Lost Art Press

An Update on the Roubo Translation Project

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After more than a dozen months and many thousands of hours of grinding work consuming countless evenings, Chris and my reviewer/readers received the final installment of a complete rough draft text manuscript of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.”

At this point, the material for this first volume has been 100 precent translated by Michele, I have edited and annotated it and returned it to her for a second pass, and we have made it ready for its limited (five recipients) editorial distribution. There are still many rounds to go, making sure our new English version presents accurately the tenor and substance of the original, and that the new annotations and still-in-development photo essays result in these becoming “must have” books for everyone interested in historical furniture craftsmanship.

For now, Chris and his posse have the task of familiarizing themselves with approximately 450 legal-sized pages of text and illustrations to enable the strategic editing, design and marketing decisions necessary for the production of the volume. It is probably akin to legislation and sausage making: it’s best not to watch.

My critical readers have an entirely different responsibility. Their goal is to help ensure that “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” is much more than a simple recitation of historical materials and techniques (as remarkable as that would be all by itself). Yes, it will present faithfully the seminal historical treatise, but it will also serve as a contemporary guide for today’s artisans wishing to employ the techniques of 250 years ago. My readers’ charge, then, is to provide critical feedback from the artisan’s perspective on whether or not the illustrated annotated manuscript accomplishes that goal. In some cases it is as simple as telling me whether some passage of text actually makes sense; in others it is to suggest additional or different illustrations for the photo essays demonstrating the techniques. This conversation will undoubtedly be ongoing until after the book hits the shelves.

I appreciate the many offers to read and comment on the book-in-progress, and I may just take some of you up on them!

This project has proceeded out-of-order much like a movie, which is rarely filmed in the order of the final product beginning with shooting minute one and concluding with minute 120 (or minute 6,483 in the case of “Lord of the Rings”). Movies are generally filmed in a manner most amenable to logistics, and are not woven together until long after most of the participants have moved on to other endeavors.

As I can now step back just a bit and browse the completed rough manuscript for the first volume of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” in its desired order for the very first time, I feel my excitement building all over again. Such enthusiasm waned occasionally in the middle of the night after spending several hours reconstructing a single transliterated paragraph or page into comprehensible artisan-friendly American English – some really tough passages were left with more red ink than black type on the page.

It is truly an astounding compilation of knowledge, and as one of my readers exclaimed just a couple days ago in response to the gigantic chapter on Boulle-work techniques,

“This information goes DEEP. These are the ‘lost’ techniques that I currently crave.”

That pretty much brings you up to date on “To Make as Perfectly as Possible,” the culmination of my decades of interest, scholarship,and craft related to veneering, engraved brass and tortoiseshell Boulle-work.

About the only thing that gives me as much satisfaction as learning is the delight in sharing it with you. I will be teaching Boulle-work at Marc Adams’ school in September and also at Woodworking in America 2010, and veneer and marquetry restoration at DCTC in Rosemount, Minn., in July (www.woodfinishing.org). I hope to see many of you there

And no, I still don’t read a lick of French!

— Don Williams

Another Roubo Workbench: Fin

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People want me to bless their mistakes when they design a workbench.

Just about every week, someone writes or calls me to say that they have designed their own workbench. But because it violates some of the principles of good bench design (as I see it) from my book “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use,” they want me to sign off on it before they start cutting wood.

No matter how silly the bench is, I always sign off on it. That’s because here’s what I’ve learned about people during the last 41 years: You cannot change their minds without a monumental effort. Believe me, I’ve tried pushing that rock up that hill. And I’m dang tired of it.

Build what you want because… listen, can you hear that? It’s the sound of trees growing. You can always build another bench.

Today I finally completed my latest workbench, a fairly pure Andre Roubo-style bench using massive timbers and built using (mostly) hand tools. After I built the skeleton of the bench, I decided to add some tool storage that was in the spirit of the the great Roubo. Here’s what I did:

I turned the lower shelf into a tool well with a covered lid. I’m sure someone has done this before, but I haven’t yet seen it in any old (or new) book (Edit: Roy Underhill did this. See below). In essence, I put a shelf inside the stretchers of the workbench’s base, then I added a lid that covers the shelf. The idea here is to provide just enough storage for your daily users. Pull them out of the toolbox, place them on the top of the lid and get to work. Put them away at the end of the day.

Also, I added an authentic French “rack” to the back edge of the benchtop. This rack holds all my chisels, vital marking tools and turnscrews. I secured it with some awesome Roman-style headed nails. Those were fun to install.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be sure to add a locking drawer under a portion of the benchtop that I don’t use so much.

The bottom line here is that tool storage on workbenches was fairly minimal in the 18th century. And I think it should be minimal today, as well. So what should you do with all the tools you haven’t touched in two years? Get rid of them. I’m of the mind (and you’ll be reading more about this in the coming months) that you should be focused on purchasing fewer high-quality tools instead of a metric diaper load of poor-quality tools.

But that is the subject for another book.

The finished bench is awesome. I know because I have been using it (to the disdain of my 2005 Roubo-style bench) almost exclusively.

Is it worth the trouble? Find out and see. The completed bench will be at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event on June 4-5. And it will be at Woodworking in America on Oct. 1-3. Check it out and let us know what you really think.

— Christopher Schwarz

Things Hanging on Walls

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Whenever I pore over old woodworking books, drawings and photos, I spend as much time deciphering the background as the foreground. There are always clues hidden in shadow.

Case in point: I have copies of some 19th-century photos from German workshops. In one photo there are about 20 guys standing at their benches, pausing to have their picture taken. Curiously, none of the handplanes are on their sides. All are resting on their soles.

This week I’m building something hanging on the wall of the shop from André Félibien’s “Principes de l’architecture, de la sculpture, de la peinture, &c.” (1676-1690). This is the book that we think Joseph Moxon used to make the illustrations in “Mechanick Exercises.” (You can see more of Félibien’s plates in our digital edition of “The Art of Joinery.”)

Félibien calles the device a “press for wood” and in the text gives the thing one line: “Les presses de bois qui se serrent avec des Vis.” Or, roughly translated, a vise for wood that uses screws.

So if you take a look at my terrible scan of Félibien’s plate XXX (above) and squint your eyes like you’ve had one too many glasses of Maderia, then you could guess that Moxon’s engraver took this French press and scabbed it on the front of the bench for Mr. Moxon like so.

Maybe the vise isn’t supposed to be attached like that. Maybe it’s not supposed to be attached at all (see Peter Follansbee’s recent posts on this topic). Now my take is a little different than Peter’s. I just have to check one more thing this week to see if I’m correct.

Tune in to my blog at blog.woodworking-magazine.com later this week for an update.

— Christopher Schwarz

Three Piece Bows!

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I have heard that three piece suits are making a comeback but I am down on three piece arm bows. Yes I know they can work but I have a short grain crack problem. I recently graduated from the Windsor Institute Sack Back Class. The Sack Back

chair has a bent arm bow which not only is strong but is also adjustable after it dries!

One of the myths that was dispelled by King Dunbar, was that bent wood has spring back. “False!” said his Highness. When we tie the freshly bent arm with string to keep it in the correct shape, the string is taught. When we get the arm three days later in the drying room you will notice that the string has slack in it. This is all part of the principle that wood contracts as it dries. Note to self: don’t over bend.

The chair in the pics has a three piece arm bow, and yes I cracked the short grain on both sides of the arm putting it over the spindles. This leads me to a second revelation, gaps between the spindle and the hole in the arm are good! I have the Lee Valley set of tools that produce different sized tennons. I drilled the holes with a spade bit that I had filed to be a bit undersized which results in tight

hole and no gap in the seat. So a half inch tennon was placed in a slightly less than half inch hole.

However, this fit is not so good for the arm. Where the spindles fit through the arm there should be enough of a gap to have a loose fit. This allows a wedge to tighten up the spindle in the hole and secure it for life. When there is not a

loose fit, like in my chair, you get tremendous stress on the arm when fitting it onto the spindles. His Highness also explained that a round tennon in a round mortis is the second worst joint in woodworking next to an end grain to end grain but joint. A wedge makes this joint work because it adds a mechanical means to keep it together. When your tennon is exactly the same size as the hole there is also no room for any difference in tennon hole placement, which is only a problem if you make slight errors in drilling angles. I mean when drilling by sight lines and using a bevel gauge what could possibly go wrong????? Ok, so I put glue in the cracked arm bow and clamped it and am hoping for the best.

Will let you know how the chair holds up. In the future I am going to find a way to steam bend. Will write about that and I highly recommend getting to this class. It was great.

Regards John

Table Joinery. Really? You Can Sell That?

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Some furniture and cabinets built by commercial shops are held together with the equivalent of snot, paperclips and the coat of film finish on top.

Some pieces are even crazier than that.

A few weeks ago I spent most of a week holed up in one of the units at Pleasant Hill Shaker Village outside Harrodsburg, Ky. It was great to be surrounded by the inspiring architecture, decorative objects and the furniture of this colony.

But on my first morning there I visited the store where they sell reproductions of some of the Shaker pieces built by the colony in the 19th century. What I saw there still has me a little bit in denial. I hope I am wrong.

One of the nice originals at Pleasant Hill is what they call the “Saturday Table,” a small side table with tapered and faceted legs. No drawer. Just simple and nice. We published plans for it in Popular Woodworking a few years ago, and Kerry Pierce published plans in “Pleasant Hill Shaker Furniture” (Popular Woodworking Books).

Pierce built the piece like I would have: The aprons are tenoned into the legs. The top is attached to the aprons using hand-cut pocket-screw holes (just like on the original).

While in the store, I turned over a couple reproductions of the Saturday Table. To my eye, it looks like the aprons are joined to the legs using staples. Then the aprons are pocket screwed to the top. To give the maker the benefit of the doubt, I tried to peer into a couple of the small gaps between the legs and aprons. Surely there must be a tenon in there. Surely these staples are there only to hold everything together as the glue dries.

Or something.

But I saw no tenon or even the shadow of one. I saw only a narrow sliver of light that indicated there was no wood-to-wood joint between the apron and leg.

If my vision is correct, we should all grieve.

— Christopher Schwarz