My daughter Katherine has cooked up a batch of Soft Wax 2.0, a non-toxic finish that I use on my chairs, kitchen countertops, tables and other household objects.
We switched to making this finish because it is non-toxic. And it works just as well as the high-solvent based wax she made for years. Katherine sells the wax through her etsy store. It is $24 for an 8 ounce jar, which is enough to finish two stick chairs (at least). A little bit goes a long way.
Here are the details and instructions.
Soft Wax 2.0 is a non-toxic finish for bare wood that is incredibly easy to apply and imparts a beautiful low luster to the wood.
The finish is made by cooking raw, organic linseed oil (from the flax plant) and combining it with cosmetics-grade beeswax and a small amount of a citrus-based solvent. The result is that this finish can be applied without special safety equipment, such as a respirator. The only safety caution is to dry the rags out flat you used to apply before throwing them away. (All linseed oil generates heat as it cures, and there is a small but real chance of the rags catching fire if they are bunched up while wet.)
Soft Wax 2.0 is an ideal finish for pieces that will be touched a lot, such as chairs, turned objects and spoons. The finish does not build a film, so the wood feels like wood – not plastic. Because of this, the wax does not provide a strong barrier against water or alcohol. If you use it on countertops or a kitchen table, you will need to touch it up every once in a while. Simply add a little more Soft Wax to a deteriorated finish and the repair is done – no stripping or additional chemicals needed.
Soft Wax 2.0 is not intended to be used over a film finish (such as lacquer, shellac or varnish). It is best used on bare wood. However, you can apply it over a porous finish, such as milk paint.
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (VERY IMPORTANT): Applying Soft Wax 2.0 is so easy if you follow the simple instructions. On bare wood, apply a thin coat of soft wax using a rag, applicator pad, 3M gray pad or steel wool. Allow the finish to soak in about 15 minutes. Then, with a clean rag or towel, wipe the entire surface until it feels dry. Do not leave any excess finish on the surface. If you do leave some behind, the wood will get gummy and sticky.
The finish will be dry enough to use in a couple hours. After a couple weeks, the oil will be fully cured. After that, you can add a second coat (or not). A second coat will add more sheen and a little more protection to the wood.
Soft Wax 2.0 is made in small batches in Kentucky using a waterless process. Each glass jar contains 8 oz. of soft wax, enough for two chairs.
After a mere 57 weeks of writing, editing and layout, “The Stick Chair Book” is off to Tennessee to be printed. While our books normally take six to eight weeks to get printed, this one will take 12-14 weeks because of the book’s special paper (more on that in a moment).
Look for the book to start selling in late September or early October. The book is a monster: 632 pages, full-color interior, printed heavy-duty end sheets and all the normal manufacturing touches that are typical for our books. Stiff 98-point cover boards, 100-percent cotton cover cloth and the best binding we can find (sewn, glued and taped to last).
The price will be $49. That’s steep, I know. In fairness, we set the price a little lower than we should have for the book’s manufacturing specs. It should be about $54 to be in line with our other books, but I’m the author, so I am allowed to sell myself a little short.
About the paper: I have been experimenting with using uncoated papers with color printing for a while now. The uncoated stock makes the text easier to read. But it isn’t typical for a book such as this because it makes the photos tricky.
On coated paper, photos reproduce crisply. That’s why museums and coffee-table books use coated paper – it’s all about the images. On uncoated stock, photos can get mushy if they aren’t sharp and have good contrast.
So this book was built from the start with the paper stock I had in mind. But, as a result of all this thinking and experimenting, the paper has to be ordered from the mill. Hence the long wait for the book.
In the coming weeks I’ll share details on the scope of the book plus a couple excerpts.
I am relieved that “The Stick Chair Book” is in someone else’s hands so I can get back to designing Nancy Hiller’s “Shop Tails” book, which is a ton of fun to read. Plus, I get to crop photos of cute animals.
I first learned about the Nannau oak while working on “Honest Labour: The Charles Hayward Years.” Flipping through every page of every issue of The Woodworker magazine, I skimmed a lot of text. But a lot of what Hayward wrote slowed me down, like this entry in the Diary, a regular smattering of bits and pieces of news all somewhat related to wood that I loved to read.
Old Welsh Oaks
The unexpected fall, about six weeks ago, of the giant oak tree in Powis Castle Park, Welshpool, recalls other historic oak trees in Wales. There was the Nannau oak, near Welshpool, which fell suddenly after a great storm in 1813. As the “haunted” tree it was long an object of superstitious dread. The legend goes that in a quarrel Owain Glyndwr slew his cousin, the Lord of Nannau, and thrust his body into the hollow trunk of the old oak. Not far from the Nannau oak is another which is connected with Owain Glyndwr, and is called Glyndwr’s Oak or The Shelton Oak. It is now a gnarled old specimen, and the story tells that from its branches Glyndwr watched the fate of his ally, Henry Hotspur, at the battle of Shrewsbury, in 1403. Owain was unable to reach Hotspur, on account of the swollen state of the Severn, the bridges being held by the King. The tree is now so hollow with age that several persons at a time can stand inside its trunk.
–– Charles Hayward
Still we read about the falls of great oaks, such as as BBC’s coverage of the estimated 1,000-year-old Buttington Oak, which fell two miles from Welshpool, Wales, in October 2018.
The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about an obituary for the Salem Oak in June 2019.
The New York Times covered the 2017 cutting down of the 600-year-old “Old Oak Tree” in the churchyard of a Presbyterian church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.
How can you write 500 words, 1,000 words, on the death of a tree? Turns out, once you become an old-enough tree, you become the topic of (or, perhaps more often, the setting of) legends. True, untrue, it doesn’t matter. It’s difficult to read about a centuries-old oak that has died without also reading some fantastic tale associated with it. And once I started researching the Nannau oak, I realized there was just so much story to work with, which led me to “The Mabinogion” itself. How to turn this into something? I had no idea. But I couldn’t let it go which I suppose is the way most somethings begin.
The time came this weekend to divide up my parents’ cremains among the four children. After my dad died in 2018, I put his ashes in a campaign chest until we could decide what to do with them. Then my mother died unexpectedly in May, and I had two sizable boxes of ash to watch over.
The process is essentially like dispensing flour or (I suspect) selling narcotics. You scoop some out from the plastic bag and weigh it so we all get equal parts mom and dad. I wasn’t squeamish or emotional about the event. For me, at least, I carry my parents in my heart and genetic code. But I wanted some way to humanize this odd, plastic-bag process.
So I walked down to my workshop and quickly found my favorite wooden spoon, which was carved by Peter Follansbee.
My dad loved Peter’s work, and my mom always loved every wooden spoon that came into her kitchen. So it somehow seemed right.
The spoon is short, so it was easy to control its motion without shaking off the contents. The narrow neck up by the bowl was perfect for gripping it and keeping everything steady. It was like Peter had carved this spoon for this very operation.
I sealed up the eight bags and took the spoon back to the shop to be cleaned.
It still has a lot of life left in it. And some more joyful tasks ahead.
BALTIMORE DEMILUNE CARD TABLE (1988). Mahogany. 30″ high x 36″ wide x 36″ deep. (Photos courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
The following is excerpted from “The Difference Makers,” by Marc Adams, a collection of remarkable stories and work from 30 of the best furniture makers, toolmakers, luthiers, sculptors and more with whom Marc has worked since 1993 at his eponymous school.
Steve Latta makes contemporary and traditional furniture while teaching woodworking at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology and Millersville University in Lancaster County, Pa. He’s a contributing editor to Fine Woodworking magazine and has released several videos on inlay and furniture construction. He has lectured at Colonial Williamsburg, The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts and Winterthur Museum, as well as numerous other schools and guilds. Working in conjunction with Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, he helped develop and market a set of contemporary inlay tools. Steve is an active member of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers and a juried member of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, in rural southeastern Pennsylvania, with their three children – Fletcher, Sarah and Grace – nearby.
WALNUT BOOKCASE (2002). Walnut. 50″ high x 30-1/2″ wide x 13″ deep. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
On the Professional Side In high school and all through college Steve worked in bicycle shops, eventually funding his tuition with his own repair business. After graduating, he continued fixing bicycles until the day he was offered a job making cabinets. “With bikes, you put the pieces in harmony,” he says. “With wood, you get to make the pieces.” That concept appealed to Steve and at the young age of 22, he made a career change. For the first eight years it was mostly on-the-job training. Steve did everything from cabinet making to trim carpentry before he landed in Kent, Ohio, where he worked for two companies: Western Reserve Furniture, as a shift foreman, and then on to a much smaller shop, Liberty Custom Furniture. It was during this time that Steve started to gain interest in making period furniture, which led him to move to the Philadelphia area in hopes of finding a shop looking for an apprentice.
FEDERAL END TABLE (2015). Walnut with inlays. 26″ high x 18″ wide x 17″ deep. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
“When this journey started, I realized that I liked small, high-quality shops that did not pull the punches,” he says. “So I would work for someone for a few years and when I had learned as much as that shop had to offer, I would move on to the next.”
In time, Steve became known for his skill at inlay and veneering, specifically in the Federal style. However, he has always considered himself more of a process guy than a production guy; he often enjoys the journey more than the destination. In his personal work, Steve is trying to break away from the mould of being a maker known for a specific style.
“With period work, the design is pretty much given and the emphasis is on interpretation,” he says. Today he is developing his own designs. On a trip to Ireland, Steve was moved by the geometric lines in many of the beautiful cathedrals and Celtic work. Inspired by these patterns he has moved to a new type of work involving a much freer style of inlay and a much broader view of “traditional” work. But Steve admits that he would love to have been a 17th- or 18th-century silversmith: “Their work just blows me away.”
FEDERAL SIDEBOARD (2011). Mahogany solids and veneers, maple and inlays. 40″ high x 62″ wide x 22″ deep. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
In all his success, Steve still considers one item to be his crowning achievement. It’s not that Lie-Nielsen has made a series of videos which feature him or sells his inlay tools. Nor is it the fact that writing for Fine Woodworking has made him a legend in woodworking circles. Today, if you were to ask Steve what he considers to be his greatest accomplishment, it would be teaching for the last 20 years at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. “My best work, outside of my family, is on display in shops and classrooms all across the country,” he says. “I am referring to my students who have graduated and work in the field and teach in the classroom.”
CHIPPENDALE MIRROR (2006). Quilted makore. 15″ wide x 27″ tall. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
On the Personal Side There is an old saying that “those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.” That is not the case with Steve. He is a brilliantly talented craftsman and an even better teacher. To complete the package, he is a man of strong faith and dedicated to his family. Steve regularly volunteers his time to local organizations as well as international missionary work.
Steve was recommended by finishing expert Jeff Jewitt the summer of 2001. Although Steve had been woodworking most of his adult life, he was unknown nationally. So, I decided to take a pass, but I did keep his name on file. In 2003, Steve sent me an email to introduce himself, along with a résumé and photos of a few of his furniture pieces. His work showed stellar skill, but his résumé didn’t prove he could teach.
SPICE CHEST (1995). Walnut with inlay. 19″ high x 15″ wide x 10″ deep.
Through the years MASW has offered a class called “Decorative Details.” I knew what I wanted from such a workshop, but previous instructors missed the mark. Photos of Steve’s work showed remarkable string inlay, which would make for a perfect Decorative Details workshop. I asked, he accepted and the rest is history. In his very first class he was organized, articulate and his demonstrations were spot-on. Students loved him, as did my staff. And within a year or two he had become one of the largest draws at the school.
What makes Steve so good? It’s not the quality of workmanship or skill he possesses, nor is it his remarkable ability to make complex tasks simple. What makes Steve so good is his servant’s heart. In all my years, I have only met one other person like Steve, and that is Mitch Kohanek. The similarity between these two men is that they both have chosen not to make oodles of money in the private sector, which they could, but they dedicated their lives to the humble service of teaching. Both teach at community colleges with modest pay, long hours and often little recognition from within the systems they work for.
TEA BOX (2016). Walnut, cedar and spalted birch. 4-1/2″ high x 14″ wide x 9″ deep. “The wood for this box was salvaged from branches left after a storm at a local Quaker Meeting,” Steve says.
Each week MASW hosts an evening slide show where instructors show slides of their body of work. Steve could talk about his experiences as a contributing editor at Fine Woodworking. He could talk about the tools he developed or videos he did for Lie-Nielsen. He could talk about his leadership in SAPFM, TV show appearances or being a guest lecturer at Colonial Williamsburg.
Instead he prefers to focus on the work of his students. He talks about each person as a proud father talks about a child. Though it’s Steve’s moment to shine, he humbly turns the spotlight from himself to others. He finishes his presentation by saying that his great hope is that someday, one of his students will teach at MASW. Steve considers that will be his crowning achievement. I can’t wait for that to happen.
WALNUT BLANKET CHEST (2017). Walnut with inlay. 20″ high x 42″ wide x 24″ deep.
