Lost Art Press

Testing Your Intestine-made Designs

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As I consumed Jonathan Hale’s book “The Old Way of Seeing” about 11 years ago, I could feel the excitement and tension twisting in my gut. This was the book that finally was going to show me the secrets to designing well-proportioned furniture.

It was all there. All the famous formulas: The Golden Section (sometimes called the Golden Mean or the Golden Rectangle), the Hambridge Progression, the Fibonacci Series and even some discussion of the mysterious “column orders.”

Perhaps I should never have finished reading Hale’s book. Because somewhere in the second half, Hale makes a passionate argument that following these formulas will not make you a better designer. Instead, they likely will crowbar your work into unnatural forms that will appear forced or bogus.

Instead, we should design like the mechanics and builders of the 18th and early 19th century did (Hale contends that decent architecture ended about 1830). That is: We should be aware of these formulas, but not use them as tools. The formulas describe the patterns found in nature. So our designs will be better off if we draw and build things from nature and from our gut. Oh, and symmetry is overrated.

This week I’m in the shop building a pair of early 18th-century-style wall cupboards. The doors are based off a piece that came from historian Wallace Nutting’s furniture collection. The carcases and mouldings are based on pieces that I saw this fall at Winterthur. But the piece isn’t a copy. I’ve fiddled with it far too much. So whether the piece fails or not is really my fault.

As I was preparing to build the piece, I mocked up the elevation in Foamular insulating foam and made some significant changes, including beefing up the width of the face frame’s stiles to make room for the rattail hinges now lying on my bench.

They weren’t large alterations, but the piece sure looked different. I thought it might be a trick of the CAD drawing because the new mock-up looked great. But to be sure, I wanted to see if I’d made the horizontal dimension too expansive, even though I’d also increased the height to compensate.

So I checked the ratio of the old design vs. the new. And that’s when I got a little shock. The cupboard’s overall dimensions, 36-7/8” high x 23-1/8” wide, are a near perfect and spontaneous Golden Rectangle. It took 11 years, Mr. Hale, but I think I’m finally getting it.

— Christopher Schwarz

Seeing is Sharpening!

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Another entry from my apprentice John who continues on the Trestle Table project when not on the road.

So I was in the check out at the market with a live lobster in a bag and a half gallon of gin. I looked at the check out person and said “one of us isn’t going to make it through the night”. She gave me a look. Yesterday, I got the same look from my wife. I was looking at a plane iron with a magnifying glass talking to myself about 1,000 grit scratches when I noticed she was looking at me.

Let me explain. I was helping at a recent class being taught by Chris and Tom Lie-Nielsen at Marc Adams School of woodworking. Chris was talking about sharpening and said that sharpening is really about seeing. As he went through the various grit stones he was using he held the iron up to the light and moved it around to see the edge. He said he could still see some 1,000 grit scratches in it.

I thought about that and decided to really try to concentrate on seeing the edge as I sharpen. To help see the difference in the scratches I changed stroke direction when I changed grits. I tilted the edge to the light and I could really see coarse scratches left in the iron after using the 1,000 grit stone. It’s like I snatched the jewelers loop out of the Master’s hand and can now sharpen my own plane. These scratches needed to come out on the 4,000 grit stone before going to the 8,000 for polish. In the past I would not have taken the time to concentrate on the edge and would have switched grits sooner resulting in an inferior polish on the edge. It also causes sharpening to take longer since I would have been polishing 1,000 grit scratches instead of polishing 4,000 grit scratches, which is a lot easier to do.

The sequence to sharpening is to take the tool from a grinder to a 1,000 grit stone for edge shaping. Stay on the 1,000 as long as it takes to get a wire edge on the back side of the tool (the back side must also be flat and polished. That means going through the same sequence but you only need to do this once). Then to the 4,000 grit, which is used to remove the 1,000 grit scratches and then to polish on an 8,000. That is it. I am sharpening two tools for the first time today. It took four strokes to get a wire edge on the 1,000 grit, approx six strokes on the 4,000 and between 3 and 6 on the 8,000. Then turn the iron over and carefully slide the wire edge onto the 8,000 grit stone to remove the wire edge.

So if you want to make an impression try the lobster and gin trick, or grab a magnifying glass and see if you can see the scratches.

— John Hoffman

Tenon Saws: Learning About Leaning

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Though I liked high school as much as a three-year-long colonoscopy, there are sometimes when it takes a high school teacher to teach you something.

In this case, it was a high school physics teacher who taught me an important lesson about tenon saws. Here’s the story.

For the last few years, I’ve been trying to explain to people how a freakishly huge tenon saw is actually easier to balance on your work (no matter what the size of your work) than a smaller tenon saw or sash saw.

“It’s the higher center of gravity,” I implored to a room full of blank stares. “It’s higher – that gravity thing – so it’s… easier. You know?”

This is a truth I know in my gut. The Wenzloff & Sons Kenyon-style tenon saw I’ve been using for the last couple years is a breeze to balance. This is despite the fact that the blade is 19” long and it feels like there is almost 6” of blade under the huge and heavy brass back. When you see this saw, your first instinct is to think: That saw is going to tip and stagger like Gunsmoke’s “Festus.”

But once you try this saw, you think differently.

But try explaining that to people. After my feeble attempt, a high school physics teacher jumped into the conversation. He said this is easy to explain: Try balancing a broom up in the air on a few fingers. If you have the bristles on your hand, it’s harder to balance the broom than if you have the bristles in the air.

This, he explained, is why the big tenon saw is easier to balance in the air. Having the weight up in the air makes it easier for you to sense if the saw is out of balance and to make corrections. This, I concluded, is a brilliant explanation.

Back in our shop in Cincinnati I tried this experiment with our shop broom. It really was easier to balance it with the bristles in the air.

So I used this analogy last weekend to explain the tenon saw to a group of 40 or so woodworkers. To demonstrate, I looked around for a broom. No luck. So I picked up my Warrington hammer to show them how this works.

First I put the hammer head in my palm and showed how shaky it was. Then I balanced it with the head in the air. And my precious and very early Warrington hammer plunged to the concrete floor.

Dang. I still dislike school.

— Christopher Schwarz

After Sawing, the Router Plane

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This is another entry from John who is referring to his previous post Titled “First Class Practice”

As you recall I am making the base of the Trestle Table and am in the process of making notches in two members so when they are glued together I will have a mortise. After sawing into the waste a number of times, I removed it by hitting it with a hammer. A good Maydole hammer no doubt, but any hammer will do. Here is what the joint looked like. Not only doesn’t this look nice but I don’t think I am going to get a good glue joint.

So I took out my Stanley vintage router plane and went to work. Here is the result!

See how much tearout there is on the near-right side? And this was one of the best examples. I was planing directly across the grain and boy did I make a mess. I learned that I could avoid this by canting the plane and paying close attention to the wood that made contact with the iron. It was kind of like saddling an Elm chair seat with an Inshave. If I continued to make angle adjustments I could get a good result. I also used the two top sides of the work as a reference for the sole of the router plane.

I had to adjust the depth a bit deeper than intended but this is the final result. You can still see where big area of tearout was, but this will make a good glue joint.

For explanation purposes here is how I used the sole of the router plane on the work.

John

Learning from the Apprentice

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Now that shop class is as common in high schools as poodle skirts, lots of woodworkers worry about passing on our enthusiasm for the craft to the next generation. In my house, I’ve started treating my kids more like apprentices, and it seems to be working.

They help clean the shop. They assist me on projects at assembly time. They can work on their own projects on the side when I don’t need them. And – here’s the odd part – I pay them (a pittance) for their help and swear them to secrecy on the “arts and mysteries” of the craft.

This weekend has been a perfect example. I assembled a large run of shelving that I plan to install in the recipient’s home this week. There was a lot of tedious gluing, clamping and clean-up work involved, so I hired 7-year-old Katy to help.

First, I showed her the “secret” to making the lacquer finish perfectly smooth to the touch – a folded up brown paper bag. We rubbed all the surfaces vigorously, which knocked down any surface imperfections without cutting through the film finish. Katy did the shelves; I did the uprights.

“Cool,” she said. “It works!”

As we were bagging the lacquer, both of us noticed that there were some small dings and scratches in the color. This is was the result of the parts getting moved around more than I like. So I swore Katy to secrecy again and introduced her to the mystery of stain pens. In this case, the best match wasn’t one of my stain pens (which I keep hidden away), it was a black Sharpie marker.

In fact, Katy became incredulous when I took her picture at work with the marker.

“What if someone sees the picture and figures out our secret?” she asked. “Then they’ll know!”

Then we glued up the shelves. I applied the glue. Katy added the Dominos. We both applied the clamps and cleaned the glue squeeze-out. Assembly can be stressful for me, but Katy’s amazement at how the project came together kept my anxiety in check.

We did four major glue-ups this weekend, and by the fourth one, Katy dove into the work like she had been doing it all her life. I wonder if learning woodworking is like learning a foreign language – it might be easier when you are young.

As I added the kicks to the cabinet, Katy worked at the bench at her own project – she’s transforming my discarded shop jigs for this shelving project into a wooden alligator.

Then I paid her (about $1 an hour for the shop time) and I asked her if she’d come along on the installation next week. With hesitation, she said: “Yes! Hurray!”

Next step: Getting the apprentices to fetch the small beer for the master.

— Christopher Schwarz