Last winter I wrote an article for Popular Woodworking about adjusting traditional butt hinges—the kind you use with inset doors, mortising one leaf into the door and the other into the side (or face frame) of a sideboard, kitchen cabinet or armoire. I pitched the article to editor Andrew Zoellner because many people are bedeviled by butt hinges’ apparent lack of adjustability; there I was, in the midst of fitting 20 doors in a kitchen, nudging them up, down, in, out, and side-to-side to get slender, even margins. It seemed the perfect time to write something about this largely neglected subject in the interest of helping others.
I submitted the manuscript and photos before my husband and I left for two weeks in England. Everything was on track for publication. Then, over morning coffee with a friend in London, we learned that F+W, the magazine’s publisher, had filed for bankruptcy. (Thanks for shouldering the burden of acting as messenger, St.John.)
The bankruptcy news was a blow on multiple fronts. I thought the article would never see the light of day. So I’m especially happy to report that it’s scheduled for the November issue of Popular Woodworking, now published by Active Interest Media; it should go on sale October 8.
This article is especially close to my heart because aside from a few tricks I’ve figured out for myself, what I know about this topic (and many unrelated techniques) came from working with people in the trades. You’re not likely to recognize their names from magazines, YouTube, or Instagram. They’re guys (all men, in this case) who do the work they’re hired to do and take pride in doing it to a high standard but don’t necessarily talk or write about what they do. Thanks:
Kent Perelman (R.I.P.)
Jay Denny
Kenneth Kinney (R.I.P.)
Ben Sturbaum
John Cantwell
Dick Stumpner
and Daniel O’Grady
—all listed in the order in which we met. Thanks also to Mr. Williams, one of my teachers in the City & Guilds furniture making program at the Isle of Ely College in 1979 and 1980.–Nancy Hiller, author of Making Things Work
Those of you who have read my peckings for a while know my deep interest in architecture. And if you’ve read any of George Walker and Jim Tolpin’s books on design, you know that (most) furniture design springs from architecture.
How can architecture help you in the workshop? That is what my latest column at Core77 is about. Walking around an old neighborhood with your eyes open can help you get a feel for design – good, bad, right and wrong. In many ways, a neighborhood walk can teach you more than a visit to a museum, where the furniture is mostly high-style and well-preserved.
I get pretty passionate about this stuff and am half-tempted to take my furniture students out on an evening walk through Covington’s many historical neighborhoods. But that would be weird, I think.
The column, “Your Design Homework is on the Sidewalk,” can be read here and is completely free.
There are many types of dovetail markers and as many methods of using them, but I like to think that this marker, A, and its method is pre-eminent.
The plate is made from a piece of 20 gauge brass, steel or alloy 5-1/2″ x 3″ (140 mm x 75 mm). This should be sawn and not cut with snips as these may permanently distort it. Drill the four 5 mm (3/16″) and three 3/32″ (1 mm) corner holes, then sufficient smaller holes to get in a hacksaw blade to cut out the dovetail angle and the two slots. File to shape with great care, rounding the external corners and softening the edges. From an accurate centre line, file the two nicks as shown in B. The bar is a piece of brass channel 3/8″ x 3/8″ x 1/16″ (10 mm x 10 mm x 1.5 mm) and it has one threaded hole and a slot. The hole is threaded 2BA. A sliding block is fitted below the slot and this, too, is threaded 2BA. The bar is secured to the plate, preferably with a pair of 2BA electrical terminals or with wing nuts and washers, C.
Prepare the components and gauge to thickness on the piece which is to contain the tails, D. Choose a suitable bevel-edged chisel that is only slightly smaller than the chosen size of pin, E. Place the gauge on the work and adjust the bar to give a width on the gauge line only slightly more than the chisel size, F. True up the bar with the edge of the gauge, either by a try square or against the edge of the wood. For angled dovetails use a sliding bevel on the angle already on the wood.
The two outside or half pins must be a little larger than half size, so, with a pencil, mark down the two outside centre lines to achieve this effect. About 1/8″ (3 mm) is usual for medium-sized dovetails. The distance between these two lines is divided equally in the standard way to give the centre lines of all the pins, G. Alternatively a rapid calculator can be made to fix centre lines by drawing equispaced converging lines on a piece of plywood as in H. The horizontal lines are parallel, and the end of the piece of wood is offered up to the required number of converging lines and kept parallel to the horizontals. The centre lines are then easily picked off, J.
The gauge is now placed on the wood with the nick over each centre line in turn for the pins to be marked, ideally with a fine ballpoint pen, K. Shellac brushed on gives the surface a “bite” on which to mark. On the end grain the square marking is done with a marking awl, which provides a small groove into which the chisel can be put decisively should there be any error in sawing. Beginners can run a thick pencil into it. Two pencil lines will be formed, and one line should be removed with the saw, L. The two pieces are held together for the marking of the second piece, O. A pair of holding brackets, M, is useful for this process; one will do for small work. The two pieces are held to the bracket with light G cramps.
A dovetail marking knife is essential for fine dovetails but is useful for all sizes, N. It is made from a piece of tool steel 4″-5″ (100 mm-125 mm) long by 1/2″ x 1/16″ (12 mm x 1.5 mm); a piece from a power hacksaw blade is very suitable. Both the little bevels are on the same side, giving a left-hand and a right-hand knife. In use, O, the flat side is held hard against the dovetail, and this tool will get into the most inaccessible corner where the marking awl or pencil never got in the past.
The holding bracket, M, has a further use when the front or rear corner is to be mitred to take a groove, rebate or moulding. The mitre is often, though not necessarily, at 45°. But if the pieces to be joined are not equal thicknesses, the angle cannot be 45°. What is important, however, is that the sum of the two angles should be 90°.
The remaining six diagrams, P-U, show how, when the pieces are held at 90°, both angles can be marked from the same edge, using a sliding bevel.
If you are a diligent woodworker you have a sharpening station, all your edge tools are clean and sharp and your sharpening stones nice and flat. How about your mind? Sharp, or nice and flat? What about your truthiness? It turns out the lowly whetstone has a few lessons to sharpen your mind and test your honesty.
‘The Whetstone of Witte’
Robert Recorde, Welsh mathematician and physician, published a wonderful book on algebra (stay with me), “The Whetstone of Witte,” in 1557. He opened his book, which has the first known use of the equal (=) sign, with a poem.
From the Smith and Plimpton Collections at Columbia University via the website of the Mathematical Association of America.
He explains the whetstone in relation to tools: “Dulle thinges and harde it will so chaunge/And make them sharpe, to right good use.” Recorde continues and advises the student what can be gained by studying his book. “Here if you lift your wittes to whette/Muche sharpness thereby shall you gette.” Delightful and in a math book!
Now, a riddle for woodworkers from a late 18th-century children’s chapbook titled, “A New Riddle Book, Or, A Whetstone for Dull Wits.”
Couzen or cozen = to deceive.
The ‘Other’ Definition
On we go to the punitive and satirical side of whetstones. This is from the 1955 edition of “Dictionary of Early English” edited by Joseph T. Shipley.
The definition continues with a record of punishment for deceit and other examples of usage. The primary sources for these were relatively easy to find and so down the rabbit hole we go.
Punishment of the Pillory and Whetstone
In the Letter Books of the City of London from 1412 there is an account of the deceit of William Blakeney, a shuttlemaker. “Under the guise of sanctity” and also barefoot and with long hair he pretended to be a hermit and “under colour of such falsehood he had received many good things from divers persons.” As a skilled craftsman he was capable of supporting himself but for six years he “lived by such lies, falsities, and deceits, so invented by him, to the defrauding of the people.”
“It was adjudged that said William should be put upon the pillory for three market-days, there to remain for one hour each day, the reason for the same being there proclaimed; and he was to have, in the meantime, whetstone hung from his neck.”
Son of a…
In “The Busie Body: A Comedy” a play written in 1709 by Mrs. Susanna Centlivre, we have another use of whetstone. Sir Francis Gripe is guardian to Miranda and Marplot. (Gripe is also in love with Miranda.) Marplot is described as a silly fellow and very “Inquisitive to know every Body’s Business, generally spoils all he undertakes, yet without Design.” In one response to Sir Francis he declares :
Philosopher’s Stone vs. Whetstone
This next reference is a canto from “Hudibras” a satiric poem written by Samuel Butler that was published in several parts beginning in 1663.
“The rate of whetstones in the kingdom” is explained in an 1819 annotated copy of the poem as a proverbial expression, in which, “an excitement to lie was called a whetstone.” The annotation also gives direction to a 1572 Puritan Manifesto directed towards Queen Elizabeth in which the term “lying to a whetstone” is found.
The best whetstone reference, also from the annotations, is from a “smart repartee” between Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Kenelm Digby. In one corner we have Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, philosopher and father of scientific method (yay!). In the other corner Sir Kenelm Digby, a natural philosopher, alchemist, proponent of “powder of sympathy” and described by the scholar Henry Stubbe as “the very Pliny of our age for lying.”
The two men were before King James, “to whom Sir Kenelm Digby was relating, that he had seen the true philosopher’s stone in the possession of a hermit in Italy; and when the king was very curious to understand what sort of stone it was, and Sir Kenelm much puzzled in describing it; Sir Francis Bacon interposed, and said, perhaps it was a whetstone.”
If your mind is sharp, your heart true, and you only want to sharpen some tools, the blog has a plethora of posts on sharpening. You can find the one to which I am most partial here.
Megan Fitzpatrick has finished up her edit of the expanded edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” and is now sitting 6’ away making her corrections to the book’s layout files.
Briony is working on the new images, and I have a few photos to take.
In the meantime, I’m pondering a new logo design for the cover of the book. I do like the marriage mark on the original version, and there’s a fair chance we’ll keep it for the expanded edition.
But I’m a tinkerer, especially with the books I’ve written. So I have tried out about five different new logos, including the rough sample you see above.
What is it? Like the marriage mark, it’s a cabinetmaking mark shown in A.J. Roubo’s “l’Art du menuisier.” Shown on Plate 5, our translation notes that the mark is used to designate where a crosscut should occur on a board. The common version of this mark doesn’t have the circle. The circle is added when there are several competing marks on the board. The circle indicates “this is definitely the place to cut.”
Also, I like that there are several letter “As” hidden in its structure.
The downsides? Megan says it looks like the symbol from “The Blair Witch Project” (the twanas). It also somewhat resembles a famous drawing in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” that is about a rude part of the human body. You can read about it here.
So maybe we’ll stick with the marriage mark instead of a demonic sphincter (though some have likened my prose to just such an object…).
