“Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” was a labor (labour?) of love for editor Kara Uhl and for Lost Art Press – no one was sure how this collection of Hayward’s “Chips From the Chisel” columns would be received. We’re glad you liked it – and that you liked it enough that we’ve almost sold through the first printing. So on Monday, Aug. 10, we’re going back to press.
We know about the three Roosevelt corrections on pages 81, 115 and 129 (as copy editor, I take all the blame for those mistakes. Of course I know it was Franklin, not Theodore, who was President during WWII. I don’t know how I missed those…but I did).
So other than those FDRs (about which I expect I’ll feel guilty for at least a decade), we’re asking for any oopsies you might have spotted – by Sunday (Aug. 9). Please send any corrections to me in an email: fitz@lostartpress.com. I’ll make those first thing Monday.
Thanks to South African woodworker Ray Deftereos, creator of “The Hand Tool Book Review,” for his kind words about Christopher Schwarz’s “The Anarchist’s Workbench:”
“I think it is safe to say that this is the definitive workbench book. And as a free resource for the electronic version, this is completely out of this world as a deal! Join me on today’s episode as I discuss why this is probably the only workbench book you will ever need.” To listen, click here.
The planing stop in the new workbench was made by Tom Latane.
Ray also made good use of the Creative Commons license for this book, by narrating the first chapter – it’s fun to hear Christopher’s words in someone else’s voice! You can listen to that by clicking here.
And if you’d like to download your own free copy, see the second-to-last paragraph in the book’s description at the Lost Art Press online store.
When I design and build a piece of furniture, it does not belong to me any more than the birdsong of the warblers outside my shop door.
Since the start of my furniture career in the 1990s, I have never claimed ownership to a single design. The world is free to copy, adapt, interpret, sell and (I hope) improve my best efforts. And the world has occasionally taken me up on my offer. I’ve seen my published designs show up in furniture catalogs and galleries all over the United States.
And I’m fine with it.
I suspect my attitude comes from growing up and living in the areas of the United States that are steeped in traditional mountain music. The first half of my life was spent in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, and the second half has been spent living in the hills of Kentucky. In these places (and other mountain communities), traditional string-band music – guitar, mandolin, fiddle and banjo – is something you can still hear regularly at neighborhood bars, church picnics, school fund-raisers, weddings and funerals.
By tradition, this music does not have a strict sense of ownership, other than the fact that it belongs to everyone who can play it or sing it. When I visit the Comet bar on a Sunday night, the band might play songs that were first recorded in the mid-1920s in Bristol, Tennessee. But these songs came from Scotland, Ireland, Africa or France hundreds of years before. Tonight they sound new, like they never have before. And next Sunday, they will sound a little different. Verses will be added or removed. A second singer might add a counter-melody.
The furniture from these mountainous places is treated in the same manner. Farmers in the Ozarks and Appalachia have long made ladderback chairs during the cold months (this is a quickly dying trade). These chairs might look identical to the untrained eye, but if you open your eyes, you will find immense variation. The arrangement of the sticks, the curve of the backsplats and the shape of the finials at the top of the back posts are as good as a notarized signature for identifying the maker. And if you look at enough of these chairs, you can see traits handed down through generations and via geography.
Copying the work of others and adapting it has long been the predominant way that furniture and vernacular musical forms have been kept alive and fresh for hundreds of years. Bob Dylan’s song “Maggie’s Farm” is a rewriting of his song “Hard Times in the Country,” which is a rewrite of the song “Down on Penny’s Farm” by the Bentley Boys from the 1920s. And who knows where they got it.
Is “Maggie’s Farm” less fantastic because Dylan swiped a traditional song? Or (I would argue) is it more fantastic because it transformed a song about sharecropping into an electrifying statement against the Vietnam war?
Is Jennie Alexander’s iconic chair from the book “Make a Chair from a Tree” – the most comfortable and lightweight chair I’ve ever sat in – less amazing because it sprung from the mule-ear ladderbacks on thousands of porches in Eastern Kentucky?
This tradition of observing, copying and creating anew is the fertilizer for people to make new music and new pieces of furniture. If you take that tradition away, you risk handing over our music and furniture forms to the people with the most money or the best lawyers.
Plagiarism lawsuits are nothing new in music or furniture. The Music Copyright Infringement Resource (an effort by the law schools at George Washington University and Columbia) traces plagiarism claims in popular music back to 1844. Furniture plagiarism has been litigated in this country (the United States) for as long as our Patent Office has existed.
What has changed is that these lawsuits, especially in music, have increased dramatically in the last 30 years.
As a furniture maker, I sometimes lie awake at night worrying that I have unconsciously ripped off another furniture maker’s design, and that I’m going to be sued. And so when I write about a new piece, I acknowledge every influence I can think of. In fact, I’ll even acknowledge influences I haven’t seen.
I know that sounds weird and wrong. So here’s an example: Several months after I designed and built my Staked Worktable for the book “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I found an antique Swedish table built on the same principles that had the same feel to it. Though I’d never (knowingly) seen the antique table before designing my version, I decided to include a drawing of it in my book and acknowledge it as a likely ancestor of my design.
Why? Because it probably is.
My table’s design emerged after looking at hundreds and hundreds of pieces of medieval furniture – lots of square worktables with tapered legs, thin tops and battens below. In my mind, I simply reversed the tapers on the legs, dressed up the battens to be sliding dovetails and changed the overall proportions of the top from 1:1 to 2:4.
The original design for the worktable, which was based on medieval examples.
The maker of the Swedish antique probably saw similar medieval tables – they’re everywhere in books and museums – and made the same small leaps that I did.
And so I can’t possibly claim credit for my design or any of the other designs that flow from my pencil and onto the workbench. And so I don’t. I give them away.
But wait, what about the books I write? Aren’t those copyrighted? Indeed they are. Sometimes by the publisher and sometimes by me. But I’ll be honest, I’ve concluded it’s all a farce. People steal my work all the time. Every one of my books is available for a free download on bit torrent sites run by hackers. I don’t have the money, time or people to stop them. And so – for books written by me, at least – I don’t.
Recently, I’ve come to grips with this reality, and that’s one reason why my latest book, “The Anarchist’s Workbench,” is covered by a Creative Commons license that allows people to reuse and adapt my work. I hope to move all my other books into a Creative Commons license in the future as well.
I am sure that some of you are thinking my ideas about giving away designs are unrealistic. What about the big furniture company that outright steals a design from some impoverished individual maker? Surely that poor woodworker is entitled to sue the big corporation for redress.
I do not propose to change our laws or system of jurisprudence. Egregious cases of theft probably should end up in the courts, and it’s likely the party with the most money will win in the end. Or at least get their way for a small fee.
Instead I am merely arguing that to maintain and grow our rich furniture heritage, we need our traditional system of borrowing and loaning designs (and melodies). And one way to do that is to allow your own designs to be freely copied and interpreted.
Consider the following questions:
Do you want to spend your time threatening to sue people, or do you want to spend that time making and building furniture?
Are you so bereft of ideas that you cannot come up with new designs or iterations?
How likely is it that you will prevail in the world of copyrights, trademarks and design patents?
How much money do you really need?
Can you say from the heart that your design is truly original and did not spring from the work of the millions of woodworkers who came before you?
Oh and one more question. Aren’t there enough songs about “John Henry?” Henry was the fabled Black steel-driving railroad worker who beat a steam-powered drill in a tunnel-drilling contest, only to die from the exertion.
I contend there can never be too many songs about John Henry. Or too many ladderback chairs, trestle tables, chests, stick chairs or milking stools.
And the only way to guarantee that is to give yourself in to tradition.
On the principle of beginning at the bottom, we will in the present chapter take in hand the making of the “ledge” door, and what comes next to it in simplicity – the “framed ledge” door.
The former can be dismissed very shortly, the boards and ledges being prepared according to instructions in Chapter I. The whole of the former must be laid, face downwards, either flat on the bench or on two pieces of timber as wide as the ledges. They are then cramped up fairly tightly, and the ledges laid on them. The top and bottom ones of these must be fixed first, squaring them across at about 5 ins. from the respective ends of the door, and fixing them at each end with two screws in each. The intermediate ledges are then fixed in the same way, keeping them at equal distances between. A single nail can now be driven through two of the ledges into the middle board (to prevent the boards from springing out), and the door turned over. The position of the four ledges must now be squared across on the top side, as the door lies, as a guide for nailing.
Two methods of nailing are shown in Fig. 21. That shown at A is favoured by a good many persons, but the writer prefers the other (B), as not being so liable to split the ledges, and also as acting more as a brace.
When the whole of the nails are driven in, they should be sunk still further by punching ; the door can then be turned over and the nails clinched neatly, also using the punch.
The screws in the ends of the ledges (Fig. 22) are sometimes omitted, but this is a mistake, as they add very much to the strength of the door. Another mistake often made is the use of too long nails – 2 in. nails are long enough for a 1-in. door, 2-1/2-in. nails for 1-1/4″-in. door, and so on. If longer nails are used, instead of the points bending over and adding to the strength, they break off, and nearly all the holding power is gone at once.
We now come to the important matter of bracing, which is necessary for all doors over 2-1/2 ft. wide. The usual method is to brace them as Fig. 23, notching the ledges to form abutments for the ends of the braces; but after testing the matter in various ways, the writer has found that a door braced as · Fig. 24 will keep its position far better than one braced the other way, while it is far easier, more quickly done, takes less material, and presents a better appearance-consequently it is always adopted by him.
As will be seen by Fig. 24, the braces are simply cut between the ledges, and fixed by nails or screws ; the latter should at least be used at the ends.
We now come to the framed ledged door, which was sufficiently described in Chapter I to enable anyone to recognise it without further description. We can therefore presume that the framing is planed up and the boards prepared, and will proceed at once to set out the door. This requires a “setting-out rod,” on which is marked the full size, with every mortise, tenon, bead, rebate, etc., and this rod is shown in Fig. 25 (A). The full height of the door is from C to D. E is the mortise for top rail; F the haunching for same; G the mortises for the ledges; H the space from bottom of door to bottom ledge; and I the spaces between the ledges, which must be all equal.
To set out the stiles, lay them face to face on the bench, and lay the rod on them, so that the lines can be transferred from the one to the other, as shown by dotted lines from A to Y, Fig. 25, which latter show all mortises squared over and wedging marked, also gauging for mortises.
The width of the door is set out on the rod at K, the finished width being shown by L, the length from shoulder to shoulder on the face side of top rail at M, and the length of the back shoulder of top rail, and the shoulders of bare-faced tenons on the ledges at N (see dotted lines).
The three ledges and top rail are shown set out and gauged for cutting at X, Fig. 25. Perhaps it will be as well to state that the ledges are gauged with a marking gauge, set to the correct thickness of the tenon required.
One stile is shown mortised, rebated, and beaded (the haunching is shown by dotted lines) in Fig. 26, while Fig. 27 shows sections of the ledges bevelled in two different ways. O is bevelled quite through, for which the mortises should be bevelled as well, while P is bevelled on only as far as the tenons, thus requiring square mortises only.
Fig. 28 shows the back of the complete door, braced as recommended for the ledge door. The brace at the top end should be kept on the top rail; if it goes to the stile, it has a tendency to force it off, as anyone may see, if he will take notice of any doors where the brace is fixed into the angle formed by the stile and the top rail.
It is sometimes necessary to make a door in two parts, to be hinged one above the other. Such a door is shown in Fig. 29, A being a vertical section, where it will be seen that the top door shuts into a bevelled rebate, made in the top rail of the bottom door. B shows a vertical section of a similar pair of doors; but the bottom ledge of the top door is brought down and fits closely on the top rail of the bottom door. C is a section of ordinary ledge doors hung in two parts to answer the same purpose, the top ledge of the bottom door projecting above the boards, so as to form a rebate for the top door.
When hingeing doors such as these, the top one must be hung so as to throw up considerably, or they will bind in opening.
Fig. 30 is a cross-section of folding ledge doors, the strip R being screwed on to one door to cover the joint.
Fig. 31 is a cross-section of folding framed ledge doors, the two meeting stiles being rebated together and beaded as at S.
Fig. 32 shows a cross-section of a rough ledge door, in which square jointed boards are used, the strips being nailed up the joints instead of tongues. This kind of door is often used for sheds and farm buildings, and somewhat rarely in cottages.
One more word as to bracing doors. The brace should always be at the bottom of the door on the hanging side, so that it is in compression, not in tension.
At Popular Woodworking, we begged readers to send us submissions for the magazine’s last-page essay called “End Grain.” The problem was that almost all the essays we received had the same theme. It was such a problem that the theme became its own compound adjective.
Me: So what’s the essay about?
Fellow editor: It’s another grandpa-was-a-woodworker-so-now-I-am-too piece.
To be fair, my grandfather on my mother’s side truly was an accomplished woodworker. He taught me quite a bit about the craft and inspired me to be a woodworker. So I am in the sizable cohort that I appear to be mocking (though I am not).
Instead, I want to call attention to a fact we sometimes forget. Here it is: We are not clones.
When I write about the woodworking I did as a kid, it’s easy to focus on – duh – the woodworking parts. My grandfather was an enthusiastic woodworker, and I spent many hours in his Connecticut shop making things. My father was also a woodworker and a carpenter and a mason and a talented photographer (and 100 other things). And it’s easy to explain my interest in the craft through those two people.
But that’s just shorthand. And it’s incomplete.
As my father got older, his patience for work in the craft grew veneer thin. When he was younger, he would spend months laying hundreds of bricks by himself (sometimes with the help of my mother) as he started beautifying our first home in Arkansas. After he designed the two houses for our farm, he spent most weekends there (dragging us along whenever possible). These houses took more than a decade to construct. But despite the overwhelming task, he moved forward every week, joist by stud.
Once in his 60s, however, he confessed to me that he’d lost the drive to take on big projects. He was still interested in making things. But he wanted things to be quick. He wanted to learn to turn. And to carve small objects. Up until the end, his hand skills and his mental acuity never wavered. When he did pick up the tools, it was humbling to watch. But it was more difficult for him to ignite that spark. And to keep it going.
I think about that a lot. I have now entered my 50s, and I still want nothing more than to build things day in and day out. For years I worried that I would turn into my father and lose the ember that’s necessary to tackle difficult furniture pieces.
Luckily, I am not a clone. I am also the product of my mother.
My mother, now in her 70s, is as active and entrepreneurial as she was in her 20s or 30s. As a kid, I watched her teach natural childbirth in our traditional (some might say backwards) Arkansas town. She started a restaurant there, and then she worked at restaurants and catering businesses all over the country (Dallas, Santa Fe, Connecticut, Little Rock). Today, she still runs a catering business from her house and cooks every week as a volunteer at our local shelter. And she still embraces new technology (we’re both exploring the world of cooking with sous vide and an Instant Pot these days) and new ways of working.
She has had a more tumultuous life than my father, especially after they broke up. But she doesn’t give up. And she always finds a way to make things work, whether that’s throwing together a great meal with scraps or starting her life over in a new city.
So while it might look like Lost Art Press and my love for woodworking is the direct result of my time in the workshop with my grandfather and father, that’s not quite right. It’s my mother’s influence that gave me the strength to give the finger to my corporate job. And in the 1990s when I failed at my first publishing business, it was my mother’s genes that gave me the strength to say: Hell yes, let’s do this again and start Lost Art Press with my business partner, John.
And it’s also her genes that likely will keep me going.
As I get older, my patience for woodworking has only increased. I am still interested in learning new (and sometimes very old) techniques. And John and I have a business – publishing high-quality woodworking books – that is as ridiculous on paper as running a restaurant or a catering business. But we make it work.
So while grandfather might have been a woodworker, it’s important to also remember this: Mama was an entrepreneur.
— Christopher Schwarz
Editor’s note: Nancy Hiller’s “Little Acorns” will return soon. She’s working on a big one now.
