We have just received stock of our newest bandana design, and it’s a throwback to our first bandana. This one is black and features our skep logo, plus a bunch of dividers and bees. The big difference is that this bandana was made by One Feather Press.
These are the nicest, softest, well-printed bandanas we’ve ever encountered. They are made one at a time by one guy in his shop. Pre-washed. Ready to become a good friend on the first day.
The bandanas are 22” x 22” and cost $25. More details in our store.
Crucible Card Scrapers Back in Stock
For the last few months we’ve searched in vain for the steel to make our scrapers. Everyone was backordered until late July. Then one company said they had our steel in stock. We sent them $8,000 and discovered they were lying/mistaken/something not libelous.
A few terse communications later, they somehow found the steel and shipped it to us.
So now (after a lot of waterjet and machine tool action) we have scrapers in stock and ready to ship.
Other stuff: The GoDrilla bit extension is nearly done. We’ve solved the problem of the binding threads. Our holdfasts have been poured, but we are waiting on the grinders to do their thing. And we are working on some new T-shirts.
I know this last line of the blog entry (always a dangerous place for me) might curse us. But if you need a little bit of good news today, many things in our supply chains seem to be returning to normal. Everything we do is in the United States, so I have no idea how things are going with international companies. But here, my torn fingernails are starting to grow back a bit.
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.
Our ceramics supplier has just filled our entire order of Lost Art Press Beer Steins, and they are now available for immediate shipment. The mugs are $39, made in the USA by an artists’ collective and hold 20 ounces of beer, bourbon or coffee.
These mugs are handmade, dishwasher-safe and a joy to use.
We also have a new bandana design available in our store. This bandana features construction drawings from one of the comb-back chairs in “The Stick Chair Book.” The bandana was designed by Tom Bonamici to look like a blueprint. These are printed by One Feather Press in Tennessee, which makes the nicest bandanas we have found. They are pre-washed, soft and crisp.
Please note that because of ongoing supply-chain problems, we may not be able to restock these items if we sell out of them before Christmas. So if you are considering these as a gift, act now to avoid disappointment or shipping delays (remember last year? We do).
My Grandma West spent a large part of her life observing my grandfather, Joe, and my uncle, Tom, at work – either on a house or in the shop. Both were skilled woodworkers, among other things, but each had a different way of looking at the craft.
“Joe could look at a staircase or some other project and knew exactly how everything should go together,” she told me once. “Tom could look at the same project and knew exactly how everything could go wrong.”
When the two worked together, it was a struggle at times.
Though my DNA doesn’t indicate it, I inherited exactly equal parts of Grandad and Uncle Tom. The Grandad chain of DNA is the “hell yes we can build this just let me get my toolbelt” polymer that puts my feet on the floor every morning at 6:30 a.m. The Uncle Tom part of the double helix is what makes me draw out every angled joint in full size to see how everything intersects before I’ll pick up a tool heavier than a pencil.
Most times, it’s a good combination of traits. Grandad offers the “go fever,” while Uncle Tom keeps me out of trouble.
But other days, I’m immobilized. I can see everything that might go wrong with an operation. But then I wonder: Can I really see *everything*? Could I be missing something obvious? And then I go back over all my drawings and the cutlist. Twice. Thanks, Uncle Tom.
Meanwhile, Grandad is tapping his foot. He would be done and onto the next task.
This week, both men are working in my shop. I had an oak seat to saddle, and it was a riddle. The seat is made up of two boards. On one of the boards, the grain is mild. On the other board, the grain has a wild grain reversal right at the seat’s pommel.
Is this a good thing? A bad thing? I draw it out and try to figure out how the scorp should move. But I don’t know what’s going on inside the glue joint between the two boards. So I set the seat aside to think about it some more. Perhaps I should cut the seat apart? Get a look at the grain inside? And then glue the boards back together?
Grandad rolls his eyes, and scrounges for a Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookie in the kitchen.
That’s when I know I need to listen to another deceased woodworker, Joseph Moxon.
“Therefore you muſt examine the Temper of your Stuff, by eaſy Trials, how the Plane will work upon it, and ſet your Iron accordingly,” Moxon wrote in his chapter on fore planes.
This is one of the most important sentences in Moxon. And I think about it every day: “Easy Trials.”
Of course.
I step up to the chair’s seat with a scorp and take the lightest cuts possible across the grain of the seat at various angles. I remove about 1/64” of material with each pass, but I can clearly see a difference in how the wood cuts as I adjust the tool’s angle.
It doesn’t look like I am accomplishing anything. But I am finding out everything that can go wrong. I adjust the tool and take off a 1/32” of material. Then I bear down harder and take 1/16”.
I find the rhythm that allows me to take heavier and heavier cuts. And I have a good roadmap of the work ahead thanks to my earlier “easy trials.”
The following is excerpted from “Country Woodcraft: Then and Now,” Drew Langsner’s revised and expanded edition of his 1978 book that helped to spark a movement (still expanding today) of hand-tool woodworkers who make things with mostly green wood. Among many other additions, it includes greatly expanded sections on building shavehorses, carving spoons and making green-wood bowls. One of the key tools for working with green wood is a chopping stump. Below is how Drew makes his.
Chopping stumps may seem so ordinary that even seasoned axe users never give them much thought. They’re just a chunk of a log, cut off more or less square, at whatever height happens to happen.
In Wood-Carving Land, chopping stumps are an honored member of the shop equipment. They are the pre-workbench workbench, especially for axe work.
There are several qualifiers that separate good stumps from the also-ran stumps. Height is the first consideration. Stumps should be tall enough that you don’t need to lean over with bad posture when hewing something small, like a spoon. And low enough that you can get a powerful swing when hewing something larger, as when shaping the exterior of a bowl. This means that you should probably have more than one shop stump.
Chopping stumps shouldn’t wobble – for safety and efficient use of energy. Freshly cut stumps are heavy – they’re about half water – and the surface can become chopped into uselessness quickly. You need to plan ahead.
The chopping surface should be free of abrasive detritus. When a sharp axe chops into a gritty surface, it quickly becomes dull, or even chipped at the cutting edge.
Most stump grit comes from the bottom of someone’s footwear. Almost everyone will rest a foot on a stump of the right height, or climb onto a stump to reach something on a high shelf. Keep your stumps covered with something like a plywood shoebox lid.
Stumps can be most any kind of log, with harder species preferred. Mine are red oak. Drying a stump takes time – years – so you’ll most likely be using your first stump while it’s wet and heavy. If drying happens too quickly the log might split – sometimes so badly that it becomes firewood. You can dry the log stored on its side, or on prop sticks to let air circulate underneath. Do this in a sheltered place, without direct wind or sun exposure.
The chopping surface can be roughened with chain saw scoring grooves, and/or a small and rough chain-sawn hollow. These provide places to hold the work steady for hewing.
I learned about stumps with legs while looking at photos of sabot (wooden shoe) makers’ long-handled block knives. Almost always, the stump is rather short, supported by three stout legs. So smart!
Stumps with legs are not only lighter weight – appreciated when you need to move one – but also more stable with the wide three-point base.
Making a stump with legs You can go fancy, but I use rough-split legs with very little shaping. Ideally the stump and leg materials are split and left to dry before assembly. This will take more than a year. So, realistically, stumps with legs are often made using wet wood, with the hope that drying will be proportionate. If not, the legs will eventually come loose, but the fix isn’t difficult.
In the rough, the legs can be about 30″ long, and about 3″ across. Make them long, so that you’ll have options when it comes to determining the working height of the stump.
Cylindrical leg tenons are best made on a lathe. Tenon diameter can be 1″ to 1-1/2″, depending on what size auger is available. Tenon length is 2 -1/2″ to 3″. Don’t make the tenons too tight. They should be a tap-in fit. If a lathe isn’t available, follow the steps for carving cylindrical tenons in Chapter 15: Wheelbarrows.
The leg mortises are bored into end-grain, so be ready to do some real work. You can use a bit and brace or an electric drill. The brace should have a 12″ sweep; the electric drill needs a 1/2″ chuck and a side handle to stop it from twisting you around.
Locate three drilling points on the bottom of the stump. They should more-or-less represent an equilateral triangle. Use a crayon or felt marker to draw sighting lines from the drilling locations to a common center point.
Angle the drill 12° to 15° from vertical, facing toward the center point. You may need to remove frass periodically as you drill. This depends on the type of auger.
After the legs are inserted, turn the stump over – so that it’s upright. Don’t worry about how it looks at this stage. Level the top surface by sliding low-angled wedges under two legs.
Decide on the height. Spoon-carving stumps are usually 30″ to 36″. Bowl-hewing stumps might be 26″ to 30″. Subtract the height of the desired stump from the height that it presently is. This is the amount of wood that will be removed from the bottom of the legs.
The next step is scribing from the floor to the cut-off, using the result from the little math exercise. You can do this scribing with a pencil placed on a block of wood of the suitable height. Or use a stout compass. Scribe around each leg.
Use a carpenter’s panel saw to saw off excess length at the scribed lines. To do this, make an effort to secure the leg well so that you can make an accurate, angled saw cut. A bench vise will sometimes work. Or use clamps, or your best friend.
Before starting the kerf, aim the saw so that it’s in alignment with the scribed lines on the other two legs. Because the stump has three legs, you don’t need to be concerned with making super-precise saw cuts.
…One or two years later…The leg tenons may shrink more than the stump mortises, causing wobbling or even legs falling loose. If this happens, make up a batch of small wedges and tap them into the loose spaces where the leg tenons enter the bottom of the stump. (This is very funky coopering.) Be sure to have the legs orientated so that the foot trim angle is still flat on the floor. Use a little glue, also.
When you stop hewing, don’t leave the axe with the blade driven into the stump top. The axe could get knocked loose, and become a dangerous flying object. Also, this odious practice chops away the stump surface, destroying your pre-workbench workbench.