One of the things I enjoy about visiting my father in Charleston, S.C., is you are always walking distance from stunning furniture from all over the world and across several centuries.
I spent this morning collecting images, details and dimensions for my next book and stumbled into a store I’d never been in before. It specializes in furniture from the West and East Indies – specifically campaign furniture.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved campaign furniture – my grandparents had several pieces – and I’ve always wondered why it wasn’t a popular style among woodworkers. It’s manly, simple, robust and (generally) well proportioned.
The store’s owner has been importing it into Charleston for about 15 years and showed me a lot of construction details I hadn’t yet considered, such as how examples that used teak as a secondary wood were much more likely to be the real deal. Teak is quite bug-resistant. Dovetail joinery that didn’t rely on hide glue was a good thing because of the wetness, heat and bugs that would eat the hide glue.
If someone else doesn’t pick up this idea and run with it, campaign furniture might be a book in my future. Earlier this year I proposed a campaign chest project to Popular Woodworking Magazine – I haven’t gotten a “yes” or “no” yet. Perhaps these photos will sway Megan.
You can now download the ePub edition of “The Essential Woodworker” by Robert Wearing in a completely DRM-free format for your iPad, iPhone or other electronic reader that supports .epub files.
Click here to visit our store and purchase the ePub edition for $10.
A Kindle edition of “The Essential Woodworker” is in the works and will be released shortly.
The ePub version of the book follows the format and layout of “The Essential Woodworker” version published by Lost Art Press. We reset the entire book in a classic typeface, incorporated changes from Mr. Wearing and laid out the book in a classic 6” x 9” format.
This is an authorized reprint by Mr. Wearing. With every purchase of the electronic or physical version of the Lost Art Press book, significant royalties go to Mr. Wearing.
In our opinion, “The Essential Woodworker” is one of the best books on hand-tool usage written in the post-Charles Hayward era. Wearing was classically trained in England as a woodworker and embraced both power and hand tools in his shop and in his teaching.
The book “The Essential Woodworker” was written to remedy the lack of fundamental hand-tool knowledge in the post-World War II woodworker. While Wearing discusses basics such as sharpening and tool use in the book, the true genius of the book is in how Wearing shows you how to apply all the tools and processes to actually build things.
He begins with a table. As you read the chapter on building a table, Wearing connects the dots for the hand-tool user by showing how all the tools are used in concert to produce accurate work. It’s not just about sawing a tenon or planing an edge. Instead, it is about how to gather these skills and apply them to building furniture – tables, doors, carcases, dovetailed drawers, plinths etc.
The book is filled with more than 500 hand-drawn illustrations by Wearing that explain every operation in a hand-tool shop. His illustrations are properly drafted, drawn in perspective and masterfully clear.
For a tutorial on how to manually add a book to your iPod or iPhone, view this tutorial on our blog. It’s easy.
“We shall find, therefore, that it is not in the realization of these ends, but in the struggle to attain them, that anarchism is of service to society.”
— Eunice Minette Schuster, “Native American Anarchism,” page 11
Katy is thilled by Drayton Hall outside Charleston
We are closing the Lost Art Press warehouse (my basement) for the Thanksgiving holiday. So any orders placed after 3 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 22, will not be mailed until Monday.
My family and I are headed to Charleston, S.C., for Thanksgiving, which I am certain will involve grits, beer and long walks along the Battery.
The other good news is that I’d like to welcome Highland Hardware as one of our retailers for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” We are cautious about who we work with, but when we were approached by Highland Hardware, it was a no-brainer.
I used to visit the store every other year when I had to attend the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta, Ga., and I also stopped by several times on my way through the city. Highland Hardware is where I first met Roy Underhill about 1996 or 1997. He won’t remember it.
Roy was giving a demonstration on turning at the store and I was just too star-struck and shy to even introduce myself.
In any case, Highland Hardware is one of the more influential independent stores that have always gone the extra mile to keep the craft alive, especially handwork. I bought many of my hand tools there, and the staff has always been friendly and patient.
I got to meet Chris Bagby, the owner, this year at Woodworking in America, and I now have plans to teach down there in early 2013.
Right now Highland Hardware (aka Highland Woodworking) is stocking “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”; click here to visit their store.
Earlier this year, amateur woodworker Rob Thomas made a bold decision – to learn hand-tool woodworking using “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker” from 1839 as a road map.
And to hold his nose to the grindstone (and ensure he had the tools to do it) he started a campaign on Kickstarter.com to fund his tool and material purchases in exchange for items as small as a patch (see above) and as large as the full-on chest of drawers.
What’s Kickstarter? Visit Rob’s page here to read all about it.
Since launching his Kickstarter.com campaign, Rob has been busy building packing boxes – the first project from “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker.” Most readers skip right to “The Schoolbox” in the book, a sweet little dovetailed chest.
I think those people are missing out. The Packing Box project has four critical lessons that will enlighten any hand-tool woodworker.
1. Many times the ends of your stock can be left long in nailed work and then trimmed square after assembly. Yup, you don’t four-square everything before assembly. When I first learned this detail, I slapped my forehead repeatedly.
2. You learn how to make rub joints with hot hide glue. No clamps.
3. You learn to use cut nails in carcase construction. Cut nails are awesome.
4. You learn to clinch/clench nails.
When I started working with my daughter Katy on woodworking, the first project we built together was The Packing Box, which we sized to hold the DVDs for her class at school.
I encourage you to bookmark Rob’s blog, The Joiner’s Apprentice, to follow him as he builds his way through “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker.” It’s quite interesting to watch his thought processes and see the results.
And Speaking of Inspiration…
Since I first read about Kickstarter.com I’ve been thinking of starting a campaign to help fund the purchase of the Lost Art Press LLC headquarters. As some of you know, I’ve been actively hunting for 19th-century buildings in Covington, Ky., to house our book inventory (which has completely filled our basement and storage shed), house our workshop, mailing facilities and provide for a storefront for our publishing activities.
And on Tuesday, my dream building came on the market.
It’s the Covington Brewery Building, an Italianate building with three storefronts and six apartments above, all in pretty good shape. The building was the headquarters for the John Brenner Brewing Co. in Covington. And it was part of a long-gone campus of brewing facilities on Scott Street in Covington.
The price? Less than $200,000.
I’ve been working on selling the idea to my wife, Lucy, but she is the far more rational person in our relationship.
My plan is to offer classes in building custom workbenches and tool chests as part of the Kickstarter campaign. She (wisely) worries about the maintenance on such a huge building.
In any case, Rob Campbell has inspired me to grab the dice and shake them in my hands. We’ll see if I actually roll them.
