In our joint stool projects, Jennie Alexander and I always struggled with the riven seat board. It takes a VERY large diameter oak to get a quartered board almost 11” wide. When it came to writing “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree,” we were faced with the question: “What to tell the readers?” We settled on a few scenarios: some will have one-board seats from large logs; others will use two-board seats. We’ve done both. Then, I worked out a way to squeak a board out of stock that comes up just a tiny bit narrow.
This requires breaking a cardinal rule of riving — ALWAYS SPLIT IN HALF.
When we got to that part of the book last year, I had no large oaks even close to what I
wanted. The solution was for me to sketch my splitting technique and have Eleanor Underhill make one of her excellent diagrams for the book. But first I had to get it by Alexander, which meant numerous refinements on my explanation of this splitting. We had never done this particular method together.
Now, in making joined chests, you are faced with similar challenges; only it’s the need for wide panel stock, not seat boards. Today I split out some very straight-grained oak that came up to about 9” wide in the radial face. I wanted 10” of course. Having seen how flat these radial planes were, I knew I could break off a panel against the rules and get my wide stuff….
I didn’t have time for detail photos, but I did manage to shoot these two. Above you can see the froe driven into the end grain across the radial plane — it takes a good log to break this way successfully.
Here is a detail of the end grain of an off-cut from this log, showing the same sort of split. So refer to fig. 3-25 on page 43 and its related text. Then think of these photos. Sometimes 1/2” to 3/4” can make a difference.
The Individualist-Anarchist has been generally philosophical, practical, yet slightly removed from reality by virtue of his philosophical tendency, and at the same time highly self-conscious…. His philosophy stresses the isolation of the individual – his right to his own tools, his mind, his body, and to the products of his labor. To the artist who embraces this philosophy it is “aesthetic” anarchism, to the reformer, ethical anarchism, to the independent mechanic, economic anarchism. The former is concerned with philosophy, the latter with practical demonstration.
— Eunice Minette Schuster, “Native American Anarchism,” page 10
Blacksmith and white smith Peter Ross made a copy of the holdfast shown in Andre Roubo’s “Art du Menuisier” using Roubo illustrations and specifications as a roadmap.
The result is impressive to say the least.
I wrote up a detailed description on my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Check it out here. And definitely check out Peter Ross’s web site. If you need dividers, holdfasts, locks or hinges, you will not be disappointed.
Linda Rosengarten of Hock Tools recently interviewed me about Lost Art Press, why I left Popular Woodworking Magazine and what book projects I am working on. You can read the full interview here and wonder if there is such a thing as Verbal Immodium that I should be taking. Or you can read the following excerpt.
Thanks to Linda and Ron Hock for giving us some digital ink. It’s a real honor. My first decent handplane had a Hock blade in it – a story that I hear repeated all the time.
Linda: So, what’s all this talk about campaign furniture and how is the full-blown campaign secretary by March 15 going? I read about it in your blog post, Today, I Made a Stick. Please tell me all about it.
Chris: I’m working on two books right now. One is on campaign furniture, a much-neglected style that I think many woodworkers would fall in love with. My grandparents had several pieces of it, and my grandfather built several reproductions of campaign pieces. So I’ve always been crazy for it. And it’s not just furniture of war. Campaign furniture was called “patent furniture” in the day and was part of the fabric of life in England and Europe. It was the furniture you would take camping or traveling.
The other book is tentatively called “Furniture of Necessity,” and it is stupid, insane and entirely ill-advised. I’ve been working on it for a couple years now and it seeks to change woodworkers’ taste in furniture. It’s hubris to even think I can do this, and I expect to fail spectacularly. But if I don’t try, then I definitely will fail. This book is, at its heart, the end game for the workbench book. Sorry to sound cryptic; that’s not my intent. It’s just too wild to even really discuss without writing a whole book, I guess.
The construction of this marquetry, or better said, of mosaic in metal, although a bit similar to that of mosaic in painted wood, of which I made the description, page 866, requires however to be addressed separately, due both to certain ways of working which are different and the quality of materials that one uses. These materials, brass and tortoise shell, are used as in ordinary marquetry techniques, the one forming the designs and the other the background of the work.
Since the materials that one uses for marquetry, even the most common, are of a certain value and are rather difficult to put to work, we look for ways to be sparing both hand-work and materials at the same time. That is what we accomplish in cutting out two sheets of different materials (like brass and shell) one on top of the other [simultaneously], in a way that you have created at the same time two pieces of identical marquetry. The flowers or ornaments of the one can be placed in the void of the other, of which consequently, you can remove the flowers and ornaments to place them in the void of the first one. This manner of cutting out marquetry is called “working in contra partie.”
Marquetry where the tortoise shell makes the base of the work, and brass the ornaments, is the most beautiful, and is called “la partie,” that is to say, the principal piece of work. [Where] the brass makes the base and tortoiseshell the ornament, is called “contra-partie”, [the second part] and is less valuable, although one can achieve making it very costly, about which I will speak in its turn.
When you wish to make a piece of marquetry, you begin by making the general design of the work to be executed, as, for example figure 1, where you take one or many tracings, according to what is necessary, the initial design is to be conserved for using to finish the piece.
Then you take a sheet of shell of a convenient size, and a sheet of brass [in the original French text, here the author is specifically referring to brass while elsewhere Roubo may be referring to brass or copper and we have chosen to use the term brass as it seems more sensible — DCW], which you glue one on top of the other with ordinary glue, not all over but only in a few spots, which is sufficient for fastening them together. Before gluing the sheet of brass, it is good to scrape the underside with a coarse file used in different directions, or even with a toothing plane iron, so that when it is cut out, it bonds better with the glue.
When the two sheets are thus joined together, you glue the tracing on that of the brass, and you let it all dry, after which you cut it out with the marquetry saw in the same way as for mosaic in wood.
Since the ornaments of marquetry or mosaic in metal are ordinarily very delicate and of a form often very complicated, it is necessary to use extremely fine saw blades. You often start by piercing little holes in places that are the less obvious in the work. These holes are made with the little hand drill, represented in plate 319, figures 1 & 2, or even with a pump drill, figure 12, same plate, which depends absolutely on the different occasion or taste of the worker. With much delicacy and skill he places the saw [blade] such that he always sees the line on the tracing, and that he cut out the largest quantity possible without being required to remove the saw.
[It is fascinating to read Roubo’s exhortation regarding working posture and the need for strong directional light (even without stating it explicitly), namely that the orientation of the workpiece to the artisan be such that the marqueteur can always see clearly the line he is cutting. The undeniable conclusion is that the workpiece is moving constantly and the saw and lighting orientation remain constant while the sawing is underway. Furthermore his instruction to “cut out the largest quantity possible without being required to remove the saw” may have been honored more in the telling than in the practice. There are numerous historical examples of craftsmen simply cutting “across the field” of the background to get from one element to another rather than removing and reinserting the saw blade in a new hole. Was this because the latter have been troublesome it would have placed stress on the precious saw blade, perhaps an unnecessary risk at that time? – DCW]
When the design is entirely cut out, you separate the two sheets one from the other, whether by plunging them in hot water, or simply by passing between them a very thin blade of a knife, which is sufficient, when you take care to place nothing but a few spots of thin glue, and simply that which is necessary to hold the two sheets together, as I said above. After the sheets are separated, you disassemble them, that is to say, you take out the ornaments for repositioning one piece inside the other, so each piece remains empty, like that represented in figure 2.
