Katherine “Soft Wax” Schwarz has just put up for sale in her etsy store a fresh load of Soft Wax 2.0 – our favorite (and non-toxic!) finish.
As we know, you can’t sell anything on the interwebs without a cute animal photo, so here’s Bean, the three-legged shop cat, wishing he was inside where the treats are (gotta pay for those treats somehow, Bean!).
Notes on the finish: This is the finish I use on the trays of all my tools chests, and that Chris uses on his many chairs. Katherine cooks it up here in the machine room using a waterless process. She then packages it in a tough glass jar with a metal screw-top lid. She applies her hand-designed label to each lid, boxes up the jars and ships them in a durable cardboard mailer. The money she makes from wax helps her make ends meet at college. Instructions for the wax are below.
Instructions for Soft Wax 2.0 Soft Wax 2.0 is a safe finish for bare wood that is incredibly easy to apply and imparts a beautiful low luster to the wood.
The finish is made by cooking raw, organic linseed oil (from the flax plant) and combining it with cosmetics-grade beeswax and a small amount of a citrus-based solvent. The result is that this finish can be applied without special safety equipment, such as a respirator. The only safety caution is to dry the rags out flat you used to apply before throwing them away. (All linseed oil generates heat as it cures, and there is a small but real chance of the rags catching fire if they are bunched up while wet.)
Soft Wax 2.0 is an ideal finish for pieces that will be touched a lot, such as chairs, turned objects and spoons. The finish does not build a film, so the wood feels like wood – not plastic. Because of this, the wax does not provide a strong barrier against water or alcohol. If you use it on countertops or a kitchen table, you will need to touch it up every once in a while. Simply add a little more Soft Wax to a deteriorated finish and the repair is done – no stripping or additional chemicals needed.
Soft Wax 2.0 is not intended to be used over a film finish (such as lacquer, shellac or varnish). It is best used on bare wood. However, you can apply it over a porous finish, such as milk paint.
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (VERY IMPORTANT): Applying Soft Wax 2.0 is so easy if you follow the simple instructions. On bare wood, apply a thin coat of soft wax using a rag, applicator pad, 3M gray pad or steel wool. Allow the finish to soak in about 15 minutes. Then, with a clean rag or towel, wipe the entire surface until it feels dry. Do not leave any excess finish on the surface. If you do leave some behind, the wood will get gummy and sticky.
The finish will be dry enough to use in a couple hours. After a couple weeks, the oil will be fully cured. After that, you can add a second coat (or not). A second coat will add more sheen and a little more protection to the wood.
Soft Wax 2.0 is made in small batches in Kentucky. Each glass jar contains 8 oz. of soft wax, enough for at least two chairs.
We’re delighted with our first children’s book, “Cadi & the Cursed Oak” – especially because it was written by our own Kara Gebhart Uhl! And the illustrations, by Welsh artist Elin Manon, are a gorgeous accompaniment to Kara’ words.
Kara spent more than a year researching the many legends, facts and centuries-old stories of the Nannau Oak – a Welsh tree that measured 28′ around and was more than 900 years old when it fell in a storm in 1813. T
Legend has it that pieces crafted from the Nannau Oak are cursed – if you drink from one of the acorn cups made from its wood, the tree’s stories will haunt you. Kara wove the legends into a new children’s tale (suitable for ages 8 and up) that centers around Cadi, a Welsh stick chairmaker’s daughter.
The book is both a textual and visual delight.
We’re hosting a book release party for “Cadi & the Cursed Oak” at our shop on April 16, and will have a limited number of tickets available – details and links to register will be posted soon!
– Fitz
p.s. We did publish an English-language version of “Grandpa’s Workshop,” which was first published in France (our version is now out of print); “Cadi” is the first all-new kids’ book from Lost Art Press.
Today is for all the woodworking math nerds. You know who you are. In 9th grade you cried when you found out Geometry and Shop Class were scheduled at the same time and you had to choose one or the other. You chose Geometry. Stashed somewhere in the back of your closet or in your underwear drawer is the dovetailed box you made to hold your first slide rule, your Texas Instrument SR-50 and your Casio C-80.
Let’s look at some pies from the woodworking world.
From 1st Dibs.
A nice example of a pie-crust tripod table. It is from the Georgian period and dated 1780-1789. The wood is mahogany. The foliate carving above the “knees” does not overwhelm the legs. The feet are hand-carved claw and ball, although the ball looks more like an egg.
The table top is one piece of wood with a hand-carved pie-crust edge that has aged very well. This particular design is considered a classic. If you encounter one of these tables in an antique shop or elsewhere in the wild check to see if the pie-crust is applied molding.
Top: A section of Plate 329 Roubo, bottom: the “bird cage” base.
Many of these small tripod tables have a sliding flip top to make these tables easier to store. You can see in Roubo’s example (on the right), that the bird cage sits between two rails. There is also a stop that limits how far the top can slide between the rails.
From 1st Dibs.
This Regency-period pie-crust table is dated circa 1820 and is made of mahogany. The top is smaller than the Georgian example, does not flip and it has a tripartite shelf.
The pie crust is much plainer than the Georgian table, but is very much in harmony with the table’s overall shape and design.
The description of the table indicates these are saber legs with hoofed feet that sit on brass casters. I disagree with the description of these feet as being hoofed. That is an even-toed ungulate if there ever was. However, ungulate might be off-putting to a prospective buyer.
One of three nesting tables. From 1st Dibs.
This is described as a pie-crust table. Pies are not square, this is clearly a tart. It does have a nice book-matched top which brings us to the next pie piece.
Table by Warren Snow of Snow Woodworks, Marshall, Virginia.
Warren Snow has a good description of the pie-matched table: ”Sequential wood cuts, from the same board, are then paired and arranged to create the table top surface.” For this table the pie ”slices” are made of American cherry and the edge is Macassar ebony. Pie-matching can reveal stunning grain patterns. On many examples, and as can be seen in this table, the center portion has an inlay that adds interest to the table top.
From Bonhams.
This is a Jupe’s Patent Extending Dining Table with two sets of pie-shaped leaves. Robert Jupe patented the design in 1835 and it is made of mahogany. It is the Big Daddy of pie tables. The table diameter is 65 inches, with the intermediate leaves the diameter is 83.5 inches, with the large set of leaves the diameter is 95.5 inches. As it is Pi Day you can figure out the circumferences.
The table top is turned to open it up into a Sarlacc-like maul and the leaves inserted (May 4th might be a better day for this table).
The table with leaves inserted.
According to the Bonham’s description these Jupe tables have sold for £120,000-£130,000, but those with more ornate bases have sold for much more.
Lastly, a good old American classic that probably originated in Europe. It the only piece of furniture that was routinely in the company of pies: the pie safe.
From 1st Dibs.
Pie safes (garde-manger in parts of Louisiana) kept pies and other foodstuffs safe from insects and vermin. This one is made of pine and is a very typical design with two doors and three shelves inside. The doors and sides have metal ventilation panels that have a pierced or punched designs. Fine metal screening or cloth might be used instead of metal panels.
I was planning a Pi Day post two years ago which happened to fall within a few days of the official announcement that we were in a pandemic. I had to make a quick trip out of town before hunkering down and consequently forgot about it. Last year I was deep into a research project. So, today have some pie and wear your old calculator watch, because tomorrow…tomorrow is March 15, the Ides of March and you should hide under your bed.
Henry Boyd, collection of the Cincinnati History Museum.
Publisher’s note: I first learned about Henry Boyd in “The Furniture Makers of Cincinnati: 1790 to 1849” (1976) by Jane E. Sikes. The short entry on Boyd was fascinating, but I found little else that had been published about his life or his woodworking. In the early 2000s, I encountered one of Boyd’s amazing beds at The Golden Lamb in Lebanon, Ohio, and became determined to learn more about him. Two years ago, I hired Suzanne Ellison to dig deep into public archives (her specialty) to put together a dossier on Boyd’s life. As many of you know, Suzanne does not engage in half-measures. After months of research, she produced a fascinating account of Boyd’s life that became the seed for a book on Boyd. Soon, we will introduce you to the author and the book (we have a signed contract with the author, but she asked for some time to work out some things on her end before we introduce her). This blog entry is a short introduction to Boyd’s life; more is to come. — Christopher Schwarz
When Henry Boyd died in March of 1886 at age 84 he had survived slavery, overcome enormous odds to start not one, but two businesses and persevered through tremendous societal changes. The story of his life as it has been printed in Cincinnati newspapers, often for Black History Month, was at best bare bones, at its worst just not true. Yet, his history has been waiting and is easily found in archives held in Cincinnati and in the Ohio History Collection. His history – his story – reveals a man of intelligence, determination and courage.
Boyd was born in Carlisle, Kentucky, the son of two worlds: his father was white and originally from Scotland; his mother was black, an enslaved person originally from Virginia. Boyd seems to have determined early on to buy his freedom. In his late teens he was hired out to work at the Kanawha saltworks in Virginia (now West Virginia) located about 150-160 miles from Carlisle. When slave owners had too many enslaved persons, one option was to send them to work at other farms or businesses. In this way the owner could continue to profit from their labor. For the enslaved person, it meant a year-long separation from family and possible exposure to dangerous conditions and harsher treatment. If there was an advantage to being hired out to the saltworks, it was that the enslaved person was allowed to work extra hours (overwork) to earn money they could keep. While in Kanawha, Boyd’s world expanded. He worked alongside enslaved persons from other states and interacted with free black men working the riverboats moving barrels of salt to Porkopolis (Cincinnati).
One of the overwork jobs that Boyd did at Kanawha was tending to the kettles in the salt furnace. The illustration is an example from the saltworks in Saltville, Virginia, as depicted in Harper’s Weekly, January 1865 (archive.org).
After several years, Boyd returned to Carlisle and was apprenticed to a carpenter (there are examples in the historical record of enslaved children of white owners given opportunities to learn a trade). During his apprenticeship Boyd would have had an opportunity to do overwork and earn money for himself. We don’t know exactly when his apprenticeship ended, exactly when he bought his freedom, or once free if he stayed in Kentucky for a while to earn more money. Fortunately for Boyd, Kentucky did not prohibit enslaved persons from learning to read and write, nor require them to leave the state within a set period after earning their freedom. We do know that once free, Boyd would have had to carry his official freedom papers with him at all times.
Boyd arrived in Cincinnati sometime during 1825 or 1826. Finding work along the busy docks of the Ohio River was fairly easy, but finding work as a black carpenter, no matter how skilled, was not. Although Cincinnati was a non-slave northern city, it had strong southern sympathies and business concerns. Eventually, with the help of a white man he was able to start working as a house carpenter. A newspaper biography published in 1877 relates the story of how Boyd met his future mother-in-law and how he came to live at 15 New Street. On his way to Cincinnati he was introduced to a woman whose widowed daughter lived in Cincinnati. She wanted to provide Boyd with a letter of introduction, but was illiterate. Boyd wrote the letter for her and on visiting New Street met Keziah, his future wife, and Sarah Jane, his future step-daughter. The 1850 census shows Emma Laws, his mother-in-law, was then living with them. One chance meeting on his journey to live as a free man resulted in a family firmly tied together. When Keziah died (estimated in 1862) they had been married 36 years. At the time of Boyd’s death he was still living in the same house on New Street with his daughter Maria and her family. He was buried next to Keziah in a cemetery plot owned by Sarah Jane.
Within eight years of arriving in his new city Boyd had his own business building houses and was employing five or six men, both black and white. In addition to having his own family and permanent residence, he had earned enough to purchase the freedom of two siblings.
Boyd was also planning and tinkering. He solved the most common problem of rope-suspension bedsteads (collapse) by devising a stabilizing screw-fastening system that tied the horizontal rails and vertical posts into a strong frame. With the help of George Porter, a Massachusetts-born cabinetmaker, he had the fastening system patented in 1833. At the time, black inventors were legally able to obtain patents, however, there were obstacles that made the preparation and submission of patent materials prohibitive. Six years later, in 1839, Henry opened his bedstead manufactory at the northeast corner of Broadway and Eighth Street.
An 1840 Boyd Bedstead, Smithsonian Collections.
Boyd advertised his bedsteads in city newspapers and business directories. Prominent business owners bought and endorsed his bedsteads. The 1850 Federal Profits of Industry Census shows the woods he used for bedsteads were poplar, walnut, mahogany, sycamore and cherry; more than 1,540 bedsteads were made annually for a production value of approximately $41,000. He employed an average of 20 men and, although the census doesn’t detail this, we know he employed both black and white men. Boyd’s bedsteads were popular in the South and and were transported by boat down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River, a cost-efficient transportation method for Cincinnati businesses.
From “Cincinnati in 1841: Early Annals and Future Prospects” by Charles Cist, Cincinnati Public Library.
The growth of Cincinnati and other “Western” cities attracted the attention of visitors, including abolitionists, from the East Coast and Europe. Henry Boyd and other successful black business owners were visited by the likes of Martin R. Delaney, Frederick Douglass and William Cooper Nell, and their successes were reported in abolitionist newspapers including Douglass’ The North Star and William Lloyd Garrison’s TheLiberator.
Sanborn Fire Map (1887) showing the location of Boyd’s home on New Street and the location of his former factory at Broadway and Eighth (Library of Congress).
Before the mid-1850s we know Boyd had expanded his operations into three or four additional buildings close to his original factory, and had more than doubled his work force. In addition to bedsteads he was advertising other types of furniture. He was also struggling to keep up with competition from larger furniture makers whose annual production values were more than triple his. One competitor, Clawson & Mudge, exclusively made bedsteads and offered 95 varieties. We also have documentation from an 1857 credit evaluation that indicates there was a level of turmoil in the workforce. By 1860, Boyd was not able to pay his leases and closed his factory. The leasehold agreements he had on the factory building and other holdings were advertised in sheriff’s sales.
The oft-published reason for Boyd closing his business was that his factory had been burned out three times and after the last fire he could not obtain insurance. The basis for this story is a newspaper article from the late 1870s. There is no documentation of Boyd’s factory being burned out either in the records of the Cincinnati Fire Department or in city newspapers. (Furniture factories in the 19th century were disasters waiting to happen with open fires, volatile liquids and plenty of wood shavings. There are plenty of records of other furniture factories burning down, including those of Clawson & Mudge.)
Boyd continued to operate a small furniture business for a couple more years, and in the late 1860s was employed by the city as a station-house keeper at one of the police stations.
Although he is best known for manufacturing bedsteads with a fastening system he devised and had patented, Boyd accomplished and contributed more to his adopted city.
When cholera arrived in Cincinnati in the autumn of 1832, the leading medical authority, Dr. Daniel Drake, was convinced the disease was caused by a type of aerial insect that was ”poisonous, invisible…of the same or similar habits with the gnat.” Boyd, on the other hand, thought cholera was in the water supply and communicated his idea to Charles Hammond, editor of one of the city newspapers. Hammond published Henry’s suggestion.
We don’t know if many people took up Boyd’s suggestion to boil drinking water. We do know Boyd survived cholera outbreaks in 1832, 1849, 1866 and one late in the 1870s. Twenty-two years after Boyd’s idea was published, a definitive study in London determined cholera was spread in the water supply.
While enslaved, Boyd was allowed to learn to read and write and learn a trade and was well aware of the advantages gained through education. In Cincinnati he supported and was involved in the initial efforts to open schools for black children. We don’t have full details on all of his family, but do know in 1849, when young women were not often allowed a higher education, his daughter Maria, age 16, was sent to Oberlin Collegiate Institute and completed three years of study. The Mechanics Institute prohibited enrollment of young black men wishing to learn a trade. We know of at least one instance where Henry apprenticed a young black man to learn how to be a turner.
Boyd had a home and business, paid taxes, obtained a patent and filed a lawsuit for non-payment for a house he built. Before 1857, he was citizen – of sorts, because he could not vote. After the 1857 Dred Scott decision, he was no longer considered a citizen. It was not until 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, that he regained his citizenship. The Fifteenth Amendment passed on March 30, 1870, giving him the right to vote; three days later, on the evening of April 2, Boyd participated in the ward-level meetings of the Republican Party of Cincinnati. He was elected the initial chairman for the 13th Ward. In the autumn of that same year, at age 68, he voted for the first time in the state-wide election for the U.S. House of Representatives. The following year he joined the Grant Club to work for the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant.
Boyd had a humanitarian commitment that was not known until late in the 19th century. He was an active member of the Underground Railroad, contributing funds and helping to coordinate the movement of escaped enslaved persons to safety. He worked with other members, including Kitty Dorum, William Watson, Calvin Fairbanks and Levi Coffin. He knew Theodore Weld, a Lane (Seminary) Rebel, considered to be one of the architects of the abolitionist movements. Huntington Lyman, another Lane Rebel, revealed in correspondence with Wilbur Siebert (author of books on the Underground Railroad in Ohio) that Boyd had a hiding place in his house for escaped enslaved persons. Boyd’s involvement in helping escaped slaves seems to have begun within a few years of arriving in Cincinnati; they continued despite increased dangers brought about by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, and lasted until the end of the Civil War, a span of more than 30 years.
Transcription of an 1898 letter from Huntington Lyman to Wilbur Siebert outlining what he knew about the Underground Railway in Cincinnati. Siebert sent out hundreds of letters to “construct” the Railway trying to establish “stations” and “conductors.” In reality, the network of people and locations was not rigidly structured with members falling into a hierarchy. Siebert Archive in the Ohio History Connection.
There aren’t a huge number of chronicles of 19th-century black men whose lives included buying their way out of slavery, long-term involvement in freeing others from slavery, invention and entrepreneurship, enduring four race riots in 12 years, and involvement in the early struggle for the civil rights of equal education and the right to vote. Boyd’s story adds dimension to the history of Cincinnati in particular, and to American history as a whole.
Using historical documents and contemporaneous accounts we can reconstruct much of what Boyd did in his life and we can extrapolate ideas that were important to him. He was, however, always living in two worlds. At his birth, his white father owned him and his mother was enslaved; he received an education likely denied to others. He could start a successful business, prosper and be well-regarded, but his public life was proscribed by state Black Laws and threats of violence. He had a law-abiding public life countered by a dangerous hidden life of illegal acts to help escaped slaves. We can try to imagine how he felt to truly be a citizen and cast his first vote, but we can’t even get close. About his suffering while enslaved, or once he was free, we will never know.
As the Industrial Revolution mechanized the jobs of the joiner – building doors and windows by hand – one anonymous joiner watched the traditional skills disappear and decided to do something about it. That joiner wrote two short illustrated booklets that explained how to build doors and windows by hand. And what was most unusual about the booklets is that they focused on the basics of construction, from layout to joinery to construction – for both doors and windows.
Plenty of books exist on building windows and doors, but most of them assume you have had a seven-year apprenticeship and don’t need to know the basic skills of the house joiner. Or the doors and windows these books describe are impossibly complex or ornamental.
“Doormaking and Window-Making” starts you off at the beginning, with simple tools and simple assemblies; then it moves you step-by-step into the more complex doors and windows.
Every step in the layout and construction process is shown with handmade line drawings and clear text. The booklets are written from a voice of authority – someone who has clearly done this for a long time.
During the last 100 years, most of these booklets disappeared. Booklets don’t survive as well as books. And so we were thrilled when we were approached by joiner Richard Arnold in England, who presented us with a copy of each booklet to scan and reproduce for a book.
VENETIAN, or, as they are sometimes called, marginal light, windows are very fashionable at the present time, having in a great measure replaced the bay window, although the same style is sometimes adapted to the bay, instead of the usual upside-down sliding sashes. These windows are, as may be gathered from the drawings, of the casement variety, and the sashes should be made to open outwards if possible, this being the better way to keep out the wet.
In Fig. 108 we show one of these windows fitted with four lights or casements, the two outside ones being hinged to the jambs, and the two middle ones, which fold together, being hinged in like manner to the mullions. The casements in this frame run from sill to head, the upper part being divided into small squares as shown, which is the simplest way of forming an artistic window.
Another method of filling in these window frames is shown in Fig. 110, which shows the filling between the mullions. Here the casements are in two heights, the bottom pair being hinged in the ordinary way to the mullions ; the other, which is wide enough to fill the whole space, is hinged at the top, and opens outwards, the bottom rail of this fitting to the others either as section, Figs. 111 or 112. The former is the simplest way and least liable to get out of order, but the latter is best as regards the stopping out of wind and water; but when the window has been repainted a few times it is apt to work badly.
Windows made in this way are very convenient, as it is possible to have the top only open, or the whole, as required. The folding casements in either style of window come together with a rebated joint, as Fig. 113.
Suitable sections for head and sill for these frames are shown in Fig. 114, the grooves in the latter being to form a cement key under, and to take the window board. It will also be noticed that the bevel of the sill finishes with a hollow, forming an undercut rebate ; this should not be omitted, owing to its use as a water trap.
