A few notes on how I went about building mine (and how you might want to, as well).
I started by making the two square frames, which were made with bridle joints, and then used loose tenons for the other frame components. A Domino works well, but so would live tenons.
All of the material for the bookstand is 1/2″ thick, and all of the frame members, except for the kickstand and chiseled stop block, are 1-3/8″ wide. Starting with 5/4 stock, this would let you do some nice resawing and grain wrapping, and you can make one long piece and just crosscut the parts out of it.
The bridle joints are my addition – Roubo detailed using mitered joints, but I avoid miters wherever possible. Use whatever joinery you think is best suited to yours!
I didn’t get too specific about the hinge sizes or placement – use what you have. I used some nicer brass butt hinges that were left over from prior projects, but anything relatively substantial will do.
Here are the plans – you can download them as a full-scale PDF, or look at them below in image form. Make sure if you do build the bookstand to share a photo. I’m always excited to put plans out there and see who takes them up!
So Roubo could not very well do a comprehensive book on furniture making without including some mention of how to prepare frames for upholstery, and yet in his opening line he gives a real clue as to his general feelings about the matter. He says, “…seats in general are finished with fabric or caning…where the former is the most utilized and totally the province of the upholsterer.” It is not difficult to imagine Roubo arguing with an irate upholsterer over the details of a frame, just the way that modern upholsterers complain about the placement of tacking rails, and in the end just let the upholsterer figure out how to complete the chair. Roubo is clear on how to prepare loose or “slip” seats, those that are removable from the chair, but when he discusses how upholstery materials are permanently attached, it was just not so.
Figures 7, 8 & 9 from Plate 227
In Plate 227 Roubo provides three figures in profile of the attachment of webbing to massive carved frames, these are figures 7, 8 & 9. Upon first seeing this plate, my reaction was simply, “Impossible!” But knowing Roubo’s meticulous drawing skill and thorough work, there had to be an answer.
Figure 8 clearly shows (from left) the webbing attached to the side of the rail, tacked near the top, a next layer of under upholstery (muslin) tacked below that, and finally a show cover attached with decorative tacks right at the top of the decorative moulding. As a student of the English tradition of upholstery, this was unfamiliar to me, as the English securely tack the webbing to the top of the frame (as shown in Figure 7) and thereby have good access to stretch or “strain” it tight. So then why is Roubo showing the webbing in Figure 8 this way? I put this question to everyone I thought could help until I was fortunate to meet the gifted, classically trained and very French master upholsterer Bruno Paulin-Lopez. Interestingly, Roubo, was not required reading for his training, though he was familiar with the well-known and contemporary book on the trades by Denis Diderot, and another massive text called Tapisseire D’Ameublement by Claude Ossut (not translated into English), both of which explain in quite some detail how to web a chair frame.
First and foremost, the French tradition of webbing requires the webs to be placed tight, side by side with no gaps, unlike the English, which employs an open weave pattern, and this is critical to understanding what Roubo is portraying. And secondly, this type of un-sprung upholstery (chair, ottoman, chaise, etc.) would have a considerable, in some cases massive, pillow on top of the webbed “deck.” Finally, Roubo, seemingly aware that he is not being clear, gives us some information in a long footnote. To paraphrase, “…most upholsterers feel that the webbing should be on the side, while others are convinced that it could be on the top of the frame, which would make it very firm.”
With Bruno’s guidance, I have come to believe that the “most upholsterers” Roubo consulted were the older generation who grew up tacking everything on the side of the rails and whom Roubo did not dare slight in his representation of how this should be done. And the “others” are those talented pioneers desperately trying to make sure their upholstery methods could keep up with the fast-changing furniture styles of the opulent French court, such as the elegant gentleman craftsman portrayed by Diderot.
The following is a recreation to scale of Figure 8 and shows an interpretation of how the webbing would have been placed unfolded on the rabbeted edge, followed by a muslin layer tacked slightly above, and finally the show cover tacked right at the edge with decorative tacks. Because the webbing is side by side, there is a smooth surface for the succeeding layers, and because the piece is un-sprung it would not be necessary to stretch the webbing as tightly, and would actually give the bottom of the pillow a place to nestle.
The webbing shown here and in the next image is a modern reproduction, for illustration purposes only.
The next recreation uses the same frame pattern and shows a more “modern” approach with webbing folded under, tacked on top of the rail, followed by a layer of linen hessian tacked on a beveled edge to save the space on the front of the rail for the tacking of the show cover. This technique is similar to the English style.
The final recreation shows a full hand-sewn foundation using a coarse “first stuffing” material, which is drawn by careful stitching to form a firm seat and a rolled edge. This technique evolved in both the French and English traditions, and creates a custom, extremely durable base for a softer second stuffing and made possible the upholstery of many complex furniture designs.
I feel confident in saying that Roubo would be truly pleased to know that the techniques he illustrated as well as their many variations are still practiced by the finest upholsterers working today. — Michael Mascelli
Once the mouldings are cut, you finish them, that is to say, you shape them on edge and you round off the talons/fillets and the beads. (In workman’s terms, it is called relieving the mouldings.) The tools appropriate for this use are the moulding planes for cutting beads, the moulding planes to make V-shaped grooves, moulding planes for beads of all sizes, duck beak [bec-de-cane is a plane whose blade is the shape of the top of a walking stick or door handle rather than a reference to an animal (duck)] and gorge fouille [a plane similar to the bec-de-cane with the extremity of its iron curved and rounded with a fillet or tip at its end so this plane makes round cuts and fillets], or furrowed gouges.
The moulding planes for cutting beads do not differ from other moulding planes, except that they have a cheek [guiding ledge/ridge/shoulder] just like the other moulding planes that I already spoke of. The other moulding planes, as well as the round planes [as in hollows-and-rounds], do not have one.
The duck beaks [see comment above] are tools which serve to dig out the bottom of the hollow/ ogees or beads where the moulding planes [ for cutting beads] cannot get in, as in the case of a ravalement [this refers to an area where one lowers the surface of the wood in an area to accentuate adjacent areas, or to accomplish the same effect through undercutting] or a groove. They differ from other planes in that they cut horizontally [on their sides] instead of the others that cut straight [down]. Their iron [blade] is placed upright in its throat or at least with very little angle (there are even many which are not angled at all). The angle of this iron [skew] is only on its width, that is to say, on the thickness of the tool, behind which it is empty. That is why this slope [skew angle] is made inside, not only to make the shavings eject, but also to make itself open to the iron [give a cutting angle or pitch to the blade/iron].
Since the point of the duck beak [see other description above] is very thin, the wood of their body [of the blade tip] can hardly survive very long. That is why it is highly advisable to make soles of copper or iron, which is even better, just as I said elsewhere. Look at Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7, which represent a duck beak viewed in all directions, as well as its iron and its wedge.
The gorge fouille [literally furrowed gouges] are types of duck beaks which do not differ from the former except their end is rounded in the form of a gouge, and it is squared up [the blade edge is configured more like a scraper than an edge tool]. The iron of these tools is not found ready-made at the Merchants, at least not normally. That is why woodworkers make them themselves.
Their use is to dig [out] bottoms [hollows] of ogee shapes, [and] to enlarge and finish the bottom of grooves, see Figs. 8, 9, 10 & 11. When it is [used on] frames with bevels or chamfers rounded with a fillet or tip at [the] end, one makes use of an ordinary grooving plane that is used on the edge of the frame, noting only to make it void on the inside.
There is still another tool where the iron is placed upright and which cuts horizontally which is called a side rabbet plane. Its use is to enlarge the grooves and to re-cut those that were badly made, see Figs. 12, 13, 14 & 15.
When the panels are dry, that is to say, the glue has set well, you set their length and width as needed, which in workman’s terms, is called squaring up the panels. You then produce the raised panel, which is made with a tool called a fielding or raising plane, which is similar to other rabbet planes, with the exception that they have a fence [and] that the slant of the mouth is skewed within the inside over the width of the iron, to make it more appropriate for cutting the end [grain] wood and [working] cross-grain. There are two irons on this tool, one that is in the form that we call flatbanded [making a bevel or chamfer], and the other in the shape of a square called a nicker. The two together are about 14–16 lines wide. On top of this plane and toward the front is a notch similar to that of the bench fillister, which serves to support the hand of whoever is pushing it, see Fig. 16.
Before I travel, I make enormous lists of everything I need to do before I depart. At the end of each of these lists I should add this item: Get dumped on.
Less than 24 hours before getting on a plane for Germany, a huge task landed outside my front door in a FedEx box. Inside were the imposition proofs for the deluxe version of “Roubo on Furniture Making.” This was my last opportunity to comb the pages for mistakes before the printer cranks up the presses.
So I dropped everything and spent six hours reviewing all 440 pages. This morning I sent it to Wesley Tanner, the designer, so he could look it over for design errors. When Wesley completes his work, the book will go on press.
So when will you see this book? I talked to our printing representative yesterday, and he is hoping that the books will ship to our warehouse on or about July 17. The printing part is fast. Then the sheets have to be trucked to New Mexico to be bound (very few binderies can handle a book of this size). And they have to hand build the slipcases for each book.
If the schedule changes, I’ll let you know.
For those of you who clicked on the link for the deluxe version of “Roubo on Furniture Making” and felt your checkbook stroke out, here’s the deal. This book will be about as nice a modern book as can be purchased. It’s something that is difficult to describe on a web page or in words. When people see it in person (these volumes are 11” x 17”) and they see the quality, they understand the price tag.
John and I are taking a sizable financial risk with this book (the print run cost as much as our storefront building), but we are more than willing to stick our necks out to bring something into this world that is this special and rare.
We just have our fingers crossed that after the books come out, we don’t say: “Want fries with that?”
This is an excerpt from “With All the Precision Possible” by André-Jacob Roubo, translation by Donald C. Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán & Philippe Lafargue. The following text is part of an essay about Roubo’s workbenches written by Christopher Schwarz.
One of the biggest obstacles, downsides and joys to a French bench is the massive slabs used to construct it. Finding wood that is big enough to use without laminating thinner pieces together can be difficult. Laminating thin pieces together to make the thick pieces required for the top and legs is a lot of work without the help of machines.
With any slab workbench with through-joinery, you will experience some shrinkage of the top around the tenon and sliding dovetail. This subsides eventually until it is almost imperceptible.
If you do find stock that is 6″ thick and 22″ wide for your benchtop, it almost certainly will be wet in the middle and prone to distortion. The first French bench that I built used a 4-1/2″-thick cherry slab that had been seasoning in a lot for about five years. The first couple years with that bench were rough. The top shrank at least 1/16″, leaving the through-tenons and sliding dovetails proud of the benchtop.
After planing those flush, the top didn’t shrink much more, but it sagged a bit in the middle during the third year. And now the benchtop is quite stable – yearly humidity fluctuations have little effect on it. The tops of the legs and the benchtop are always in the same plane and the overall shape of the top is consistent.
The French oak that I used in 2013 was likely even wetter than the cherry. For starters, the oak was thicker. And thick material takes a lot longer to dry than thin material. When we first cut into the oak, we used a moisture meter on the wood and found its moisture content in a few places was off the charts. Most places on the bench were about 30 percent moisture content, which is quite wet by furniture standards.
Two months after completing the bench, the top was so wet that it would rust the surface of a holdfast left in a hole overnight.
Like the slab cherry workbench I’d built years before, the oak benchtop shrank around the tenons by more than 1/16″ during the first six months. And the middle of the benchtop began to sag. I flattened the oak top twice during the first nine months in order to be able to plane thin stock on my benchtop.
This begs the question: How flat does a bench need to be? The answer is: It depends on your work. If you plane woods that are less than 3/4″ thick, benchtop flatness is important. I shoot for getting the front 12″ of the benchtop so flat that I cannot get a .006″ feeler gauge under a straightedge anywhere in that area.
If you work with thick stuff or do mostly carpentry, you can be more cavalier.
So if thick slab workbenches are so difficult to find and fussy at first, why bother?
After they settle down, slab workbenches move very little. The same forces that make the top dry slowly also retard its ability to take on much moisture during the seasons (thanks to Steve Schafer for explaining this via Fick’s Second Law, a diffusion equation). After about five years in your shop, your benchtop should be well acclimated and monolithic.
