Lost Art Press

6-Board Chests – the How and Why

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If you subscribe to modern theories of wood movement, then most of the six-boards chests out there should have exploded into a pile of splinters, lace doilies and purple heart medals.

They are, after all, the platypus of the woodworking world. They shouldn’t exist with all their crazy cross-grain construction, nails, poisonous fangs and wide solid-wood panels. But yet, there they are – in almost every museum, attic and Americana collection.

For the last couple years I’ve been collecting data, photos and crazy ideas about pieces both antique and new that I call “The Furniture of Necessity.” And the six-board chest has been a particular source of fascination for me.

I’ve built several of these chests before, but always with the machinery mindset guiding my hand. All the panels had to be square. All the ends shot straight. All the joinery referenced off these machinist-like edges.

I can almost guarantee you that is not how these chests were built originally.

Inspired by “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” and the work of Jennie Alexander and Peter Follansbee in “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree,” I have spent the last few months attempting to decode these chests.

And when I write “decode,” I’m talking about the step-by-step procedures that were used to build them entirely by hand. It starts, like every good story (Kon-tiki!), with some ideas and some big trees.

Here are some basic ideas I’m exploring while building a few of these chests:

1. Did the design flow from the width of the boards available? If so, what would be the approach you would use to make a chest with, say, a 17”-wide board?

2. How were the boards cut to length and width in the shop to make the most of the material and use up the minimum amount of wood?

3. What were the steps to ensure that there was the absolute minimum ripping and fussy tweaking required to get all the pieces to the correct size?

4. How were these chests assembled with the minimum number of tools? How were they done without shooting boards?

5. How were the chests assembled to make it easy for one woodworker to do it alone?

6. Why would the maker choose certain features and joints exhibited on different kinds of chests? Some have rabbets. Some have dados. Some have notched ends.

I don’t expect to come up with definitive answers, but I do have some interesting theories to test as I build these chests with the minimum number of tools, operations and time at hand. And you’ll get to follow along. Next week I’m going to build one of these chests for a new forthcoming DVD from Lie-Nielsen Toolworks that will explore these ideas and – I hope – show how durable and beautiful furniture can be built with a handful of tools and a short amount of time.

— Christopher Schwarz

What a Valuable Waste

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This is about woodworking. You’ll just have to wait for it.

When I edit a book or a magazine article, I always feel shame during the process. Despite all the electronic tools available to me, I have to print the entire book at several stages of the process and work on what we call the “hard copy.”

It is a wasteful process. For example, Matt Bickford’s new book, “Mouldings in Practice,” is more than 250 pages. I think I’ve printed it out at least five times in the last six months. The printouts will get run through the printer again, and then they will be recycled. But still, that is a lot of paper, energy and waste.

I make these printouts because it helps my editing. Changing the format – from electronic to paper – makes me see the words differently. I always find things that I just couldn’t see on the screen. It could be the gestalt of the elements on the page. (You hear that Clem? He said “gestalt.”) I find things that don’t line up. I find enormous errors that I’ve been blind to for months – last night Megan Fitzpatrick (also a dirty paper waster) found a doosie in Matt’s book that everyone has been looking at for three months.

Plus I find more typos and little stuff. For me, paper is magic. I’ve tried changing the format to a tablet or a different computer, and it doesn’t help as much as printing the sucker out and going at it with a pen.

What does this have to do with woodworking? Lots. As I’ve mentioned before, “The map is not the territory.” Your scaled drawing is not the same thing as a full-size drawing, a mock-up or the real piece of furniture. You will see things – problems and triumphs – at every stage you choose to go through. But nothing – nothing – compares to the final product.

Which is why there are still typos in books after 20 people edit them. Because the territory is the territory. The book is the book. The secretary is the secretary.

— Christopher Schwarz

Wordworking

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At my first newspaper job, I hated the 2 p.m. mail call. That was when Reese Fant would separate all the day’s mail into the black cubbyholes for the reporters. More days than not, I received a postcard.

The postcards were from a retired high-school English teacher, and just about every day she had some withering comment to make about my grammar, word choice, style (or lack of it).

I hated those postcards at first.

I think you know where this story is going, but I think you’re wrong. The natural story arc is for me to recognize the importance of word precision and embrace the subtleties and nuances of the English language and become an evangelist for its proper use.

Truth is, I hated those postcards at first, and within a couple years I came to absolutely loathe them. In fact, I actively rejected my fine Northwestern University-honed journalism education to write in a coarser style to see if I could cause this retired teacher to burst a blood vessel.

I know this sounds messed up from a person who trades in words, but I am far more interested in meaning over the veneer of style.

This attitude was reinforced when I was introduced to the world of professional cabinetmakers. Before my first photo shoot with one of them, I can remember studying everything I could about the joinery nomenclature that was particular to fine cabinet work.

The next day, here is what I learned.

1. Everything is a “rail.” Table aprons? Rails. Leg stretchers? Rails? Mediary stiles? Rails. Muntins? Rails. Mullions? Again, rails. And on and on. Rail, rail, rail. Did this diminish his work? No. Did it diminish my understanding of his work? No, again.

2. Everything is a “groove.” Dado? Nope, groove. Rabbet? Bzzst! Groove. Cross-grain rabbet (a fillister?). Groove again. A long mortise? Yup, a groove.

3. Every operation is “run.” Crosscut? No — run a cut. Rip? Run that to 7”. Mould an edge? Run the edge? Cut the tenon? Run the tenon. Run was the only operation. And when you make furniture for a living, you have to run, period.

Why am I telling you all this?

Today I read an interesting book, “The Wrought Covenant,” from the Brockton Art Center, which was recommended to me by Peter Follansbee. It’s a gold mine of information on early furniture, but one of the essays had the following statement:

“We should further the retrieval of a proper seventeenth-century furniture typology by referring even to the individual parts of each form as much as possibly by their correct period name and placement; if we are to enter the craftsman’s world and his community aesthetic, we must learn their organization from his point of view, not ours.”

This stuff really makes me crazy. On the one hand, using words in a precise manner makes it easier to talk about things across a distance, such as when using the Internet. On the other hand, the language divides us. We discount people who haven’t learned the precise words for a haunch or a bolection.

Well, screw that.

If the meaning is clear, we are cool. Period. If the work is solid, we are cool. I am not silently correcting your grammar or word choice. I don’t give a poo if you don’t call it a dado or a micro-bevel or a “land.” In the end, anyone who becomes immersed in the craft will get the hang of the lingo. But until then, to quote one of the best movies ever, “Lighten up Francis.”

— Christopher Schwarz

Joint Stools Without a Lathe

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Before “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” was a book, it was a workshop that Jennie Alexander and I taught a few times. The first session was 1991 at Drew Langsner’s Country Workshops. We had 12 students – several from the museum world, a few woodworkers and some innocent victims. Alexander and I used to duck out to the porch outside the shop and whisper, “What do we do next?” It was a free-for-all – especially when it came to the turned decoration on the stiles. A few students took the plunge and turned their stiles, a few made stopped chamfers and another batch made shaved “turned” decoration.

When we got around to actually finishing the book, I opted to use only the shaved/stopped chamfers as the “alternate” decoration for stiles. One of the reasons the book took us ages to complete is that we always tried to put everything we knew in it – so finally I left stuff out and got it done.

Today I made a sample stile with decoration that mimics or at least follows the turned patterns, but is cut using only a saw and some chisels. I used a spokeshave a bit, too. We find these forms from time to time on 17th-century examples, so if you’re ready to make a stool, and the turned work is intimidating, here’s a simple alternative.

I used a square and awl to line out the demarcations for the collar, bevel etc., then cut in with a backsaw at a few of these lines. You can use a marking gauge to help define the depth of these saw cuts. I started to, but then I just eyeballed it.

After making the saw cuts, the next step is to chop down to these kerfs with the chisel. Work alternately between bevel down, bevel up, hand-pressure and mallet work. I found it helpful on this, my-first-one-ever, to keep rotating the stile on the bench, working each face in succession. Must be from years of turning these things… .

The stile shown is a simple version, somewhat based on some northern Massachusetts chairs of the mid-17th century. I have seen more elaborate examples that have “coves,” “beads,” “collars” and more – just like turned work.

— Peter Follansbee

Editor’s note: Be sure to check out Peter’s blog for more on joint stools, 17th-century joinery and bird photography.

Wayne Anderson Planes After 8 Years

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Anyone who has been to my shop knows that I have a deep affection for the handplanes made by Wayne Anderson. His planes perform as well as any I have ever used – no matter the price – and his aesthetic matches mine.

Wayne’s planes are inspired by the gorgeous work of the past, but he doesn’t copy old designs, and he never seems to make the same plane twice.

I first became aware of Wayne’s work about 10 years ago through the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association, and I followed it closely until I had the guts to meet him at a tool meet in 2004. After seeing his work in person, I placed an order for an improved miter with an ebony infill.

That tool was the first of several planes that I’ve asked him to build for me. They are, without a doubt, the most gorgeous things I own.

Because of my former position at Popular Woodworking Magazine and my many blabberings about handplanes, I get asked the following question every week or two: Are infill planes worth the money?

The answer is difficult. I can make a Lie-Nielsen, Veritas, Clifton or vintage Stanley plane perform as well as an infill. But infill planes have a set of characteristics unique only to them that I like. For example, my favorite infill is short (5-5/8” long x 1-7/8” wide), coffin-shaped, has a high-pitched iron (60°) with no chipbreaker or blade adjuster. In other words, it’s a lot like an old wooden plane. But unlike a wooden plane, it has significant mass and a steel sole that never needs to be trued.

It is far more comfortable to hold than a No. 2-sized Bailey plane. And its mass isn’t so significant that it feels like you are pushing a collapsed star across your bench. It weight 2 lbs. 2 oz., which is between the Lie-Nielsen Nos. 1 and 2. It’s perfect for my style of general furniture work.

The plane I’m describing is a small ebony-infilled plane that Anderson made for me in 2006. I call this my “plane of last resort” because it just refuses to leave tear-out in its wake, no matter how sharp or dull the tool is.

In fact, the tool needs to come with a warning label. If you pick it up and use it, you will want one. Just ask Megan Fitzpatrick or any of my students who have casually picked it out of my tool chest. Larry Williams of Old Street Tool calls this phenomenon “Infill Disease.” Larry is fully recovered from the affliction. I, however, am not.

So yes, having an infill in your tool chest is a nice thing. Plus, regardless of how it performs, it’s nice to own something handmade – a feeling that many woodworkers, my family and customers share.

As those of you who have read “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” know, I sold off or gave away most of my tools a couple summers ago, and the infills I had collected for review in Popular Woodworking and The Fine Tool Journal were no exception. Those tools are now in the hands and tool chests of good friends and comrades.

But there are a couple infills that I would never even consider parting with. One is the small smoother from Wayne. The other is a small boxwood miter from Raney Nelson.

What is it about this smoother that makes me so attached to it? Well, beyond its size and perfect weight, it’s the details that Wayne pours into every tool. The mouth of the tool is made in two pieces, like an infill miter plane, which ensured that the plane’s throat aperture is just slightly bigger than the shavings. Also, Wayne files a small (1/16” x 1/16”) bevel on the front edge of the sole. This is a modification I make to my own planes, through with much less precision and style. The bevel protects the sole from damage when you run into something hard (nail, knot etc.). The bevel takes the damage and – generally – prevents the damage from then scarring your work.

But beyond these functional characteristics, the tool is just a joy to look at and use. The tombstone shape of the top of the 1-1/2”-wide iron. The perfectly pillowed ebony infills. The lines of the sidewalls, lever cap and ivory nipple (there’s no other word I’m afraid) on the screw.

I also like the patina the tool has developed during the last six years. I was actually a little ticked off when a photographer burnished off the patina a few years ago to make it look shiny and new. I had to start over.

In any case, I had a long-overdue chat with Wayne last week about some web-site stuff and he mentioned that his lead times have dwindled this year significantly. While you used to have to wait two years for Wayne to get to your tool, he’s now only about a month out on orders.

So if you’ve ever wanted a Wayne Anderson plane, now is a great time. Drop him an e-mail at wayne@andersonplanes.com.

You might have to get in line behind me. My conversation with Wayne reminded me that I was going to get him to build me a Roman-style plane to test a few theories I have about early Western woodworking.

— Christopher Schwarz