To lend a hand to people who are underrepresented in our ranks, I’m teaching a free stick chair class this July for women, BIPOC and GNC (gender non-conforming) woodworkers at our storefront in Covington, Ky. There are six spots in the class, and the scholarship covers both tuition and materials for the chair.
The emphasis of this class is to help create a new generation of woodworkers who teach. We have two spots for students who have some chairmaking experience and want to teach others, and four spots for students with little-to-no chair experience but who have some sort of active teaching practice (elementary school math, academic writing, shop maintenance in educational facility, podcasting, etc).
The class is being organized by Aspen Golann, who runs The Chairmaker’s Toolbox. You can apply for the class via this link. Aspen and Megan Fitzpatrick will be assisting during the week and helping out with the “teaching about teaching” component of the class – sharing advice, war stories and strategies for teaching woodworking in a live environment.
I am thrilled to be able to do this. I am sure some of you have questions. Here are some answers.
Why Not Offer Scholarships to Everyone?
For my first 10 years of teaching, I donated all the royalties from my videos to woodworking scholarships based purely on need. Of all the people I funded, I know of only one recipient who was female. Other free teaching that I do currently (such as at The Florida School of Woodworking) funds both need-based scholarships and scholarships for people who have been historically excluded from our craft.
Bottom line: I’ve funded a ton of scholarships for white guys like myself. For this one class, I’d like to do something different.
How Can I Help?
I rarely ask for help with these things. But I’ve decided to make an exception with this class. I am going to pay for all the material and stock preparation for the students from my pocket. And I’d like to use nice wood, such as cherry. I estimate that the wood for the class will cost between $1,500 and $1,700. If you would like to donate a little money to help, you can click on the donate button below.
If the button doesn’t work (sorry), try this link instead. Or if you prefer to use Venmo, my username is: christopher-schwarz-10.
This is not a tax-deductible donation. This is like tucking a $20 bill into my shorts at the pro shop. (Did that sound weird? Yes.) If I unexpectedly collect more money than needed for the materials, I’ll use the excess to pay for students’ meals during the class.
Thanks to Aspen and everyone who is working to expand the circle of people who love woodworking.
Perhaps the most important books we’ll make at Lost Art Press are children’s books.
If I had to point to a moment in my young life when I decided to make things, it’s when I became obsessed with the books of David Macaulay, especially “Cathedral.” I checked that book out from the Fort Smith Public Library at least a dozen times.
With that in mind, we have decided to invest significant time and resources into children’s books. And our first book* from this initiative is “Cadi & the Cursed Oak” by Kara Gebhart Uhl and illustrated by Elin Manon.
And I’m pleased to announce that we are now selling and shipping this book. It is $19 and features all the core principles of other Lost Art Press books: a beautiful book, printed on outstanding paper and clothbound with a sewn binding.
“Cadi” is the first of many new children’s books in the works here at Lost Art Press. This effort is being headed up by Kara, an expert in the field of children’s literature. So it seemed appropriate to have one of her books kick this off.
“Cadi & the Cursed Oak” is the tale of a girl who finds a wooden cup that was made from the wood of the famous and haunted Nannau Oak in Wales. Objects made from the oak are said to be cursed (the story of the oak is true).
When Cadi drinks from the cup, she begins to see strange things. And with the help of her grandmother, Cadi learns how the cursed cup is tied forever to a skeleton stashed in the old Nannau oak. But how will she stop the terrifying visions?
And, because this is a Lost Art Press book, you know there will be woodworking parts. Cadi’s father is a Welsh chairmaker, and some of the scenes happen while the two are hunting for arm bows in the forest.
The illustrations by Welsh artist Elin Manon completely suit the story, with every page richly drawn with delightful and spooky details.
We hope you’ll consider purchasing a copy for the children or grandchildren in your life. You never know what acorns you might be planting with the gift of a book.
— Christopher Schwarz
* “Grandpa’s Workshop,” now out of print, was a translated title from a French publisher. “Cadi” is our first “from scratch” children’s book.
Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847) was the first settled minister of the frontier town of Blue Hill, Maine. Harvard-educated and handy with an axe, Fisher spent his adult life building furniture for his community. Fortunately for us, Fisher recorded every aspect of his life as a woodworker and minister on the frontier.
In this book, Klein, the founder of Mortise & Tenon Magazine, examines what might be the most complete record of the life of an early 19th-century American craftsman. Using Fisher’s papers, his tools and the surviving furniture, Klein paints a picture of a man of remarkable mechanical genius, seemingly boundless energy and the deepest devotion. It is a portrait that is at times both familiar and completely alien to a modern reader – and one that will likely change your view of furniture making in the early days of the United States.
The value of a minister’s library was substantial and, therefore, the fact that Fisher invested time in the construction of a desk and bookcase is not surprising. One biographer calculated that Fisher owned approximately 300 books, describing it as “not an inconsiderable store for a poor minister in a small village.” That Fisher valued reading is even seen in the plans for his house in which one of only two items of furniture depicted was a bookcase in the kitchen.
Though Fisher’s desk and bookcase is not explicitly mentioned in the surviving journal entries, attribution can be confidently made based on provenance, numerous construction features and the homemade wooden lock on the door.
The desk and bookcase was an essential piece of furniture for a minister because it housed his most important books.
The desk is constructed of pine and was painted (although the current paint is modern). The desk has three drawers and downward-extending lopers that provide a slanted writing surface. At the top of the writing surface, there is a small secret compartment with a sliding-dovetail lid for valuables. The bookcase has both full-length shelves as well as small compartments for letters, etc. The panel doors lap with a beveled edge when closed, and a homemade wooden lock secures the minister’s library from tampering. Despite the fact that the lock operated with a key that is now missing, there is an identical lock on the door to his clock face that still functions, operating by turning a knob. Fisher made many wooden latches in his house, all of which are fascinating, but these locks are particularly delightful. They are easy to overlook by assuming that they are the same metal locks Fisher might have purchased from Mr. Witham’s store at the head of the bay, but they are clearly Fisher-made and completely made of wood. Their delicateness and smoothness of operation add a touch of sophistication to an otherwise unassuming piece of furniture.
Fisher’s work has been sometimes compared to that of the Shakers because of its simplicity and conscious restraint. While the overall association stands, it is significant to point out that the primary difference between Fisher and the Shakers is their view of ornamentation. While classic Shaker work has little to no moulding, Fisher relished elaborate profiles. The cornice of this desk (as well as that of his wardrobe) sat like a crown over Fisher as he studied. His artistic vision of furniture design, though similar to the Shakers’ in its modesty, was less inhibited. Even as a young child, his mother, Katherine, taught him to value artistic expression. Katherine, whose drawings look so much like her son’s, saw a world in which chastity and artistic beauty were not mutually exclusive. Fisher was not afraid of flourish.
The cornice on the desk and bookcase sets it apart from Shaker work.
His work fits much more squarely in the Federal vernacular classification than that of the Shakers. The desk carcase is interesting in that it is constructed like a six-board chest, with the sides extending to the floor with bootjack feet. The dados are a scant 3⁄4″ wide, matching his surviving dado plane. The backboards are unplaned, rough-sawn boards nailed into rabbets in the sides. The drawers (with the exception of the bottom one, which is a replacement) are of conventional dovetail construction – half-blind dovetails at the front, and through-dovetails at the back. The drawers’ bottoms are beveled and fitted into grooves in the sides and front, and are nailed to the drawer backs.
The lock is made of wood, with the exception of the metal pins. This is exactly the kind of detail work Fisher seemed to enjoy.
The overall composition of this piece illustrates the minister’s education. Even this simple desk was designed with classical proportions from his architectural training. Fisher’s fluency in this geometric layout is obvious from his college geometry notebooks in the archives. These notebooks are full of compass exercises to lay out complex patterns. Designing a desk was easy compared to the drawings he usually did. This “artisan’s design language” (as George Walker has called it) must have been intuitive in Fisher’s cosmos of order and mathematical rationality.
Rather than rely on measurements from a ruler, Fisher relied on simple whole-number proportions used in classical architecture.
The panels in the doors are interesting in their irregularity. Their flat sides face out in the Federal style and are beveled only where needed on the inside. The insides of the panels have heavy scalloping from the fore plane, even leaving behind evidence of a nick in the iron of the plane. This tendency to continue to use a nicked iron without regrinding the bevel is consistent throughout his work and concurs with the notion of pre-industrial indifference toward secondary surface condition. For the bottom two panels, he seems to have run short on material because the panels are only barely as thick as the 5⁄16″ groove and, even at that, both retain minor, rough-sawn texture. It appears he was scraping the bottom of the barrel to get those doors finished.
Willard wrote his name all over the house. His father’s bookcase door was no exception.
The insides of the doors have several inscriptions. “Willard” is written in red ink on one door, and “Josiah F” on the other. There are also compass-scribed circles on the inside of both doors whose randomness appears to have no significance beyond doodling. Even more perplexing, however, is the recording of “1 gallon of vinegar” on the inside of the door. This pattern of documenting purchases (and then crossing them off when paid) as well as notable life events is seen in several other pieces throughout the house. Jonathan seemed to have started the habit but Willard definitely took it far beyond his father. Willard’s name, agricultural notes and weather reports appear all over the house and his son, Fred, seems to have continued the tradition.
After my Feb. 7, 2022, post about how awful the new Irwin Speedbor bits have become, a couple readers suggested I try the WoodOwl spades. I didn’t know that WoodOwl made spade bits and had never seen them for sale.
So I purchased some from Hardwick & Sons and tested them up against my NOS (new old stock) Speedbors that were fresh from the package. And I tested them against some of the new, frustrating Irwin Speedbors – the ones missing their rim spurs.
The 5/8” WoodOwls cut just as fast as my trusty old Speedbors. They are exactly the same size (.635” diameter at the rim spurs) and weigh one-third less. Though the WoodOwl bits are made in China (not Japan), the machining is excellent, both on the bit and bit’s shaft.
So, problem solved. Don’t buy the Speedbor’s for chairmaking. Buy the WoodOwls.
The only open question is how good the steel is in the WoodOwls. I’m building a chair right now and should have that answer soon enough.
This two-bit drama reminded me of a Crucible tool I had worked on for a while and then set aside. I was trying to come up with a bit extension that didn’t wobble and held bits firmly, especially when you pull out of the hole. The Bosch bit extender is the best in the market, but it still wobbles more than I like.
So I built a prototype of a bit extender that is promising. Now designer Josh Cook and I are chewing it over to see if we can make something accurate, useful and inexpensive.
Dick’s snow-shoveled path to his woodshed. (Photo by Dick Proenneke, courtesy of the National Park Service)
Jan. 27, 1989:
Clear, Calm and -78°.
At nine, three and six I fed the fire but ice came to both water buckets and pretty strong. I had to break it before I could pour water from the plastic bucket. After seeing it a -72° when I called it a day I just wouldn’t hazard a guess as to what it would be come morning. Certainly not 80 below but it was so close I couldn’t be sure if it was -79° or 80 so I made it a -78° due to liquid in the tube separating a bit at the very top of the red. I just couldn’t believe that it could get so cold at Twin Lakes. After chores I went out on the lake to experience real cold. It was colder, the air had a bite to it, and it had better be dead calm or it would burn like dry ice.
Well now! What is causing this very unusual cold and how long will it last? From the 12 Jan. to the 28th now and all readings except two below zero and nearly all of them pretty far down the scale. The morning reading average for the past five days has been a -55° and I thought a -44° was cold.
So now at 8:30 we are headed in to another night of preventing frost damage to my perishables.
— Dick Proenneke
Splint made from the rib of a drum on Dick’s snow shovel. (Photo by Harper’s Ferry Center, courtesy of the National Park Service)
Sheet metal from the rib of a barrel spanning metal-fatigue cracks on each side of Dick’s snow shovel. (Photo by Monroe Robinson)
In a letter to me, dated April 1, 1989, Dick wrote, “…the cold set in Jan. 12th and ended Feb. 1st. The last two weeks of Jan had a morning ave. temp of -48.8° and from Jan. 24 for seven days a -58° ave. Was fortunate to have a -90° reading thermometer for I saw it a -78°. Not official of course and I would like to see how it compares with a weather service thermometer. At -80° the red did start to separate at that temperature. I wish I could report that my cabin was cozy warm but you know it wasn’t. But no pipes frozen and no fruit or vegetable due to being elevated and as stove at night and me stoking the fire 3-4 times at night. Strong ice in the water bucket several mornings. Here at the table writing I had my sleeping bag warmer hot rocks laying on the table by my writing hand. Great sport and I am glad I was here to experience some Siberian cold.”
