When I design a piece of furniture, I try to pretend that all the glue inside it will disappear one day, leaving only the wood and metal bits behind. Will the piece fall apart? If the answer is yes, then I have some more work to do.
I arrived at this approach after years of studying old vernacular pieces and campaign-style furniture pieces in particular. These pieces assumed the glue would be destroyed by weather, heat, moisture, time or insects. Or perhaps the builders didn’t have any glue on hand.
Either way, quality old pieces had joints that were reinforced with wedges, pegs, nails, wire, screws, special hardware or other interlocking wooden bits. And so I try to do the same whenever possible.
This approach is in direct opposition to one of the first lessons I was taught in woodworking school: A good glue joint is stronger than the wood itself. I embraced that religion for many years until I got my hands on a bad batch of glue. Then a second bad batch.
Yes, there are bad batches of glue out there – including protein, epoxy, CA (so-called “super glues”) and PVA (yellow glue). If you haven’t encountered bad glue then you have either been really lucky or you haven’t been woodworking for long. Bad glue can come from the factory, or it can be something you created by abusing the adhesive.
After seeing some work of mine fall apart years ago because of glue failure, I turned my back on relying exclusively on glue ever again. Yes, I use glue. It’s cheap and there’s a good chance it will last a long time. But I always have the following soundtrack playing in the back of my mind: “What if the glue goes away some day?” Or here’s another song: “What if I didn’t apply the glue perfectly and clamp it just right?”
So now when I glue up chair seats, I include loose tenons in the edge joints. And I peg those tenons, too. If I can wedge a tenon, I’ll wedge it. If I need to attach a back panel, I’ll use quality nails (cut nails or Roman nails) to do the job. If I can peg (or drawbore) a mortise-and-tenon joint, I’ll peg it.
After I’ve explained my approach to glue to students, some have gone whole-extremist-hog and stopped using glue entirely. I think that’s a mistake. Glue is cheap. Good glue will last a long time and can be reversible and reparable. It’s an enormous asset to woodworking.
But you shouldn’t build your reputation on it alone.
Although purchased for dovetailing, these pencils also make good cat toys.
Anyone who’s taken a class with me in the last five years knows how I feel about .5mm mechanical pencils. When students’ dovetails are too loose or too tight, my first question is, “What pencil did you use to darken your knifeline?” If a dado is too loose (or too tight), my first question is, “What pencil did you use to mark the cutline?”
I find a .5mm mechanical pencil has the ideal lead diameter. The line it marks on a flat surface is exactly thin enough that you don’t have to decide where across its width to cut; you just cut the line. And if you drop a .5mm lead line into a knifed line, the lead catches on both sides of the line, leaving an unmarked trench between (which is where I instruct students to saw when cutting their pins).
From left, lines from a .5mm, #2, and lumber pencils.
I don’t really have a favorite .5mm pencil in terms of the results, but because I tend to lose them a lot (especially while teaching, because I loan them out constantly), I buy inexpensive ones – whatever is available for less than $20 in a multi-pack at any office supply store, large grocery or drugstore.
And if you ever take a class with me, you’ll see a .5mm on the tool list. I mean it (few students seem to believe me!).
Editor’s note: I am pleased – and slightly surprised – to announce that we are now shipping “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke” by Monroe Robinson. This book came in much earlier than expected – I didn’t think we would see it until January. Let’s hope this means the paper shortage is abating. Other good news: The book is one of the better print jobs Megan and I have seen from our Tennessee plant. The color reproduction of the vintage photos is spot-on. The book is $52, and customers who buy the book before Dec. 4, 2021, from Lost Art Press will receive a free pdf of the book at checkout.
— Christopher Schwarz
About the Book
Millions of PBS viewers first met Dick Proenneke through the program “Alone in the Wilderness,” which documents Dick’s 30-year adventure in the Alaskan wilderness. On the shores of Twin Lakes, Dick built his cabin and nearly all of the household objects he required to survive, from the ingenious wooden hinges on his front door to the metal ice creepers he strapped to his boots.
And now, “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke” examines this adventure through the lens of Dick’s tools and the objects he made. Written by Monroe Robinson – the caretaker of Dick’s cabin and his personal effects – the book weaves together vintage photos and entries from Dick’s journals plus new drawings and images to paint a portrait of a man fully engaged in life and the natural world around him.
In 1999, after departing Twin Lakes at the age of 82, Dick donated his cabin and all its contents to the National Park Service. For 19 summers, beginning in 2000, Monroe and his wife, K. Schubeck, served as caretakers for Dick’s cabin, all the while honoring his motto of “keeping it true.” The cabin, its objects and this book show how you can make anything you need from almost nothing. For example:
August 17, 1970: I have been needing a good cutting board. A gas can box end is good but you seldom find one that is not two pieces held together with corrugated fasteners. I had a good wide spruce slab that would make a nice one. I ripped it one and one quarter inch thick. Trimmed it to fourteen inches in length and edged it to nine inches wide. Planed and sanded it smooth and rubbed it with bacon grease.
No one holds a more intimate knowledge of Dick’s handcrafted life than Monroe, and just as Dick shared his life through letters and film, Monroe knew he had a responsibility to share all that he had learned. This book, which includes excerpts from more than 7,000 pages of Dick’s transcribed journals along with hundreds of photos, dozens of illustrations, and Monroe’s thoughtful and detailed commentary, is the result. It’s nonfiction, how-to, adventure and memoir, but at its heart, it’s a guidebook on how to live a life that’s “true,” with materials found and a few simple tools. Appealing to woodworkers, toolmakers, homesteaders, hikers, naturalists, conservationists, survivalists and lovers of Alaska, this book is for those who want to know how one man lived an intentional life, the kind of life many dream of living.
“The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke” is 456 pages, 8-1/2” x 11″, printed in full color on coated #80 matte paper. Its signatures are sewn and secured with fiber tape for durability. The pages are hardbound and covered in cotton cloth. Like all Lost Art Press books, it is produced entirely in the United States.
The free, you-print-it dustjacket – wrapped around the book.
The cover features a diestamp showing Dick’s cabin, which is pressed into a green cotton cover cloth. For those readers who desire a dust jacket, we have made a specially designed one that you can print out on a large-format printer (which you can find at many office supply stores or a reprographics service).
The dust jacket measures 26-5/8″ x 11-1/4″. You can download the free pdf via this link.
I can’t remember a recent project where I didn’t pick up a bird-cage awl. From marking the location of spindles or screws to actually drilling holes for tiny screws, a bird-cage awl is essential for installing hardware, deepening marks left by your dividers and even cleaning out junk from the corners of deep mortises.
I’ve used a lot of bird-cage awls, and this year I finally found the one I like the most: The 803 from Matthias Fenner Toolworks. This awl is – best of all – easy to use, skillfully made and sharp. But it is also gorgeous.
The business end of the tool is a round O1 shaft that’s 8mm in diameter. And it ends in a 7/8”-long tapered tip. It’s a great shape for drilling holes (just rotate the handle as you press the tool into the wood). The solid ferrule strengthens the tool and fits seamlessly onto the shaft. The walnut handle meets the ferrule smoothly, continuing the inside cove shape on the handle.
The handle itself is quite ergonomic. The crisp point on the lower end of the handle allows you to exert downward pressure as you drill. And it fits neatly right outside your thumb and index finger when you grip it.
Matthias makes these tools to order, and it can take a little time for him to make them and for them to arrive from Germany. But they are worth the wait. If your awl can’t make it here for Christmas, perhaps it can be a Groundhog Day gift instead.
The awls are 49.90 € (about $58 U.S. today). They are well worth the price.
The first section of my forthcoming book, “Backwoods Chairs,”documents my search for the dwindling ranks of Appalachian woven-bottom chairmakers who count(ed) chairmaking as a significant income. The income piece is essentially my only criteria for the makers: that chairmaking provides at least a part of their livelihood. I had no real idea what to expect when I started my search for ladderback chairmakers. Try as I might to dislodge the romantic vision of a mountain maker working wood on a secluded front porch of a cabin, that stereotype lingered in my brain as I started the search. At times, I found a maker shaving wood parts on the porch. Other times, the idyllic vision was incomplete – as when I visited a maker shaving parts next to a generator, which powered the lunchbox planer used to thickness his chair slats.
Appalachian post-and-rung chairmaking is far more complex than I initially imagined. For starters, the makers do not fit into simple categories. Some make all their income through chairmaking, and others a portion of it. Some do it seasonally, either working around their farm’s growing season or working in the shop during the summer months. One person did not consider himself a “chairmaker” at all, though chairmaking has been a constant in his life for five decades. The whole thing is squishy.
I also recommend readers put aside any tidy categories when considering the makers. The lines between “amateur” and “professional” blur to the point that they are no longer relevant. I found “part-time” and “full-time” categories to be pointless as well. At the end of the day, there are either chairs or no chairs.*
Chester Cornett’s Beatty Rocker.
I sought out makers of the basic post-and-rung form, though each maker creates distinctly different work. I think of it this way: Chester Cornett could only make a Cornett chair, and Brian Boggs could only make a Boggs chair (I know, that statement is so simple that it’s stupid). The chair is a reflection of the maker; the maker DNA is right there for all to see. The Cornett chair reveals the use of the knife, and Chester measured everything by his hands and thumbs. His approach helps create that magic in his work, and it’s a constant across his career, from his beautiful common chairs as a younger man to his bombastic late-career rockers.
Boggs’ chairs are refined and highly engineered. There is intention behind each detail, both in the design and the technique. Boggs’ ladderback chair was reimagined into a modern piece in his Berea Chair until it could not be improved upon. Brian took a form typically considered rustic and backwoods and reimagined it for a contemporary setting. He did that by making a chair with equal consideration toward comfort, technique and design. Cornett and Boggs – two chairmakers beginning at the same post-and-rung starting point, yet yielding wonderfully different results.
ABrian Boggs Berea Chair.
Whenever possible, I traveled to meet, interview and photograph the makers. I wanted the opportunity to explain by book in person and figured this was my best approach to record and reflect on the makers in the fullest light. The initial interview and meeting proved helpful, especially for photography, but the follow-up proved most fruitful. The makers could size me up and determine if they wanted to provide more to this project. One maker showed me the door after 20 minutes. That bruised my ego a little (was it something I said?) but most followed up by sending pictures and sharing additional stories and techniques. Like James Cooper, most wanted me to get this right. That meant educating me on all things chairmaking.
James Cooper rocker, spring 2021, on his porch with one of his dogs.
I met Cooper of Jackson County, Ky., earlier this year. We sat on his porch during an early spring downpour and discussed his approach to chairmaking. James crafted handmade chairs as his primary income source for three years in the late 1970s and early 1980s then decided to make a career change. He followed up our initial conversation by sending 10 pages of written notes and a collection of his early photography. With it, he opened my eyes to his reality of making chairs in Eastern Kentucky.
The notes are shared here with his permission.
– Andy Glenn
* A note about categories. I request that the reader does not overlay “morality” onto the chairmaker’s decisions (as in, one decision is morally superior to another). There is a tendency within woodworking circles to philosophically judge the work of others, where handwork can be judged of more value than machine approaches (and this, being a Lost Art Press publication, will likely reach those who appreciate handwork). I propose that an outsider has no say in the decisions of the maker. Decisions are purely personal choices made by the chairmaker.
One example: the chairmakers I met in the process of the book made the following decisions regarding their chair rungs; 1) split and shaved 2) turned from lumber 3) store-bought dowels 4) made on a dowel machine 5) handheld power planer to shape and taper them after using a brace to cut the tenon on the end. One choice is not philosophically superior than another – at least as far as an outsider can judge.
My goal is finding out why the maker decided upon an approach or technique. Is it because they work within an established tradition? Is it for speed and efficiency? Is their design target “old-timeyness” (which deserve the shaved rungs)? Regardless of the answer to those questions, I recommend the “handwork is more pure than machines” belief be suppressed when considering the work of others. Only the chairmaker gets to make that “moral” decision about their work.
