“Words are wind, and the only good wind is that which fills our sails.”
— Victarion, “A Feast for Crows” by George R.R. Martin
A Never-ending Debt to John Brown
“The customer is always wrong,” Felix Klipstein in the John Brown column #129, December 2002
I never got to meet John Brown, the Welsh chairmaker, artist, writer and author of “The Anarchist Woodworker” column in Good Woodworking magazine. But he is with me in the shop every day.
I saw one of his Welsh stick chairs in Good Woodworking in the 1990s, and it changed me in an instant. I knew that the chairs he’d dug up from the rustic countryside and dragged into the modern shop were exactly the type of chair I wanted to build.
Yes, I like Windsor and ladderback chairs. But Welsh stick chairs, which look more primitive and animal-like, are far more interesting to build.
I wanted to take a class with Brown, but I missed out on his short visits to the United States. And going to the United Kingdom in the 1990s to learn to build chairs was just a crazy idea with my salary and my young family.
So I sought out closer chairmakers to learn about Welsh chairs, which took me to Cobden, Ontario, and Paint Lick, Ky. Yet it has always been Brown’s chairs that I have been studying and striving for.
This fall I finished two chairs that are influenced by chairmaker Don Weber (I love the rake and splay of his legs), by Brown (the four-spindle back is classic Brown), and a little Schwarz. I lightened the arm bow, altered the seat plan and designed the crest rail from scratch.
When I sat down these chairs for the first time, I wanted to smoke a cigarette – and I don’t smoke. But Brown did (check out his book “Welsh Stick Chairs” for some great photos of this). So I might be getting close.
Thanks John Brown, wherever you are.
— Christopher Schwarz
If it’s Too Expensive, Click Here
OK, we know that “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is an expensive book when compared to literature by Rachel Ray, Stephen King and L. Ron Hubbard. But it is quite expensive to manufacture a book in the United States compared to China – about four times as much.
Plus, I need to keep my kids eating the panda-flavored ramen they love so well.
So some people can’t afford the hardback version of the book. That’s OK. We have an ePub version for $16 – but you have to have an expensive reader to enjoy that version.
If you can’t afford either, then it’s time to head over to James Maichel’s new blog, the “Woodworking Scroll.”
To kick off his blog, he’s written an entry about “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” and is giving away a copy of the book to one of the people who comments on the post.
And because we have a few returned copies of the book sitting in my basement, we are willing – thrilled! – to say we will match his offer. So two people will get copies of the book.
Also, for your information, James sent me a series of questions and asked if I would answer them, from the prospect of me opening a woodworking school to what sort of pizza I like. Those answers are here.
In any case, check out James’s blog here and enter to receive a copy of the book.
— Christopher Schwarz
The Candy-Bottom Wuss Girl Guide to Drawboring
I admit it: I can be a total weenie when it comes to drawboring. Unlike Peter Follansbee I am overly fearful, cautious and timid.
When Peter drawbores a joint, he uses no glue. He uses no clamps. He uses hand-tapered oak pegs. And he details it all in his forthcoming book with Jennie Alexander, “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree.”
Today I was assembling an early 18th-century-style table that has a lot of features that are similar to a 17th-century joint stool.
But this table (like the original) is in cypress. Not oak.
And I, unlike Peter, am a wuss.
The video shows how I go about the process with the crutches of glue and clamps.
— Chrissy Schwarz
P.S. The music to this video can be downloaded from the Free Music Archive.
Windows of the Mind
“A society that can place no reliance on the men who underpin it, who design, build and maintain its houses, railroads, aircraft, bridges, its vast engineering projects, will become an unstable society, insecure and heading for disruption.
“And this is the danger of a purely materialistic world.”
— Charles Hayward, “Chips from the Chisel,” The Woodworker, June 1958