This morning I freaked out a bit. Tomorrow I head to Dictum GmbH’s classroom at Niederaltaich Abbey, and I realized that I’ve forgotten my universal translator.
The universal translator has nothing to do with transforming my English to German (the class is taught in English with German curse words and American showtunes). Instead, the universal translator is a tape measure that has both U.S. Customary Units (inches) and metric.
This way I can translate my drawings and instruction into metric without asking (for the thousandth time): An inch is about 25mm, right?
So I stopped in a hardware store in Munich named Suckfüll. It was a small store, smaller than your neighborhood ACE or DoItBest, but it had a shockingly good selection of woodworking tools. As I was looking for tape measures, I stumbled on traditional beech try squares (where both the blade and handle are wood) in several sizes. And miter squares that were also 100 percent wood.
The last time I saw that in the U.S. was never.
A little farther down the aisle and there was a complete selection of Two Cherries bench chisels, more than I’ve ever seen in a Woodcraft. Next to that – a full selection of carving tools. I turned around – wooden jointer planes and smoothing planes. And a full line of wooden-handled screwdrivers.
Lest you think this was a woodworking specialty store, the rest of the place was filled with typical hardware store stuff. Light fixtures, extension cords and small appliances.
Sadly, the only thing they didn’t have that I really wanted was Suckfüll T-shirts.
The book that became “Chairmaker’s Notebook” began as a chat with chairmakers Peter Galbert and Curtis Buchanan. We made a plan to produce a video of Curtis building a chair that would be accompanied by a pamphlet from Peter illustrating the construction details.
But that’s not why I remember that meeting with Peter and Curtis. Instead, I am continuously struck by something Curtis said to me in that cabin in Berea, Ky. Curtis began talking about teaching woodworking.
“We’re all not as good as people think we are,” he said. “We’re all frauds.”
This was Curtis Expletive Deleted Buchanan. A guy who has more skill than 10 magazine-grade woodworkers. And he was sitting before me explaining that – like all human beings – he has insecurities about his work.
If I ever get a tattoo, it’s going to be that quote from Curtis.
So this blog entry is a public service announcement. No matter how facile you think another woodworker operates, know that he or she spends a significant amount of time in personal freak-out mode.
This week was my week for this. I have a magazine article due on Monday about a simple chair with tricky geometry. I spent the entire week ruining $200 worth of perfectly good pieces of maple. And on Friday afternoon, I built the chair for the fifth time, and it actually worked.
I am a fraud. The craft of woodworking kicks me down the stairs and steals my lunch money on an almost daily basis. The only thing I have going for me – my only superpower, I suppose – is that I get right back up. I take a short walk to calm my mind. And I build the damn chair for the fifth time.
Today Brendan Gaffney and I got a rare up-close look at one of Chester Cornett’s rockers during a preview for an antiques auction in Cincinnati.
The walnut rocking chair was one of Cornett’s later pieces. And after a close examination, Brendan and I suspect that the rocker was made during Cornett’s brief embrace of power tools.
The biography of Cornett, “Craftsman of the Cumberlands,” discusses a brief period of Cornett’s career when he purchased a table saw, drill press and router (among other machines) to speed his production of chairs as he became more well known.
It did not go well.
Though Cornett was skilled with hand tools, machines made him nervous, and the book recounts several serious injuries Cornett suffered while using them. The book also documents Cornett attempting to use a router to make the incised lines on the posts and rungs of his rockers.
Brendan and I suspect this rocker exhibits these routed details.
The V-shaped incisions were curved, irregular and even had chatter marks upon close inspection. Some of the incisions looked OK. Others looked like Cornett was having a heck of a time using the router freehand on a narrow octagonal post.
These wandering incisions looked nothing like the crisp incisions on other Cornett chairs we’ve inspected.
Part of me thought: Perhaps this is just one of Cornett’s lesser works. But that ignored all the fantastic handwork on the chair, from the shaped arms to the finials. Ah, the finials.
At the top of the posts are two gorgeous pieces of handwork – tapered and octagonal finials that are just perfect in every way. Crisp, evenly faceted and perfectly symmetrical – something no router would be capable of making. But they are doable with a drawknife.
So the piece, while still extraordinary, made me a little sad. The routed details reflected a man who was clearly uncomfortable with his electric tools, yet struggling mightily to control them. The mistakes didn’t ruin the piece, but they did lessen it.
We don’t know much about the “Schwarz” side of my family, such as when exactly they came to the United States or where they emigrated from.
There are family stories that involve the Ukraine. Plus a curious tale about a small cottage in Switzerland that was emblazoned with the family name.
At some point when I was a kid, we got a wooden sign (it might have been a gift) with our name carved into it in a pseudo blackletter font. That sign followed my father most of his adult life, from his shop at our farm in Hackett, Ark., to his shop in Fort Smith, Ark., and finally to his home in Charleston, S.C.
Last Christmas, my dad gave that wooden sign to me as a Christmas gift, and its meaning was not lost on me. He knew his battle with prostate cancer was nearing an end. And this slab of wood is pretty much our family baton.
Last Tuesday, my sister Robin called to say our dad had entered hospice. When I got the call I was driving to my workshop with a replacement part for a woodworking machine. The rest of the day was a blur, but I remember doing one thing: I put our family sign at the top of the bookcase in the workbench room where everyone could see it.
I headed to Charleston the next morning. During his final day alive, my dad sang along with my sisters to all the easy-listening songs from the 1970s that we loved. John Denver. The Carpenters. Jim Croce. Cat Stevens. Crosby, Stills & Nash. Even some Olivia Newton-John.
About 3 a.m. on Feb. 26 his breathing began to slow dramatically. And within the hour he was gone. He died at 3:52 a.m. and it was as peaceful a passing as I have ever witnessed – thanks in large part to the living saints at Lutheran Hospice.
Though we lost him too soon, his death was a relief in many ways. Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003, my father spent a good deal of his time fighting the disease. And the last couple years were particularly painful.
Since July, my sisters and I were with him almost nonstop. During one of my visits, he asked to have his DNA tested so he could perhaps learn something additional about where the Schwarzes came from.
The DNA results were odd. Despite my father’s last name and the way he was raised, he was not ethnically German. He was about 27 percent English with the rest of his genes scattered throughout Western and Eastern Europe. According to his DNA, his Schwarz ancestors likely immigrated to the United States in the 18th century. This does not line up with the little we know of the Schwarz family.
Our family’s reaction: Oh well.
Last week while we were in the middle of all this stuff, my sisters and I had dinner with my dad’s brother and cousins. I informed them of this genetic news. We had just received our drinks, and usually we all raise our glasses and say “Prost!” I’ve been doing this since I could lift a sippy cup with apple juice.
And so we said “Prost!” in honor of my father. And then my uncle Ron – my father’s brother – added: “Tolly ho!”
So my family remains a mystery. The only thing I have that seems a constant across the generations is the wooden sign hanging up in my shop now.
I don’t know who the Schwarzes are, but whoever they are – scoundrels, peasants or refugees – I am one of them. And I have a sign to prove it.
