Iain Whittington, a woodworker and retired army engineer, has published a second book on woodcarving, “Amateur Woodcarving.”
For those interested in learning the craft of decorative carving with a chisel and knife, “Amateur Woodcarving” covers everything from tool selection, including basic carving tools and carving knives, to sharpening techniques, workholding and finishing, all within a historical context. Whittington then looks at the use of geometric design in ornamentation and spends some time talking about design and drawing before diving into simple techniques. Thirteen projects, which increase in complexity and are accompanied by step-by-step descriptions and photos, include a chip-carved panel, horse, simple end piece, breadboard, 17th-century panel carving, wood spirit, Norwegian-style wall clock, mangle board, acanthus barge board and more.
As with Whittington’s first book, “WoodCarving: A Norwegian Textbook,” a translation of Odd Fauske’s “Lærebok i treskjæring” (a compendium of project plans for woodcarving and folk art first published in the 1970s), all proceeds of “Amateur Woodcarving” will go directly to the SSAFA, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, a U.K. charity that provides support to men, women and veterans from the British Armed Forces, along with their families and dependents.
To learn more about the book and order, go here for U.S. customers. In the U.K., go here. In the EU, here.
You cannot. You can’t build a table with this sort of joinery and use it for a tough task such as butchering. Can you? There’s only one way to find out, and it doesn’t involve your mouth or a keyboard.(Illustration by Katherine Schwarz)
The following is excerpted from “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” by Christopher Schwarz. Chris often writes a short intro to these Tuesday excerpts, but I’m not sure how he’ll feel about writing one for his own book – after all, one can assume that everything he had to say on the subject is already in the book. Plus, Chris is the least self-aggrandizing person I know. So here’s a few words of praise from me: I think this book is brilliant. It teaches even the most rank beginner how to build simple but handsome furniture with just a few joints and a small kit of tools. It makes the craft approachable, and invites readers in, taking them from simple projects through more advanced pieces of furniture, all building on the previous lessons. And sure – lots of books do that. But the interstitial chapters, such as the one below, teach more than how, they teach why – and that makes “The Anarchist’s Design Book” a joy to read.
— Fitz
I’m talking about shellac with a couple of experienced woodworkers and one of them remarked about an old employer:
“This guy made us make our own shellac,” he said with a sense of wonder.
“He made you go to India and beat the trees?” I asked, a tad confused.
“What? No,” he replied. “We had to mix it up with flakes and alcohol.”
“Wait, how else can you do it?” I replied honestly.
After an awkward pause, the other woodworker said: “Next you’re going to try to convince us to make our own glue out of animals.”
He’s right. I was.
I wouldn’t call myself a traditionalist or a purist. I wear modern underwear. I use all manner of hand tools and machines. I’m fascinated by historical techniques, CNC, 3D printing and how technology (old and new) could change furniture making for the better. It is more accurate to say that I’m an explorer. If someone told me I could make my own paint from beer, I’d try it that night. (I did, and you can.) And if someone were to tell me you could shrink beech biscuits in the microwave, I’d try that, too. (I did, and you can’t. They only catch fire.)
The point is that woodworking is most interesting when you open yourself up to new techniques, no matter how crazy or daunting. I am always surprised at how easy most things turn out to be in our craft. The most difficult part seems to be to work up the courage to begin.
This is not a new problem. It is an old one that was at times state-mandated.
During the last decade I’ve had the privilege to work in Germany with talented journeymen who completed their formal training both in school and in the real world, earning the right to build furniture for a living.
As you would expect, these men and women are tremendously skilled and knowledgeable. They can cut joinery by hand or with power tools with equal facility. They can finish setting up an enormous spindle moulder then pick up a handplane.
It’s a bit humbling for someone who hasn’t been through the German program.
But then one year I taught a class over there that involved some simple turnings for some chair legs. And I was surprised that none of them had ever turned a spindle or carved a leg. They had never even really considered trying it, even though they had a sweet lathe in their shop.
Those tasks were reserved for people in the turning or carving programs. So their teachers never showed them even the first thing about the lathe or other woodworking disciplines.
I taught them to turn. They loved it. And because of all the other skills they had learned as joiners, they picked it up remarkably fast.
So the next time someone tells you that you can make your own liquid hide glue with a hot plate, try it – if only to prove that you can’t.
By request, here is a short movie showing the process of making the long sticks. This is almost identical to the technique shown in “The Stick Chair Book.” The only difference is a change to the sequence of cuts in Stage 1.
Using planes to make chair sticks is not my invention – not by a longshot. I first learned to do it this way in “Welsh Stick Chairs” by John Brown. The only difference is I’m doing it on a low workbench. JB put a stop in his machinist vise for this operation.
John Brown making long sticks with a block plane and a stylish hat.
I never thought this process was weird (what was really odd to me was doing it with the Ashem Crafts trapping and rotary planes). The goal with this handplane technique is to use bench tools and not have to purchase a drawknife, spokeshave and shavehorse. If you have these tools, ignore me.
I am always looking for a faster way to make the 26”-long sticks that make up the backrests of my chairs. Making the 12-1/2”-long short sticks is easy. I can bang one out in a minute or two with a block plane.
But the long sticks have a complicated shape. They have a 5/8” tenon at the bottom. Then the stick swells to 3/4” and goes back down to 5/8” along the next 8”. I have to get the swelling exactly right because the stick wedges in a 5/8” mortise in the arm and supports the arm from below. Finally the stick tapers to 1/2” at its tip.
Anatomy of a long stick.
I first learned to make long sticks with a drawknife and shavehorse. Then I was taught to use “trapping planes” on a lathe. Finally, I settled on using a jack plane and block plane. These were tools I already had an intimate relationship with. And I don’t need a shavehorse.
The process to make long sticks that’s outlined in “The Stick Chair Book” is one I have used for many years and is pretty fast. But during the last few months I have been experimenting with different combinations of strokes to see if I can speed the plow. The following process cuts my stick-making time in half. That cuts almost an hour off the time I need to make a chair.
Note that when I make sticks using planes, I skew the planes significantly (about 30°) to speed their cutting action.
Three Stages
As mentioned above, I use a jack plane and block plane to make my long sticks. I place a little stop block in a vise so it is 1/2” above the jaws of the vise. Or I use a planing block (shown in the photos) that is 1/2″ tall. I press the tip of the stick against the stop with one hand and push the plane with the other. The weight of the jack plane keeps it in the cut.
My long sticks begin as 3/4” x 3/4” x 26” octagons of straight hardwood. The work is divided into three stages.
Stage 1
I hold the tenon with one hand and the jack plane with the other. I make two tapering strokes with the jack plane. The first begins about 13” from the tip of the stick. The second begins back at my left hand. I make this pair of strokes three times without rotating the stick. This creates a significant flat on the stick. And by the third set of strokes, the jack is a little difficult to push.
A short stroke.
Long stroke.
Then I rotate the stick until an arris (aka a corner) is facing up. Then I repeat the above strokes – making the arris into a wide flat. Then I rotate the stick again. I keep stroking and rotating until the stick’s tip is about 5/8” in diameter – or about 1/8” above the 1/2”-tall stop in my vise.
Here is an arris before planing.
That arris becomes a flat after three short strokes and three long strokes. Then I rotate the stick so a new arris points up.
Then I enter Stage 2
Stage 2
Stage 2 is simple. It is just full-length strokes on the stick – from my hand (still holding the tenon) to the tip. I start on an arris and take three strokes, again making a flat. Then I rotate the stick until an arris faces up. Then three more strokes to flatten it. Rotate. Repeat.
I keep this pattern up until the tip of the stick is 1/2” in diameter and does not stick up above the stop in the vise.
Here you can see the tip of the stick is just about 1/2″ in diameter. A few strokes will finish it.
That’s when I enter Stage 3.
Stage 3
I turn the stick around and press the tenon against the stop in the vise. Then I use a block plane to taper the bottom of the long stick down to the tenon. I do this by making quick, short cuts and rotating the stick. This work is quick.
I leave a little bit of a shoulder so the stick fills the mortise in the seat.
Then I turn the stick around again, pushing its tip against the stop in the vise, and I clean up the top part of the stick, making sure it is round and the facets are nice and even.
I check my work by dropping the long stick into a mortise in my armbow. The stick should get wedged with about 8” of the stick (plus the 1-1/4” tenon) showing. If I need to remove more material, I remove the stick from the arm and shave it more with the block plane. Look for arrises and smooth them out.
This might not be the fastest way to make sticks, but it’s the fastest way I know of today.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Why don’t I turn my sticks on a lathe? I don’t have a steady-rest or any other equipment that could make this work. I prefer to work with bench tools when making chairs in order to keep my tool kit as small as possible. Plus, I’m a fairly lame turner.
I have a few important restock notices today. We’ve just posted a big batch of Crucible 4” Sliding Bevels. The machine shop is cranking them out as fast as they can, and we hope to catch up with demand before February.
Also – we have Crucible Card Scrapers back in stock. I wish I could blame the supply chain crisis for these being out of stock, but that would be a lie. I plum forgot to order the steel when we ran low on the tools and then – bam – we ran out.
The other news is that we have chore coats in stock in the new cavalry twill. Tom Bonamici, our clothing designer, wrote this up about the new fabric.
“We’ve tried a few different fabrics for our chore coat. The first was a hauntingly nice heavy sateen from Japan, custom-woven for the project. It was amazing, but outrageously expensive. Like, sell-a-kidney expensive. So we switched to a nice sturdy brushed twill from a U.S. vendor for the next two production runs.
“For our latest run, which is now available, we’ve switched to a mid-weight cotton cavalry twill from Brisbane Moss, a long-running mill in West Yorkshire, England. Cavalry twill is a tightly woven hard-wearing double twill, originally developed for military riding breeches. It’s very similar in construction to wool whipcord, with a harder face that’s easy to brush clean of sawdust and plane shavings. And it’s slightly lighter weight than our last two fabrics, making a chore coat that’s really the perfect weight for a year-round layer in the shop.
“The coat’s construction is the same as ever – reinforced lower pockets, custom debossed buttons, and a fit on the trim side of regular. And we’re proud to keep working with Sew Valley here in Cincinnati for the cut and sew.”
One more note about the coats. We had them listed at $135, which was a price we were selling out some small sizes in the old material. I forgot to restore the price back to $165. So some of y’all got the bargain of the year (I know, it’s early in the year).
