Sometimes looks can be deceiving. Megan Fitzpatrick, the managing editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, says she’s a 14-year-old boy trapped in the body of a 43-year-old-woman.
Wait, I shouldn’t tell that story.
Sometimes looks can be deceiving. To the outside world, Megan sometimes looks like the “I Can Do That” spokeswoman. It’s true that she’s probably built more “I Can Do That” projects than anyone. But that’s not because those are the only things she can build.
Close observers of the magazine know that she has built some big case pieces with lots of hand-cut dovetails, cove moulding and inset doors and drawers. But only the people who work with her know the whole story.
Megan is one of the more ambitious woodworkers I know. She always picks projects above her skill level in some way and then pesters seeks out the knowledge to build them. That’s how she learned dovetailing, inlay, sharpening, you name it.
While that might not sound so unusual, she also is ruthless persistent about learning everything about a topic. When she wanted to learn dovetails, I think she asked everyone in the office at Popular Woodworking Magazine to teach her separately. Then she’d compare the techniques and forge her own path.
In December, Megan decided to build a spice box with line-and-berry inlay as a gift for her mother. You can read the harrowing tale here. Bottom line: I hope Megan will be able to show off more of her highbrow skills – other than iambic pentameter – in the coming years.
It’s easy in this male-dominated business for some people to see women in the craft as window dressing, as has been the case on certain home-improvement television shows (I’m looking at you, Dean). Don’t buy into that with Megan, or you are liable to get a roundhouse kick in the ear.
I was first introduced to the Schwarz Media Conglomerate on Jan. 10, 2008, with the announcement that we were collaborating on an annotated translation of sections from Roubo’s “L’Art du Menuisier.” The two-year anniversary of that announcement happens to also be a much more important milestone for me as it marks exactly the 40th year of my entrance into the furniture trades. Looking back down the tunnel of those four decades is an exhilarating experience.
I was a high school kid working in a warehouse because it paid more than slinging burgers. Because it was a 25 percent raise, I showed up for work at 1 p.m., Jan. 10, 1972. The job was exactly as promised; all I had to do was keep three warehouses clean for a large commercial furniture store.
I soon discovered the little repair shop in the corner of one of the warehouses, manned periodically by Frank Tautzenberger. How a retired Hungarian house painter became the furniture repairman for a multimillion dollar furniture store is beyond me, and truth be told some of his structural repairs were sketchy, but when it came to matching appearances he was simply a genius. On the days when he was in the shop I found myself literally running through the warehouse to get my chores done in order to spend time with him. watching him make it seem effortless. Imagine the voice of Bela Lugosi telling you over and over, “See, it’s just like this. Easy.”
That experience led me to a number of refinishing and restoration shops over the next few years, punctuated by some time in college. I was on a special program that allowed me to enter college as a junior, on the fast track to law school. But always the lure of working in a shop kept tugging at me, and to this day I can hear the disapproving tones of my adviser, Dr. Stetson, 18 months later after I informed her of my withdrawing from school.
“But Don, there is just no future in the crafts.”
I think she might have been wrong about that one….
I have recounted some of my experiences in the shop of the Schindler’s, but not of one acquaintance who also shaped my career. Nicky Hlopoff was one of the most renowned art conservators in the world, and when he was working for clients in Palm Beach he stopped by Schindler’s for frequent visits. With his encouragement I began focusing on moving toward a career in preserving historic furniture. But still I was only part way down the tunnel.
After another unsuccessful attempt at college, this time as an architecture student, I wound up as the assistant patternmaker of a small custom foundry. It was there where I learned what precise and fearless woodworking was all about, especially large-scale turning. The lathe axle was about throat height and the 10-horsepower motor made sure nothing slowed the workpiece, which was often so large (we were making patterns for giant pumps used in dredging) that I was literally part-way inside the pattern while I was turning it. The first time, my boss Johnny Kuzma simply handed me the chisel and said, “Good luck, kid.” Gazing up at the pockmarks where countless chisels had been dislodged from the hands of timid turners and embedded into the ceiling, I grabbed the chisel with a death grip and dove in. Whenever anyone brags to about turning something big, I ask if they have ever turned a 10’-diameter bowl.
After a final and successful attempt at college, I got my current dream job 28 years ago, which has allowed me to pursue a nearly limitless menu of curiosities and opportunities.
Which brings me to the title of this essay. Long before I had ever heard of Popular Woodworking, much less Chris Schwarz or Lost Art Press, I was re-thinking my acquisitive impulses. Better tools. Fewer tools (well, maybe not really fewer tools, and I have not yet come to the place of discarding superfluous tools). Desire to get increasingly serious about scholarship and my skills. That path has been immensely pleasing.
Like many of my fellow galoots, after 40 years I was even reconsidering the need for a table saw. In the end I decided to keep mine, in part because it is a big, heavy machine that does some things nothing else can do, and to remove it from my tiny basement workshop would require recruiting a large number of stout young men to get it up the narrow stairs. Besides, what would I do with the space if I got rid of it? I would probably put an assembly table there. How is that different than a nice table saw with a piece of Baltic birch plywood on it?
Table saw: a machine with side benefits. So I’m keeping it.
That just about sums up the acquired wisdom of 40 years in the furniture trades.
When the new book “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” finally hits the streets, I think its most lasting effect will have little to do with joint stools or trees.
I’ve read this book – front to back – more than nine times now. And already it has changed the way I approach the craft, even when I’m not building joint stools from riven green oak.
I’ll let the authors say it.
“You could use winding sticks for this step, but now we’re in a larger realm. If you can’t see a problem by eye here, then there’s no problem. Don’t go looking for trouble.”
This approach to the craft surfaces again and again in the book. It’s not borne of sloppiness. The goal is to make a stool so well that it does not need glue, it should last through 300 years of abuse and it should still have joints as tight as the day it was made.
The approach of Jennie Alexander and Peter Follansbee is to focus instead on these three things:
1. The fit and mechanical interlock of the parts.
2. The front and visible shoulders of the joints.
3. The overall form of the piece.
If the inside shoulder of a tenon is undercut, that’s OK. If the four stiles (legs) have slightly different turned profiles but look the same, that’s OK. If the assembled frame is slightly out of square but looks square to the eye, that’s OK.
In the end, Alexander and Follansbee strive to create an object that is immensely pleasing to the eye and incredibly resilient to the ages. The micrometers can go home dissatisfied.
I simply cannot wait for this book to be published.
A highly skilled woodworker, teacher, draughtsman and writer has said the following about me on several occasions, according to his students.
“You shouldn’t listen to Schwarz. He’s never been a professional woodworker.”
He’s 100-percent correct, of course. I spent one summer building entryway doors for Therma-Tru. A second summer I built folding particleboard tables. And I did 14 years building furniture infrequently for Popular Woodworking magazine. But I would never ever call myself a professional furniture maker.
I am, like many of you, a frustrated amateur furniture maker. Since 1993, I have spent every waking moment trying to perfect my skills. I have taken classes, read every book I thought was worth reading and happily soaked up every bit of wisdom I could find from woodworkers alive and dead.
I struggle every day that I am in the shop, which is just about every day. I mess stuff up. I design some pieces that are awkward, which I would never show in public. I mis-cut joints, curse my hands and wish I were as confident as Frank Klausz.
If I had to put a resume together today, the only real skills I’d list are an insatiable curiosity for our craft and the ability to string together words in a way that upsets some people. Oh, and I am one of the founding members of the Radio Shack Battery Club.
So why am I pulling my pants down on the Internet and not even asking you for a credit card number? Because I want you to know that there are very few (if any) woodworking gods. Yes, there are some people who are savants at a particular joint or process, but anyone who thinks he has mastered the craft should study 40 more years and get back to us.
Woodworking is hard. For everyone. And if you love the craft as much as I love the Radio Shack Battery Club, then you will never ever be satisfied with your work. Something in every project – a joint, a reveal, a quirk – can always be improved.
So why do I teach? That seems like uber-hubris.
Wow. That’s a good question. I teach only because people ask me to teach. I’ve never called a school asking to teach there. I teach because there are always people who know less than I do (incredible though it seems). And I teach because I have met some of my best, lifelong friends in classes, including John Hoffman, my business partner in Lost Art Press.
So I agree with the guy who says you shouldn’t listen to me because I’m not a professional. But perhaps I am a somewhat useful ugly bag of mostly water because I am an amateur.
I am no different than the goofy guy next to you at the bench in the last woodworking class you took. Except that guy… whew… he really smells.
I guess we will find out how much you like Campaign Furniture. I just spent $2,500 on a load of 4/4 mahogany boards that are 16” and wider to build some campaign chests. Plus another $500 on 12/4 mahogany for a run of Roorkhee chairs.
First order of business: Build a full-blown campaign secretary before March 15.
