Cutting patterns and symbols in wood, and enhancing them with vibrant color, are folk traditions kept alive in the slöjd craft. Through decorations imbued with meaning, chip carving has given soul to slöjd woodcraft throughout history. Even today, chip carving offers a natural complement to an artfully crafted spoon, cutting board or shrink box – and it provides the opportunity to develop your own creativity and meaningful patterns.
“Karvsnitt” teaches you techniques for cutting triangle chips, fingernail cuts, lines and letters — plus you’ll learn what kind of wood, knives and tools you need to get started, and techniques for painting your finished work.
You’ll find 15 projects, from simple decorations on knife handles and signs to more demanding objects such as boxes and combs. In addition to providing practical knowledge, “Karvsnitt” opens a window into older slöjd and folk art, and provides fascinating in-depth descriptions of the traditional meanings of different patterns and symbols.
We have sought to reproduce the Swedish edition of this book in every way possible, from the paper’s opacity to the binding and the endsheets. In short, this is a high-quality book that is made to last for generations.
One of the tool chest forms that has been on my list to explore is the Swedish chest, which I’ve encountered a few times both in the United States and Europe. It’s similar to the Dutch tool chest, with its slanting front lid. But the Swedish one is in many ways simpler.
The chest shown here came from the family of Johan Lyrfalk, who owns Rubank Vertygs AB, a woodworking supplier in Stockholm, Sweden. Last Saturday, he brought it out for us to inspect and measure during a visit to his store.
Note how the bent hasp holds the lid open and accessible.
The chest is most likely pine and it is assembled with through-dovetails at the corners. The top and bottom are screwed to the carcase. The slanted lid is kept flat with two battens that are neatly joined to the lid with blind sliding dovetails. The steel hinges are let into the carcase and are screwed through the lid and into the battens, increasing the reach and strength of the screws.
The interior of the chest is fairly open. There are openings for three drawers (this chest had only two of them remaining). The drawers are assembled with half-blind dovetails (two dovetails per corner). One nice detail of this chest is the top edges of the drawer sides are beveled to the inside. That reduces the number of corners you will bump into when you reach for a tool.
The middle drawer. Note the bevel on the drawer side.
The drawer frame and dividers appear nailed and screwed to the chest from the outside, keeping with the aesthetics of the chest.
The interior walls of the chest are lined with tool racks. And there’s a tool rack on the lid.
How the tool rack on the lid was used was a question among the woodworkers looking at the chest. The lid is propped open by its hasp, which allows the tool rack to be handy. But you’d have to remove the tools to shut the lid. Some speculated perhaps this chest was rarely closed and used mostly in a workshop environment.
Dimensions are: 32” wide, 18-1/2” high and 19-1/2” deep. The top is 11” wide, as is the drop lid. Most of the stock for the carcase is 7/8” thick.
The interior tool racks.
This chest is definitely one on my to-build list. We are always looking for tool chest classes that teach a variety of good lessons for classes (or for publication). The Anarchist’s Tool Chest is my personal favorite to work out of; but as a class, it is mostly about through-dovetails and nails. Even in a one-week class working flat out, it is difficult to get to making the lid, much less the rest of the interior bits.
The Dutch tool chest, as a class, is a more balanced experience. You get some dovetails, dados, rabbets, maybe some tongue-and-groove.
The Swedish tool chest could be a primer on through-dovetails and half-blinds, for the drawers.
I’ll have to build one to find out.
The tool chest at the Vasa.
After we spent an hour poring over Johan’s tool chest, he returned it to its resting place. The next day we went to see the Vasa exhibit. And there, right next to one of the workbenches from the Vasa, was an almost-identical chest (just a little longer). Perhaps the universe is sending me a message.
Joel Moskowitz at Union Square Market last weekend.
Joel Moskowitz, founder/owner of Tools for Working Wood and co-author of “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” (With Christopher Schwarz and the anonymous 19th-century author) is hosting this Saturday’s Open Wire here on the Lost Art Press blog. If you read Joel’s blog, you know his intellectual curiosity about all things woodworking (among other subjects) is boundless. So while you could probably get a great answer on just about any topic, stick to woodworking, woodworking tools and trade history – that ought to be enough to keep us all busy reading for the day! Oh – and he’s been working on a super-secret project…that he _might_ be ready to reveal this weekend. No promises though.
The blog post will go live at about 7 a.m. for questions (post them in the comments), and Joel will stop in as his time allows to answer. Comments will close at around 5 p.m. Eastern.
The following is excerpted from “The Anarchist’s Design Book” – an exploration by Christopher Schwarz of furniture forms that have persisted outside of the high styles that dominate every museum exhibit, scholarly text and woodworking magazine of the last 200 years.
There are historic furniture forms out there that have been around for almost 1,000 years that don’t get written about much. They are simple to make. They have clean lines. And they can be shockingly modern.
This book explores 18 of these forms – a bed, dining tables, chairs, chests, desks, shelving, stools – and offers a deep exploration into the two construction techniques (“staked” and ”boarded”) used to make these pieces that have been forgotten, neglected or rejected.
But this isn’t really a book of plans. “The Anarchist’s Design Book” shows you the overarching patterns behind these 18 pieces. It gives you the road map for designing your own pieces.
Cutting tapers on legs with a jack plane and a smoothing plane is simple work if you have only a handful of legs to do. But if you need to do a production run of legs – 10 or more – you might want to switch gears.
One way to speed the plow is with a band saw. Saw the leg square and tapered on the band saw. Then finish the job with a jack plane.
But the easiest way to do it is with an electric jointer.
The first time I learned this process from woodworker Troy Sexton in the 1990s, I thought it looked dangerous. It’s not. I’ve used this procedure for more than 16 years in production work without a single incident. But if you are skittish, skip it.
Troy told me that this operation came to him in a dream. He’s one of the smartest woodworkers I know, and after you try it, I think you’ll agree with me that it is brilliant.
A foot at first. If this is your first time out, mark the finished foot size on the leg.
Here’s an overview of the process.
Decide how much material you want to remove from each face of the leg at the foot. Let’s say it’s 1/4″. So you need to set your jointer to take half that amount (an 1/8″-deep cut). Lock it. You are done setting the jointer.
Set the infeed table. If you are going to taper a face of a leg by 1/4″, set the infeed table to remove 1/8″.
Decide how long the taper needs to be. Let’s say you have a 30″ leg and you want the taper to be 26″ long. Divide that in half (13″). Clamp a stop-block to your jointer fence so it is 13″ away from the top dead center (TDC) of your jointer’s cutterhead. You are done setting stops.
Set the stop. The leg should stop halfway along the taper.
Take your leg and push it into the cutterhead foot first until it touches the stop-block. Lift the leg off the jointer’s table. Repeat this process for all the leg faces that you want to taper.
First cut. Push the foot of the leg into the cutterhead. Stop at the stop. Lift the leg off the machine. Repeat for every face that needs to be tapered.
First-cut results. It looks wrong, but it’s right.
Remove the stop-block.
Now push the leg through the jointer a second time. This time the top of the leg goes in first. And you need to press the leg down against the table so the top of the leg “pops a wheelie” (for lack of a better expression) as you push it across the cutterhead. Cut all the faces this way and you will have a perfectly tapered leg in just a few minutes.
Pop the wheelie. A substantial push stick will push the leg into the correct position for the second pass. This time the top of the leg is first across the cutterhead.
Final results. This leg is tapered almost perfectly to the lines drawn at the beginning. Finish the job with a handplane.
Note that this process is far safer than using most commercial tapering jigs for a table saw. Those jigs are designed to remove fingers as much as create tapers.
Editor’s note: These days, we skip the stop block and simply mark a line in Sharpie on the fence.
Look closely to just right and above center, and you’ll see 10″ marked on top of the joiner fence, and a line down the face of the fence. Reach that line, and it’s time to lift the leg off.
One of the other suggestions for a replacement for the beloved Hold Heet glue pot is to use a coffee mug warmer, such as this one. I chose this particular model because it has two heat settings that are ideal for heating glue (122°F and 140°F), plus it has a timer and an automatic shutoff.
I’ve used it a few times, but the limitation of this kind of glue heater was obvious from the start: It’s too small to heat more than a little bit of glue. If you work on small projects and need only a few ounces of glue at a time, a mug warmer is ideal. But I had trouble heating enough glue for a chair class and had to break out the Hold Heet.
Honestly, it’s a lot to expect from a $20 appliance that is supposed to keep 8 ounces of coffee warm. It just doesn’t put out enough heat to warm a water bath and a plastic glue bottle. (You can’t put the glue bottle directly on the warmer; it will melt.)
One possible option would be to store your glue in a steel container, which could go directly on the appliance. I tried using a large ceramic vessel but couldn’t get the water above 100° F. The thing likes to heat metal.
So the best option was a steel vessel filled with water and a glue bottle inside.
So, bottom line: It’s great for people who need enough glue for a few crackers. But if you need enough for a big piece of casework, look elsewhere.
