From “A New Library of Poetry and Song,” by William Cullen Bryant, The Baker Taylor Co., 1903
“Young people are often amazed at the tenacity with which older folk cling to their old furniture. They will take it with them from one house to another; usually to smaller houses, to bungalows or to a room ·or two as the family grows up and goes away and old age and infirmity increases. With each move the furniture grows more unsuited to its surroundings, too big and clumsy by far, and the young people think how odd to prefer these things to the modern stuff so much more suited to their surroundings. Then the young ones go off, themselves acquire homes and start along the same well-worn path. And the old folk, left alone with the familiar things, find something in them far more precious than anyone could know; memories of children and friends, of old joys and sorrows, every line and scar with a story behind it, every fine polished surface the record of their own youthful vigour. For Time, the artist, is at work again, and this is perhaps his last, best gift to them.”
When I wrote “The Anarchist’s Design Book” during a five-year period, my hope was that my explanations of staked and boarded furniture forms would inspire other woodworkers to take up the tools and produce their own variations.
Lots of woodworkers have built the staked sawbench, backstool, chair and worktable. And, in the boarded category, I’ve seen a lot of bookcases, tool chests and six-board chests during the last two years.
My favorite response to the book, however, has been among those who took the designs in the book and pushed them further. I truly think that staked and boarded forms have few limits. You can make almost anything you need for your house with these techniques. And (here’s the best part) these techniques are extraordinarily fast – rivaling the pocket screw and Domino in the speed department.
If you’d like to see how others are approaching these pieces, here are some links.
Brendan Gaffney, the new managing editor at Popular Woodworking Magazine, has been churning out staked projects for his new apartment in Covington, Ky. Check out this entry that discusses his pieces. I like how he modified the chairs with a lower crest, clipped the corners on the worktable and added a splash of color to the set.
Greg Merritt at Hillbilly Daiku has been turning out some fascinating variations, including his sewing table, his version of the staked stool and a side table with an underhung drawer. Greg pushed the aesthetic of these designs with his pyrography, color and additions of rope.
Jason Thigpen at Texas Heritage Woodworks is currently working on a staked armchair (so am I). We are taking totally different tacks, and I can’t wait to see how his comes out. You can see a lot more examples of these forms on Instagram by following the #stakedfurniture hashtag.
If you have links to other people who have adapted these designs, post them in the comments below. Your link might just inspire someone else to pick up the tools.
Final note: I like to mention every now and again that my designs are “open source.” Use them however you please. Make copies or change them. Sell your work. The only “no-no” is reproducing the book and selling it….
Editor’s note: Sorry, this post is not about “Game of Thrones.”
George and I often get asked which book should be read first, and we don’t have a quick answer. Because our research has been a quest, we didn’t write them necessarily in the order a beginner should take them up. We both agree, though, that our most recent “From Truth to Tools” would probably be the one we’d suggest reading first. It will go a long way to help you visualize space with practical knowledge of how our tools fit into the picture.
The second pick depends on how you like to learn. Read “By Hand & Eye” if you like to know the “why” as well as the “how” behind design and proportions. Otherwise, we suggest starting with “By Hound & Eye” if you tend to learn more by doing, and you just want to get down to it. Whichever way you begin this journey, we are confident you’ll come out seeing the world – and your craft – in a whole new way.
You can now order a pre-publication copy of “From Truths to Tools” in the Lost Art Press store. The book will ship in early or mid-November 2017. The book is $25, which includes free shipping to customers in the United States and Canada. All customers who order the book before Nov. 7 will receive a free and immediate pdf download of the entire book.
You can download an excerpt of the book via this link:
Good books give you a glimpse of small truths – about workbenches, joinery or sharpening, for example. Great books, on the other hand, stitch together seemingly disparate ideas to present a new way of looking at the world as a whole, from your marking awl, to your hand or to the line of the horizon.
“From Truths to Tools” by Jim Tolpin and George Walker is a hand-illustrated work that masquerades as a children’s book. There are funny drawings. There aren’t a lot of words. You can read the entire 208-page book in one sitting.
But “From Truths to Tools” somehow explains the craft, the entire physical world, our language and geometry in a way that makes you feel like the authors have revealed a huge secret to you. One that has been sitting in front of you your entire life.
The book begins with an explanation of a circle and a single point and show how those simple ideas can be used to create an entire set of layout tools – a try square, a straightedge, dividers etc. that allow you to build furniture.
Once you understand the language behind your tools, very complicated things become easy to understand. Compound joinery. Fitting odd miters. Making curves that taper.
And once you get those ideas in your head, it’s a short hop to how those same ideas can be applied to building anything of any shape imaginable – skyscrapers, boats, bridges. When you can calculate if a tree will hit you when you fell it in the forest you’ll be able to calculate the circumference of the earth.
“From Truths to Tools” is the third book from the geometry-loving team of Jim Tolpin and George Walker. Their first book “By Hand & Eye” makes the case that simple whole-number ratios are the underpinning to the built world and our furniture. The second book, “By Hound & Eye” gives you the exercises that open your eyes to the way geometry and ratios govern our world. And the third, “From Truths to Tools,” shows how geometry creates our tools and, once understood, leads to a deeper grasp of the things we build, the world around us and even our language.
“From Truths to Tools” is printed in the United States to exacting standards. The pages are sewn and glued so the book will last a long time and can rest flat on your bench. The pages are protected by heavy paper-covered boards. The book is designed to last several generations.
As always, we hope our retailers in North America and elsewhere will carry the book, but the decision is up to them. So as of today, we don’t know which retailers will stock it.
