking distance to lots of hotels, restaurants, breweries and two of the best bourbon bars in the United States. The storefront is a great place to work – lots of natural light and workbenches.
We’ll be able to provide participants a list of nearby hotels and AirBnBs that range from $65 a night and up. Our shop is a 10-minute drive the Cincinnati International Airport (CVG) and we’re just a few blocks from I-75.
But before we plow forward on bringing Chris here, we’d like to hear from you. If you are interested in participating in this event, please leave a comment below. This will help us judge the interest among woodworkers. Thanks in advance for your help.
— Christopher Schwarz, editor, Lost Art Press
Personal site: christophermschwarz.com
Personal note: No, I’m not opening a school; nor am I returning to teaching. What do I get out of this? I get to watch Chris work and listen to his stories about John Brown, which will make me a better editor for the book. Plus, this class will help expose woodworkers to a fantastic chair design.
On seeing and being seen
I’ve lost track of how many times people have written “So great to see a woman in the magazine!” following the publication of a project feature. For years I’d roll my eyes and think Never mind my gender. WHAT ABOUT THE WORK?
It’s thorny, this issue of gender representation in woodworking. You can say pretty much the same about race. When you’re the odd one out, it’s easy for readers to see only what makes you different. Which is galling when, for you, what matters is the work.
While I was on hold during a recent phone call, I glanced at Instagram and found myself tagged by Sarah Marriage at A Workshop of Our Own. She was commenting on a post by Phoebe Kuo. “Have you heard about our woodshop drinking game?” asked Sarah. “You take a shot every time you see a woman depicted working in the field of woodworking (ie, not a customer service rep with a headset asking you to call today) in a woodworking periodical. It’s usually safe for the woodshop because you never take a shot!”
Of course she was exaggerating (a little), as she acknowledged by referring to a recent issue of Fine Woodworking. I replied with a comment listing a few other publications that have recently featured work by women: Woodcraft, Furniture & Cabinetmaking, and most recently a cover feature in Popular Woodworking. But as I continued working into the evening and ruminated on Sarah’s remark, her point sank in: It’s important to go beyond publishing work by women to publishing images of women working. While it was exceedingly rare to see a woman in a workshop or on a building site just three decades ago when I started in the field, it’s verging on common today. But outside of publications directed specifically at women, the percentage of females to males in woodworking publications is still low.
This dearth of representation is not due solely to sexism. There are also some distinctly prosaic explanations, among them:
- some women are so busy with commissioned work and other activities that they don’t want to take the time, which can be considerable, to propose, write, and do the hands-on work for an article, and
- while some of us are set up to photograph ourselves, others (guilty!) are not. As a result, in publications that use photographs provided by authors, work by women is published more often than images of women doing the work.
For years I felt like gagging at the mention of gender in relation to my profession. It wasn’t just the unintentionally demeaning remarks — “Did your husband teach you to do this?” It was the focus on the novelty of finding a woman in a field populated primarily by men. I just wanted to be Nancy Hiller, not a token female. Sarah and Megan Fitzpatrick have expressed the same frustration; no doubt many other women have, too. So why are we now paying so much attention to gender and calling for more images of women woodworkers?
Because we all need role models.
As a young woodworker, my models were men. Even without wanting to, I fell into the role of “cute tough-girl in the shop.” That was how others (though thankfully not all of them) made clear they saw me. I was “decorative,” to use a frequently cited word. This worked fine as long as I was thin. But when I gained 40 pounds in response to a devastating heartbreak, the reactions to the female in the shop turned to pity — and occasionally disdain, such as when the foreman at one of the shops where I worked greeted me with a hearty “MOO” when I arrived one Saturday morning to put in some extra hours on a deadline-sensitive job. (Note: Despite my appearance, I was still doing the work.)
What would a mature, confident woman in a workshop look like? I had no idea. To be honest, the question didn’t even occur to me. Instead, I had a vague sense that I should get out of the field before the age of 40, because a mature woman in jeans and work boots would be, well, kind of scary. Or maybe people would assume, based on her work clothes and dusty appearance, that she was not very smart. She would definitely not look “professional” or “desirable.” I’m embarrassed to admit that I ever felt this way, that I had so thoroughly internalized female norms presented by advertising and publishing that 40 represented the end of the road for me as a woodworker.
This is one of the reasons why it’s important to present images of real women working. Not just demure young women with wood chips gathering on their chests while they use power tools, not just intentionally sexy babes using table saws, and not just tattooed tough-girls. We need to include women in mom-jeans and make-up, women of color, big strong women…you get the picture. In other words, we would like to see images of real women woodworkers, ideally in numbers proportionate to the population of women woodworkers, whether woodworking is their hobby or their job — pretty much as we do with men. (After all, not every man looks like Tommy Mac.)
As Megan pointed out in a recent Popular Woodworking editor’s letter, it’s hard to aspire to something for which you have no example. –Nancy Hiller, author of Making Things Work
Video made by Frank Miller Lumber featuring what Raney Nelson would call “your humble narrator” (with apologies to Raney)
Building Crucible Inventory for Christmas
During the last two months, John, Raney and I have been building up our inventory of dividers, holdfasts and design curves at Crucible Tool to ensure we don’t run out during the holidays.
We’ve also been working on a new product – a lump hammer – that we hope to launch before the end of the year. Details on the hammer will come in the next few weeks as we get the handles finalized (the heads are done and designed).
As a result of all this production work (plus my duties at Lost Art Press and finishing some furniture commissions), I have been lax in writing about our tools. But, on the other hand, I’ve been using the hell out of our tools in the shop.
Our iron holdfasts are as important to my work as my leg vise. They get hit dozens of times a day to secure doe’s feet or workpieces at my French workbench. These are the only holdfasts that haven’t failed me (you know, when you hit a holdfast and it only bounces in the hole). Even when I’m securing stuff 8” off the bench, these cinch down as gently or as fiercely as you like.
I also love how my holdfasts have aged during the last 18 months in my shop. They are dark grey and nicely dented. I’m glad we didn’t opt to powder coat them or attempt to block the natural aging process.
The improved pattern dividers are always on my bench. They’re in my hand when I’m thinking. They’re in my hand when I’m laying out joints. They sit on the bench as a reminder of what’s important – accuracy not precision. As these dividers have broken in, I’m glad we took the extra step to make the hinge’s tension adjustable. Some blacksmith-made dividers I have in my shop have some slop in the mechanism. When you move the tips, they adjust suddenly for about 1/16” and then move tightly. You can tighten these up with a hammer, but it’s tricky.
Ours do not have this slop. And the reason they don’t have slop is one of the reasons they cost what they do.
Interestingly, the design curves haven’t seen as much use as the other two tools. But I haven’t been doing much designing during the last few months. I’ve used them to help design the arm bow for a staked armchair I’m (still) working on. But these curves have mostly sat on my desk, waiting to be used. I can say they have remained quite flat all summer – yay for seven layers of bamboo.
So apologies for the silence on the front of Crucible Tool. You can expect more information about using our tools in the coming months – there’s lots to explore with these tools.
— Christopher Schwarz