Look, I know y’all are here for the posts by Suzo “the Saucy Indexer” Ellison and Megan. But if you aren’t totally sick of me and my voice, there’s a new podcast out there that might amuse you.
The Why Make? guys interviewed me last year for their podcast with high-end makers and artists. I am definitely the outlier when it comes to their guests.
In the podcast, we delve into my early days as a business boy. My first woodworking business? Making jewelry from bark I found in my neighbor’s mulch. Then selling it to the younger kids in the neighborhood. I also had a brief spat trying to counterfeit $100 bills that didn’t end well.
Luckily, I got some ethics installed in my redneck brain.
Our new Workshop Waist Apron is made in the USA and built to last. I have destroyed so many aprons made of “ballistic cloth” and other high-tech fabrics. This cotton canvas one takes a real beating. Above is a quick video discussing its development and features.
There are still a couple of spots available in my “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” class June 13-17 at the Woodworking School at Pine Croft, in gorgeous Berea, Ky. And, for this class, you can choose your chest size – big or slightly less big (the “traveling” size holds a goodly assortment of tools, too – but has room for only two sliding tills). At either size, you’ll get plenty of dovetailing instruction and practice, and you’ll leave with a nice chest, purpose-built for safe storage of your hand tools (or not-so-purpose built but still eminently suitable for blankets, or toys, or sweaters…).
p.s. For those who don’t already know, Berea College bought Kelly Mehler’s Mehler’s School of Woodworking, so the classes are in that purpose-built shop that’s nestled into the foothills of the Appalachians, just south of Lexington, Ky., and close to Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. In other words, there’s plenty to do around there in addition to the class, should you wish to make it a family getaway!
The following is excerpted from “Mechanic’s Companion,” by Peter Nicholson, one of the foundational English-language texts in woodworking and the building trades. First published in 1812, “Mechanic’s Companion” is an invaluable and thorough treatment of techniques, with 40 plates that provide an excellent and detailed look at the tools of the time, along with a straightforward chapter on the geometry instruction necessary to the building trades.
If you work with hand tools, you will find useful primary-source information on how to use the tools at the bench. That’s because Nicholson – unlike other technical writers of the time – was a trained cabinetmaker, who later became an architect, prolific author and teacher. So he writes (and writes well) with the authority of experience and clarity on all things carpentry and joinery. For the other trades covered – bricklaying, masonry, slating, plastering, painting, smithing and turning – he relies on masters for solid information and relays it in easy-to-understand prose.
A B the treadle or foot-board.
a the manner of fixing the treadle to the floor.
C the crank hook, hooked into a staple, and the end of the piece A.
D the crank for turning the fly with the upper part of the crank hook formed into a collar for embracing the crank.
E the fly. heel with several angular grooves cut in its circumference, in order to hold the band and keep it from sliding.
F the pillar for supporting the end of the mandrel.
G the puppet supporting the end of the mandrel, which holds the chuck.
H the right hand puppet, containing the fore centre, which is tightened by means of a screw.
I, K the legs, the fly being supported by that of I, the other end is supported by an upright between the legs.
L the mandrel, showing the end of the spindle projecting over the puppet G, in order to receive the chuck.
M the rest, tightened below by means of a screw, and made so as to be fixed in any position to the chuck.
N a foot-board.
O several of the most useful tools employed in turning.
If I ever write a book on finishing, I’ll probably call it “Farting Around With Finishes.”
One of the things I like to do on a Sunday afternoon is mess around with dumb ideas. About 100 percent of the time, my results are ugly or unremarkable. But every once in a while I discover something interesting that eludes the rounding error of “about 100 percent.”
One of the things I love about old vernacular pieces are the (rare) unrestored finishes. The best of them have a dark and mellow glow that verges on black. They have a low luster, but it’s nothing like dried linseed oil, which can look flat and starved.
After talking to experts on furniture and finishing, I’ve concluded that many of these finishes are the result of soot from the hearth (consider what coal soot did to the buildings of the U.K.). And the shine? Burnishing from use and the natural oils from the body of the sitter. There also could be waxes. Grease from food. Soil from clothing. Water damage. Children. And on and on.
(The original finish on these pieces could have been anything from nothing/nekkid, to an oil, a linseed-oil paint or a wax. These made-at-home pieces were unlikely to have a fancy film finish applied by the builder, though anything could have happened to the piece in the 20th century.)
Last fall I took a trip to Europe to travel around with Chair Chatters™ Klaus Skrudland and Rudy Everts. We drank a lot of Belgian ale and talked non-stop about chairs for about a week. Near the end of the trip as we were driving back to Munich, I wondered aloud if it would be possible to create a finish that would somewhat mimic old finishes on vernacular pieces (without dangerous chemicals or a 32-step process).
I had a dumb idea. Perhaps the finish could be based on a plant oil that is similar to sebum, the oil and waxes made by our sebaceous glands to keep our skin moisturized. As it turns out, jojoba oil is similar to sebum. (There is synthetic sebum out there, but the sources I have found are too expensive to use as a furniture finish.)
Jojoba is inexpensive, widely available and edible (but not digestible). Like linseed oil, jojoba is a drying oil. It is combustible, and there is a small risk of it auto-igniting if you foolishly bunch up your rags. So take the same precautions as with all drying oils and dispose of the rags as recommended on the oil’s Safety Data Sheet.
So jojoba is indeed a good candidate for a wood finish.
The next hurdle was how to get the hearth smoke into the finish. My first thought was to grind up lump charcoal or simply get some ashes from the fireplace and mix it into the jojoba. My experiments with those sources didn’t go well. The finish felt really gritty.
The solution was to switch to carbon black. Carbon black is essentially soot that is used as a pigment in inks and paints, and to color the rubber in your tires. It’s cheap, and you can get it as an extremely fine and consistent powder.
So what happens when you mix together jojoba oil and carbon black? I started with 1 ounce of jojoba oil and mixed in 1/2 teaspoon of carbon black. I stirred it with a popsicle stick and within a few seconds the carbon black was evenly distributed in the oil.
Then I ragged it on a scrap white oak chair arm that has been hanging around my shop for a year.
Immediately after application. Top: The jojoba oil/carbon black mixture. Bottom: Jojoba oil only, which has a nice color on oak.
Surprisingly, it looked pretty good. The oil gave the wood an orange color, and the carbon acted like a pigment stain – collecting in the wood’s pores and sitting on top of the wood. I let the finish dry for a couple hours then checked it again.
The downside is that the carbon black rubs off on your clothes a bit. After the oil dried to the touch, I rubbed it quite a bit with clean, dry rags. The finish on the wood didn’t get any lighter, but I continued to get some carbon black on the rags. (Though it was less and less the more I rubbed.)
So next, I’m going to reduce the amount of carbon black in the mixture and see what happens. And I’ll try adding a spit coat of shellac to the sample boards to see if it locks in the black color. Third option: cook up some soft wax with jojoba, beeswax and some carbon black.
All this might be a dead end, but I enjoy the process (and I hope that maybe Lucy will get me a lab coat for Christmas – ooooh, and a clipboard).
— Christopher Schwarz
Here you can see what I’m after. An orange glow plus a dark brown/black. Yes, that is my bare foot. It was Sunday. (I am fully clothed.)
