I’m looking forward to the upcoming open house at Lost Art Press on August 7th. It’s a chance to share a project Jim Tolpin and I have been working on. Yes, we are at it again – exploring the world of design and artisan geometry. This latest adventure began after looking at a number of historic tool chests and tools used by pre-industrial woodworkers. Most of the tools like hand planes, saws and chisels were typically acquired from specialty toolmakers. Yet there was a group of tools that were often user made, including straight edges, try squares and miter squares. This grouping of tools had a few things in common. Generally, they are used for design and layout and they all embody the geometry that lies beneath everything. They provide that physical link between our designer’s eye and the work at hand.
After Jim and I made some of these tools and began using them, we both came to realize there is something deeper going on. Yes they are highly functional and a pleasure to use. More than that, these tools are teachers. Turns out that building a set of traditional layout tools is a class in advanced hand-tool techniques as well as a master class in artisan geometry. All these tool builds use geometry to generate the tool, but also utilize geometry to dial in each tool to a high level of perfection.
A simple tool exploration on our part blossomed as we looked at historic examples and built one tool after another. To our delight we learned that each build and each tool contains insights that deepens the connection between hand and eye. Jim won’t be able to attend the open house, but I’ll be there with a pile of these “Tools of By Hand & Eye” for you to handle and see for yourself. I look forward to hearing from you and perhaps gaining insights from your questions and perspective. These tools have a way of sparking the imagination.
P.S. I also will be bringing along a special surprise for anyone interested in the nautical history of the Ohio River Valley.
We sold out of the letterpress posters today. I did a little math, and we broke even. We might have even made $5.
I don’t like making limited-edition things. I’d like everyone who wants one of these to get one. But I also don’t want to wipe the bottoms of my future grandbabies with letterpress posters.
So here’s what I’d like to do. If you want to buy a letterpress poster of the “Family Tree of Chairs,” leave a comment below with your name and the country where you live. That will help me determine if we can afford another run of posters, and if we should make them available to our overseas vendors.
The poster would be the same price ($33) and printed via letterpress with a different ink, such as green, blue or brown.
And for those of you who purchased posters today, thank you. Your support helped fund the custom endsheets in “The Stick Chair Book.”
Our “Family Tree of Chairs” letterpress poster is now available in our store. There are only 200 available. So if you want one, don’t tarry. If these sell out, we will consider doing another run in a different ink color, such as green or brown.
Also, our next generation of woodworking pencils are also available today here. A box of five in a nicely printed box is available for $12. These pencils are made to our specifications in the USA. We have been testing different pencil configurations for months. These pencils are robust, make a good mark and sharpen easily.
Finally, some customers have asked to purchase replacement handles for our lump hammer, mostly to have a spare on hand in case the handle ever breaks. The hickory handle is a custom shape that requires both turning and handwork. It ships with oak and metal wedges for installing the head. You can read the details here.
Typical English Windsors (what I call Forest chairs). Note the rake and splay of the legs. It’s important. From “The English Regional Chair” by Bernard Cotton.
Editor’s note: I prefer to use the earlier term “Forest chair” instead of “Windsor.” Read more here. I know it’s stupid and confusing. But sorry. I’m a spaz and a weirdo.
If you study American furniture forms, the following question might have occurred to you: Where are the American stick chairs?
It’s a valid question, and one I have thought about quite a lot. North America is filled with people who emigrated from countries and regions with long histories with this vernacular form, including Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the West Country.
And I have yet to see a verified vernacular U.S.-made chair that looks like one of the vernacular stick forms from those Anglo-Saxony places. Instead, the most common vernacular American form is a ladderback chair. Venture into any hollow in Kentucky, and you will see them on porches and around dining tables. And they are still being made there (as Andy Glenn has been investigating) and sold as everyday objects at everyday prices ($53).
These shaved (or turned) ladderback chairs came over from Europe, as Jennie Alexander and Peter Follansbee have pointed out. And the Forest chair form (what most people call a Windsor chair) obviously leapt the Atlantic and put down deep roots in the local soil. You also will see German/Moravian stick forms that were sometimes made in the U.S.
But funky Welsh, Irish or Scottish stick chairs? Not so much.
The only examples I’ve found of vernacular stick chairs in America were ones that were made in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and the West Country and later traveled here. (To be fair, I have found a few Canadian stick chairs that were likely made in Canada.)
I don’t have any answers for why this is the case. And I am not a fan of wild speculation. But I do have some thoughts and observations that have been churning around in my head for a few years. And because you don’t pay anything to read this blog, I decided to put this stuff here instead of into “The Stick Chair Book.” Here are my you-get-what-you-pay-for synapses:
Common English hoop-back Forest chairs. From “The English Regional Chair” by Bernard Cotton.
I don’t think that American Forest chairs and English Forest chairs are 100-percent stylistic blood brothers. Sure, the forms are built on the same principle: driving sticks into a planked seat. But that style of construction has been around since the ancient Egyptians. The town of Windsor didn’t invent it.
You are unlikely to confuse an English Forest chair with an American one – they are that distinct. A typical English example has legs that have minimal rake and splay. The front legs are nearly vertical in many cases. A fair number of English Forest forms have a pierced backsplat. The sticks are fairly straight or have some entasis. And the seat is almost always a hardwood.
American comb-back. Note the splay (how can you not?). From “The Windsor Style in America” by Charles Santore.
In contrast, American Forest chairs have far more radical rake and splay. (Almost like… a vernacular stick chair from Wales or Ireland.) I can tell an American chair from an English one simply by looking at the legs. Also, American Forest chairs are unlikely to have a pierced backsplat. Backsplatted Americans are out there, but they are rare. American sticks are typically thinner and also more bulbous near the seat. Americans use softer woods for the seat.
Also interesting: I see far more American comb-backs in the wild than English comb-backs (except for the very early English Forest chairs that were comb-backs). American makers and their customers loved comb-backs. (Interestingly, comb-backs are a very common vernacular stick chair form.) In England, however, comb-backs were less common. Hoop-back chairs and what we now call sack-back chairs were more common in my experience.
What does this all add up to? Not much, I admit. But when I blur my eyes and look at American Forest chairs, I see a dynamic and angular silhouette that looks like the vernacular stick chairs I love. Then my eyes focus, and I see all the turnings, carvings and ornamentation.
So for now, when someone asks me “Where are the American stick chairs?” my answer is “Just wait a minute. They’re coming.”
John Brown brought them here and named them. He was followed by Chris Williams, John Porritt and others. And this fall, I hope to do my small part to make them part of the American tradition with “The Stick Chair Book.”
Sure, we’re about 250 years behind the Forest chairs. But hey, some of us were born too late.
— Christopher Schwarz
Irish comb-back. Check the rake on those back legs. Photo by me.
FIG. 1. USE OF THE HAND SAW FOR RIPPING DOWN A BOARD Note how the blade is steadied by the thumb of the left hand when starting the cut. It is a good plan to hold the saw low when beginning to ensure alignment with the line
The following is excerpted from Vol. I of “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years: Tools.” As editor of The Woodworker magazine from 1939 to 1967, Hayward oversaw the transformation of the craft from one that was almost entirely hand-tool based to a time where machines were common, inexpensive and had displaced the handplanes, chisels and backsaws of Hayward’s training and youth.
This massive project – five books in total – seeks to reprint a small part of the information Hayward published in The Woodworker during his time as editor in chief. This is information that hasn’t been seen or read in decades. No matter where you are in the craft, from a complete novice to a professional, you will find information here you cannot get anywhere else.
We have culled, organized, scanned, edited and re-edited these articles to create these hardbound volumes. This is not simply a quick reprint of old magazines. We have reset all of the type. We have scanned and cleaned every image (there are more than 2,000 drawings and photos). The entire project took hundreds of hours and a dozen people all over the country.
The first volume is on tools, and includes: Sharpening; Setting Out Tools & Chisels; Planes; Saws; Boring Tools; Carving; Turning; Veneering & Inlay.
There are three general classes of saws; hand-saws, back-saws, and those for cutting curves. The first, with the use of which we are concerned here, are for the preliminary cutting up of timber and for the larger joints, and at least one is essential in the kit.
Features of the Handsaw. A saw which will cut fairly rapidly without badly tearing out the grain, and one which can be used for cutting both across and with the grain, is desirable because it can be used for so many purposes. Choose one about 22 in. long (that is the blade length measured along the teeth) and having, say, 10 points to the inch. The latter detail refers to the size of the teeth and means the number of tooth points in an inch including those at both ends. In Fig. 2, for instance, there are 10 points to the inch. Many saws have the number stamped on the blade near the handle. If you propose to do mostly carpentry as distinct from furniture making you can gain a little in cutting speed at the sacrifice of fine cutting by choosing a saw with larger teeth, say 8 points.
FIG. 2. HOW TOOTH SIZE IS CALCULATED Count the points (not the teeth) in an inch including those at both ends
Make sure that it is a cross-cut saw you get, not a rip-saw. There is an important difference between the sharpening of the two which affects the cutting. The cross-cut can be used for any sort of cutting, whereas the rip-saw is confined to sawing with the grain. It is a good plan too to choose a taper-ground-saw. It means that the blade has a natural clearance in the kerf it makes since it is slightly thinner at the back than at the toothed edge. Even with this refinement, however, a saw would jam in its kerf unless the teeth were given what is known as set. This is the slight bending over of the teeth in alternate directions so that, as the saw cuts through the wood, it makes a cut (kerf it is usually called) slightly wider than the thickness of its blade. Of course, this means that the resistance is slightly greater in that the saw has had to remove more wood in sawdust, but this is mostly offset by the reduced friction of the blade in the kerf. It does mean, however, that the taper-ground-saw has a definite advantage in that the set can be less owing to the natural clearance of the blade.
Using the Saw. Sawing is done on trestles, on the bench, or in the vice. In the first the wood is usually steadied by pressure from the knee, whilst for bench sawing the usual plan is to cramp down the wood. This is really important because it is impossible to saw properly if the wood is jumping about. Here then is a first essential. If you cannot hold the wood steady, fix it down with a cramp.
FIG. 3 . FAULTS IN SAWING A. Blade is not held upright. Square is used to test B. Forcing, often leading to a buckled-blade C. Blade twisted to correct wandering from line
Square Sawing. Perhaps the chief difficulty that besets the beginner is that of square sawing, and this is entirely a matter of knowing when the saw is upright and of keeping it so throughout its stroke. If the cut is not square it means that at best there will be a lot of wood to trim away, and at worst the wood may be too small owing to its have been undercut. For a start place a trysquare on the bench against the blade and endeavour to keep the blade in line with it as at A, Fig. 3. We have known a case of a man, determined to cure a fault of sawing out of square, who stood a large mirror in front of himself and glanced at it occasionally to see whether the saw was upright. This is not usually practicable, but whatever method you use endeavour to get the feel of when the saw is upright. Put the square on the wood and hold the saw against it perfectly upright. Note and try to register your position. Move the saw into various positions in its stroke and again note your attitude. After a time you will no longer need to use the square as a guide, but even so, test the sawn edge afterwards to see whether you have any special bias, and endeavour to correct the fault.
FIG. 4. COMMON FAULT IN SAWING ALONG A LINE The saw drifts and to correct it the blade is twisted. The saw cuts the other way, and so on till the end of the cut
Straight Sawing. A common experience for a beginner is to find that the saw is either drifting away from or bearing towards the line along which he is sawing. He tries to put things right by twisting the handle (C, Fig. 3), and, after a few strokes finds that the saw is bearing the opposite way, and so it goes on until the end of the cut, the resulting edge being a long and wavy line as in Fig. 4. Clearly the important thing is to start right with the saw blade parallel with the line.
Now in normal sawing the blade is held so that the line of the teeth makes about 45 degrees with the wood, as at A, Fig. 5. This makes it a little difficult to judge whether the blade is in alignment with the line, because when the saw is low the handle does not extend far enough along the line to enable you to judge the matter, and when it is high the handle is so far above the line that it is just as difficult. The best plan is to start the cut with the saw held at a very low angle as at B, Fig. 5. Then, if the toe of the saw is used to start the cut the handle will extend a long way along the line and it will be low. Once a reasonable start has been made the saw can assume the normal 45 degrees. If you start right there is no reason why you should not keep right—assuming that the saw is in order. Bad sharpening can cause drifting, but the drift will always be in the same direction. It may be due to unequal setting, to the saw having been sharpened from the same side throughout, to one side having been caught on a nail, or to the blade being buckled. Do not try to cure it yourself. Take it to a proper sharpener and explain what happens. He will know what to do. Sharpening and the correction of faults is a skilled operation calling for experience.
FIG. 5. ANGLE AT WHICH HAND SAW IS HELD Normal angle is shown at A. For starting the cut the low angle B is advisable as it gives a better idea of whether the saw is in alignment with the line
General Sawing. Assume that you are going to saw along a board, the latter held on trestles or boxes. Start the saw at a low angle as already suggested and give a few short strokes, the blade bearing against the thumb of the left hand to steady it as shown in Fig. 1. This enables the saw to make a start in the right place. As the blade cuts more deeply into the wood you can gradually change the position of the handle so that the blade makes about 45 degrees with the wood, and the short starting strokes can be changed to long ones embracing nearly the whole length of the saw. Note from Fig. 1 how the index finger of the right hand points along the blade. This is a great aid to control and applies to almost every saw. Keep the left hand with either the thumb or side of the finger bearing against the blade until the saw has cut a fair way into the wood—say about the width of its blade. Apart from steadying it at the start it helps to prevent an injury in the event of the blade jumping from the kerf. If the left hand is merely held at the edge away from the saw the latter might jump out and jar the hand.
Don’t force the blade. Keep it moving steadily in long, even strokes with light or moderate pressure. It used to be taught to apprentices that a saw should cut merely by its own weight, and the underlying idea that forcing must be avoided is sound; but you need something rather more positive than this. Give just enough pressure to ensure firm control and you will find that the saw will cut freely. If it doesn’t, it needs sharpening.
In practically every case the saw is used to the side of the line rather than on it. The point is that the line represents the finished size, and the saw cut is made on the waste side to allow for final trimming with the plane. Many men tend to saw well away from the line for fear of making the wood too small. This is natural enough, but it exemplifies the lack of confidence of a man not sure of himself. Learn to cut accurately therefore, and you can then cut close to the line, leaving just enough for trimming.
