For me, it is easier to launch a book-writing project than begin a big woodworking job. That’s because with a book, I can begin by writing a chapter at any point in the narrative.
That doesn’t work in woodworking. You shouldn’t build a dresser by first sanding and finishing all the rough lumber.
I’ve tried to start a book by writing chapter one several times. The swarf in the mutton tallow here is that by the time you write your final chapter, your book has wandered in a different (probably better) direction than your TOC. So you have to throw out the first few chapters and rewrite them.
Here’s how I do it now. I write a chapter somewhere in the middle of the book – one that I have a handle on. If it’s a woodworking book, maybe it’s the chapter on how the hardware is made, or the one that compares several historical workbench forms. It’s something that I know forward and backward and can knock out.
We ask our new authors to do this, too. This is for two reasons: One, it gives the authors confidence that they can write a book. That first chapter is a significant step.
Then we edit this sample chapter and give the author a list of ways to improve the writing. Some authors ignore the advice (which makes more work for me) and some take it to heart. They tape notes to their computers to remind them of their weaknesses.
Here are the most common problems. (If you want to improve your writing, buy a used copy of “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. There are millions of extant copies. I sometimes buy a bunch at Half-price Books for $2 each and send them to authors who request help.)
Too wordy. Many people write like they talk. And they talk too much. After you write a paragraph, try to remove as many words as you can and not change the sentence’s meaning. Sometimes you can remove 25 percent.
Use active voice instead of passive. Most sentences should be: subject, verb, predicate. Example: John handplaned the cherry. A passive construction is: The cherry was handplaned by John. Passive voice is weak and wordy. (But sometimes you should throw in a passive sentence to break things up.)
Avoid -ly adverbs and -ing words. Most of them are stupid anyway. Banish the word “very” from your vocabulary.
Avoid semicolons. Most people have no idea how to use them.
Use the dash as little as you would use an exclamation mark. What comes after a dash should be something that you are shouting.
Three short sentences are better than one long-ass briar patch of mouth oatmeal.
Write a chapter, then leave it alone for eight weeks. Then edit it. You will be amazed at how you can improve your writing this way.
I could go on with this list for about nine weeks, like when I taught news writing classes at Ohio State and the University of Kentucky.
Bottom line: Write as if your audience is a bunch of 8th graders. If you can explain complex ideas to 8th graders, you have achieved something few writers do.
I haven’t decided where to begin with “The Stick Chair Book.” Perhaps the chapter on how to make stretchers. It’s shorter than other chapters about the seat, the legs and the arms. That’s because I don’t have as many tricks to make stretchers as I do for the other components.
Or perhaps I need to figure out some new stretcher tricks.
Let the self-doubt commence.
— Christopher Schwarz
Read other posts from the “Making Book” series here.
Editor’s note: This time we discuss an antique chair with a finish that is “a wet antiquarian’s wet dream.” Or “Torched Feces” as Rudy would call it. The chair in total is maybe too perfect to be true, and sometimes Wales stretches all the way to China. We still love it. And as always, we don’t expect anyone to take any of our theories seriously. Chris also wishes for a blacksmith screw and regrets it immediately. As always, the language here is a bit on the salty side and we do mention words like “joint” and “shaved” several times. For those who only have Sting records in their collection, please stop reading now and click this link instead.
Chris: How ’bout we drag out the comb back?
Klaus: Let’s do it! Here it is:
Rudy: Here’s the info from the antiques dealer: “Original late 18th Century painted Welsh comb back chair. Mixed woods elm & ash.
Dimensions: 95.3 cms High (37.5 inches) 55.9 cms Wide (22 inches) 78.7 cms Deep (31 inches)”
Rudy: Hitler would have been proud! Just don’t put the chair outside or you’ll never be able to find it again.
Chris: I’m afraid this chair was born way after Hitler. But damn the form is nice.
Klaus: Unfortunately, I think Chris has a point here. This chair was probably made with a Festool router.
Rudy: Well to be fair, Hitler was born a long time ago.
Rudy: The form is nice – that is why we picked it! I like its inviting stance.
Klaus: Yeah, LOVE the stance.
Chris: Like I don’t even know where to start with this chair. It’s so good.
Klaus : Even the imperfections, like the uneven bow in the long sticks, are nice.
Rudy: The crest. I like the crest.
Klaus: Yeah, the crest is gracious.
Chris: I love the through-tenons in the crest.
Klaus: Yes, me too.
Chris: So wonky and so good. TOO GOOD.
Rudy : Yes, very well done indeed. It gives the chair a lot of character.
Klaus: The crest has a perfect shape. Perfect length, too. I wanna make a crest like that.
Rudy: Me too. It looks balanced, but spontaneous.
Chris: It will be a bitch to drill. I’d make it with straight edges first. Drill the mortises. Then shape it. Or maybe you could shape it first and drill the mortises in a vise.
Klaus: The back tilt of the arm is great.
Chris: And the way the hands are raised up. Like GIVE ME A HUG!
Klaus: The arm is also a three-piece arm, with some kind of half-lap joint. And I love the long doubler on this one, too.
Chris : You can see the joints in one of the photos.
Chris: I think this guy should do a chair book for Lost Art Press.
Rudy: Very talented!
Chris: I’d love to see how he/she works. By the way, I like the curved posts at the front. I did that on one chair and want to get back to it.
Rudy: True, that adds to the inviting character of the chair.
Klaus: Did you also make them flat like these?
Chris: Kinda. They were from curved branches. Shaved a little roundish.
Klaus: Are they mortised through the arm with a square mortise?
Rudy: It looks like they are epoxied onto the seat.
Chris: Mine was mortised into the seat with a round tenon (wedged from below). And then I (cringe) screwed it to the underside of the arm.
Rudy: Will the blasphemies ever stop…
Klaus: We all have our sins..
Chris: It was a square-drive screw. I have sinned. Bad.
Klaus: Oh no.
Chris: I meant to replace it with a blacksmith nail…
Klaus: …but the pocket screw was so solid…
Rudy: Or a blacksmith screw!
Chris: I would love a blacksmith screw! (He said, immediately regretting the choice of words).
Rudy: I know one here in Germany. He would be happy to screw you.
Klaus: Haha! Anyway, how come this maker makes the chairs look like they’ve been drowned and tossed out a window? Assuming of course, that this chair is younger than my daughter’s hamster.
Chris: They sell like this. People love this look.
Rudy: The chair does indeed look a bit like a corpse that has been submerged for three weeks.
Chris: We have a guy near here who specializes in this finish. He does it with a torch.
Klaus: Interesting. I will throw my next chair out of the window then. Then burn it afterwards.
Rudy: I will have to experiment with this technique too, then. I think this looks torched as well, now that you say it.
Chris: We did an article on it at Popular Woodworking years ago. Remind me to dig it up for you.
Klaus: Chris, can you dig up that article about fake old finishes from Popular Woodworking?
Rudy: Chris, could you please dig up that article you did in Popular Woodworking years ago?
Chris: F&%# you!
Klaus: Haha. Anyway, let’s be friends.
Rudy: Yes. Let’s be the peaceful Chair Chat Ladies.
Klaus: I’m not a big fan of the broomstick legs.
Chris: At least they aren’t tree trunks. What I would like to know is how high the armbow is off the seat – at the back and the front.
Klaus: I’d say 7″ at the back and 8-3/4″ in the front.
Rudy: It looks pretty low at the back.
Chris: Agree. And the back sticks look like they pitch back pretty severely. More like a Gibson.
Rudy: Totally, I was going to say that. Especially under the armbow.
Klaus: Very leaned back. Looks super comfy.
Chris: Agree! It leans Almost to 25°, maybe 20°?
Klaus: The deep seat, the heavily leaning back and the lifted arm – it all pitches you into the chair.
Chris: Yup. Dude knows how to push my chair buttons.
Rudy: Mine too. The bastard.
Klaus: All the parts are also proportional to each other in size. That’s nice.
Rudy: Yes, it is a very balanced chair.
Chris: And its perfection is what led me to say: Far East Wales.
Rudy: I wonder if he/she works from historical examples or their own design?
Chris: Well , there is at least no awkwardness about it.
Klaus: Absolutely none.
Chris: And almost all of these chairs, the real antique ones, have some fault that is charming by being off.
Klaus: Yes, exactly. The imperfections make them perfect.
Rudy: Look at that back leg, how the tear-out from that knot gives it character.
Chris: Yeah. But it’s too perfect. Like a scar on a supermodel.
Klaus: Well, if that is done intentionally, then my hat is off for this maker. I don’t wear hats, but I would for this guy.
Chris: It doesn’t really make it wonky. Just cool.
Rudy: In some way the chair is so perfect I would like to see one without the torched paint finish.
Chris: I know a couple people who work in the Fake Trade. They do stuff like this all the time. Many times they use old parts to make a new fake antique.
Rudy: I believe that is what happens here, too.
Klaus: I’ve heard about shipping containers full of chair parts from old chairs, going from the UK to China.
Rudy: But can they re-use the seat?
Chris : I would think no. But I’m no Fake Artist. If it were me, I’d want all the wonky sticks. And legs.
Rudy: In some way it is a nice thing that the chair parts have a second life.
Chris: Better than firewood!
Klaus : Sure, just don’t sell it for $4,000 USD.
Chris: I don’t have a problem with the price. Just the deception.
Rudy: Yes, they should not be called Original late 18th Century.
Chris: Fakes have to be called out. Or they become part of the furniture record. Museums are reportedly full of fakes.
Klaus: I have become so disillusioned lately. I can’t even look at an antique chair anymore without suspecting it’s from Far East Wales. Anyway, did we have any poop or fart jokes at all today?
Rudy: Poop!
Klaus: Fart!
Chris : Well I hope that feces is involved in the finishing process.
Rudy: It sure looks like that!
Klaus: Something has definitely been smeared onto it.
Rudy: Torched feces.
Klaus: The Torched Feces Finish Chair™.
Rudy: The SS Torched Feces Camouflage Chair™.
Chris: That’s the name of the chair! …and my next punk band.
Klaus: Hello, I’m Chris and we’re SS Torched Feces Finish!
Chris : Hello Cleveland!
Klaus: This first song is called The Queen Poops Too!
Rudy: And song number two:
Chris: Hahaha! Shi&&y song.
Klaus: And the bonus track: Blacksmith Screw!
Rudy: Out now in Cleveland only!
Chris: Let’s go on tour!
The album will be available on limited edition vinyl in the Lost Art Press store later this year.
Chester Cornett splitting out a log for a chair in Appalshop’s film “Hand Carved.”
Eastern Kentucky is the most beautiful part of the state – and the most poor. Ravaged first by the lumber industry and then coal mining, the land and its people are surprisingly resilient. When visitors come to Kentucky and want to understand the state, I drive them east into the mountains.
It’s also an area rich with a cultural heritage in art, music and furniture making. And for the last 50 years, Appalshop has been recording all aspects of the culture with fascinating short films.
During the pandemic, Appalshop has made all of its videos on its streaming platform free to rent. This is a remarkable chance to browse and watch the organization’s films from the 1970s to the present day.
You can see all the videos available here. To rent them for free, click the “apply promo code” link at checkout and enter: watchparty.
Of special interest to woodworkers: Watch “Hand Carved,” the fantastic film about chairmaker Chester Cornett. Also, check out “Chairmaker,” a film about Dewey Thompson and his rocking chairs. There are also films about quilting, bluegrass, coal mining, hip hop in the mountains, and civil rights.
If you find films you like, they are inexpensive to purchase, usually about $5. And it helps support a great organization.
Bad news: The entire press run of the “The Anarchist’s Workbench” has to be recycled and reprinted. The inking problem was throughout the entire run and was unacceptable to all parties.
The printer will redo the run and hopes to have it done by mid-September.
At this point, no one knows why it happened. The plant is conducting an investigation and will share the results when it’s complete.
Apologies for the delay. I am disappointed by the setback, but I’m glad the problem was caught at the plant.
Cabinets finished with Real Milk Paint Company colors Boardwalk (the base color), Dijon (amber), Granny Smith (green) and French Grey (blue). Door and drawer pulls from Schoolhouse.
When most of us think about installing cabinets, we picture ourselves shimming them at the floor so they’ll be level across their width and plumb across their faces. Another consideration comes into play in cases where more than one cabinet will be joined together without some other thing (such as a stove) to break up the front plane: we want to make sure the faces are in a straight line, not higgledy-piggledy following bumps or concavities in the wall behind them.
With base cabinets, there are two ways to level casework at the floor. The most common involves shimming up a separate platform on which the cases themselves will stand. The platform runs the full length of the cabinet series, providing a flat surface, and is typically recessed relative to the cabinets’ faces to hide any irregularity in the fit of the applied toe-kick, which goes on after the cabinets are set. You find the highest point of the floor in a given run of cabinets, set the platform down and shim it level and plumb. Then you set the cabinets on the platform, fasten them together to form a unit, shim as necessary at the wall and screw in place.
On most of my jobs, we scribe the cabinets to the floor, a technique that “Kitchen Think” covers in detail. With this method, we locate the lowest point of the floor in a given run of cabinets; instead of shimming the cabinets up, we cut their bottom edges down until they sit level and plumb.
Whether you’re building up or cutting down, in all cases involving more than a single cabinet it helps to screw the units together before you attach them to the wall. That way you can treat multiple cases as one entity, shimming at the wall so that the faces will be flat and plumb.
Never take for granted that serial cabinets will automatically end up in a straight line. Always check them with the longest-available straightedge.
On our most recent kitchen job, Mark and I had to switch our thinking by 90°. Usually, when he’s gutting a room to the joists and studs, Mark takes the time to get the walls and floors flat and level. Sometimes this means cutting long, tapered wedges to build those structural timbers up; sometimes it means having at them with a power-plane, to remove a twist or a bump. On this job he straightened most of the surfaces, but he didn’t bother with the exterior wall. You know where this is going.
Naturally, that wall turned out to be a problem. The lower section of the wall was pretty flat, so the base cabinets went in easily. It wasn’t until we were installing the upper cabinets – three large, heavy units – that we realized we were in for some fun.
Busted. The bump became visible when we chalked a level line to indicate the bottom of the upper cabinets so we could screw a temporary support batten to the wall.
Here’s how we installed the upper cabinets plumb on an out-of-plumb wall and flat across their faces despite that bump.
With the bump as a starting point, Mark used 4′, 6′ and 8′ levels to shim the wall plumb at strategic stud points across the cabinets’ width. We ended up with shims pinned to the wall in five locations — a textbook example of why it’s worth plumbing the studs (if you have that option) before you start cabinet installation.
View from above. We clamped the right-hand pair of cabinets together at their faces, then inserted screws, making them into a unit, before we lifted them onto our support batten and screwed them to the wall. Because I’d made the face frames overhang slightly at the cabinets’ sides, we had to insert a shim between them at the back to keep them from conforming to the wall (which would have prevented them from lying flat across their front faces).
I made a 1/8″ x 3/4″ scribe strip to hide the gap caused by the shims at the left end of the run.
