If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, (1900-1944) French writer, aviator, (The quote is attributed to Saint-Exupéry; however it appears in only one distinct American translation of “Citadelle.”)
I had to build a new coffee table. The was mainly a hand tool project. The only machines I used were a table saw, jointer, thickness planer and a hand held electric planer to get most of the material off the underside taper of the top. In doing this project I realized that woodworking is a simple endeavor. You mark a line and saw, chisel or plane to the line.
All the mistakes I make are related to marking the line in the wrong place or sawing, chiseling or planing beyond the line. So In order to improve my woodworking techniques I did something radical. I took my copy of The Essential Woodworker, into the shop and left it there. Now, before I begin a task that I have not done in a while, I break open the book and see what the author Robert Wearing (RW) has to say. For example, I was cutting tenons for a new coffee table and wanted to share what I learned.
I sawed out the tenons then corrected any unevenness with a router plane. I made one of the tenons 7/16 inches thick. It was an easy three step process to get to this dimension. First I marked the tenons with a cutting gauge to a fat 1/2 inch. Then sawed them out trying to split the line. Then I incorrectly set the router plane to the wrong depth taking too much off causing the tenons to be a thin 1/2 inch. Then I just set the router gage to the correct depth to get to 7/16. Done! I corrected this faux pax on the other tenons which came out to an accurate 1/2 inch. Ok so I wondered what RW said about this?
According to page 68 RW states that “The accurate sawing of tenons is a vital skill”…and “the tenons should fit from the saw”. Fortunately, on page 72, he shows us how to use a router plane to correct a thick tenon. I looked but there is nothing about fixing a thin tenon so I assume my technique of changing the tenon thickness is the best approach. He also includes pictures of what the tenons should look like as they are sawn out. In looking at the pictures I did notice that I had been incorrectly starting my saw at the near corner of the tenon instead of the far corner which Mr. Wearing points out. In thinking about this I agree because starting at the far corner puts the saw on the line in the place that is most difficult to see. It is easier to saw toward your body then to saw away from your body. I will remember this next time and report back on my luck.
That said the router plane technique works perfect. It also has the benefit of ensuring that the tenon is exactly in the middle of the stuff. I have made tenons that were not in the middle of my stuff causing the stock to be proud on one side requiring more planing work. Again these problems are related to making a mistake in marking a line or getting to it.
Another marking mistake came when I cut the mortis on two of the legs to the line that marked the beginning of the taper not the end of the mortis. The mortis was 3/4 inch too long causing an unsightly gap. This became a inspiration for adding some flare. I glued a spacer on the end of the tenon (shown in the pic) and when it was inserted into the mortis it caused the tenon to be supported and left a small gap which I filled with some ebony that Chris had given me years ago.
The last design flare was the result of a large chip of wood coming out of the apron board as it went through the thickness planer. Fortunately the chip was pretty much in the middle of the board and I decided to use it as the middle of the letter “A”. I carved the letters L and P on either side for a really cool design. Fortunately all the mistakes were on the one side of the table so it looks like it was done by design. At least that is the story I am sticking to.
Best John
Don’t get me wrong, I like talking about workbench design. But I easily get five e-mails or phone messages a day about the topic, and sometimes I think I should open a 900-line for woodworkers with questions about bench design.
Here’s the TV commercial: Imagine me wearing only a shop apron (i.e. picture a monkey at the zoo with glasses and a shop apron). There’s some candlelight – tallow candles, natch. And a little Vaseline on the lens of the camera for that “soft” effect that hides the crows’ feet around my eyes.
Cue the wife-swapping music.
Then cue my husky, nasal voice, slightly slurred from the date-rape drug my boss slipped into my coffee to convince me to do this.
“How big is it? Press 1 to talk about how large it should be, and if you need a third leg.”
“Should you put wood in those holes? Press 2 to chat about wood dogs or brass ones. I have a pair of brass ones.”
“Who doesn’t want a twin-screw? Press 3 to talk about wood screws and 4 to see if you should upgrade to metal.”
“Do you have a curly crotch? Press 5 to talk about your wood options. Just 99 cents a minute. 1-900-Got Wood.”
OK, that’s is quite enough of that. Good thing our human resources people are out this week.
— Christopher Schwarz
For the man who best understands furniture is the man who makes it and sees in it more than the chair he sits on, or the bed he sleeps in, but as something which possesses in itself quite a bit of his inheritance as a citizen of an ancient civilisation that has evolved through the centuries through sober moments and fine and even fantastic moments, til it has reached the precise point of time when he himself gave it just that little extra adaptation or that slight variation of line which seals it as his own contribution to the story.
— The Woodworker, May 1957
I am somewhat amused ex post by the parallels between our first conversations about creating “To Make As Perfectly As Possible” and Roubo’s struggles to create a set of volumes that people would actually purchase. His success is pretty self evident in that we still find his work compelling after two-and-a-half centuries. It certainly sets a high bar for us in bringing him to new generations.
— Don Williams
One of the biggest obstacles that I have had to overcome is the cry of the public against big books, which they won’t buy because they are too expensive, or they buy but don’t read because they are too voluminous. But how could I do otherwise? Should I fool the Public in pandering to their taste but against their interests by giving them an abridged and consequently less expensive edition, but where they will learn nothing, or at the most only words or names of the arts? (*)
(*) What I say here is the incontestable truth: nothing has done more wrong to the sciences and the Arts, than the condensed abridged editions that have been given to workers already, or even the new works done in this manner. I therefore believe it wise to give to my work all the expanse appropriate, at least as far as my strength has permitted me, in order to be useful in the present and for the future by not obliging the Public to make a double expense, as happens every day, with the increases and revisions that one makes to most of the works where there are multiple editions thus augmented, which becomes very costly and still remains quite imperfect.
What’s more, it is not possible, for as little as this work has been read, provided that one be of good faith and without prejudice – it is not possible, I say, to not confirm that the details of the different types of woodworking is immense. However concise it be in detail, it must still be considerable. It is not the work that is in question here, like history or fantasy, where one is content to expose facts to the eyes of the reader or to amuse him, but where one leaves him the liberty to make application of what he has read, in not preventing him from his own judgment, which would become boring to the reasonable reader.
Here, on the contrary, and in the description of all the arts in general, where it is a question of teaching, one must not only tell everything, but tell how it is done, and why it is done. Showing the different ways of operating every day, and in making visible the advantages and the disadvantages, and the situations where one method is preferable to another, requires describing the minutiae of works of art, whether whole or in part.