If you don’t want to mix up your own soap finish – or if you just want to give it a try – the Pure Soap Flake Co. offers it pre-mixed in jars for as little as $10.
The product is called Pure Castile Cream Soap, and it is available in 8 oz. to 64 oz. jars. I don’t know its exact water-to-soap ratio, but it is like a mayonnaise consistency and is ready to apply to wood.
The product behaves exactly like the soap finish I make from flakes.
Apply it with a soft cloth. Let it dry. Then buff it a bit. As I’ve mentioned before, a soap finish isn’t durable, but it is easily repaired and renewed with more soap. And no, your furniture won’t foam up if you spill a little water on the finish. It’s a traditional finish in Scandinavia. Non-toxic and pleasant to use and touch.
I’ve had soap finish on my work desk here at Lost Art Press for more than eight years. I love it.
Fisher was the first settled minister of the frontier town of Blue Hill, Maine. Harvard-educated and handy with an axe, Fisher spent his adult life building furniture for his community. Fortunately for us, Fisher recorded every aspect of his life as a woodworker and minister on the frontier.
In this book, author Joshua A. Klein, the founder of Mortise & Tenon Magazine, examines what might be the most complete record of the life of an early 19th-century American craftsman. Using Fisher’s papers, his tools and the surviving furniture, Klein paints a picture of a man of remarkable mechanical genius, seemingly boundless energy and the deepest devotion. It is a portrait that is at times both familiar and completely alien to a modern reader – and one that will likely change your view of furniture making in the early days of the United States.
Chapter 7 of the book is a catalog of Fisher’s tools and furniture; these pieces are included therein.
Round-top Stand
Made by Jonathan Fisher
Dimensions: W: cross-grain 16-3/8″, with grain 16-5/8″ top 3/4″ thick; legs 1″ thick; bottom of pedestal 3″; cleat width 6″ H: 28″
Wood(s): cherry
Inscriptions/stamps: n/a
From the collection of: Jonathan Fisher Memorial
Construction: The round top is screwed to a cleat. The pedestal is tenoned into the cleat. There is a turned shelf at the top of the dovetails and there is a circular thin metal plate in place of a spider nailed to the underside with three nails. The tops of the legs are rounded rather than coming to a point as in other stands.
Tool Marks: There is minor tear-out on the top’s underside. There is traversing tear-out on the underside. The cleat demonstrates a double chip in the plane iron’s marks. There is plane chatter on the cleat. There are layout lines for the tenon on the cleat. The underside of the legs have turning saw, spokeshave, chisel and rasp marks.
Condition: There is a large gouge in two areas of the pedestal but otherwise stable.
Inscriptions/stamps: underside of lid: sawmill tally marks, three large chalk mark swirls; small pencil “x” on back
Accession Number: Collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Museum Purchase, 1965.1465.11
Construction: The chest is rabbeted and nailed (with T-headed nails). The bottom is in dados and a groove (sides and back) and in a rabbet in front. There are three nails through each end securing the bottom and one in front but no nails through the back. The ogee-moulded lid has cleats that are tapered and fastened with nails clinched up through the top. The lid is attached with cotterpin hinges. The chest has a lock.
Tool Marks: Only the front, sides and top of the lid were smooth planed – all other surfaces have fore plane marks. The underside of the bottom is rough with lots of tear-out from a heavily cambered plane, and there is large tear-out on underside of PL cleat. There are saw marks under the profile of the feet with a considerable chamfer on the inside. The till’s layout lines are visible.
Condition: There are minor repairs to the moulding. Two clinched cleat nails have pulled through the lid. (They were clinched parallel to the grain.)
Linseed oil paint requires a lot of stirring at first. I used a stick. The Allbäck company recommends using a whisk.
For the last 20 years I’ve used mostly milk paints and acrylics on my furniture. I have reservations about both kinds of paint.
On milk paint, I find it inconsistent and a lot of work. When it works, it’s great. But it takes significant effort and time (for me) to get good results. And just because you know how to use red milk paint doesn’t mean you can use the same methods for black or blue.
That said, the paint has a lot going for it. It’s non-toxic. It is hard-wearing and looks better after a lot of wear. And it doesn’t create a plastic film over the wood like other paints do.
From the perspective of someone who sells furniture, however, I need to charge more for pieces that use milk paint because of all the extra time and steps involved.
Acrylics, on the other hand, are consistent and fast. I can spray a chair in the morning (about 45 minutes of work total) and have it sittable by the end of the day. The major downside is that it is a plastic finish. I’m not a fan of plastic – full stop. Nothing about plastic makes me happy. Acrylic wears fairly well, but it hasn’t been around for all that long (only since the 1930s). So the jury is still out on it (as it is on plastic glues such as polyvinyl acetate – aka yellow glue).
About seven years ago, we started working with the Canadian distributors for Allbäck, a Swedish finishing company that makes excellent linseed-oil-based finishes. The distributor also became our Canadian distributor for Lost Art Press for a time (we parted on amicable terms).
As we got to know one another, the Canadians sent us a bunch of their products for us to try. I became a huge fan of the Allbäck linseed oil wax. So much so that I sought to make our own variation on it for our shop (which we call Soft Wax 2.0).
They also sent us some of the Allbäck linseed oil paint. I’d made my own linseed oil paint before, and it’s a bit of a pain to get the pigment mixed into the oil. And then the paint takes a long while to dry. So I was a bit skeptical.
But I decided to give the Allbäck paint a try because everything else the company made was really good.
I painted it on our chopping block outside. The next day, the paint was still wet. Three days later, it was still wet. It took a full week for it to dry to the touch. At the time I remember saying: “I can’t wait a week for a single coat of paint to dry. I’ll starve.”
However, I was amazed by how good the paint looked, even after it was subject to our Midwestern climate with its extreme heat, humidity, snow and ice.
I set the stuff aside until I started work on “The American Peasant.” After much thought it became clear that linseed oil paint was the right paint for all these projects. It looked right. It was simple. It was low-VOC. Natural. I decided to give the paint a second go.
This time I read up on the paint a lot before using it. I experimented with adding a thin coat of oil on the wood the day before painting – this seemed to really help. And after applying the paint, I kept it in a room with low humidity. Plus I exposed it to lots of sunlight (a tip from Jögge Sundqvist).
The first paint sample basking in the February sun (and low humidity).
The coat of oil before painting made the paint go on very smoothly (like I was applying a second coat of paint). Controlling the drying conditions reduced the paint’s drying time to less than 24 hours.
And the linseed oil paint looked great with just one coat. You could still see the wood’s grain, the paint was fairly matte and there was no plastic feel.
My first finished paint sample. I love it.
I’m sold.
For the book, I’ve bought three colors of paint. (I could have bought all of them. The Allbäck colors look absolutely gorgeous to me.) Here they are: Old Blue, Holkham Green, and Old Red.
It’s a little more expensive. Allbäck is about $2 an ounce. (Quality acrylics are about $1.70 an ounce.)
But the quality of the Allbäck is outstanding. In fact, now that General Finishes is reducing its acrylic offerings, I’ve decided to try linseed oil paint on my chairs to see how much time it adds to my process. I suspect it won’t add much labor. But I will need to be patient and allow the paint to dry.
Over the last 18 months, I’ve taken two different classes at the LAP storefront— Chris’ stick chair class and Megan’s Dutch tool chest class. As a repeat customer, I had a much better sense of what to expect from my second class than my first, and Megan encouraged me to share some of it with prospective students. So here it is:
What you see (here on the website) is what you get. If you harbor any suspicions that Lost Art Press is a big business masquerading as a tiny storefront to boost sales, relax. It’ll be Megan or Chris that unlocks the door in the morning and fixes the coffee machine. That unfamiliar lady walking through the shop is not the assistant manager of digital marketing. It’s Lucy, Chris’ wife. So the vibe of the blog posts and the books is the vibe of class. Ample historical asides and double entendre. No liability wavers or in-class marketing.
Class will be consuming. Class hours are generally 9 a.m. -5:30 p.m., with slack on both ends to accommodate people who need a bit more time. Don’t count on significant breaks besides lunch. And unless you’re made of bouncier stuff than me, don’t be ambitious about squeezing in work emails and calls after class; you’ll be tired, and, more important, you don’t want to miss the chance to go out for drinks and/or dinner with classmates and the teachers.
When in doubt, wait to buy tools. You’ll get a tool list ahead of class that will list a few things you really do need to bring and a lot of things that you can bring or borrow. While it’s tempting to splurge on new tools ahead of class, consider that you’ll know a lot more about those tools after your class. You’ll have tried tools owned by Chris, Megan and your fellow students, and you’ll develop some opinions. (For example, Megan is partial to her No. 3 smoother, but one swipe with it told me it’s too small for my hands.)
Covington is kind of great. You’re headed to Covington for a woodworking class, but Covington is a lot of fun too. Unless you’re a local, get an Airbnb, Vrbo or nearby hotel. You can walk everywhere. Megan and Chris will give you good advice on lunch and dinner, and you won’t go wrong if you follow it. The pickings are more slim for breakfast. Coppin’s in the Hotel Covington opens at 7am. Nice but a little on the fancy side. The Bean Haus opens at 7am too, and is cheaper, but the food (eggs, breakfast sandwiches) is only so-so. Spoon opens at 8 and serves decent premade breakfast burritos and sandwiches ’til the kitchen opens at 9.
Come for the learning, not the project. If you’re like me, you’ll want to fuss over mistakes during class and try to get your tenons/dovetails/chamfers/surfaces perfect before moving on. Don’t. You can be a perfectionist at home, and you can make another chair/chest/whatever later. The class project just a MacGuffin for the lessons, so while you’re in class, be a learner—watch what other folks are doing, try different ways of doing things (even if you suck at them), and eavesdrop when the teacher is advising others or showing them how to fix a mistake. Working for several days straight on a project in the company of other learners is a very rare treat. Don’t waste it obsessing about some tearout.
– Sambhav N. “Sam” Sankar
Editor’s Note: You can read up on some of things we love about Covington and Cincinnati in this post, that we do our best to keep up to date. (I added a few new favorites last Sunday.)
We’ve just received another load of brass engraved center squares, which are now in our store. Whenever I’m building a chair or working with curved surfaces, this tool is always on my bench or in my apron pocket.
Yes, the tool is useful for marking the centers on a piece before putting it on the lathe. But I use the tool for far more. Because of its shape, it helps me lay out mortises on a curved arm, seat and comb. Bisecting a curved surface by eye is tricky, but it’s child’s play with this tool.
It also is great for pulling lines around curved and flat surfaces, again a function that regular squares can’t do (without special attachments).
Finally, the tool is like a worry stone. We designed it to have a soft and noticeable presence in your hand. There are no sharp edges, and I find myself rubbing the engraving when I’m thinking at the bench.
In fact, we joke that the hang hole at the tip of the tool is actually so you can wear it as a necklace when you are at the disco. (So much classier than wearing a medallion or razor blade around your neck.)
New Printing of ‘Sharpen This’
We received our third printing of “Sharpen This.” That is a new record for one of our books. Usually we print enough books to last us a year to 18 months. “Sharpen This” was released in June 2022, and we are already into our third printing. That means more than 14,000 copies are out there in the world.
Even crazier, both French and German translations of the book are already well underway. Usually foreign publishers wait a few years to gather sales data before investing in a translation. (It took eight years for the German translation of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” to come to light.)
Most heartening has been the response from readers. Most woodworkers seem to get their sharpening instructions from people who make or sell sharpening equipment. So it’s little wonder there is so much confusion out there and useless or redundant sharpening stones and jigs.
“Sharpen This” isn’t selling or promoting a particular system. They all work, and I’ve used almost all of them. Instead, the book explains the mechanics of a simple process. And the perspective on what is “really sharp” is from a professional woodworker’s point of view. Not a manufacturer or seller of silly #30,000-grit sharpening stones.
So if you feel any uncertainty about your sharpening, or it takes you more than a couple minutes to sharpen a tool, “Sharpen This” might help.
