Lost Art Press

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Coming Soon: Issue 2 of Mortise & Tenon

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Joshua Klein and company are working hard on the second issue of Mortise & Tenon magazine, and from all accounts it looks like it’s going to be another fine issue.

They’ll start taking pre-publication orders on Nov. 1 here, which is also where you can read about the articles that are planned for the issue.

Joshua had asked me to write an article for the issue, and had I proposed a piece on Kentucky-style furniture, a backwoods style that I’ve admired for many years and is on display at the Speed Museum in Louisville, Ky. (If you’d like a woodworker’s view of the museum, check out Mark Firley’s photo collection here and here.)

My summer went to crap, however, and so I wasn’t able to do the research and interviews that would make my article worth publishing. Luckily, Joshua was also interested in my Roman workbenches and let me write up an article on the interesting workholding on the low one that I built from Pompeii.

My understanding of the bench has increased greatly since Woodworking in America, and after working on it every day this fall. You might not think that it’s easy to work while sitting down, but you might give it another thought after you read the article. Roy Underhill helped me decode a couple of the important details for the article, and I hope to have a short book on the bench (and a 1505 workbench with a Roman undercarriage) ready for the printer by the end of the year.

— Christopher Schwarz

Less English; More Welsh

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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This week I’m assembling two Welsh stick chairs that are based on examples from several sources, including John Brown and Don Weber. I’ve made this sort of chair about a dozen times, and every time I build it I stray a little further from the originals.

About five years ago I started using a different arrangements of back sticks and a different crest rail. Now I’m changing the seat and undercarriage. First I made a new seat template. It’s still a D-shaped seat, but I started fresh with trammels and a compass to make it slightly larger.

I increased the rake of the rear legs to make the chair more lively. And I also changed the front legs to make them look appropriate with the new rear legs (wire models like those shown in “The Anarchist’s Design Book” guided these changes).

But the biggest change is to the stretcher turnings. I’ve been using 1-3/8”-diameter turnings with a bulbous center, much like what I first learned from Don Weber about 13 years ago.

After looking at a lot of English Windsors and Welsh stick chairs, I decided to simplify my turnings and thin them down to 1-1/8” in diameter. After getting both undercarriages together this afternoon, I was pleased with the result.

Tomorrow I start steam-bending the arm bows and am considering one more design change for this generation of chairs.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Peter Galbert’s book “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is invaluable for making all sorts of stick chairs, including Windsors and Welsh stick.

Exquisite Teak

Posted on by fitz

It is hard to find much on a WWII era battleship that relates to woodworking. Iron and steel rule for the most part.

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My daughters and I visited the USS North Carolina (BB-55) located in Wilmington, NC. I have been there many times; it is one of those things that never gets old to me. The girls love because it is like the world’s largest playground with lots of places to hide from dad. Every time I visit I see some part I never noticed before.

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Today it was the decking, more than an acre of almost flawless 8/4 teak. I never really looked closely at it before (I know, I am stupid), perfectly laid and fitted the entire 728 feet of deck. The deck drains were even perfectly executed. What is most amazing is this deck is not the original, it was replaced in 1998 with teak from Myanmar.

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One other thing that was kind of neat were the seats in the galleys. Same idea as Mr. Schwarz’s workbench seat except these had a locking mechanism for holding them in the in or out position. I guess this was a battleship only option.img_4159

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If you are ever in the Wilmington area the battleship is a great place to stop and spend an afternoon, or the whole day.

— Will Myers

 

Testing Ancient Technology

Posted on by fitz

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Part of the season 36 episodes of the Woodwright’s Shop are now online. One of them is on testing tusk tenon joints that Roy and I filmed a few months back. I made an apparatus to pull the joints apart and measure the amount of force it took to make them fail. The results are pretty impressive. The episode is called “Wedged Tusk Tenon” and is available to stream here.

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I also shot a short video showing the joint smoker in action that is available here.

— Will Myers

 

 

The Hardest Part of Being a Hobo-American

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Note: This is a codicil to the entries I wrote called “Cut the Cord.” Part one is here. Part two is here. The entry below will make more sense if you read those first.

After more than five years of freelancing and making furniture to feed my pie hole, here is the most difficult part of being free of corporate America: getting paid.

This isn’t some screed about how vendors don’t pay me. Everyone I deal with (furniture customers, publishers, etc. ) is quite nice and honest. And no one has tried to stiff me on an invoice or avoid paying me.

But paperwork is paperwork. There are times when I build, film or write something and I don’t get paid for a year. But that’s just part of the deal. I might have to pay for materials for something that could take six months to build before a check comes through. That’s part of the deal. And there are times where people have owed me as much as $12,000 when I’ve had a $10,000 college tuition bill due. But that’s just part of the deal.

Being free from the daily commute means that I also have to be able to weather almost any financial crisis without whining, selling plasma or borrowing. For me, that means I have to have $20,000 in the bank at all times. My wife and I call it (and I’m so sorry for the implied swear word): “F-you money.”

As long as that money is there, I can pay almost any bill that comes up. I can wait out any vendor that has me on 45 days. I can hold out if I need to wait for something to clear there and something to process there. It takes much of the stress out of the accounting.

As I’ve found during the last 65 months, everything works out just fine in the end. You just have to be able to hold your breath for a much longer time than when you were paid every other Friday.

— Christopher Schwarz

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