The following is excerpted from Mary May’s “Carving the Acanthus Leaf.” Learning to carve the acanthus leaf is – for carvers – like a pianist learning a Chopin étude, a young oil painter studying the genius of Rembrandt or an aspiring furniture maker learning to cut dovetails by hand.
For carvers, especially those who focus on Classical Western ornament, there comes a time they will inevitably encounter the acanthus leaf, learn it, master it and finally incorporate it into their own designs.
“Carving the Acanthus Leaf” is a deep exploration into this iconic leaf, which has been a cornerstone of Western ornamentation for thousands of years. May, a professional carver and instructor, starts her book at the beginning. She covers carving tools and sharpening with the efficiency of someone who has taught for years. Then she plunges the reader directly into the work.
It begins with a simple leaf that requires just a few tools. The book then progresses through 13 variations of leaves up to the highly ornate Renaissance and Rococo forms. Each lesson builds on the earlier ones as the complexity slowly increases.
Drawing the Details of the Leaf The details in the leaves can often be formed using geometric techniques, but not always. There is scant detailed instruction available on the specific techniques of drawing historical acanthus leaves, but the following step-by-step instructions explained in each project chapter work well for many designs. The process of drawing that I have shown in each chapter may not be the best technique for everyone, as we all think and design differently. The instructions are presented for the mathematical mind with a desire to discover the “formula” for designing and drawing the acanthus leaf. This is to satisfy those who have ruler and compass poised and ready for battle. There may be others who wish to learn to draw the designs freehand, discovering this leaf’s deep secrets by observing, studying, tracing and drawing the leaf multiple times. Refer to the drawing instruction shown in each chapter to understand the positioning of the different details of the leaf and the curvatures of the lines. If you choose to draw the leaf freehand, you may find it easier to identify the overlapping lobes first, before locating the eyes. The geometrical process I have shown is reversed where the eyes are positioned first and are based on various guidelines drawn.
Drawing a Symmetrical Leaf The following is an overview of how to use geometry and guidelines to draw a basic, symmetrical acanthus leaf. You can see a more detailed explanation of how to draw this particular leaf in Chapter 4. Some designs easily fit into this “formula,” while others vary depending on their shape and application. The main variation would be the number of lobes on the leaf, with the general rule being the longer and more stretched the leaf, the more lobes there are. Keep your eraser handy, as many of the guidelines used will need to be removed as the drawing progresses. Details such as eyes, pipes and overlapping lobes are discussed in more detail later in this chapter.
1. Draw a basic outline of the overall leaf with a midrib down the center that curves and splays out at the base of the leaf.
2. Draw four horizontal guidelines along the leaf, getting slightly closer together as they go toward the tip of the leaf.
3. Draw two straight guidelines starting at the tip of the leaf that angle out as they reach the base of the leaf.
4. Draw eyes at the intersection of the horizontal and angled guidelines.
5. Draw six circles, increasing in size as they reach the base of the leaf. These circles should touch the upper three horizontal lines, intersect with the outer edge of the leaf as shown, and touch the eyes at the approximate halfway point on the circle. These locate the upper, overlapping edges of the lobes. Once these are located, erase the parts of the circle that are no longer needed (dotted lines).
6. Draw curved lines to complete the lower edges of the lobes. These should start at the pointed end of the eye and finish at the outer edge of the leaf as shown, joining with the line drawn in STEP 5. The dotted lines represent the parts of the lobe that are positioned and hidden underneath. Read more about the “eyes” later in this chapter to understand these in more detail.
7. Draw the pipes that flow down from each eye and flow alongside and blend into the midrib. 8. Draw the primary vein lines on each lobe curving in the same direction as the pipes.
9. To help locate the position of the small serrations on each lobe, draw lines halfway between the eye and the tip of the lobe. Position these lines so they are angled and roughly perpendicular to the primary vein line of each lobe. 10. To help find the correct curvature of the serration edges, draw circles as shown on the left side of the leaf above. 11. Erase the parts of the circles that are not needed. The resulting curve should start at the edge of the lobe and end at the line drawn in STEP 9. The dotted lines show the correct direction these serration lines should aim, and should flow toward and blend with the primary vein line of each lobe.
12. Complete the edges of the leaf by drawing lines connecting the inside end of the serration edges with the tip of the leaf. 13. Draw any secondary veins flowing toward and running alongside the primary vein of that lobe. 14. Draw any wrinkle cuts on the pipes.
Last Friday (Sept. 29, 2023), we exported the “printer pdf” of Derek Jones’ new book, “Cricket Tables,” and sent it off for proofs. We reviewed page proofs on Monday, I uploaded a few corrections, approved said corrections, then it was off to the presses!
Oops. Chapter opener pages don’t get folios. Sorry I missed it during layout; glad I caught it before it was too late.
Below is a short excerpt, the Introduction, to whet your appetite. Derek – you might also recognize/recognise him as Lowfat Roubo – is a furniture maker, tool maker, writer and teacher at London Design & Engineering UTC.
No promises on timing, but my best guess is that we’ll have the book in house at the end of November. You can sign up now on our store site to get an email when “Cricket Tables” is available.
“Cricket Tables” is 112 pages, full color and printed on white, 70# matte coated 8-1/2″ x 11″ paper. The pages are sewn, glued and taped for durability. And the whole thing is wrapped with 98-point boards that are covered in lime cotton cloth (we’ll replace the mocked-up cover on the store site with a photograph of the real thing, once we have it). Like all Lost Art Press books, it is produced and printed in the United States.
Paintings are a rich source of information for furniture geeks. “Market Day in Old Wales” (1908) by Sydney Curnow Vosper (37.4cm x 30.7cm) is in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales). A mirror-image version titled “Market Day in Old Wales” (c. 1923) is held in The Royal Collection. It was commissioned for the Library in Queen Mary’s dollhouse and measures just 3.8cm x 2.5cm.
It would be wrong to start this story with an explanation of what a cricket table is, for that would imply there’s a single, well-defined version on which we could all agree. There isn’t. That’s not to say they don’t exist, it’s just that they’re either at best inconclusive, or at worst contradictory. How come? That’s because for the most part we rely on vernacular terms to describe almost every item of furniture ever made. See something for the first time, and you will most likely give it a name associated with something you have seen or experienced before, and most likely with a disclaimer along the lines of “for want of a better….”
In the perfect sciences such an outcome would be wholly unacceptable – and rightly so. But when it comes to furniture and the history associated with it, it’s an all-too-familiar one and something I wholly approve. Every aspect of human development can be told through the artifacts we use, from the earliest implements used to gather sustenance for our bodies to those that feed our imagination and nourish our minds in preparation for what lies ahead.
It’s worth mentioning now that for the purposes of this book I’m going to base nearly all of my observations around the objects in our lives that come under the umbrella term “furniture.” It’s a catch-all word that immediately conjures up an image or understanding of what those items might look like to each of us, and for now that’s all we need to agree on. There is of course a whole universe beyond the world of furniture, and from time to time I might make reference to it, but the core content is aimed at encouraging you to engage with concepts involving furniture and how it’s made that might at first appear awkward and unfamiliar.
To begin with I should point out that cricket tables weren’t made by people who read the classics, let alone understood the principles of composition via an elaborate and questionable formula. Instead, they were in tune with something far less esoteric, something earthly and perhaps even divine: necessity and ingenuity. These two qualities are often discovered walking hand in hand and are responsible for writing nearly every chapter in human history, including those about furniture. They have driven us to the pinnacle of our achievements, and it’s impossible to imagine one without the other. Fibonacci might be the talisman of choice for accountants, but the extrapolation of number sequences that suggest a golden ratio can and should be used to design anything is unimaginative and restricting to the point of being obsolete. There. I said it. Out loud. If a controversial opinion sounds like fighting talk to you, take a deep breath now, then read on. I’ll do my best to soften the blows, but I can’t promise the road ahead is smooth.
The hero in our story is anything but awkward and unfamiliar – quite the opposite in fact. It is on the one hand simplicity itself, omnipresent in every culture and a milestone of furniture design and history. Somewhere along the way, however, it has been misconstrued, left behind and is in danger of being forgotten – unless you deal in antiques, in which case period examples are most definitely on the upper register of the “ker-ching” scale.
Some of my earliest memories revolve around furniture. Using a can of Mr Sheen to polish a mahogany dining table that had extending pull-out leaves that was bought in the 1960s from a Gordon Russell store in London is one. I would have been somewhere between 5 and 7 years old, so it’s the early ’70s, and I’m most likely helping my mum with the housework. A series of other markers help pinpoint the decade but as for the rest of the information, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know it. The legs on the table and matching chairs were covered in tiny dents low down to the floor. These were explained to me as being created by my older sister repeatedly pushing a truck of wooden bricks around the house. I don’t recall exactly how the conversation went, but I came out the other side knowing that although mahogany was a hardwood it was a soft hardwood and dented easily. What surprises me the most about this recollection is not my sister’s choice of walker but why my mum knew so much about mahogany. She was a dancer and would have been in her early 30s. This detail is only surpassed by the earth-shattering news, delivered around the same dinner table at Christmas around the same time, that my grandfather had built the cabinets in their kitchen in Tonbridge Wells. Until then I just assumed all furniture came from Tottenham Court Road or The Pantiles, and my granddad only knew how to grow tomatoes. I mention this now merely to illustrate that form, function and furniture have been on my radar in one way or another for as long as I can remember, and it’s probably why I pursued a career in antiques as soon as I left school.
Speed Dating for Furniture Dealers The antique trade in Brighton in the ’80s was a sea of brown furniture with Georgian mahogany representing the top line. Traditional oak furniture, Art Deco and Art Nouveau were of little interest to anyone other than a handful of specialist dealers and was always something of a lame duck in the showroom. With little appreciation for the period (or knowledge), I quickly developed an eye for spotting good pieces in the wild. And by “good” I mean something that could be turned into a profit and quickly. My mentor at the time told me it was all in the proportions, the colour and that you know it when you see it. It just looks right. In essence it became a sixth sense that I employed to navigate my way around the auction rooms and house clearance shops daily in search of items I knew I could re-sell. In the 10 years or so that I was dealing, I only recall buying one piece of traditional oak furniture, a chair. It came off the back of a knocker boy’s truck as part of a job lot to obtain something more desirable. It was wonky, unbalanced and irregular. Its joints were loose, it was spattered in paint and cut an unfamiliar silhouette. It was a lame duck.
Pieces like this became props in the shop, and this one must have grown on me because it was never really for sale. For years it became quite literally part of the furniture until I closed the shop, sold all the stock and took one of life’s left turns into an altogether different career in civil aviation. Thirty-something years on, it sits in my hallway, still wonky, unbalanced and irregular, but now with the paint spatters gone and the drawbored mortise-and-tenon joints rock solid. It’s the only piece of furniture I have from that period in my life, and I can’t imagine ever not having it. It took me a while to get used to it though. It was everything I trained my eye to avoid, and I see now how lucky I was to end up with it; I wonder how many similar pieces slipped through my hands back then.
It was in 2018, in an auction room on viewing day, that a piece of furniture caught my eye. For a moment there wasn’t another piece in the room. There was a blip on the radar and it was like being back in the ’80s. This time, however, the item in question was oak, not Georgian and not familiar. It was well-proportioned and of a good colour and, yes, I could tell immediately that it was “right.” Feeling optimistic, I left an absentee bid at the office on my way out only to discover a few days later the person who took it home had added a nought to my number. It was gone forever, and we didn’t even get to haggle, let alone say goodbye.
Cricket tables – for that’s what it was – have been on my radar ever since, and the dozen or so examples I made before writing this book are beginning to explain what I enjoy the most about this form. For a start, there isn’t a blueprint or a recognised plan to follow. I’ve never seen two tables exactly the same. Even when I build them myself with the same splay angles and the same dimensions, they’re never truly identical. It’s not just the timber or choice of finish that makes them different, it’s how they go together. Some are born into this world without a struggle while others are laboured and long winded. And contrary to what you might expect, their path to existence is not always reflected in their outcome. There are days when I find this irritating beyond belief. If everything can be explained with maths you should be able to dial in a set of coordinates and end up with the same result every time. Let me tell you it doesn’t work like that, not in my workshop anyway. It doesn’t help, I’m sure, that I’m always looking to improve some aspect of the previous build either in sequencing or reducing the number of times a component gets worked. A lifelong fascination with batch work has seen to that.
A Bunch of Three-chord Wonders On a topic completely unrelated to furniture making, I remember being shocked when, during a meeting, a colleague who was clearly frustrated with proceedings, let rip and blurted out, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of good enough.” It was enough to cause everyone to pause momentarily and reconsider their position on the matter. I remember thinking it sounded a bit defeatist and immediately started to question their leadership qualities and maybe even their moral compass. But the pause was just long enough for me to remember a similar proclamation, decades earlier by another colleague who under very different circumstances claimed a job to be “good enough for rock ‘n’ roll.” As derisory as it sounds (it may even have been a tad elitist), it was, despite the obvious ambiguity, an accurate and qualitative assessment of an object being “fit for purpose.” For a maker of things, these must surely be the most calming words in the dictionary. Posed as a question, it will set you on the right path to resolving any issues you have with your project. Left hanging in the air, spoken slowly and without a question mark, it’s only necessary to turn the lights off in the shop, lock the door behind you and head for home as your work is done. For now, at least, I’m happy to accept that I need to make more tables before I can comment conclusively on the merits of a predictive system; but deep down, I’m holding out for the day when I can hold two sticks up in front of the academics and say there are some things you just can’t and perhaps shouldn’t even try to explain. A notion that’s better expressed by my teenage daughter: “It’s not that deep, dad.”
The Cognitive Illusion To the untrained eye, three-legged tables at first do look wonky, unbalanced and irregular – especially when viewed at waist height. A bit like refraction, they alter as we shift our viewpoint. Get the viewpoint right, though, and something magical happens: The laws of symmetry start to work and the form makes perfect sense, as pleasing as any I’ve encountered. More refined versions have a symbolic quality not entirely dissimilar to a pair of dividers, and although you could put it down to coincidence, I’m inclined to favour the notion that an unconscious bias toward symmetry lives in all of us.
In the hours I’ve spent gazing at the examples I’ve made, I’ve often wondered what it is in the form that attracted me to it in the first place. It wasn’t the perfect profile; that didn’t become apparent until much later, and I fully acknowledge that’s a subjective standpoint.
I’m prepared to believe that after years of drawing and making things, I’ve acquired sufficient knowledge to recognise pleasing shapes almost from any angle and see their potential long before it’s had a chance to reveal itself. It’s entirely possible I could chalk that one down to CAD. It’s also fair to say that years at the bench and drawing board have in a sense hot-wired my brain to resolve complex forms in an instant. It doesn’t make me a genius, and I’m certainly no mathematician; we all do it all of the time. Put a familiar face in a crowd of people, and you’d be able to spot them a mile away even though their features aren’t crystal clear. On that basis, I think we can assume that shape awareness is something we’re born with. At the subconscious level we rely on pre-learnt data to make rapid decisions almost intuitively. Our ability to recognise symmetry, square and level work in this way. For less frequent tasks, like spotting your neighbour in a crowd, for example, we first have to input data from our memory and apply it to the task at hand while fighting off distractions such as all the other faces in the crowd, and any doubts we might have concerning the validity of our initial input data. This type of thinking is laboured and requires us to question our intuition (pre-learnt data) before we can reach a decision.
We shouldn’t confuse these tasks with being in some way more complex than the intuitive ones. Assessing symmetry, square and level all require sophisticated and precise calculations to take place in an instant – it’s just that we, and by that I mean the makers among us, do them all the time so we are well-versed in the skill. Training ourselves to accept at an intuitive level that what first appears to be wonky, unbalanced and irregular might just be OK takes practise. It’s a bit like learning to like jazz or draught beer. Their complex tones are a shock at first compared to the more accessible chord progressions of rock, pop and country. Heaven forbid we get a taste for easy listening.
The pages that follow outline some of the things I’ve learned while building cricket tables. The complex ones are paradoxically easier to resolve when you’ve broken free of 90° and square. Like any other, 60 is just a number. I’ll talk a lot about techniques and the transition of one form to another because I think this is more helpful in the long run than “how to” or “step-by-step guides,” and of course I’ll offer my explanation for how the cricket table got its name. Spoiler alert: It’s not what you’re thinking.
Representing a decade of work by an international team, this book is the first English translation of the 18th-century masterpiece: “l’art du Menuisier” by André-Jacob Roubo. This, our second volume, covers Roubo’s writing on woodworking tools, the workshop, joinery and building furniture.
In addition to the translated text and images from the original, “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” also includes five contemporary essays on Roubo’s writing by craftsmen Christopher Schwarz, Don Williams, Michael Mascelli, Philippe Lafargue and Jonathan Thornton.
“Roubo on Furniture” is filled with insights into working wood and building furniture that are difficult or impossible to find in both old and modern woodworking books. Unlike many woodworking writers of the 18th century Roubo was a traditionally trained and practicing joiner. He interviewed fellow craftsmen from other trades to gain a deep and nuanced view of their practices. He learned to draw, so almost all of the illustrations in this book came from his hand.
After Beds and Seats, Tables are the most ancient pieces of furniture, or at least the most useful. The number of Tables currently is considerable. There are Tables for the kitchen, Tables for eating, game Tables, Tables for writing, dressing Tables, night Tables, Bed stands, etc. which are composed of a top and of several legs, and which do not differ except in their size and the shape of their top or in their legs. That is why, before entering into any detail on the subject of these different Tables (which you can consider as being three different types, namely dining Tables, game Tables and writing Tables), I am going to address the different legs of these same Tables in general, so as not to repeat it when I come to their particular detail later.
The legs of Tables are of two types, namely those which are immobile, as in Figs. 1 & 2, and those that fold, like those in 3, 4 & 5. In the first case, the bases are composed of four uprights, of four cross-pieces [aprons] at the top and of four others [stretchers] lower down, as in Fig. 1, which is the most solid way to make legs for Tables. Sometimes you put there only two cross-pieces [stretchers] at the ends with a brace in the middle. Or even two stretchers at the ends and one on its rear side, such that there is one side free for providing access for the user’s legs, which is necessary for writing Tables and dressing Tables.
These sorts of legs are, as you can see, very solid. However, we often prefer those of the serpentine leg, represented in Fig. 2, which, although less solid than the first, have the advantage of being less heavily decorated and not to bother in any way those who are seated around it, whether for playing or writing; [this] is to be highly considered, especially when there is no need for much strength or they are not subject to changing place frequently. Because in the latter case, you would need legs like in Fig. 1, unless the Tables being very light, like little writing Tables, game Tables and others of this type.
The legs of folding Tables are of two sorts: namely those in x, whether in elevation, as in Fig. 3; whether in x in plan, like Fig. 4; and those of a folding frame, like Fig. 5.
In the first case, Fig. 3, these feet are composed of two frames assembled with a cap at the end, which would be about 2–and-a-half feet in length each, with a width equal to that of the table, less 2 to 3 thumbs, according to the greater or less width of the latter.
The width of the legs that I speak of should not be taken from outside of the uprights, but from the ends of the cross-pieces at the cap, at the end of one of which you make some dowels, a, b, which move in the hinges attached to the top of the table, which I will speak of next.
The frame that holds the dowels should be the narrowest so that in rounding off the latter, some shoulder remains in the mortise that receives the upright. One could not do this to the other frame, unless by moving it back a lot and consequently to reduce/narrow the frame on the interior as much as the exterior, and diminish at the same time the seating of the leg, of which it never has too much in the case being questioned here.
The two frames of the legs of the Tables that I just described are held together in the middle of their length by an iron pin which enters into each of the uprights at about the middle of their width, which requires that one not peg the wider frame after having placed the [iron] pins, which at 2 to 3 lines in diameter [will] suffice for giving all the firmness suitable.
I just said that you place the pins in the middle of the length of the frame. However, if you wish to give more spread to the leg, you could place them a little bit higher, which you do with no other change than to augment the length of the uprights a little. That is why when you make these sorts of legs, you [will] do very well to draw them in elevation in order to have the exact length of the uprights, the place of the hinges, Fig. 8, [& some racks] Fig. 9, which are attached under the table, as you can see in Fig. 7, which represents the leg folded under the table AB, which extends by about 5 to 6 thumbs at the end, at least normally.
The hinges, Fig. 8, (which Joiners improperly call pins), are made of beech, about a thumb’s thickness and from 5 to 6 thumbs in length; in the middle of which, and about 6 lines from the bottom, that is to say, from the straight edge, you drill a round hole a of about a thumb in diameter into which enters the pins of the crossbar of the leg. These hinges are attached under the table with some nails, which is the most normal way. However, it is much better to make them enter into a notch [that is] the thickness of their cheek in the underside of the table, [as] indicated by line b–c. This is not only more solid, but makes the top of the cross-piece of the frame support equally along the entire width of the table.
The racks represented in Fig. 9 are made of the same wood and of the same thickness as the hinges and are attached under the table with some nails, as with the latter. One is required to make some notches c–d, Fig. 3, into which enter the cheek of the rack. It would be good to make this enter into the notch in the tabletop of this same thickness, so that it attaches more firmly, and you are not obliged to make a notch in the crossbar of the leg frame, which conserves all its strength. However, as these notches serve to hold the leg in place, or at least to prevent it from varying, you can let the rack project by about 2 lines from the edge of the tabletop, [as] indicated by line d–e, which removes less of the strength of the crossbar and is sufficient to prevent the foot from varying. The racks normally have two notches, f & g, [NB: these elements are not present in the plate] to allow you to raise and lower the table as you judge appropriately, which you do by moving the cross-piece of the frame from one notch to the other, noting that the notch farther away is positioned such that the leg be at its normal height, which is for all dining Tables (where these legs are normally used) from 25 to 26 thumbs on the bottom of the table.
These sorts of legs are not used except for dining Tables of average size and are otherwise inconvenient and less solid, [with] their legs interfering with those who are placed around it. That is why one should prefer them in [an] X on the plan represented [as] in Fig. 4, which are the most solid, less awkward and less complicated, although constructed rather in the same manner, as you can see in this figure, of which inspection alone is sufficient.
The top of the uprights of this sort of leg should project past the crossbar by about 9 lines or 1 thumb, which is necessary to preserve the shoulder. This projection is necessary for entering into the notches that you put on the underside of the tabletop, so as to hold the leg in place. Sometimes you do not put a notch on the underside of the table, but you use some cleats into which enter the end of the uprights.
These sorts of table legs are very convenient for a dining table of a certain size because they do not interfere in any way with those who are seated around it and they take little space when folded, as you can see in Fig. 6, which represents this leg completely folded and viewed from above. This is preferred to all others for dining Tables of average size. What’s more, these feet are normally of a very simple construction and are consequently less costly, which is one more reason to prefer them.
Other folding legs are required, much more complicated than those that I just spoke of, but which are at the same time more solid. The leg represented in Fig. 5 is composed of six frame sections, or better said, of four – two on the side and two at the ends – which each break into two parts in the middle of their width. These frames are closed by pinned hinges on the inside on the frame and in the middle of the two outside. When you wish to fold them, you make them move toward the inside of each side, which make these fold thus, hardly 5 thumbs of thickness, as you can see in Fig. 10, which represents this folded foot held in place by a hook of iron ab, which you can remove when you wish to open it.
When this foot is open, you hold it in place with a flat iron hook, c–d, Fig. 5, which is placed behind the break in the middle. We also have the custom of placing there a movable brace, which is nothing other than a board of a length equal to that of the leg, and large enough so that it can hold the two uprights in the middle which enter into the notch in the ends of this spacer, which sometimes you make of assembled braces to make it lighter, like the campaign Tables represented in Fig. 6, Plate 251.
These sorts of legs are very solid and greatly in use for dining Tables of a medium size, of which the large projection over the leg [is] made such that it cannot harm those seated around the table.
There are serpentine legs, like Fig. 2, which fold in the same way as those that I just spoke about; that is to say, they fold in the middle of the cross-pieces of the ends, which instead of a tenon, have only a tongue-ending [like a wooden key], which enters into the serpentine leg on which they are tightened.
We also make a tongue at the fold in the middle of these crossbars and you note to make there a shoulder above and below so that they are more solid. These types of legs are frequently used, however they are less solid, no matter the care that you take when closing them. One should prefer the legs with a folding frame, Fig. 5, for large Tables or even that represented in Fig. 4 for small ones.
The size of the leg of Tables’ frames varies from 3 feet in length by 2–feet-3–thumbs in width up to 6 feet by 4–feet-6 thumbs by a height of 25 to 26 thumbs, which is general for all dining Tables. This cannot be otherwise since this height is determined by that of the person seated there, below the elbows of which the top of the Tables must be flush, at least for those of a normal size, which ordinarily is 26 to 27 thumbs in height from the top of the Tables. As to the size of the wood of these legs, 10 lines or 1 thumb thickness suffices, by one–thumb-and-a-half or 2 thumbs, and sometimes 2–thumbs-and-a-half for the width of the uprights, according to the size of the legs. Their crossbars should [proportionally] be a bit larger than the uprights, especially those that meet at the end of the latter so as to conserve the strength of the assemblage.
There you have in general the detail of all the different types of table legs in use for both dining Tables and Tables for games and writing, which, with some small changes, are always of the same form.
Traditional Shop in Miniature. This workbench scene, owned by tool collector John Sindelar, shows a complete, functioning shop. But what if you don’t own a bench?
The following is excerpted from “The Anarchist’s Workbench,” by Christopher Schwarz. The book is – on the one hand – a detailed plan for a simple workbench that can be built using construction lumber and basic woodworking tools. But it’s also the story of Christopher Schwarz’s 20-year journey researching, building and refining historical workbenches until there was nothing left to improve.
“The Anarchist’s Workbench” is the third and final book in the “anarchist” series, and it attempts to cut through the immense amount of misinformation about building a proper bench. It helps answer the questions that dog every woodworker: What sort of bench should I build? What wood should I use? What dimensions should it be? And what vises should I attach to it?
“The Anarchist’s Workbench” also seeks to open your eyes to simpler workbench designs that eschew metal fasteners and instead rely only on the time-tested mortise-and-tenon joint that’s secured with a drawbored peg. The bench plan in the book is based on a European design that spread across the continent in the 1500s. It has only 12 joints, weighs more than 300 pounds and requires less than $300 in lumber.
And while the bench is immensely simple, it is a versatile design that you can adapt and change as you grow as a woodworker.
There’s only one reason that the cheap-o workbench industry exists. And that’s because people think they need a workbench to build a workbench (or are truly delusional and think it will be fine for furniture making).
So many woodworkers I’ve met have spent $200 to $500 on a bench that isn’t worth the BTUs to burn. The things wobble like a broken finger. The vises hold like the handshake of a creepy vacuum salesman. They are too lightweight for even mild planing tasks.
You don’t need one of these benches to someday construct a “real” bench. In fact, I build benches all the time without the assistance of a workbench. It’s easy. Start with sawhorses. Glue up the benchtop on the sawhorses. Sawhorses + benchtop = ersatz bench. Now build the workbench’s base on top of that ersatz bench. Put the base and the benchtop together. You’re done.
If you want a temporary workbench until you build a “real” workbench, there are ways to get the job done with just a little money and a little frustration. This brief chapter seeks to give you some options.
I know that some of you will insist on buying something as soon as you anoint yourself a woodworker. It’s an instinct we’re trained into as consumers. Here are a few things to put in your shopping cart instead of a cheap workbench:
Buy an industrial steel packing table with a hardwood top. You can get these from many, many suppliers (McMaster-Carr is one). These feature a heavy welded steel base and a wooden top that’s maple, if you’re lucky. These metal tables don’t rack like a cheap workbench and cost less (way less if you find a used one). You can screw thin pieces of wood to the top as planing stops so you can plane the faces of boards and legs and the like. And get a large handscrew clamp to stabilize boards when planing them on edge. These packing tables don’t come with any vises, of course, but you can fix that with your credit card.
Buy a couple bar clamps (you’ll need clamps no matter what) that are long enough to span the width of the top of the packing table. Screw a 4×4 below the benchtop right at the front edge of the top – this will allow you to clamp your work to the front edge of the benchtop so you can work on boards’ edges and ends.
That’s one solution. How about a simpler approach?
Use your kitchen cabinets, kitchen table or dining table as the workbench. You can clamp planing stops to the tabletop (you’ll need a couple F-style clamps for this). Don’t forget to buy a large handscrew clamp to help stabilize boards when planing them on edge on the tabletop.
For working on edges and ends of boards, buy a commercial Moxon vise, which you can clamp to any tabletop or countertop. This vise will let you work on the edges and ends of boards. Even after you build a “real” workbench, you’ll continue to use the Moxon and the handscrews.
Is that still too much money? Do you have a public park nearby?
Use a picnic table. Drive nails or screws into the top to serve as planing stops. With a picnic table you get both high and low working surfaces. You can drive some nails into the picnic table’s benches to act as a planing stop and use them like a Roman workbench.
Buy a couple big handscrew clamps (every woodworker needs these anyway). Clamp or screw these handscrews to the picnic table so they work like vises so you can work on boards’ edges or ends.
Here are other time-honored solutions I have observed in the wild.
Take four pieces of 3/4″ x 24″ x 96″ CDX cheap-o plywood and screw them together face to face to make a 3″-thick benchtop. Screw this benchtop to a used metal desk. The old metal desks that populated schools, warehouses and government offices are ugly, cheap and widely available. They are almost all 30″ high. Add a 3″-thick benchtop and you are in the right height range for most Americans. Some of these desks have MDF desktops. Some have sheet metal tops. Either way, you can screw your plywood benchtop to the desk. Bonus: The drawers give you tool storage. Add workholding as above.
Conscript an old dresser/bureau. This is a three- or four-drawer cabinet for storing clothes. One 19th-century book I read showed how to turn this into a workbench. Attach planing stops to the top of the bureau/dresser. For sawing, keep it simple – use 5-gallon buckets as sawbenches (thanks for that tip, Mike Siemsen). You also could clamp a Moxon vise to the top. The lower drawers are for storing tools. The upper drawer can catch sawdust (not my idea – it was mentioned in the book).
The Apocalypse Workbench When I teach or demonstrate woodworking on the road, the venue is occasionally luxurious and other times it’s more like “Lord of the Flies.” I’ve showed up at woodworking clubs where the workbench on offer was a folding table with metal legs and a particleboard top.
After years of encountering this problem, I learned to travel with an emergency kit of things that allowed me to work without bursting into sweat and tears in front of an audience. Here’s the kit:
Two large handscrews
Two 36″ bar clamps
Two F-style clamps (usually with 12″ bars)
Thin strips of plywood, usually 3″ x 24″ and in two thicknesses: 1/4″ and 1/2″
Small clamping pads of scrap plywood, to prevent denting my work when I pinch it
A few softwood shims
A couple simple bench hooks for sawing.
This kit has converted many desks and tables into somewhat-functioning workbenches. The handscrews and bar clamps act as face vises. The plywood scraps can be made into planing stops for planing with the grain or across it. And the F-style clamps can clamp my work – or other clamps – to the tabletop.
To be sure, I’m always happy to return home to my workbench. But until I find a way to fit it in an airplane’s overhead compartment, this kit has become a way that I can work almost anywhere.
If You Buy (or Inherit) a Cheap Workbench? Let’s say that all your friends warned you against buying a $200 to $300 “hobby” workbench and you went against their advice (“How bad could it be?”). This part of the book is for you. As an experiment, I bought one of these benches for $220 (total with shipping). Out of the box, it weighed just 57 lbs. That’s the sort of bench that you want to feed a sandwich.
An Inexpensive & Lightweight Bench. This bench weighed 57 lbs. out of the box. Our cats could move it around the shop.
I decided to see if I could make it into a decent bench for about $50. I came pretty close. Here’s what I did.
The bench’s base was a lightweight white pine and was assembled with dowels and screws. The two end assemblies were joined with wide pine stretchers. Captured nuts and bolts pulled everything tight, like assembling a bed.
The first thing I did was to glue all the joints in the end assemblies as I put the bench together. The instructions didn’t mention glue, but I added it to the dowels and all the mating surfaces. I “sized” the end grain areas with glue and then re-applied glue if the gluing surfaces became dry before clamping the parts together.
Then I bolted the ends together. I added the thin shelf provided by the manufacturer then slapped three layers of scrap construction plywood on top of the thin shelf. This added much-needed mass. To make the base even more rigid and heavy, I screwed 3/4″-thick plywood panels to the back and ends of the base.
The benchtop was maple and only 1″ thick. So I glued and screwed two layers of 3/4″-thick plywood to the underside of the benchtop. The new benchtop thickness of 2-1/2″ isn’t terrible. I had to drill out the dog holes through the new plywood layers.
The original benchtop was connected to the base with puny screws. I replaced those screws with four sets of 3/8″ hex-head bolts, washers and nuts. While I’m not wild about bolting together a bench, it is a step up from using spindly screws.
The workholding on the bench was a skimpy end vise. So I added holes for holdfasts in the benchtop. Then I drilled holes in the front legs so I could put holdfasts or pegs there. I added a crochet to the front edge of the benchtop. Planing edges of boards is now quite easy.
Then I restrained the bench to the floor with lag screws. You can bolt yours to the shop floor or screw cleats to the floor to fence in the bench’s feet. (While you’re down there, check out the bench’s feet. They might not sit flat and need to be planed, sawn down or shimmed up.)
With all my modifications, the bench weighed about 130 lbs. – a lot more than when it was born from its shipping box. When restrained to the floor it didn’t sway under planing pressure.
Same Bench After Modifications. After adding mass, the bench weighed 130 lbs., and it was almost usable.
It wasn’t the worst bench I had ever worked on. (But, to be fair, I have built stuff on folding tables, a rotting porch and a loading dock. The bar is pretty low.)
I don’t, however, recommend this path unless you inherit one of these benches. Never ever buy a $220 commercial bench. Not even on a bet. That $220 could buy you more than 900 pounds of yellow pine.
The following is excerpted from “The Essential Woodworker,” by Robert Wearing. In our opinion, “The Essential Woodworker” is one of the best books on hand-tool usage written in the post-Charles Hayward era. Wearing was classically trained in England as a woodworker and embraced both power and hand tools in his shop and in his teaching.
He begins with a table. As you read the chapter on building a table, Wearing connects the dots for the hand-tool user by showing how all the tools are used in concert to produce accurate work. It’s not just about sawing a tenon or planing an edge. Instead, it is about how to gather these skills and apply them to building furniture – tables, doors, carcases, dovetailed drawers, plinths, etc.
The book is filled with more than 500 hand-drawn illustrations by Wearing that explain every operation in a hand-tool shop. His illustrations are properly drafted, drawn in perspective and masterfully clear.
The accurate sawing of tenons (Fig 119) is a vital skill. They should be sawn with confidence and should fit from the saw. To saw clear of the lines, for safety, is not recommended since whittling an overthick tenon to size is both more difficult and less accurate than sawing correctly in the first place. A 250mm (10in.) tenon or backsaw is the most commonly used for this purpose. Frame saws are used in Europe and by some workers in the USA, but they have never been popular in Britain since the manufacture of good-quality backsaws, and beginners usually find them rather clumsy.
Before starting, check over the names of the parts on Fig 95 [top] and shade in the waste. While there is little chance of throwing away the wrong piece, it is essential that the sawdust should be removed from the waste and not from the tenon. That is, the ‘kerf’ (the sawcut) should be in the waste and just up to the line. Beginners using the thick pencil aid in Fig 105 [see bottom of post] should saw away one pencil line and leave the other intact. The technique is not difficult if the following guidelines are followed: do not saw down two gauge lines at a time; do not saw to a line which is out of sight. (A modification to the saw is described in Appendix B.)
Start sawing always at the farther corner not the nearer one. Beginners may find it useful to chisel a triangular nick there to start the saw accurately (Fig 120). With the rail held vertically in the vice, start to saw at that far corner, slowly lowering the handle until a slot is cut about 3mm (1/8in.) deep (Fig 121). Now tilt the workpiece (Fig 122) and, keeping the saw in the slot, saw from corner to corner. Then turn the work round, or stand on the other side, and saw again from corner to corner, leaving an uncut triangle in the centre (Fig 123). Now grip the work vertically and, running down the two existing sawcuts, remove this last triangle, sawing down to the knife line, but no farther. Keep the saw horizontal (Fig 124).
If there is a set-in or haunch, saw this next. Repeat these stages on all the other tenons (Fig 125). The haunch may be sawn right off now or later.
Sawing the shoulder is most important as this is the piece left exposed. Except on wide rails, which may be planed, the shoulder should go up from the saw.
Cramp to the bench, deepen the knife cut and chisel a shallow groove (Fig 126). Lay a very sharp saw in the groove and draw it back a few times to make a kerf, then saw off the cheek. Take the greatest care not to saw into the tenon (Fig 127), which would then be severely weakened. Should the waste not fall off, the cheek has probably been sawn with an arc-like motion, leaving some waste in the centre (Fig 128). Do not saw the shoulder deeper. Prise off the waste with a chisel, then gently and carefully pare away the obstruction. Saw off the haunch if not sawn previously.
Saw off the set-in with a little to spare, and trim this back to the knife line with a chisel only just wider than the tenon size. This avoids damage to the corner of the shoulder. Finally saw the mitre (Fig 129). The tenons should be lettered or numbered to identify them with their mortices.
Make a preliminary fitting of the joints. The tenon may be too wide or too thick. Check for the latter by inserting it diagonally into the mortice (Fig 130). A tenon may be wrongly thought to be too thick when in fact it is too wide. It may have been sawn too wide or the mortice may have been chopped tapered (Fig 131), in which case trim it square. The most accurate way to correct an overthick tenon is to use a router plane, to the sole of which has been screwed an offcut of rail material (Fig 132).
Having checked that the tenon will enter the mortice, grip the rail in the vice and tap on the mortised member using a woodblock and hammer (Fig 133). The hammer face is small and makes it a more precise tool than the mallet. Check every joint in this way. If the shoulder does not close, either the tenon is too long or the haunch is too long, and either of these problems can easily be corrected. But a badly sawn shoulder can only be corrected by re-squaring and taking back with a shoulder plane.
“Thick Pencil Trick” – Beginners will find it helpful later on, when sawing the tenons, if a thick, soft pencil is run in the gauge marks. This produces a double pencil mark (Fig 105).
