Lost Art Press

The Candy-Bottom Wuss Girl Guide to Drawboring

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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

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“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

The Lazy Way to Plane Around Corners

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During most classes I teach, someone asks me how to plane a glued-up rail-and-stile joint so it’s flush.

My answer: Don’t do it.

Yes, it can be done. There have been barrels of ink spent to write about this topic. How to arrange the grain in the stiles and rails. How to skew the tool as you approach the joint. How to make the turn with poise and aplomb.

I never do this trick unless I’ve made some sort of mistake and have no choice. Instead, I get all my joints flush before assembly. That’s easier than it sounds. Check out the video above where I’m planing the joints for a fairly sizable table.

By planing these joints while they are dry-assembled I gain a lot of advantages.

1. I can run my finger across the joint and know when I’m getting close. No measuring.

2. I can use the curved iron in my plane to sneak up on the seam. By shifting the plane left or right I can control how much material I take off at the seam.

3. If I mess up and nick the intersecting piece with my plane, it’s an easy thing to disassemble the joint and fix the cross-grain boo-boo.

In the video I’m using a jointer plane. You can use any plane – from a jack to a block to a smooth. I needed to remove about 1/32” of material on this table so I chose a tool that had an aggressive curve to its iron.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The background music can be downloaded for free from the Free Music Archive.

The Anarchist’s Sawbench Box Chest Storage Device

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My first shop was on the back porch – 6’ x 8’ of sloping, rotting, dead opossum-smelling space. So I am sympathetic to anyone who has a small shop.

Blogger Brander “Badger” Roullett has a petite shop and a plus-sized storage problem. He needed a sawbench and he needed someplace to store his saws. What he came up with was a clever adaptation of the classic six-board chest.

These sorts of chests come in all sizes – I recently saw a sawbench-sized one at the Museum of Early Southern Decorate Arts. So Badger’s chest “looks” right to my eye.

And it’s all assembled with nails, so Adam Cherubini is somewhere smiling.

Check out Badger’s post on how he built the chest, along with step photos at Badger Woodworks.

— Christopher Schwarz