Lost Art Press

The following two early workholding methods are excerpted from “Ingenious Mechanicks,” by Christopher Schwarz.

Workbenches with screw-driven vises are a fairly modern invention. For more than 2,000 years, woodworkers built complex and beautiful pieces of furniture using simpler benches that relied on pegs, wedges and the human body to grip the work. While it’s easy to dismiss these ancient benches as obsolete, they are – at most –  misunderstood.

Schwarz has been building these ancient workbenches and putting them to work in his shop to build all manner of furniture. Absent any surviving ancient instruction manuals for these benches, Schwarz relied on hundreds of historical paintings of these benches for clues as to how they worked. Then he replicated the devices and techniques shown in the paintings to see how (or if) they worked. This book is about this journey into the past and takes the reader from Pompeii, which features the oldest image of a Western bench, to a Roman fort in Germany to inspect the oldest surviving workbench and finally to his shop in Kentucky, where he recreated three historical workbenches and dozens of early jigs.

The crochet (French for “hook”) could be described as a planing stop attached to the edge of the workbench, but that doesn’t quite capture its full utility. A good crochet is also good for securing work for dovetailing and tenoning.

There are a couple kinds of crochets out there. Some of them are like wedges. You press the work into the opening and its V-shape helps hold the work (though you will still need a holdfast to complete the job). Old French ones, as shown in “l’Art du menuisier,” work more like a planing stop as opposed to a wedge. Their opening is square instead of V-shaped. Both forms of crochet work, but I prefer the V-shaped ones on my benches.

I make my crochets out of a tough and springy wood, such as oak or ash. I recommend you make the hook big enough so that it can handle 8/4 stock. So, the opening should be slightly larger than 2″. Many early crochets are shown attached with nails. I prefer 6″-long carriage bolts with washers.

Using the crochet for working on the edges of boards is straightforward. Typically, you secure the work to the front of the bench with one or two holdfasts (depending on the length of the work). Then you push the end of the board into the crochet to prevent the work from shifting as you plane it.

If I have a lot of boards of similar widths to work (say for a large tabletop) I take a different approach. I use holdfasts to secure a 2×4 to the front legs of the bench that will act as a platform for my boards. Then I press the end into the crochet. Gravity and the force of the plane immobilize the work.

Crochets can also be used to affix the work so you can cut dovetails or tenons. Put the edge of the work into the crochet and affix it to the front edge of the benchtop with a holdfast (or a bar clamp across the benchtop, if you are sadly holdfast-less).

Notches & Wedges
In many old paintings and drawings you’ll see benches that have no vises but instead have a large rectangular notch cut into the edge or end of the benchtop. In many cases, these notches are used as face vises. You put the work in the notch then use a wedge to immobilize it. I’ve had great – actually, quite spectacular – success using these notches for cutting tenons and shaping the work with chisels, rasps and files.

It took a little experimentation, however, to get the wedges right. As it turned out, I was making things too complicated. At first, I used oak wedges in the shape of a right triangle that I planed clean so they had an angle at the tip of about 15°. They held the work, but not reliably. So, I tried isosceles-shaped wedges with a variety of angles, looking for the magic number.

After several hours of messing with the oak wedges, I thought I was headed down the wrong path. So, I went to my scrap pile and grabbed a white pine 2×4. I sawed it to 12″ long and tapered one edge with a jack plane (I later measured the angle at 2°). Then I drove it into a notch.

It cinched down as hard as any screw-driven vise I’ve used. It worked so well I laughed out loud.
If you are interested in making these notches (what do you have to lose?), here are some details. In the old images, the notches have vertical walls. Some fellow woodworkers have suggested cutting them at an angle that is sympathetic to the wedge’s angle. I haven’t found that necessary.

On some benches, the notches are in the end of the benchtop. In others, they are cut into the edges. I tried both. Functionally, I couldn’t tell any difference between them. They both held just fine. Making the two kinds of notches, however, is quite different. The end grain notches take about twice as long to make because the wood is fighting you the entire time. You have to rip saw the walls of the notch then chisel out the waste like cutting out a huge dovetail. There is a lot of chopping vertically then splitting out the waste. It’s not a horrible task, but it’s much more difficult than creating a notch in the edge of the benchtop.

There you crosscut the walls (crosscutting is always easier than ripping). Then you split the waste out with a few chisel chops. Splitting wood along the grain is always easier than chopping across it.

Here are the measurements for my notches. Don’t feel compelled to copy me, however. The end-grain notch is 4-1/2″ wide and 2-1/2″ long. The edge notch is 4-1/4″ long and 2″ wide. I have a variety of softwood wedges scattered about that can handle work from 1″ wide to 3″ wide.

One more nice use for the notch comes when cutting curves with a bowsaw or coping saw. Place your work over the notch while sawing and it will vibrate less.

By A.C. Horth, from “The Woodworker,” January 16, 1905. (Thank you to Buz Buzkirk for the generous gift of two fascinating early volumes!) NB: I would not read this excerpt while eating breakfast. I might not read this excerpt at all if you are a vegetarian or vegan.

We are told that glue is made from hoofs, horns, and other animal refuse, and many of us are quite content to take this explanation as it stands. But the more inquisitive woodworker, who likes a fuller description of things, will, perhaps, find the following account of the various processes in the manufacture of that substance with which he is so familiar, interesting.

The writer, a short time ago, accompanied by a camera and note book, journeyed to Bermondsey and soon located the works of Messrs. B. Young & Co., Ltd., by the odour of decaying bones. On entering the gates of the factory, the first thing the eye encountered was heaps and heaps of bones, horns, and fleshings (the latter are odd corners of hides which are useless for making into leather).

This refuse, continually being brought in by wagons, is sorted and arranged in different heaps, the fleshings being carefully picked out for making the best glue and size, the bones and hoofs being used for making glue of inferior strength.

The most striking point about a glue factory is the absence of waste. One might say that every particle of the material which enters the factory is used up in some way and has a certain value; and, considering the fact that the glue makers utilise the refuse of the tanners, it is astonishing to an outsider to see how everything is accounted for.

We see many instances of the care which is exercised to avoid waste, before the glue is extracted from the offal. This is particularly apparent in the case of fleshings, which are overhauled and all pieces with hair or wool attached treated separately in order to detach and save these useful materials. Such hair and wool is dried, cleared, and packed into bales, to be eventually used by the blanket manufacturers, in making a cheap variety of rug.

The fleshings are placed in revolving drums and thoroughly washed with lime; the drums being fitted with racks which keep the fleshings in continual movement. The next stage carries them through the curing vats, where they are thoroughly impregnated with acid to remove the lime and render them fit for the boiling pans. Under the influence of steam, the gelatine is dissolved, leaving a very small proportion of refuse. This process is continued until there is no trace of glutinous substance in the fleshings. The liquid is run off into coolers, oblong boxes, in which the glue is allowed to set.

When the glue is set, it is divided into two cakes and placed on a table, and, by means of a wire, cut into slices, placed on a frame covered with netting, and taken to the drying sheds to harden.

We have yet only considered glue-making from fleshings; we have still the heaps of bones and horns to account for, so will now describe the process they undergo. A glance at the bones will show of scraps of dried flesh adhering to them, which are no use for making glue; yet these are by no means wasted. The bones with the attached flesh are placed in heated drums, fitted with revolving wires, which tear off the flesh, leaving the bones quite clean. This dried flesh, now in the form of dust, makes a valuable manure, and is packed into small bags.

The bones are next placed into a large cylinder, the glue is extracted under high pressure, and finally, when quite finished with, are ground up, and form another bye-product, namely bone manure, for which there is a great demand.

Continuing our tour through the works, we pass through the size room, where hundreds of small barrels are being filled with a bright golden liquid. This is size – the size for which this firm is so renowned. It comes from the fleshings, and great care is bestowed upon its manufacture to get it to a uniform strength and colour.

We next look at another room, in which the oil (which, naturally, is extracted with the glue) is refined. Here is another example of the way bye-products are utilised. Another room is devoted to the manufacture of concentrated size, which is a specially-made and strong form of glue ground up into a powder. Amateurs will find that to buy concentrated size is better than buying ordinary glue, as it keeps well in the packets, and is more convenient to use than the large cakes of glue.

We had a look at one of the large drying sheds, open on all sides, but fitted with hundreds of racks, containing cakes of glue, which, when thoroughly hardened, are washed and packed up ready for market.

In passing through the works, it was impossible to avoid noticing the great care bestowed on the manufacture of the glue in all its stages, and, considering the dirty nature of the work, the neatness of the various departments impressed us greatly. The writer is greatly indebted to the Management for their kindness in allowing him to visit the works and take the necessary photographs, which, in many cases, caused considerable inconvenience.