Lost Art Press

Use a Travisher for a Smooth Chair Seat

Posted on by fitz

Excerpted from Peter Galbert’s “Chairmaker’s Notebook.”


The next job is to smooth the carved portion of the seat until there are no distinct bumps or transitions, leaving a surface ready for scraping. For this, I reach for a travisher.

Some users prefer a compass plane, and when I started I made and used one. In my experience, the travisher is a more versatile tool, so my compass plane sits rarely used. The compass plane does excel, however, at getting even curves at the back of long settees.

The travisher can be tough to get used to because folks often roll the tool back while pushing it to find the cutting edge; this makes the tool take a heavy cut and jams the throat with shavings. Using a travisher or spokeshave requires a movement that is counter-intuitive and must be practiced.

Fig. 19.24 Hand position and pressure is essential to travisher technique.

Unlike when using a carving tool, where lowering the handle actually raises the edge out of a cut (like a spoon in ice cream), these tools take a deeper cut when the handles are dropped back. To come out of the cut with control and not have the thick end of the shaving clog the throat, the tool must be rolled forward at the end of each stroke. This is a strange action and no one should expect it to feel normal at first. Practice this “stroke” without engaging the blade, just riding on the surface and exaggerating the rolling forward at the end of the stroke, jutting your wrists forward. I know it feels wrong, but it’s right. To see the illustration of this motion, refer to the section on pitch-adjusted tools in Hand Tools: Sharpening & Use.

Fig. 19.25 Cutting the back of the seat to match the travisher.

Like the inshave, I use the travisher across the fibers while skewing it in the direction that the end grain descends. This allows me to traverse the transition areas without getting hung up in the end grain of the opposing side. A subtle crisscross pattern will help create an even surface.

The shape of the travisher is also helpful in creating a consistent curve at the back of the seat. Cut in front of the gutter until the shape of the seat matches the shape of the travisher. If you want to make it deeper, skew the travisher. If the tool won’t cut in the center of the curve any longer, check to make sure that there isn’t material holding it up in the surrounding areas.

The travisher is one of my favorite tools. I use the various portions of the blade to refine the curves of the seat with a speed that allows me to “see” the seat take shape and make subtle adjustments as needed.
Rubbing your hand with its palm flat across the seat’s surface can help to detect any bumps or dips. At this point, the initial depth holes should be barely visible, if at all.

Fig. 19.26 Smoothing the surface with the travisher across the grain.
Fig. 19.27 Examine the surface for areas that need refining.

A Deconstruction of the Partridge in a Pear Tree

Posted on by saucyindexer
Wooden spingerle cookie mold for the First Day of Christmas.

Christmastide, the twelve days from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night, is one of my favorite times of the winter season. The long rush to Christmas is over and, for me, it has always been a time to relax. I spend time out-of-doors bird watching and squirrel wrangling. All of our many oak trees have shed their leaves and the loblolly pines, the magnolias and other evergreens are easier to see and admire. This is the time of year I like to reread a favorite book and this year my selection is “The Outermost House” by Henry Beston. January 5, or Twelfth Night, calls for another read of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night or What You Will.”

The deconstruction of the partridge in a pear tree involves a dip into one of the origin stories of woodworking from the ancient world followed by an article by a very-much-missed modern-day woodworker.

The Partridge

This is a drama involving gifted inventors, ambition, jealousy, treachery, broken familial bonds and a goddess. It must be a three-hankie opera, you are probably thinking. No! That’s very close, but incorrect. It is a sordid episode from Greek and Roman mythology. The story has two possible endings, neither of which is of particular benefit to the victim. There will be some confusion about the name of the victim but it will possibly be made clear for you.

First, we will hear from Book V of Diodorus of Siculus (Greek 60-30 BC): “Talus, a son of the sister of Daedalus, was receiving his education in the home of Daedalus, while he was still a lad in years. But being more gifted than his teacher he invented the potter’s wheel, and then when once he had come by chance upon the jawbone of a snake and with it had sawn through a small piece of wood, he tried to imitate the jaggedness of the serpent’s teeth. Consequently he fashioned a saw out of iron, by means of which he gained the reputation of having discovered a device which would be of great service to the art of building. He likewise discovered also the tool for describing a circle and certain other cunningly contrived devices whereby he gained for himself great fame. But Daedalus becoming jealous of the youth and feeling that his fame was going to rise far above that of his teacher, treacherously slew the youth.”

Fresco from Pompeii in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Photo taken in 1895, Goodyear Archival Collection, Brooklyn Museum.

You might know this fresco as The Procession of the Carpenters. In the 19-century museum handbook the fresco is identified as the Death of Perdix (should be Talus) and is described: “This picture represents the murder in the workshop, with apprentices sawing and planing. It is painted on the plane of a catafalque carried by four bearers.” At the forefront of the catafalque we see the scene of the crime. To the left of the apprentice busy planing you will notice what appears to be a surfboard. It is Athena’s shield, however most of Athena herself, at least in this fresco, has disintegrated. Daedalus is one of her favorites and she knows what deed he has done.

Daedalus wrapped the body of Talus in cloth and rushed to bury him. A passerby was suspicious and asked Daedalus what he was burying. Daedalus said it was a snake and his murderous act was discovered. Diodorus provides this pithy conclusion: “Here a man may well wonder at the strange happening, that the same animal that led to the thought of devising the saw should also have been the means through which the murder came to be discovered.”

Next, Book VIII of Ovid’s Metamorphosis gives us a different ending: “Your sister, Perdix, oblivious to the fates, sent you her son, Talus, to be taught: twelve years old, his mind ready for knowledge. Indeed, the child, studying the spine of a fish, took it as a model and cut continuous teeth out of sharp metal, inventing the use of the saw. He was also the first to pivot two iron arms on a pin, so that, with the arms set at a distance, one part could be fixed, and the other sweep out a circle. Daedalus was jealous, and hurled the boy headlong from Minerva’s sacred citadel, claiming that he had fallen. But Pallas Minerva, who favors those with quick minds, caught him, and turned him into a partridge, masking him with feathers in mid-air.”

Neither of these two illustrations capture the drama of Talus transforming from human to partridge. We need a better example of, as Ovid put it, “His inborn energy was transferred to swift wings and feet, and he kept his mother’s name, Perdix, from before.”

This is much better. We see Daedalus and the force of the push. Athena (Minerva) is well-positioned on her cloud to save Talus by transforming his fall into the flight of the partridge, Perdix.

Perdix perdix, the gray partridge.

One last line from Ovid: “But the bird does not perch above the ground, and does not make its nest on branches or on high points, but flies low on whirring wings over the soil, and lays its eggs in a sheltered place.” Poor Talus/Perdix! Such a gifted inventor. Whether it was the jaw of a snake or the spine of a fish that served as his inspiration for the saw we will never know for sure (myth).

As for Daedalus, he escaped a more severe punishment and was banished from Athens. He eventually makes his way to Crete. His story comes full circle when his invention leads to the loss of his son Icarus as they try to escape Crete.

The Pear Tree

The following article by the late David Savage, founder of the Rowden Atelier & Woodworking School, first appeared in the July 2008 issue of British Woodworking Magazine. David posted it on his Fine Furniture Maker blog in August 2008. On his blog it is titled “An Article on Pearwood.” He grabs you with the first line and doesn’t let go.

“Pear wood is one of the most sensual and satisfying of hardwoods that a furniture maker can encounter. The structure of the wood is hard, so hard that the sharpest of tools are required to work it. This allows you to cut the finest of details and form the most delicate of shapes. pear wood is also, unlike almost any other hardwood, without figure. I say without figure meaning without the usual graphics of timber. Pear wood is a timber that hasn’t lines running through it, but instead has a colour shift. The general colour of pear wood is almost dark fleshy colour, pinky brown is a favorite description. That colour can shift orangey or purpley brown on either side of the main colour. On rare occasions you can get dark purple, blacky contrasting heartwood colour but that is rare. Generally the colour of pear wood is fleshy pink.

Unlike our other exotic timbers, pear wood is a wood that is sensitive to work. Hand tools will take silky shavings from pear wood. There’s no need to scrape and scratch around to take out interlocking grain for there almost never is interlocking grain on pear wood. It’s what I call a well mannered wood. Pleasant to be with. It doesn’t stink or make you feel itchy or scratchy, it doesn’t get up your nose, it’s a nice wood to be around. In fact one of the most pleasant things about it is the way it works. The way fine silky shavings will come off with a well sharpened bench plane. The way new hues and colours are exposed with each shaving. Working with pear wood is a genuine sensuous experience, and one that should be cherished.

I first came in touch with pear wood over 30 years ago when I read about it in books by James Kenov. I then found myself a dealer near Bristol who had recently felled a small log of English pear. If I was prepared to buy the whole lot he would mill it up for me to the sizes I wanted. At the time I’d never dried any timber before and my London workshop hadn’t much space for me, let alone stacks of half dry timber. But I did have a flat roof that I thought would be a suitable place to stack this wood out. I read up about how to do it, got the pear wood home, dragged it up three flights of stairs, stickered it out with 1” square sticks at 12” intervals between each of the boards so that air could get round and covered it with a corrugated iron sheet to keep the direct sun off the boards. I sat back and looked with satisfaction at my precious stack of soon to be exquisite furniture. About that time an old craftsman said something to me that has stayed with me. He said “In timber lad there’s as much joy as heartache” and I didn’t know that this was going to be one of those heartache moments. In the Handbook of English Hardwoods which was the reference book I used at the time it said “pear wood is timber that is inclined to twist on drying,” which is why I put concrete blocks on top of the drying stack. What I should have done was put two or three tons of timber on the top of the stack as well. As my precious pear wood boards dried during that summer they turned into unusual wooden propellers. Each board twisted approximately 1” to 2” in each direction. I think I got a few small pieces of furniture from that stack but nothing larger than a jewellery box. Needless to say that was the last time I’ve attempted to dry English pear wood. Most of my pear wood these days comes from Switzerland. The Swiss are wonderful people and they grow pear wood as a shade tree in many of their cities. The pear wood they grow is steamed as part of the drying process. The steaming slightly changes the colour of the timber from being fleshy pink to a slightly darker, redder fleshy pink. The steaming is done to remove and kill the huge borers that can munch their way through the entire tree. I found a few of those borers in my stack of pear wood propellers. They made gigantic holes, not just down the sweet sapwood but right in the middle of the heartwood, and you found them only by putting the board over the jointer, suddenly your immaculate board now had a great long hole in it and you’d shaved the top off this living creature, yeuch! Steamed pear wood suddenly had great attractions.

It’s not an enormous tree the pear tree, but I’ve found in my time boards coming from Switzerland can be 10’ long and 2’6” wide. The bark on the tree is coarse but the sapwood, like cherry wood, is almost indistinguishable from the heartwood, meaning you can use the timber almost edge to edge. 

You have to be careful what you use pear wood for. This is a timber that is in scarce supply and it is a relatively expensive timber. Also it’s not available in really big boards so it would be unusual to find a dining table being made in pear wood, certainly in solid form, though I have seen veneered pear wood boardroom tables occasionally. Over the years I have made small cabinets and small occasional tables and card tables in solid pear wood and wall hung cabinets and very occasionally chairs, and I can safely say it has been one of the most enjoyable timbers I’ve ever used. Now just ‘cos I say so don’t go out and cause a world shortage by buying it all.

“Swiss Pearwood Bench” by Ted Blachly.

Ted Blachly note for this bench says, “This bench was made from luscious Swiss pearwood from the Jere Osgood wood collection…A rare treat.”

The next time you hear the first verse of The Twelve Days of Christmas perhaps you will remember the story of the young inventor of the saw and compass and a bird that prefers to stay close to ground. And also pear wood that can become unusual wooden propellers or be well-mannered, produce silky shavings and exquisite furniture.

–Suzanne Ellison


Making Book Part 17: The Drowning of the Puppies

Posted on by Lost Art Press

When we teach people to cut dovetails for the first time, I like to say that everyone on the planet is born with a certain number of sets of bad dovetails in their hands. And the only way to get rid of those bad dovetails is to make them. Eventually, you run out of bad dovetails, and you’re set for life.

The same is true with writing a book. Every time I start writing, there are at least three or four bad chapters that I have to write in order to get to the good ones. 

When I say “bad” I don’t mean they consist of dirty Esperanto limericks or are written from the point of view of the wood (“Oh Reginald, plunge your chisel into my lignin and make my mortise walls tremble”). Usually the chapter is fine in the noun and verb department. It simply doesn’t fit in the book. Square-peg-round-hole stuff.

This week I finished up one of these orphan chapters. As I wrote its last few paragraphs, I realized it was going to be recycled. The tone is wrong. Part of the tone problem is that I’ve come up with a better title for the book, and the chapter’s meta devices (there are three points of view) are just wrong.

So here it is. Note that I threw a few placeholder images into the text to break up the grey scrolling. Normally a chapter like this would have 15-20 images.

— Christopher Schwarz

Read other posts from the “Making Book” series here.

How to Build Any Kind of Chair

We had an intern in our workshop who was an odd duck. He was – by the numbers – smarter than anyone I’d met. But when it came to the real world, he had difficulty dressing himself each morning or making sure there wasn’t a piece of scrambled egg on his mouth.

I’ll call him John.

We always insisted our interns build furniture during their summers with us, and the interns sat in our planning meetings each week and were told: Come up with an idea for something to build. You can build it, write a magazine article about the process and end up with a nice piece of furniture and an article with your name at the top. A good deal.

At his first editorial meeting as an intern, John had an idea.

“Have you ever thought about doing an article on how to build a chair?” he asked everyone assembled around the table.

I stifled an immense snort. I asked him: “What sort of chair?”

“Any kind of chair,” he replied.

There was an awkward silence. What John proposed was like writing a bi-fold pamphlet on building a nuclear weapon, or publishing the IKEA directions for ending world hunger. The topic of chairmaking is so huge and complex that writing a 2,000-word magazine article on how to build “any kind of chair” was the most ridiculous proposal I’d ever heard.

And that’s why, more than 20 years later, I can’t stop thinking about it. So, with all apologies to John, I present a magazine article submission titled: “How to Build Any Kind of Chair.”

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How to Build Any Kind of Chair

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A chair is a platform for your butt that also offers support for your back. It may or may not offer support for your arms. That’s all there is – that’s the end of the definition of a chair.

Though the idea of a chair is simple, the thought of building one intimidates many woodworkers.

Once you understand how chairs work – there’s zero voodoo in it – I think you’ll find making any sort of chair to be straightforward. First you need to understand the numbers that make a good chair. Then the materials that make it durable. And finally, the joinery (if the chair has any – it doesn’t have to).

(Ed: No joinery? Are you not going to explain?)

Before we start talking about this stuff, here’s a trick that will help you remember these lessons. Find the most comfortable wooden chair in your house and fetch a tape measure, sliding bevel and protractor. As we talk about the numbers, the wood and the joinery, measure and examine the chair so you can compare it to your “ideal.” You will learn a lot.

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Chair by the Numbers

The seat should be between 15” to 18” from the floor. While 18” is the modern standard, that’s too high for short people. It pinches off the blood supply to the thighs. A height between 16-1/2” and 17” suits a wider range of people without making the chair uncomfortable for the gangly bunch.

(Ed: Need to attribute to “Human Dimension and Interior Space” by Julius Panero and Martin Zelnik)

A chair that’s too low can be difficult to pull yourself out of (which is not always a bad thing). And a low seat can encourage the sitter to kick out her heels. That posture might not feel as stable as when you have your feet flat on the floor. But I think that a too-low seat is better than a too-high seat. So, I always err on side of making the chair a little lower than a little taller.

The size – width and depth – of the seat is important. The seat should be about 16” deep, from front to back. Deeper seats stop the blood flow behind your knees. Shallow seats are not as big a problem as deep seats. I have made chairs with seats that are 13”-14” deep that sit just fine. Shoot for 16”. A little less than 16” is fine; a little more is not.

The width of the seat should be between 20” and 24”, unless the sitter is a pencil or an entire package of magic markers. If you make an armchair too wide, then the armrests will be too far apart to be comfortable. If you make an armchair too skinny, then the sitter might get wedged into the chair. This happens.

The seat should not be parallel to the floor, when measured from front to back. Instead, it should pitch backward a bit to encourage the body to slide backward against the backrest of the chair. If the chair is intended for typing or eating – where an upright posture is preferred – pitch the seat so it falls 3/4” from front to back.

(Ed: Are you sure that seats should never be parallel to the floor? What about stools? Swing-out seats? Might want to qualify your statement.)

If you want the chair for reading or conversation, double the pitch so it’s 1-1/2” from front to back.

If you make the seat parallel to the floor, the sitter might feel like he is being pitched forward. On the other hand, if you make the seat so it slopes 2” (or more) toward the back, you can force the sitter’s back into some unnatural positions, depending on the shape of the chair’s backrest.

I do not expect you to believe that such small changes make a huge difference. So do an experiment. Take a wooden chair in your house and prop up the front feet on 3/4″-thick blocks. Sit in the chair for about 15 minutes. Move the blocks to the back feet and sit for another 15 minutes – if you can stand it.

Oh, while we are putting blocks of wood under the legs, what about the angles of the legs? Aren’t they important? Yes and no. They can be straight up and down and still work, depending on the chair. Think about it this way: The footprint of the chair is what’s important. Think about the sitter and where her feet are and where her back is. If the front legs jut out forward of the seat, her feet might get tangled up in them. Or she might snag a leg as she walks by the chair.

For the back legs, you have to look at the backrest (more on those numbers shortly). If the chair’s backrest leans out a lot past the back of the seat, but the legs do not, then the chair will be tippy. Put another way, the feet of the back legs should be roughly under the shoulder blades of the sitter.

So, the angles of the legs are important. But mostly they control how the chair looks.

(Ed: But can’t you give a range as to what’s acceptable? What’s too much? 20° 25°? And don’t you need to say these angles don’t apply to ladderback chairs?)

The seat of a chair – what we call the saddle – can be scooped out so it’s curvy like the human buttocks or it can be as flat as a board. A little curvature improves comfort. A lot of curvature turns the chair into a Jell-O mold, which is uncomfortable. I aim to scoop out 3/8” to 1/2″ of the seat. But I don’t have a lot of cushion on my pelvis. You might want more or less scooping.

In the end, I err on a shallow saddle as it’s called. You can always add a cushion or sheepskin to a seat to make it more comfortable. A deep saddle cannot be fixed with fluffy accessories.

(Ed: Again, shouldn’t we mention ladderbacks here? The seat is neither flat nor “scooped.” It has some give to it because of the material. Might want to add something about this.)

Now let’s move to the backrest. Every chair has one, otherwise it’s just a stool. The backrest can be as simple as a flat board or a steam-bent slat. Or it can be as complex as a curve of bent and shaped spindles. In general, the backrest is designed to touch the back at one or two places: the lumbar (or lower back) and the shoulders. There is no rule that says which arrangement is best. As a chairmaker, I say that it’s easier to make a chair comfortable when it supports the shoulders. Chairs that support the lumbar only are trickier to make.

The backrest is rarely at 90° to the seat – thank goodness. The backrest should angle back. I think 10°-15° is a good place to start for chairs made for eating or typing. For chairs designed for lounging, try 20° to 25°.

(Ed: Are you saying that ladderback chairs with 90° backs are uncomfortable? You are going to catch flack for that.)

For chairs that support the lumbar, the sitter’s back should encounter the backrest about 9” or 10” above the seat. For chairs that support the shoulders, the sitter should encounter the backrest between 16” and 22” above the seat. How they encounter the backrest is up to you. It can be an array of spindles, a curved piece of wood or even a cushion.

The armrests (if your chair has them) should be about 8” to 10” above the seat. Luckily this height is similar to where the lumbar is, so you can make the backrest and arms as one piece that does two jobs.

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Wood for Chairs

It’s easy to become a fundamentalist about how the wood in a chair must be perfect and straight and strong. Not every chairmaker works this way. If a batch of wood is weak for some reason, you can overcome this by using thicker stock. If, on the other hand, you have perfectly rived stock, you can make it pencil thin and the parts will flex but not break.

The goal of all chairmakers is to avoid “short grain,” which is where the grain doesn’t follow the shape of the part. Short grain makes the part prone to splitting. You can avoid short grain lots of ways. The bottom line is to pay attention to the wood and adapt your plans to suit it.

Let’s talk about the different parts of a chair and the kind of wood that’s ideal for each.

For the legs, spindles and stretchers, the grain should be as straight as possible. Ideally, the wood fibers should run dead straight through every piece. That’s why many chairmakers prefer rived wood, where the wood is split along the fibers.

Not everyone can get rived wood with ease. The (not always mentioned) alternative is to saw the wood along the grain to get the straightest grain possible. This produces excellent results. For these straight components, many chairmakers prefer oak, ash or hickory. You can use other species, such as walnut, beech or cherry, but you should consider beefing them up in size.

(Ed: Can you say how much you should beef up the spindles when they are walnut etc.? Maybe 1/8” in diameter? Or is there a test? Maybe striking them with a small sledgehammer?)

For a solid plank seat, it’s best to use a species that doesn’t split easily. Pine and poplar are popular choices in the United States. The elms are excellent seat material. But really, anything will do for a plank seat. You can also make a seat by creating a joined frame and wrapping it in a fibrous material (such as bark or cloth). Or upholstery.

(Ed: Really, pine? White pine? Aren’t you worried about a lawsuit here?)

The arms and other curved components can be sawn out of solid wood or steambent to shape. You also can use a modern cold-bend hardwood (which works a lot like steambent wood without requiring heat).

(Ed: Can we give a source for this “cold-bend” stuff? A search turns up “Pure Timber LLC” in Washington.)

If you saw a curved component out of solid stock, you definitely risk it splitting because of short grain. You can get around this problem by laminating three or four pieces together to reinforce the short grain. Yup, just like plywood. This is an old trick.

A lot of would-be chairmakers get worked up about the sizes of all the components. How thick should each component be so the chair is strong enough to hold a person without breaking? Just like with casework, chairmakers use woods in fairly standard thicknesses.

Legs, stretchers and seats are made from 8/4 stock (which is 2” thick in the rough and finishes off at 1-5/8” to 1-7/8”). Arms are typically made from 5/4 (1-1/4” in the rough that can finish out at 1” to 1-1/8”). Sticks or spindles are usually 3/4” at their thickest and taper to 5/8” at the seat and maybe 1/2″ at the top of a tall chair. However, sticks are usually cut from thicker stock (such as 8/4) so you can straighten the grain and get a strong component.

In the end, almost any wood can be used to make a chair. It might have to be a little thicker than what you see in the woodworking magazines. You might have to glue up a few thicknesses of wood to avoid short grain. And the wood might be so ugly that you have to paint it. But know that even construction lumber can make a good chair. I’ve done it. You just have to be smart about it.

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Chair Joinery

There are three (no four) kinds of chair joints:

  1. A squared-off mortise-and-tenon joint – the same joint used in casework. The only notable difference is that chairs require better-quality fits than casework. Unlike a cabinet, chairs are tortured by children and won’t hang on the wall in peace.
  2. Cylindrical joints. The mortise is round, as is the tenon. The fit needs to be snug. And there are tricks to make a wet mortise tighten up on a dry tenon. Truth: Dowels are cylindrical joints, though they are often used poorly.
  3. Conical joints. These joints are typically used where the legs enter a plank seat. They tighten the more you sit on the seat, but they require special tools to ream the hole to the conical shape.
  4. Mechanical fasteners. Some chairs – particularly commercial ones – are joined by screws, nails or fancier hardware that provides a mechanical lock. To be honest, if you throw enough wood and metal fasteners at any object you can make it sturdy. But it is unlikely to be graceful. In general, metal fasteners play a limited role in traditional chairmaking. Except to repair old chairs, which is where they often make things worse.

No matter what sort of joint you use in chairmaking, the fit between the components is the key to the joint lasting a long time. Tenons should require effort to enter the mortise. Wedges or pegs should be used whenever possible to reinforce the joint. And use glue. Some purists insist you don’t need it. While that might be true, glue is dirt cheap and doesn’t hurt the strength of the joint. So why not paint some on during assembly?

<ED: Rough transition here. Can you add something that eases readers into the final grafs?)

Of course, none of the above information tells you how to make a chair that is attractive. That is the hard part. And unfortunately, there isn’t a magazine article out there with the headline “How to Make Any Chair Look Good” to help you.

(Ed: Maybe this is a possible article for the June issue?)

So how do you make a good-looking chair? The answer might be right in front of you. If you took my advice above and examined the best chair in your house while you read this article, then you took an important first step. To design nice chairs, you need to look at lot of chairs – old, new, ugly and gorgeous. Find out what separates the fantastic from the flatpack. Measure the angles – your eye can be easily deceived. Make sketches of the chairs you like the most.

But most of all, build chairs. The next one will be better.

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Christopher Schwarz is a woodworker and writer in Covington, Ky. He is currently at work on his next chair, which really will be beautiful this time.

‘Good Fellowship,’ by Charles Hayward

Posted on by fitz

Old things return with a difference. Nowadays we do not burn Yule logs nor go a-mumming. Our feasting has less of the grand heartiness of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, Christmas, almost alone of all the great feasts, has retained its essential spirit of universal good will. Christmas opens the heart, sweeps away some of the cobwebs from our darker corners. The feast of the family, it reminds us of the greater family to which we all belong, and a tide of good fellow­ship flows out at Christmas to the poor and the lonely as at no other time of the year. We should all be poorer without it, for there is a fellowship in rejoic­ing which remains over when the last crumb of the feast has been swept away, when the last sprig of holly has been burned.

Among craftsmen, especially, a spirit of good fellowship makes all the difference. Modern conditions do not always make it easy. Wherever there is a feeling of in­security a man may easily become dis­trustful of his fellows, guarding his know­ledge with the feeling that it is the one thing he has to arm him against the world. But hoarded knowledge can never be as productive as knowledge which is shared. It is not the man who warns off enquirers with a mutter of “trade secrets” and a “please-keep-off-the-grass” expression who will keep abreast of the times, but the man who will readily exchange experiences, discuss, and, when need be, give guidance to others. It is remarkable, when one comes to think of it, the number of ideas which are generated in conversation. A trades­man can easily, in answering the questions of the novice, be brought to consider for the first time the whys and wherefores of using certain processes. Such was the trade custom, but why? Or, swopping experiences with another old hand, he gets to know of other methods as sound, maybe sounder, than his own. But he has to give as well as take. There has to be fellowship, even in the generation of ideas.

The real expert need never fear the competition of the amateur. He may impart his knowledge but his skill remains his own. There is a story told by Vasari of how Michael Angelo, the great painter and sculptor of the Italian Renaissance once came to the help of a very mediocre painter, commissioned to paint a picture which proved too difficult for him. Labouring on as best he could, the painter reached at last a point where he had to pack a row of soldiers, in various foreshortened attitudes, into a very narrow space, and there he absolutely stuck. He begged Michael Angelo to tell him how to do it. We are told that Michael Angelo, laughing good-humouredly, picked up a piece of charcoal and sketched in the figures he required, “all done with the judgment and excellence peculiar to him.” And, Vasari shrewdly adds, the painter afterwards completed the work “in such a manner that no one would have supposed Michael Angelo had ever looked at it!”

The Italian Renaissance was the golden age of crafts­manship. There was an amazing flowering of genius in painting, sculpture, goldsmith’s and silver­smith’s work, in fact in every kind of craft, research and ex­periment were carried to the limit. Ideas were in the air, bandied about in workshop and studio, till the fertile soil of genius brought them to perfection. And it is significant that it was an age of great good fellowship among craftsmen. Competition was ter­rific; there were so many of them at the game and the prizes were glittering, but again and again it is evident from the pages of Vasari how freely they pooled their experiences, and how freely criticism, advice and generous appreciation circulated. They were a mixed bunch too. Dullards and plodders worked side by side with talented men, and there were inspired cut-throats among the men of genius. But this much they all had in common: a love of the work they found to their hand and a readiness to pass on the knowledge they had acquired.

On the whole it would seem that gardeners are the least reticent of us all and the readiest of all to share. Whether it is the amateur, passing on roots and cuttings and seedlings to his neighbour next door, or the professional, overflowing with knowledge which he is perfectly willing to impart, undoubtedly the spirit of good fellowship shows among gardeners at its best. It is the kind of spirit we should like to see increase among woodworkers. For we are convinced that it is the best stimulus of all to good craftsmanship.

And woodwork has such fine old traditions. It is a family affair if ever there was one, bound up with the home. In olden times the Yule log, nowadays the fir tree, forms the central feature of Christmas merry­making:

“Sword of wood and doll of wax,
Little children, sing Nowell.
Swing on the stem was cleft with the axe!
Craftsmen all, a ‘Gloria’.”

— Excerpted from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years“

Soft Wax Now Available

Posted on by Lost Art Press

My youngest daughter, Katherine, is home from college and has cooked up a batch of soft wax in the workshop. It is now for sale in her etsy store and sells for $24 for 8 ounces in a glass jar with a metal lid.

Soft wax is a high-solvent wax that is great for finishing the interiors of casework. It is also nice on tool handles and helps restore the glow of antique pieces. We use it on our lump hammers and other metal tools to help prevent rust.

Katherine cooks it up using a waterless process in our workshop, fills the jars and ships it out herself. Note that the finish uses turpentine.

As you can see, Bean the three-legged shop cat is excited about the new batch of wax. Or he is sitting on a bumblebee. Hard to tell.

— Christopher Schwarz