The joiner’s craft was transformed during the seventeenth century, after wood ceased to be thought of purely as a constructional material. Until the middle years of the century, the colour and texture of the wood were disregarded, their decorative possibilities ignored, and their surfaces were made acceptable to the eye by painting, carving or inlaying. Interest in the natural color and marking of the wood was aroused by the rediscovery of veneering….
— Edward Lucie-Smith, “Furniture: A Concise History”
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.
