Quick note: We have replenished our inventory of Robert Wearing’s “The Solution at Hand” and Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain.” Both are now available in our online store and will soon be available again through our retailers.
“The Solution at Hand” hand was our sleeper hit of 2019. We love Wearing’s writing, but we weren’t sure how people would react to a book comprised entirely of his jigs for handwork (you sold the sucker out in record time). And “With the Grain” is now in its fifth printing with us. That book has been a huge hit with people who are interested in getting into woodworking and want to learn about trees and how they work.
In other news: Our fingers are crossed that “The Anarchist’s Design Book” will ship from the printer this week. There’s still time to get a free pdf of the book if you order it before this new edition ships out.
After the book ships, it will cost $12.25 more to purchase both the hardbound book and the pdf. Long-time customers know that this is the only discount we offer on our books.
Today I was working on the layout for “Honest Labour” and had to revisit the 1936 volume of The Woodworker magazines. I stumbled on this delightful and ingenious way to explain and demonstrate how wood twists as it dries. Read the original text below and check out the illustration.
— Christopher Schwarz
Every woodworker knows that a certain shrinkage in wood is inevitable, and most know (to their cost) that a board will sometimes twist. Probably the majority connect the two phenomena, and say that a board twists because it shrinks. But this is only a half truth. It is true that the twisting would not take place if the wood did not shrink, but it is quite possible for a board to shrink without twisting. In fact, every well-seasoned board does so. Shrinkage has to be accepted as inevitable, and the fact that a board has remained flat goes to prove that the shrinkage can take place without twisting.
To revert to our subject, however, assuming that a board has twisted, that is become hollow, who can explain why this has taken place? An excellent practical demonstration of what happens is shown in the accompanying photographs. First a piece of paper about 6″ wide and 2′ long is folded up across its width in a series of folds, rather like a fan. The whole thing is then opened out at one side so that a circle is formed (like a double fan) as in Fig. 1, and the joining edges are glued together.
Across the face of this a series of lines is drawn with a brush and black ink. The lines at A are meant to represent the cuts that would be made in a log to produce plain (flatsawn) oak. That at B is a solid square of timber, whilst the C boards represent figured boards (quartersawn) cut radially from the centre.
Now shrinkage takes place around the annual rings, and it is obvious that if a log were never converted it would have to split, because the shrinkage would mean that the length of its circumference was becoming less. In the demonstration it is assumed that the splits have taken place at the two sides, and consequently two cuts are made at these two points. The spring of the folded paper will cause the whole to assume the shape shown in Fig. 2, and this is precisely the shape a split log would assume.
The originally straight lines of the conversion of the plain (flatsawn) boards A are now all curved, the square at B has shrunk badly at one side, whereas the figured (quartersawn) boards, C, remain straight. Thus we can see why plain oak is so much more liable to twist than figured oak, and why the boards always twist with their edges away from the heart. Thus in a twisted board it is always safe to say that the rounded side is the heart side. Furthermore, by an examination of the end grain is is always possible to say which is the heart side, and which way it is liable to twist if at all.
After more than four years of work, we are completing work on our latest book called “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown” by Christopher Williams. It will be available for pre-publication ordering next week.
The book’s title of “Good Work” was an expression John Brown used to describe a noble act or thing. He once mused he wanted to create a “Good Work” seal that could be applied to truly beautiful and handmade goods – like the “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval.
“Good Work” is the kind of woodworking book I live for. It’s not about offering you plans, jigs or techniques per se. Its aim instead is to challenge the way you look at woodworking through the lens of one of its most important 20th century figures. And though this appears to be a book on chairmaking, it’s much more. Anyone who is interested in handwork, vernacular furniture, workshop philosophy or iconoclastic characters will enjoy “Good Work.”
Photo by John Harries
Author Chris Williams spent about a decade with John Brown in Wales, building Welsh chairs and pushing this vernacular form further and further. This book recounts their work together, from the first day that Chris nervously called John Brown until the day his mentor died in 2008.
Alongside that fascinating story of loyalty, hard work and eventual grief, “Good Work” offers essays from the people directly involved in John Brown’s life as a chairmaker. Nick Gibbs, his editor from Good Woodworking magazine; Anne Sears, John Brown’s second wife; David Sears, his nephew; and Matty Sears, one of his sons who is now a toolmaker, all offer their views of John Brown and his work.
“Good Work” also allows John Brown (sometimes called JB) to speak for himself. We purchased the rights to reprint 20 of the man’s best columns from Good Woodworking, the ones that inspired devotion, provoked anger or caused people to change their lives.
Chris then proceeds to show you how he and JB built chairs during the later years together. These methods are different than what John Brown showed in his book “Welsh Stick Chairs.” And Chris goes into detail that hasn’t been published before. Chris covers the particular tools that JB preferred and gives you more than enough information to build a beautiful Welsh stick chair. But, just to be clear, there are no dimensioned plans included in this book.
To honor his mentor’s wishes, Chris instead shows you how to build a chair the way John Brown showed him to build a chair. Yes, there are dimensions. Techniques are clearly and cleverly explained. But there are some things left for you to work out – things that will make your chair your own – not just a copy.
The 208-page full-color book is also filled with historical photographs (many never published before) and beautiful linocut illustrations by Molly Brown, one of JB’s daughters. The book is printed on heavy coated paper with a matte finish to make it easy to read. The book’s pages are sewn, glued and taped – then covered in heavy boards and cotton cloth – to create a book that will last for generations. And the whole package is wrapped in a durable tear-resistant laminated dust jacket, which features linocut illustrations by Molly Brown. The entire book is produced and printed in the United States.
Next week we will open pre-publication ordering. Those who place an order before the book is printed will receive a free pdf download of the book at checkout.
We expect the book to retail for about $47 – we are still doing some math because this was an expensive, years-long projects with lots of participants. It should be available in late March.
On a personal note, this book checks off one of the “to do” items on my long list of life goals. I, Chris and everyone involved in the book have poured our hearts into the effort. And I think it will show.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. As always, we don’t know which of our retailers will carry “Good Work.” That is their decision. We hope that all of them will.
We’ve restocked on our Cincinnati-made chore coats. As of this moment, we have plenty of every size except Large. We’re working with our stitcher, Sew Valley, to restock the Large size and build up inventory on all of our sizes.
This is the best time of year for the chore coat. I just emptied the pockets of sawdust from mine and went to dinner with Lucy at Ripple down the street from us.
Other news: Both the expanded edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” and “The Solution at Hand” are projected to ship the week of Jan. 21. Apologies for all the out-of-stock books. Last year was our biggest year ever by every measure. We’re having to increase our press runs in many cases and keep a closer watch on inventory.
Exekias’ signature (ΕΧΣΕΚΙΑΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΣΕ) as potter, rotated 90° anti-clockwise, detail from a scene representing Herakles and Geryon. Side A from an Attic black-figure amphora, ca. 550–540 BC.
I have often wondered what period of time must elapse before a good craftsman becomes an outstanding one. Was he born that way, needing only the requisite skill to develop his genius? Or did he evolve stage by stage like other men, but having the courage to take his work a stage further, perhaps many more stages than other men will venture.
Yet that may only imply the virtue of persistence, not that he is outstandingly gifted. What is the secret? We can add together the small perfections which make up the quality of a first-class man but, even so, something eludes us, something in the very essence of his work which defies analysis.
There is an old Breton proverb which says: “Qui aime son métier, son métier l’aime.” It may be this puts a finger right on the spot. That there has to be love between a man and his work, something which each gives to the other, which acts and interacts upon his skill before craftsmanship becomes the superlative thing that is created beauty.
Probably many more men than we can possibly estimate, working at the handicraft they enjoy, are producing work of this kind today, to be seen by few people, but to some of those few communicating that little thrill of pleasure which only superlative work can give. When we think of the amount of wastage there has always been right down through the ages by reason of material change and decay, the destructiveness of wars, accidents, sheer stupidity and thoughtlessness, the marvel is the amount of creative beauty which must have been produced by unknown men in every age for so much to have survived into our own, infinitesimal in comparison with what has been lost.
Furniture, of its nature, cannot date back many centuries, as much, perhaps more, through neglect due to changing fashion than from the perishability of wood. But ancient records and wall paintings have yielded up a great deal of information about the furnishing of kings’ palaces and the like, and many ancient craftsmen’s masterpiece has been described in meticulous detail, which still seems to retain the sense of wonder of those who had seen the work and the proud sense of possession of the monarch who had owned it. Very occasionally, by one of the freakish chances of history, the name of the craftsman will have survived while that of his noble patron is forgotten. A strange reversal in values.
In some cases, conscious that this work of his was good, the craftsman has inscribed his name on some obscure corner, to be discovered years afterwards by men who came to admire. It is not often the craftsman inscribes a friend’s name as well as his own, yet this is what happened when, between two to three thousand years ago, a Grecian artist wrote his signature in tiny, crabbed Greek script: “Exekias made it,” on the lovely vase he had made and painted, and then in a burst of pride and affection: “Handsome Onetorides.” And so the name of his handsome friend has been passed down through the ages in somewhat unsual confirmation of Keats’ “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”
Had the maker instinct of immortality when he inscribed his friend’s name on the lovely thing he had just completed? Exekias himself was known as the finest Athenian vase painter of his day, and the vase is the famous one painted with a panel in which with consummate skill he shows the two Homeric warriors, Ajax and Achilles, seated at an improvised table playing a dice game. The two figures, painted and incised in black upon a red ground, are bearded and every line of their bodies as they bend forward shows a kind of eager intensity, but there is nothing to suggest that the handsome Onetorides was a model for either. No, the inscription seems to have come out of the fullness of the artist’s creative joy, knowing this work of his hands to be good and wishing to associate with it the name of the friend he admired. Rarely has a dedication been made with such simplicty and rarely has any dedication lasted so long.
Probably when we come to the word “dedication” we come to the crux of the whole matter. The man who is going to do outstanding work in any craft has himself to be a dedicated man. He must be sensitive to beauty wherever he sees it and in whatever form and have the instinct to turn to beautiful accomplishment the handicraft he has made his own. He has to have skill so sure and informed that it will carry him faithfully through his undertakings, enabling him to tackle new kinds of work with the confidence of experience.
But all this the really good craftsman can have. If he wants to go further still, it can only be for the love of it, something which will bring an element into his work which no school can teach, a heightened degree of skill, a suavity, a finish, which can only happen when, as the Bretons say, the work loves him back.
“The Solution at Hand” hand was our sleeper hit of 2019. We love Wearing’s writing, but we weren’t sure how people would react to a book comprised entirely of his jigs for handwork (you sold the sucker out in record time). And “With the Grain” is now in its fifth printing with us. That book has been a huge hit with people who are interested in getting into woodworking and want to learn about trees and how they work.
