One aspect of furniture finishing that has not been fully explained is how to achieve the gently worn, warm and human surfaces that you find on antiques.
Sure, there are lots of people who “age” furniture by thrashing it with heavy chains and burying it in a dung pile. But their furniture looks like crap (at best) and not believable (at worst).
During the last few years, I’ve gotten to know John Porritt, a British chairmaker and antiques restorer who works from a small red shed in upstate New York. Porritt has been at his trade for many decades, and his eye for color and patina is outstanding. I’ve seen many examples of his work, and it is impressive because you cannot tell that any repair or restoration has been done.
For his first book, “The Belligerent Finisher,” Porritt explains all the steps in taking a new chair and transforming it into something that looks like it’s 200 years old. The goal is not to produce fakes, but instead to create a finish that looks correct for pieces built on antique patterns.
His techniques are simple and use (mostly) everyday objects and chemicals – a pot scrubber, a deer antler, vinegar and tea. How you apply these tools – with a wee bit of belligerence – is what’s important.
The book will be lavishly illustrated with color photos. Megan and I spent two long days with Porritt in his shop, documenting every process for the book. We are currently editing the text and working on the page design. If all goes to plan, the book will be available in late summer or early fall.
Both Megan and I were properly amazed at the results Porritt achieved in a short period of time. We think almost anyone with a little patience (and belligerence) will be able to achieve beautiful results.
“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” paints a world where woodworking tools are at the center of an ethical life filled with creating furniture that will last for generations. It makes the case that you can build almost anything with a kit of fewer than 50 high-quality tools, and it shows you how to select real working tools, regardless of their vintage or brand name.
“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” will guide you in building a proper chest for your toolkit that follows the ancient rules that have been forgotten or ignored.
And it will make the argument that building a chest and filling it with the right tools just might be the best thing you can do to save our craft.
The first time I ever visited Frank Klausz, it was to shoot some photos for an article on dovetailing, for which he is a well-known savant. The photographer, Al Parrish, and I flew into Newark, N.J., late in the afternoon and Frank graciously insisted we come by his shop for a visit before the photo shoot the next day.
Frank’s Cabinet Shop is a large, clean and efficient commercial shop. The walls are covered in hand tools. Many are for display; many are for use. And the machinery is well cared for. After a tour and some chit-chat, the photographer asked Frank a question that took me by surprise, mostly for the fact that I don’t ask it myself more often.
“Frank,” Al asked, “what’s your favorite tool?”
Without hesitation, Frank started striding to the back of his shop. “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
With Frank’s reputation as a dovetailing genius and his traditional training, I was expecting his answer to be some sort of traditional tool, perhaps something from his native Hungary, perhaps something handed down to him by his cabinetmaking father.
Nope. Not even close. Instead, we stopped at a stroke sander, a huge piece of industrial machinery. Frank launched into a speech about how much time this machine saved him. How much labor. And how he could use it to sand curved surfaces like no other machine.
I was surprised, but only for a moment. Sometimes the personae of a person gets filtered through the media in a way that’s basically right but not quite the whole story. Frank loves his hand tools and is a master at hand-dovetailing because he teaches it everywhere he goes. But when it comes to the day-in-day-out work….
Machinery, when properly used, is like having some noisy apprentices. You have to always be the one in control. You have to know how to direct them. And you never ever let them take charge of the shop. I use my machines to deal with rough stock. Dimensioning rough lumber by hand is time-consuming.
Doing it by machine is child’s play. Then I’ll use it for roughing out some of the joinery, including mortises, tenons and rabbets. Everything else gets done by hand because it is safer, more accurate, faster or looks better in the end.
As to buying machinery, I don’t have a lot to say for this book. I can cite model numbers and brand names by heart, but that won’t help you because the powered machinery business changes so fast that the information becomes outdated before you can get it into print. Heck, I’ve seen Black & Decker replace its line of cordless drills three times in a calendar year. That is just wrong.
But I can give you some helpful principles that never change when buying electric thingys.
1. Buy good brands. It sounds like a no-brainer. But so many woodworkers are such cheap wieners that they end up buying tools from discounters that have no track record. No-name tools always stink. I can say this because I’ve tested them. I’ve had routers flame out on me. Nail guns squirt oil all over my work. Miter saws that couldn’t cut straight.
Purchase tools that you have observed on job sites that look like they have some miles on them. These tools cost more than the stuff aimed at the weekend picture-hanger, but they will last you a lifetime.
2. Shoot for the middle. If you spend more than 15 minutes shopping for tools, you’ll notice that they are clustered around three different price points. There will be a low-end price point ($200 table saws, for example). These tools are designed to be used a couple times, or not at all, then thrown away. Really.
No lie. Stay away from these tools. At the other end of the spectrum are tools that cost an incredible amount of money ($6,000 table saws, for example). These are great machines, but their benefits do not befit their price for a home woodworker.
So shoot for the cluster in the middle ($1,000 table saws, for example). These mid-range tools are going to be sought out by the frugal tradesman – a good place to be.
If you want a quick education in which tools are in the middle range, check out the local or Internet classified listings. The used machines that retain their value – about 60 percent of their new price – are the machines you want.
3. Buy vintage if you dare. In the last 20 years, most machinery manufacturing has gone overseas to Taiwan and China. Some of the toolmakers have done this gracefully, and the quality control is excellent. Other makers have botched it royally and are just selling their faded nameplate on crappy goods and hoping that no one notices.
If you don’t want to research this topic to death, one way to get around the problem is to buy used machinery from the disco era or earlier. You can save some serious money and get a better machine. The only real problem is that you need to be able to evaluate the machine before you buy it. Are the bearings shot? (That’s always a deal-killer in my book.) Are the critical adjustments still adjustable? Is the motor fried? Do you need to replace the wear parts, such as belts, tires, guides etc.?
In other words, you need to educate yourself before you blindly buy. Go to the Old Wood-working Machines website (owwm.com) and just start reading. In a few days you’ll be ready to go vintage.
I will tell you that there are deals to be had. I bought my 14″ Delta band saw for about half of what it would have cost new and it is 100-percent solid. Every part but one is solid metal. And the sucker just hums.
4. Metal, not plastic. An easy way to size up a machine is to examine its parts. Are the handles and adjustment knobs plastic or metal? (Aluminum counts as a metal.) Metal is always better than plastic. No exceptions.
What Machines Should You Buy? Few people buy all their machines at once. They acquire them over time and build their shop as they build their skills. That’s how I did it.
If you can’t buy everything at once, there are different paths you can follow when buying machinery. If you are going to be a power-tool woodworker, you should probably start by buying a table saw and purchasing lumber that has already been surfaced. You can go a long way with just that machine. After the table saw, you should buy a powered jointer and planer. Then (in no particular order) a drill press, band saw, powered sanding machinery and mortiser – plus lots of dust-collection equipment.
However, if your shop is going to be based on handwork, then I would recommend a much different route. My recommendations are unusual. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone else recommend this path in print. But I think it’s the right way to go.
Buy a portable 12″ or 13″ planer first. Why? Because surfacing lumber to thickness is the absolute most time- and energy-consuming job in handwork. So the portable electric planer is a lifesaver. It is cheap, accurate, durable and leaves a surface finish that beats what you get from a big industrial planer. Why? Because their cutterheads are powered by high-speed universal motors.
Why not buy a powered jointer first? Good question. When you use a powered jointer and a planer, you surface one face flat with the jointer, then you thickness the board with the planer. If you have a jack plane, you can quickly surface one face of a board true, then run that board though the planer to get it to finished thickness.
What about jointing edges to make panels? A jack or jointer plane can do that job. In other words, I think you can get away without a powered jointer. But the powered planer is a must-have.
The Second Machine Get a 14″ band saw. A band saw will remove the other biggest drudgery when working wood with hand tools: long rip cuts. In addition, a band saw can do so many other tasks that it is mind-boggling. It can cut curves, it can knock down rough stock to size, it can make thin boards or even veneer, it can cut perfect circles, it can assist with dovetailing.
Plus, band saws are one of the safest saws ever invented. They don’t kick back on you. Their guards are safe and well-integrated into the machine so there is no need to ever remove them.
There are downsides, of course. Compared to a table saw, a band saw is fussy. You will tune it and tweak it more often than a table saw. The blade guides need occasional attention. The tires on the wheels will wear out. The blades will occasionally snap. The dust collection is terrible (but it’s terrible on most table saws as well).
Still, I would get rid of my cabinet saw before I got rid of my 14″ band saw with a cast iron frame.
The Third Machine Again, my advice is odd. Get a hollow-chisel mortiser. Cutting accurate mortises by hand is drudgery, especially if you have more than four to do. A mortiser is a miracle machine, and it was one of the first machines developed in the 19th century.
Cutting the matching tenons by hand or with a band saw is much easier than chiseling out a mortise. I have thought many times about getting rid of my mortiser. But I dismiss those thoughts every time I build a piece of traditional furniture.
Other Machines & Tools I think most hand-tool woodworkers would be happy with the three machines listed above plus some good dust collection. A drill press, a jointer and a table saw are all nice things to have on occasion, but they won’t save you as much labor as the three machines above. In fact, before I bought any more machines beyond the three basics, I’d buy a nice battery-powered drill. I find it almost impossible to live without one of those in the shop.
Editor’s Note: More than 15 years after writing “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” Chris builds few pieces that require square mortises; the hollow-chisel mortiser would not be his third machine, especially because the Domino has since been invented. The Domino can cut mortises at a multitude of angles, and takes up less space. So these days, it would possibly be his third machine choice – but it’s a toss-up between that and the restored 12” jointer in our machine room – it’s such a time saver. Your needs may vary.(I, miss the hollow-chisel mortiser; it was sold to a neighbor. I don’t cut a lot of mortises – it feels like all I do is cut dovetails – but it was a fun machine to use.)– Fitz
When we set out to build a workbench for the Cincinnati Museum’s Center’s exhibit on Henry Boyd, I figured that Megan and I would do most of the work. Yes, we had invited the public to help, but usually that involves them heckling us: “I bet that would be easier if you had a nail gun!”
But these were Lost Art Press readers.
About 15 minutes after we unlocked the doors we had a small crowd in the bench room looking over the parts and my construction drawings. I glanced at Joe Grittani, one of our loyal local readers, and I asked if he’d saw the workbench’s aprons to shape. He took the panel saw from my hands and went to it.
I looked over at another pair of readers. “Would you plane up these legs?” They took my jack plane and went to it. Within a couple hours, we had entire teams of people sawing, planing, boring and nailing the parts of the workbench together. I had to put the brakes on the activity to make sure we didn’t finish it before lunch so that other people could help work on it.
For me, this felt like the first ray of sunshine since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Here we were, working as a community to build a workbench that would help educate others about one of the most important (and lesser known) black furniture makers in the Midwest.
During that morning, we talked about Boyd and the hardships he faced. And the historical stew of 19th century techniques, tools and materials we were using to make the bench so that it might have looked at home in Boyd’s workshop on Broadway Street in Cincinnati.
Sometime during that Saturday afternoon, we turned the bench onto its four legs, and I called the bench done (for now). I still have to clean up the joints and add a face vise and a planing stop. But the bench is solid and looks like how I envisioned it.
And the most surprising thing was how difficult it was to build: All I had to do was ask for help.
I owe a great many thanks to Dr Iwan Wyn Rees, senior lecturer and director of the Cardiff Centre for Welsh American Studies, located in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University, which serves to promote the study of the culture, language, literature and history of the Welsh in the Americas.
First, we hired Iwan to provide pronunciations for each of the Welsh words in “Cadi & the Cursed Oak,” and he used the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It was perfect except we worried children may not understand it. But simplified pronunciation guides are tricky. There is a lot of room for interpretation and criticism, and one must be mindful of regional dialects as well. But Iwan, who has a young daughter, understood. And despite the rush of the holidays he created one for the book. Here’s the difference:
Yr Hen Ardd (The Old Garden)
IPA: ər heːn arð
simplified: uhrr hain arrthe
He also provided a wonderfully detailed pronunciation guide tailored to the book, which we, unfortunately didn’t have room for – but it’s included at the end of this post.
We then hired Iwan to record himself speaking each of the words. You will find those recordings below. Simply press play on the audio file underneath each word. If two audio files exist, you’ll be treated to a different pronunciation in the local dialect.
Enjoy!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Aran Fawddwy (AHRR-anne VOWTHE-ui): mountain peak in southern Snowdonia, North Wales
Aran Benllyn (AHRR-anne BEN-ttlin): mountain peak in southern Snowdonia, North Wales
ASGRE LÂN DIOGEL EI PHERCHEN (ASK-rreh larne DEEOGG-elle ee FAIRRchenne): a good conscience is the best shield
Cader Idris (CAH-derr ID-riss): a long mountain ridge in southern Snowdonia
Ceubren yr Ellyll (KAY-brren uhrr ETTLittl): the hollow oak of the demon
Coed y Brenin (koyd uh BRREN-in): a forest near Dolgellau, in Snowdonia National Park
Coed y Moch Lodge (koyd uh mawch): built in 1830 on the Nannau estate by Sir Robert Williams Vaughan, second Bart, who insisted dinner guests arrived on time. The lodge was a six-minute ride from Nannau, hence the clock permanently painted six minutes to five.
Coraniaid (korr-ANNE-yighed): magical and malevolent beings from Welsh mythology with an acute sense of hearing
cwtsh (kootch, as short as in ‘cook’): hug
cyfarwyddiaid (kuv-ahrr-OOWITH-yighed, with ‘th’ as in ‘the’): storytellers
Dolgellau (doll-GGETTL-aye): a small town in northwest Wales
geol (GGEH-aul): jail
goujons (GOOJ-onz, with ‘j’ as in the French ‘je’ or ‘Jean’): breaded chicken tenders
gormesoedd (ggorr-MESS-oythe): oppressions or plagues
Lle gwreiddio y Fesen, Llwydded y Dderwen (ttlair GGOORRAYTHE-yaw uh VACE-enn TTLUITHE-ed uh THEIRR-wenn): the oak tree may succeed where the acorn takes root
Nannau (NANN-aye): an estate near Dogellau, once home of the Nannau oak
Owain Glyndŵr (OWE-ine gglin-DOORR): (1354-1416), rebelled against English rule; considered the father of Welsh nationalism
The Tale of Lludd (ttleethe) …
… and Llefelys (ttleh-VELLE-is): …
… one of several Welsh prose tales from around the 11th century, found in the “Red Book of Hergest (HERR-guest)” …
… and in fragmentary form in the “White Book of Rhydderch (HRRUHTHE-errch),” …
… and translated and published by Lady Charlotte Guest in a series called “The Mabinogion (mab-in-OGG-yon),” published between 1838 and 1849
yr hen a ŵyr a’r ieuanc a dybia (uhrr hain ah ooirr ahrr YAY-ank ah DUB-jah): the old know and the young suspect
Yr Hen Ardd (uhrr hain arrthe): The Old Garden
Pronunciation guide
The following guidelines are not by any means comprehensive but relate rather to Welsh-language words which appear in the story.
Note that emphasis (or word stress) is placed on the penultimate syllable (i.e. the last but one) in all words consisting of more than one syllable, (bar Glyndŵr) e.g. CÁD-er (not cad-ÉR), BRÉN-in (not bren-ÍN) and Dol-GÉLL-au (not DÓL-gell-au or Dol-gell-ÁU).
Vowels
a – as in the English ‘man’ in all positions, e.g. ardd /arð/ ‘garden’ and Aran /ˈaran/, the first element in Aran Fawddwy and Aran Benllyn (two mountain peaks).
â – lengthened ‘a’ similar to the English vowel in ‘art’, e.g. glân /glaːn/ ‘clean’. A mutated form of glân is found in the proverb Asgre lân diogel ei pherchen.
e – as in the English ‘net’ or ‘edit’ often, e.g. Dolgellau /dɔlˈgɛɬaɨ/ and Cader /ˈkadɛr/.
ê / e – similar to the English vowel in ‘fair’ (but closer to the quality of ‘fay’ in most dialects, although never diphthongized to /ei/). It is always this long vowel that we find in hen /heːn/ old, e.g. Yr Hen Ardd.
i – as in the English vowel in ‘pin’, e.g. Idris /ˈidris/ and /ˈbrɛnin/. It is sometimes pronounced as a semi-consonant too, as in the initial sound of the English yes, e.g. ieuanc /ˈjeɨaŋk/ ‘young’ and gwreiddio /ˈgwreiðjo/ ‘to root’ / subjunctive form of ‘to root’.
o – as in the English ‘hot’ or ‘knock’ often, e.g. Dolgellau /dɔlˈgɛɬaɨ/ and gormesoedd /gɔrˈmɛsoɨð/ ‘oppressions’.
ô / o – similar to the English vowel in ‘law’ (but closer to the quality of ‘low’ in most dialects, although never diphthongized to /ou/). It is always this long vowel that we find in moch /moːχ/ ‘pigs’, e.g. Coed y Moch.
u – pronounced as ‘i’ as in the English ‘pin’ in south Wales but with the centralized vowel /ɨ/ in the north of the country. It appears in the text as a second element of diphthongs, e.g. ieuanc /ˈjeɨaŋk/ ‘young’ and /dɔlˈgɛɬaɨ/.
û / u – pronounced as ‘ee’ as in the English ‘tree’ in south Wales but with the centralized vowel /ɨː/ in the north of the country. It appears in the text in the personal name Lludd /ɬɨːð/.
w – as in the English vowel of ‘put’ in cwtsh /kʊt͡ʃ/ ‘hug’. It is sometimes pronounced as a semi-consonant too, as in the initial sound of the English well, e.g. dderwen /ˈðɛrwɛn/ (mutated form of derwen) ‘oak (tree)’ and gwreiddio /ˈgwreiðjo/ ‘to root’ / subjunctive form of ‘to root’.
ŵ / w – as in the English vowel of ‘zoo’. In this text, it is found in (Owain) Glyndŵr /glɨnˈduːr/ (personal name) as a simple long vowel and in the verb ŵyr /u:ɨr/ (mutated form of gŵyr) ‘know(s)’ as a first element of a diphthong.
y – pronounced as ‘i’ as in the English ‘pin’ in south Wales but with the centralized vowel /ɨ/ in north Wales in final (unstressed) syllables, e.g. Penllyn /ˈpɛnɬɨn/ (placename), Llefelys /ɬɛˈvɛlɨs/ (personal name) and ellyll /ˈɛɬɨɬ/ ‘demon’. This is also the case in monosyllables too usually; however, in some common monosyllabic function words, e.g. the articles y and yr ‘the’, it is pronounced as in the English ‘but’ (with the schwa vowel), e.g. y dderwen /ə ˈðɛrwɛn/ ‘the oak (tree)’ and yr ellyll /ər ˈɛɬɨɬ/ ‘the demon’. In non-final syllables of words with more than one syllable, we also find the schwa vowel in these contexts, e.g. dybia /ˈdəbja/ (mutated form of the verb tybia) ‘suspect’ and cyfarwyddiaid /kəvarˈuɨðjaid/ ‘storyteller’.
Diphthongs
ai – as in the English ‘light’ or ‘my’, e.g. Owain /ˈouain/ (personal name).
au – as in the English ‘light’ or ‘my’ (with the centralized vowel /ɨ/ rather than /i/ as the final element in north Wales), e.g. Dolgellau /dɔlˈgɛɬaɨ/.
aw – as in the English ‘now’ or ‘owl’, e.g. Aran Fawddwy /ˈvauðuɨ/ (mutated form of Mawddwy).
ei – similar to the English ‘way’ throughout Wales, e.g. gwreiddio /ˈgwreiðjo/ ‘to root’ / subjunctive form of ‘to root’.
eu – similar to the English ‘way’ (with the centralized vowel /ɨ/ rather than /i/ as the final element in north Wales), e.g. ceubren /ˈkeɨbrɛn/ ‘hollow oak’ and ieuanc /ˈjeɨaŋk/ ‘young’.
oe – as in the English ‘toy’ (with the centralized vowel /ɨ/ rather than /i/ as the final element in north Wales), e.g. coed /koːɨd/ ‘trees’ and gormesoedd /gɔrˈmɛsoɨð/ ‘oppressions’. Note that the first element is long in northern monosyllables, as opposed to /koid/, which varies with /koːd/, in south Wales for coed.
ow – as in the English ‘owe’, e.g. Owain /ˈouain/ (personal name).
wy – similar to the English ‘fluid’ (although both elements appear in the same syllable). In north Wales, it is the centralized vowel /ɨ/ rather than /i/ that we find as a final element, e.g. Aran Fawddwy /ˈvauðuɨ/ and cyfarwyddiaid /kəvarˈuɨðjaid/ ‘storytellers’.
Consonants
The following consonants are pronounced in the same way in both Welsh and English usually: b, d, h, l, m, n, p, ph, s, and t. The following list therefore draws attention to some of the differences between the two languages.
c – always hard as in ‘cat’, e.g. Cader /ˈkadɛr/ and cwtsh /kʊt͡ʃ/ ‘hug’.
ch – as in the Scottish ‘loch’, e.g. moch /moːχ/ ‘pigs’ in Coed y Moch.
dd – always pronounced as the first sound of the English ‘the’ and ‘then’, e.g. y dderwen /ə ˈðɛrwɛn/ ‘the oak (tree)’ and cyfarwydd /kəvˈaruɨð/ ‘storyteller’.
f – always corresponds to the English ‘v’ as in ‘van’, e.g. y fesen /ə ˈvesɛn/ ‘the acorn’
ff – always pronounced as the first sound of the English ‘farm’ or ‘free’. Unlike English, the sounds of f and ff are always kept separate in Welsh (see f above).
g – always hard as in ‘gate’, e.g. gormesoedd /gɔrˈmɛsoɨð/ ‘oppressions’ and Dolgellau /dɔlˈgɛɬaɨ/.
ll – a typologically rare sound which turns up in all varieties of Welsh. When native speakers pronounce ll /ɬ/ and l /l/, the lips and front of the tongue are generally in a similar position in both cases. However, to pronounce ll, learners are commonly advised to blow air around the sides of the tongue. The nearest sound in English is heard when ‘t’ is followed by ‘l’, e.g. ‘little’ or ‘kettle’, but even this rather strange sound is not identical to the Welsh ll. Examples of ll from the text include Llefelys /ɬɛˈvɛlɨs/ (personal name) and ellyll /ˈɛɬɨɬ/ ‘demon’.
r – native speakers of Welsh roll their rs regularly. This involves vibrating the tongue to produce a trill or a tap. This r sound is not silenced after a vowel (as is often the case in varieties of English in Wales), e.g. in ardd /arð/ ‘garden’.
th – always pronounced as the first sound of the English ‘thanks’ or ‘through’. Unlike English, the sounds of th and dd are always kept separate in Welsh (see dd above).