Robin Warman, host of “The Wild Dispatch,” has spent several episodes talking with Monroe Robinson, author of “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke.” Recently, Monroe and his wife, K. Schubeck, invited Robin and his wife, Hanneke, over for sourdough pancakes, made using Dick’s very own sourdough starter.
Watching the episode is an invitation to join them. From their home in Little River, California, Monroe cooks pancakes, while passing around a jar of homemade wild blueberry jam K. shares stories about her experiences in Alaska, and Robin and Hanneke ask insightful questions.
Once a pile of pancakes is complete, Monroe sits, eats and shares stories as well. Many of the people who have visited Dick’s cabin over the years were drawn to it, Monroe says, because it, and everything in it, was handcrafted. Monroe and K. spent many years as caretakers of the cabin, and Monroe built replicas of many of its contents. In doing so, Monroe discovered the spirit of Dick – particularly, his ingeniousness and determination.
Sitting around the breakfast table, K. remembers Monroe, after working all day on a replica, coming home and saying, “I got to know Dick Proenneke a lot better today.”
There’s intimacy in the things we make, no?
You can watch the full episode here. And you can listen to more conversations with Robin and Monroe in EP43, EP51 and EP61.
To end, here’s an excerpt from Monroe’s book, a journal entry written by Dick more than 30 years ago. Here, he mentions sourdough, likely from the same starter featured all these years later.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Dick Proenneke with his snowshoes, February 1993. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
March 15, 1993
Clear, Calm and -8°.
Clear and stars looking down, it could get pretty cool tonight. The half gallon carton of vanilla ice cream set on the table out front and morning would find it about right for dishing it out. Zero degrees makes soft ice cream.
The fire was buried the whole night. I would have coals but puny ones. During breakfast I knew what I was going to do today. A good day to circle the mt. I had suggested it to Leon [Alsworth] and he said we will have to go on snowshoes. Maybe next week he could go but I was sure he wouldn’t. On those little Sherpa aluminum and plastic snowshoes I wouldn’t go. Only thing good about them is the ice claws for mt. travel. It was 9.30 when I closed the door. I would pack my snowshoes to the mouth of Low Pass creek. I had the Olympus OM1n with 50 and 28 mm lens. I was dressed cool for it would be a warm three hrs getting to the divide. That last 400 feet of elevation is as steep as a cows face.
I took a few frames from the mouth of Low Pass creek and then headed for the pass. No sign of porkypines at their winter home and now I wouldn’t know where to find one. I see no tracks.
I was breaking a deeper trail than I had expected. It would be a good climb up the trench to the pass. Old tracks of a wolverine headed or coming from the pass. I have seen porkypines in the pass making that slow hike to the Kijik country. In due time I was up there enjoying the view back down and across the lake. Lots of snow up there and I believe there is more snow in the bottom behind gold ridge than I have ever seen there. 1,700 feet from the lake is the gain in elevation when you climb to the pass. From the pass it is a gain of 1,300 feet to the summit where I would cross. No tracks not one as I traveled on. The fresh last snow laid like a cotton bat and about 6 inches deep on top of the settled snow pack. Just before I got to that last very steep pitch to the divide I came to a reasonably fresh wolf track coming down from the high ridge. Later I would see that track climbing up 1st canyon. So wolves cross there some times and so do wolverine for today I would see a wolverine track climbing to the 3,000 ft. ridge.
At last I stood at the base of that 400 ft. very steep climb. I would have to climb it without snowshoes so I put them on the light pack frame with my camera gear. The snow more than shoe pac deep but a base that was soft enough to give good traction. Traverse back and forth across a width of a couple hundred feet of the mt. Climb at a comfortable angle. Slow but steady does it and in due time I was up near the eye in the mt. I had looked for it as I climbed from Low Pass but couldn’t spot it. I found the snow so deep only a little of the eye was visible. At last I stood on the divide and the time a quarter till three. It had taken me more than five hrs from my cabin to the top 3,000 ft. up.
The sun was bright and a cool breeze had me looking for sun on the protected side of the ridge. I shot a few frames and ate my sourdough sadwich and one of Sis’s good cookies. Now it was down hill all the way to my cabin and about 2 hrs. steady going to get there. Steep for the 1st quarter mile. Now I learned what I once knew. Crampons can be necessary for that 1st quarter for the snow can be too hard to kick steps. Right there I should have turned back and down where I had climbed. I expected it to get better a hundred feet down. There is hard wind pack near the top. To play it safe I moved in the clear of rock outcrops below.
To lose footing and go pell mell down a steep pitch and hit a rock will spoil your day, but good. I was in the clear but footing was poor. If I started I wouldn’t stop for about 200 yds. And I started. I was using both hands on my good walking stick for a brake. Faster and faster and it was a pretty rough slide. My pack kept me from staying on my back and when I went side wise I started to roll. Ho Boy! All I could see was snow and blue sky revolving at a terrific rate. Presently I slowed and stopped. It had been the six inches of loose snow I was expecting higher up. It is surprising how much snow gets inside a tumble down the mt. My mittens were full. Snow inside my jacket. Didn’t lose my Bean cap with the ear flaps over my ears. Still had my pack on for I had hooked the rubber link across my chest. First thing I noticed was that my right upper arm pained a little. If it hurt so soon it wouldn’t hurt a lot more tomorrow. Legs were ok and that was good. If I had broken a leg it would be “sorry charley” you didn’t make it. Tonight would be well below zero. So I could put up with a sore arm and not complain. I discovered that I had lost my good walking stick. I looked for sign of it above and below. Even tried to climb but after climbing 50 feet I slid down 25. Tried again and just couldn’t get traction. So I got organized and headed down the mt. in the loose 6-8 inches of snow. When the incline flattened a bit I put on my snowshoes and came down the water course from the base of the steep going. I hadn’t gone far when I met a wolf track climbing to the divide. It was short steps and feet making drag marks in the loose snow for the wolf. Headed for the Kijik for I hadn’t seen tracks in the pass coming to the upper lake. Down, down but not so steep that I would lose control on snowshoes. At times I would support my right arm with my left hand. It was uncomfortable hanging free. Lower I came to a wolverine track climbing so it was going over the top. I find mr. wolverine just doesn’t seem to care how steep or rough it is. He doesn’t seem to appreciate an easy route.
Hope creek at last and from 1st canyon down it was nice going. Wished for my walking stick but managed without it. It was going to take just about 2 hrs. from the divide to my cabin and the sun would be just about ready to set directly behind the Pyramid mt.
I opened the cabin door and learn’d Leon had been here. A bag containing letters a package and two batteries for my Bendix “King” radio. I still had a very few coals under the ashes and fine stuff would have a fire going quickly. I wanted to auger the ice this evening for I might not do it so easy tomorrow. I found it 27″ this 15th of March. Did my chores with little difficulty and got out of my damp hiking clothes. How would my journal entry go with that gimpy right arm. It has worked better but I managed better than I expected. I’ll take an “Ascription” at ladder climbing time. Now 10.30 Clear, calm and -3°.
This low-slung Irish armchair is the first chair I’ve finished in soot, dirt and oil – a finish that gives the chair a deep brown-black-red color that you find on old stick chairs.
The chair is made entirely of elm (both red elm and American elm) and is one of the most comfortable chairs I make. The back is tilted at 20°, and the chair’s backrest cradles your shoulders to allow hours of comfortable sitting.
Up close, the finish shows the wood’s grain.
The finish is a combination of natural, non-toxic ingredients: soot (carbon black), red dirt from Ercolano, Italy) and purified linseed oil. The finish is low-luster, and it is designed to look better the more it is used. It is topcoated with our Soft Wax 2.0, and will wear gently over time. I developed this finish to create chairs that look correct in a home filled with antiques.
Like all stick chairs, this one bears imperfections that mark how it was made. The leg angles are not exact because they were drilled by hand and without guides. The arms and all the sticks were shaped entirely by hand with spokeshaves, planes and rasps.
The chair has a variety of textures, from the smooth backrest to the faceted sticks.
The entire chair is assembled with animal glue, which is reversible should your descendants ever need to repair it.
The seat height is 16-1/2”, which is intentionally low for lounging. The overall height of the chair is a compact 30”.
How to Buy the Chair
I’m selling this chair for $1,800 via a random drawing. The price includes shipping and crating to anywhere in the lower 48. If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 12. Please use the subject line: “Irish chair.” In the email please include your:
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
If you are the “winner” the chair will be shipped to your door. The price includes the crate and all shipping charges. There are no additional charges. Alternatively, the chair can be picked up at our storefront. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.)
Students from my most recent Chairmaker’s Toolbox class, October 2025. I like to foreground the “toolbox” part of the name 🙂
Among the woodworking charities Chris and I support, and to which we donate our time and teaching to every year, is The Chairmaker’s Toolbox (CMT). This organization, founded by Aspen Golann, works to remove barriers to learning by championing woodworking education for those who have been underserved in traditional woodworking shops – particularly in the disappearance of woodworking education in our schools.
Right now is the annual CMT fund drive. Your tax deductible monthly gift could help to sponsor scholarships for new makers and aspiring instructors, support meal and travel stipends for class assistants, covert postage and packing for donated tools and more! (And you’ll get a cool limited-edition sheet of stickers featuring chairs made in in 2025 classes.) Any amount helps! Or make a one-time donation by November 14 and get a nifty tote bag printed with a logo designed by Tahm Lytle.
Jacob finished sweeping the leaves from the front steps of his cabinetmaker’s shop and stood looking down the street. Many of the shop windows and front porches in this older neighborhood were decorated for the harvest season with bunches of corn stalks, hay bales and pumpkins. With Halloween a few weeks away, cobwebs would soon be added between porch supports and ghostly faces would materialize in attic windows. As she did every year, Mrs. Hanratty celebrated the Irish origins of Halloween by adding several carved turnips between the pumpkins on her front stoop. Jacob favored this more traditional celebration of the season and very much disliked blinking orange lights, screaming skeletons and the like. Maybe I’m getting old he thought, but I just like the old ways better.
“Come on, Georgie,” he called to his cat, “time to get to work!” Hearing a meow above his head, he looked up to see his black and white cat clinging to the top of a corn stalk at one side of the front door. Jacob reached up and brought the cat and a shower of shredded stalks down into his arms. “Very silly, cat, very silly,” he said as he entered the shop and closed the door. Georgie jumped from Jacob’s arms and strolled to the back of the shop and sat down next to two large piles of oak boards. “You’re reading my mind, Georgie. I’ve got to sort through those this morning. Let’s hope there are enough clear boards for the bookcases and table I’m going to make.”
After an hour, all but two of the shorter boards had been examined, and Jacob was satisfied he would have enough oak for his commission work. He reached for the next to last board, and saw, about a third of the way down from the top a swirling grain pattern. “Damn! Cat face!” he exclaimed. He ran his hand over the reverse grain and saw how the pattern extended from the edge to half way across the face of the board. Trying to decipher what he saw he took the board to the big front windows. The grain pattern looked like a cat’s head in profile. He propped the board against the nearby wall and stepped back. “That’s a big cat’s head,” he said, “big enough to be a tiger.” Georgie trotted over to the board, stood on his hind legs and touched a paw to the bottom edge of the pattern. Dropping down, he rubbed his cheek along the edge of the board while purring like a outboard boat motor. Laughing at his cat’s antics, Jacob picked up the board, and with his cat following close behind, said, “I’ll put your new favorite board buddy out of the way against the back wall.”
Several days later, Jacob called Georgie to come and eat his supper. No cat came careening through the kitchen door. He called again and still no cat. “Are you in front of the board again?” he called. Jacob crossed the kitchen, went through the open door and up three steps, crossed the landing in five strides, went down six steps and through the door into his shop. He found Georgie sitting in front of the oak board staring at the cat face. “What are you doing?” asked Jacob, “It’s your supper time! Come along!” Georgie didn’t move. Jacob looked from Georgie to the cat face once, twice and even in the darkened shop something about the board was different. The grain pattern looked as though it had spread further across the face of the board. Jacob turned on the overhead light to get a better look. “What the..?” he started to say and stepped back, startled. Another step back and he tripped on the shop stool and landed on his ass. “Georgie! It’s moving! Get away from it!” he yelled. But, Georgie stayed right were he was and, once again, turned on his motor and purred.
Jacob, too, stayed right were he was. He knew his mouth was hanging open, but he couldn’t get it to stay closed. He also could not pull his eyes away from the cat face as it rippled and stretched across the face of the board. Now, he could make out what seemed to be two eyes and a mouth. It’s a tiger’s face he thought and quickly put that thought out of his mind. “It’s just a board,” he said aloud for Georgie’s benefit. Then, the “eyes” blinked and Jacob sprang to his feet, grabbed a protesting Georgie, ran through and slammed the shop door, leapt up six steps, crossed the landing in two strides, slammed the door and skipping the three steps, jumped straight down to the kitchen floor. Jacob put the struggling cat on the floor and announced, “We are not going back to the shop tonight! We will have our supper, have a quiet evening and go to bed!”
In the morning, Jacob woke feeling tired and cranky. He left the house for his regular pre-dawn walk puzzling over what he saw, or thought he saw, the night before. Something was up with Georgie, too. That cat never refused a meal. Following his morning routine, Jacob opened the shop, swept the front steps and sidewalk and waved to Mrs. Hanratty, the other early-riser on this end of the street.
As soon as his cat ran into the shop, he camped out in front of the board. Urging the cat to move away, Jacob said, “It’s just weird graining in the wood, come on, Georgie! Or stay there, have it your way!” As he walked towards his workbench Jacob heard a low rumble similar to a cat’s purring. He turned and saw the “mouth” in the cat face pattern open wider and wider as it’s “eyes” got smaller and smaller. Transfixed, and feeling his hair standing on end, Jacob stood with his own mouth agape. He heard the low rumble again and then, in a deep voice, the cat face said, “Oh, oh, that felt good! I have not been able to yawn, ever! I think I will do it again!” Jacob watched as another yawn was accomplished. Finding his voice, he asked, “You couldn’t yawn?” “Oh, not at all,” rumbled the face, “stuck on the edge of the board, I was.” “I see,” replied Jacob hearing his own voice rising into a squeak. And, try as he might, he could not stifle his own yawn.
“No, this is not happening! You, I mean that board, can’t stay in the shop!” Jacob wrapped a tarp over the board and carried it down to the shop basement. All the while he was muttering, “It didn’t yawn, I didn’t yawn. There was no yawn catching between the board and me!” He scooped up his cat, went back up the basement steps and closed and locked the door. “I have a commission to complete!” he exclaimed and strode purposely towards his workbench.
Jacob endured another restless night and rose with a headache and groaned, “Ugh, only one beer with supper and I feel hungover.” Georgie, for his part, ignored Jacob and went downstairs to wait for his breakfast. While in the shower, and later in the kitchen making breakfast, Jacob had the refrain from a song stuck in his head. He didn’t have the words, only the tune. What is the name of the song he kept thinking, I know it, but I don’t.
Once he was working at his bench he felt better. His headache was gone, but not the earworm. He kept whistling or humming the unknown refrain still wondering what was the song. He was sitting at his desk taking a mid-morning coffee break when he heard it. That’s the song! Where the heck was it coming from? No one was outside the shop front, no cars were rolling by. It was coming from the basement. He hurried to unlock the basement door to find who was down there and heard a very deep voice singing, “All byyy myyyself, don’t want to beee, all byyy myyyself anymore. All byyyy myyyself…” Jacob tore the tarp off the board and yelled, “It was you! All night something was bothering my sleep and now, I can’t get that song out of my head! Stop singing!” “Good day, Jacob! I will stop sing that song if you put me back in the shop. I spent a long time in the dark and prefer to stay in the light. Thank you!” Without replying, Jacob carried the board up the steps and leaned it against the back wall of the shop. All the while he was thinking, I’m a cabinetmaker at the mercy of a cat face board. Is this punishment for an egregious woodworking mistake I made in my youth? Am I going mad? And, how does it know my name? He was determined to ignore the board. He would concentrate on his work, on sawdust and shavings, on sawdust and shavings.
The truce lasted just a couple days. From time to time, Jacob was aware of a low humming coming from the board, but he was unable to decipher any words or a known song. He was at the kitchen table enjoying a lunch of left-over spaghetti when he heard it. He knew that song! It was one of his favorites! He rushed to the shop and before he could help himself started belting out, in unison with the cat face, “Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time, the sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine, it’s hard to tell the night time from the day!” The board stopped singing and commanded, “Jacob! Jacob! Pull the tarp over me, something is coming!” Startled, Jacob did as he was told. “Now, keep singing,” whispered the cat face. Jacob continued singing, “You’re losing all your highs and lows, ain’t it funny…” He heard the bell ring as the shop door opened, turned and stepped forward to face the visitor, a short figure in a dirty black coat and pants, his cap pulled low over his eyes. Jacob began, “May I help,” when he was cut off. In a rough voice, the newcomer asked, “Have ya got any spare wood, maybe some boards ya don’t want?” “I don’t sell any lumber. Any wood I order is used in my business. Try the lumberyard or the big box stores,” replied Jacob. The newcomer stepped forward and leaning toward Jacob said, “Are ya sure ya have no boards you want to get rid of?” With a sneer he continued, “Some that aren’t good enough for the fancy goods ya make here? Something ya plan to put in the burn pile?” In a clear voice Jacob replied, “I have nothing for you here, now leave!” The visitor swore, spat on the floor and stomped out of the shop.
From under the tarp the cat face spoke, “Lock the door!” Jacob turned towards the board and asked, “Why? You said something was coming, not someone. What was that?” “I am not sure,” replied the cat face, “I sensed it one other time, soon after my tree was cut into parts at the sawmill. My board was pulled from the stack and put aside. Later, one of the men at the sawmill put my board back with the others and here I am!” “So, somebody intended to steal your board from the sawmill? Woodworkers usually don’t use a board with a cat face, the reverse graining causes tear-out,” said Jacob. “Yes, someone wanted my board and as you can see, I am not just a cat face,” replied the cat face. What am I? I do not yet know, but I can sense when evil is present. That thing that came to the shop was up to no good and will surely be back. Deep in the night, the cat face, safely tucked in the basement, woke with a start. He sensed that the evil was back. Seconds later, Jacob was jolted awake by his shop fire detector. As he was calling the fire department, he heard the fire truck, siren blaring, round the corner to his street. He ran downstairs and went through to the shop. He could see flames outside the front window and grabbed a fire extinguisher. As he advanced towards the door he heard a bellow coming from the basement. “Jacob stay inside! Stay inside!”
“It was deliberately set,” the Fire Chief advised Jacob. “Looks like we have an arsonist in town. Know anybody with a grudge against you?” Jacob told the Chief about his odd visitor and provided a description. “I’ll ask the Police Chief to increase patrols around here, also, get your neighbors involved in keeping an eye out for anything unusual.” Mrs. Hanratty, standing at the front of the gathered crowd, piped in, “That we will! Don’t worry Jacob, we’ll keep you safe!” Smiling, Jacob thanked her and as she marched back to her house – Mrs. Hanratty never walked, she marched – he imagined her as a gunny in the Marine Corps.
“We have to have a plan,” said Mrs. Hanratty to the large group of neighbors ranged around Jacob’s shop. There was a mass nodding of heads. There were suggestions of building barricades at each end, “Like we did in Paris in ‘68!” exclaimed Jean-Michel, the upholster, who was all of 55 years old. Patrols were set, plans were made to distribute radios for communication along with other arrangements. Although he was discouraged from doing so, Dante, the roofer’s son, was going to set up his pumpkin trebuchet on the roof of their shop. “Just in case, you know, just in case we need some firepower,” he reassured the group.
As the meeting broke up, Jacob asked Mrs. Hanratty to stay behind. He told her all about the cat face on the board and then took her to the basement. Standing before the board, she gave a start when the eyes blinked. “This is quite remarkable. May I touch your face?” she asked, her voice soft and low. “Yes you may,” came the response. She felt a ripple under her fingers as she traced the grain that formed a stripe. “It feels like a mild electric current runs under the surface. Jacob, have you felt this?” she asked. “Yes, on my shoulder, the first time I carried the board down here,” he answered. Turning back to the cat face she said, “There are many tales of spirits living or being trapped in trees. There are changes cause by nature such a lightning, fire or floods. Do you know your name or your purpose? Do you have any memory of the time you were in the tree?” “I was not fully awake, or possibly fully alive, until Jacob lifted the board and turned it toward the sunshine coming through the front window of the shop,” he answered. “Mmmm, the light,” mused Mrs. Hanratty, “that’s interesting. It is very likely the evil beings trying to catch you are planning some awful ritual, or they fear your power and want to kill you. Either way, we will stop them.” Hearing her soft musings followed by her steely resolve had Jacob’s eyebrows halfway to his hairline. He escorted her out of the basement and to the front door. As she began the short walk to her house, she looked back and said, “It’s battle stations, Jacob, battle stations! I’m going to carve more turnips!” “Turnips?” he called. “To keep the beasties away! That’s what my ancestors did,” came the answer.
The plan for Halloween was to keep Jacob inside his shop and the cat face in the basement. Mrs. Hanratty was elected to direct operations and was to position herself outside Jacob’s shop. Lookouts were on several roofs and everyone readied themselves for a street fight. “Like Paris in ‘68!” repeated the too-young-to-have-been there, Jean-Michel.
Not long after the last of the trick-or-treaters left the neighborhood, Mrs. Hanratty walked over to Jacob’s shop front. “You’re carrying a hockey stick?” he laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous! It’s a hurley!” she answered. Her radio crackled with news of a multi-car accident and fire on the other side of town. “And so it begins,” she announced over her radio, “the little beasties are keeping the cops busy elsewhere. Art, you see anything?” she asked one of the rooftop spotters. “There’s a dark mass of something-or-other moving along the street from the east,” reported Art, “looks like a they’re knocking out the street lights as they advance. Creepy! I’m guessing there are a couple hundred of ‘em and they’re starting to light torches! And, they’re chanting!”
“Marcus, get the sauce ready!” directed Mrs. Hanratty. “As soon as they reach the first intersection, fire away.” Repurposing his drones used to help inspect roofs, Marcus and his crew of roofers flew their drones above the creepy beasties and released the sauce. Torches were extinguished and the beasties were coated in gallons of the local diner’s extra-flaming hot sauce. The street echoed with screams, powerful swearing and about a quarter of the invaders ran off. The neighborhood brigade could now hear the chants coming from the beasties. “Cast out the cat or burn! Cast out the cat! Cast out the cat or burn!” they shrieked as they marched.
The drones were brought back and reloaded. “Commence goo drop!” ordered Mrs. Hanratty, “we have to douse those torches.” The goo worked as expected, putting out the torches, coating the beasties with fluorescent green and slowing their march towards the second intersection and Jacob’s shop. “Second batch of goo!” commanded Mrs. Hanratty. Dante, up on the roof with his dad, radioed a request to use the trebuchet. “By all means, Dante, blast them with everything you’ve got!” Within minutes, a rapid volley of pumpkins, decorative gourds, squashes and turnips came sailing through the air. “Excellent, Dante! Keep ‘em coming!” exclaimed Mrs. Hanratty, but she was worried. The vegetal fusillade, while causing the delightful sight of beasties with pumpkin heads and gourds jammed into mouths and ears, it was not enough. The accumulation of hot sauce, goo and vegetable guts in the street was only slowing, not stopping, the advance of the beasties. They were in trouble.
Jacob, not allowed to leave his shop, watched and worried. The horde would surely hurt his neighbors, destroy their homes and kill the cat face. Beneath his feet he felt the floor vibrate. “Jacob!” came the deep rumble of the cat face. He ran down to the basement and, almost falling, came to an abrupt stop. The figure of the cat face was glowing. “Jacob, you must take me the roof of your house, do it now!” rumbled the cat. “Why? What can you do?” Jacob asked, confused by the cat’s request. “Please, Jacob!
They are here because of me and I know what must be done to protect you and all the neighbors. Please, do it now!” Georgie standing watch over the cat face paced back and forth. “Put Georgie somewhere safe, he can’t be allowed to follow us,” demanded the cat face. Jacob got on the radio to let the neighborhood brigade know what he was about to do and to be prepared for anything. Mrs. Hanratty responded, “He has found his purpose.”
With Georgie safe in the kitchen, Jacob began the long climb up the stairs to the attic. The board felt heavier and warmer with each step. By the third floor, his shirt was soaked with sweat and his breathing labored. He propped the board against the wall and opened the door that led to the narrow steps to the roof. “What are you going to do?” he asked the cat face, “what can you do?” “Hurry, Jacob, hurry!” came the answer. Jacob complied and once on the roof he placed the board with the cat face facing east. It was windy and he shivered. His hands stung from the heat of the board and his shoulders ached. He was startled when the deep voice of the cat face told him to step well back. Wisps of smoke rose from the edges of the board and the graining of the cat face grew out from the surface. “I must go now, Jacob. Thank you for not putting me on the burn pile!” Jacob fell back as he watched the head and neck of an enormous white tiger emerge from the board, followed by the rest of its body and tail.
The tiger was at least 10′ long. The wood grain pattern had turned coal black and its white fur glowed as though lit from within. Intense heat radiated from the tiger and its tail whipped back and forth. It swung its head, its eyes meeting and holding Jacob’s, then turned and leapt from the roof straight down to the street. His voice cracking, Jacob called on the radio, “Cat face, I mean tiger, on it way down!” The neighborhood brigade watched as the tiger landed in the street, its giant paws burning prints into the street surface. The tiger roared and charged towards the beasties swatting the vile creatures high into the sky. Beasties trying to swarm him were burned to a crisp when they touched his body. Others were caught in its mouth and swallowed whole. From his perch on the roof, Jacob saw white flames trailing behind the tiger as it chased the beasties. He watched until he no longer could see tiger or flames. He picked up what was left of the board and dragged himself down the steps in his house and on to his shop. His neighbors waited outside, some sitting, some leaning. It was one o’clock in the morning and he was a wreck, they all were. “Do you think he’ll come back?” asked Dante. “I don’t know how he can,” answered Jacob.
“He doesn’t really exist in our world, does he? I don’t know.” “He saved us, that’s for sure,” someone murmured and, too tired to speak, they all nodded in agreement. “Everybody to bed,” ordered Mrs. Hanratty, “we’ll start the cleanup tomorrow, or later today, or whatever.”
Jacob tossed and turned unable to sleep after what he had witnessed. He felt a deep sense of loss. Georgie had finally settled down and fell asleep sprawled in front of the remnant of the cat face board. Just before dawn, his mind still unsettled and yearning for sleep, he heard a hoarse whisper. “Jacob, I am at my end. Please take care of the little one I have sent you.” He jumped out of bed, ran down the steps and into the kitchen, through the door, up the steps, across the landing, down the steps, through the shop door, across the shop, fumbled with his keys, opened the door to the street and found a skinny and dirty orange tabby kitten curled against the wall. It had lost its right eye and the ends of its whiskers were curled as though it had been too close to an open flame. As he picked up the kitten he could smell smoke in its fur. His legs wouldn’t hold him and he sat right down on the sidewalk in front of his shop door.
Hours later, this is where Mrs. Hanratty found him, fast asleep with a sleeping orange kitten in his arms. She took her coat off, covered him with it and left him to wake in his own time.
YELLOW PINE, HOT SPRINGS, ARK. After years of working with yellow pine on our Arkansas farm, I convinced myself it was an ideal wood for a workbench.
The following is excerpted from “The Anarchist’s Workbench,” by Christopher Schwarz. The book is – on the one hand – a detailed plan for a simple workbench that can be built using construction lumber and basic woodworking tools. But it’s also the story of Schwarz’s 20-year journey researching, building and refining historical workbenches until there was nothing left to improve.
Along the way, Schwarz quits his corporate job, builds a publishing company founded on the principles of mutualism and moves into an 1896 German barroom in a red-light district, where he now builds furniture, publishes books and tries to live as an aesthetic anarchist. Oh – and the PDF of the book is free (see the first sentence at this link.)
This following chapter should be the shortest one in the book and should consist of only the following paragraph.
The wood for your workbench should be the heaviest and cheapest stuff that you can obtain with great ease. Let it dry a bit before you build your bench. When you mill it, discard any bits that twist a lot or split.
Sadly, I know that paragraph won’t do because first-time bench-builders have enormous anxiety about every aspect of the project, especially the wood. And people who have built only one workbench (or watched a guy do it once) have fierce opinions on the topic that they spread far and wide.
The truth is that the number of wood species that are questionable for building a workbench is tiny. So, let’s talk about those first. Here are the woods I would avoid, if possible.
White Pines I’ve built benches with white pines and they are sub-optimal for a couple reasons: weight and hardness. They are strong enough; mostly I object to how lightweight they are. A good furniture maker’s bench should be heavy so that it won’t move or shake while you work. White pines are remarkably lightweight, which is a great characteristic when making a tool chest (which should be mobile). [Editor’s note: Dude. That’s my bench you’re dissing. I weighed it down. It’s fine.]
A typical cubic foot of Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) weighs 25 lbs. at 12 percent moisture content. A typical cubic foot of hard maple (Acer saccharum) is 44 pounds. That’s a big difference. Also, white pines dent when you look at them sideways. That’s not a deal killer, but it’s annoying.
Bottom line: I’ll use white pines for some parts in a bench, such as the stretchers or shelf boards, when the rest of the bench is made from dense stuff. But an all-white-pine bench is not my first choice.
WHITE PINE WORKBENCH, 2010 Megan Fitzpatrick’s second workbench was built using white pine offcuts from a log home.
Eschew Exotics The other extreme is to build your bench out of a wood with properties more like steel than cellulose. Purpleheart (Peltogyne spp.) is a prime example. A cubic foot of this atrocity weighs 56 lbs. at 12 percent moisture content. That weight seems ideal for the bench builder who wants mass. But working with it is agonizing. It brutalizes your tools, both hand and power. (Plus it looks like a Smurf with a skin disease.) Ipe (Handroanthus spp.) is another prime example. A cubic foot weighs a ridiculous 69 lbs. Cutting it with regular woodworking tools is like trying to gum a carrot to death.
Plus, these woods are stupid expensive compared to the woods easily available to a North American woodworker. If I lived in South America and could purchase these woods for a reasonable price, I’d probably give them some love. But here in the Northern Hemisphere, there are many cheaper woods that are plenty heavy and easier to work.
CHERRY SLABS, COLUMBUS, OHIO, 2010 At first glance, the slabs seemed big enough and sound enough to make a workbench. But the rot caused some problems.
Avoid Spongy Woods If a tree has been sitting on the ground a while, it’s likely that decay has set in. And the bugs built this city on rot and mold. Some of these trees end up at your lumberyard, especially if the seller deals in live-edge slabs or big pieces of wood for fireplace mantles.
Semi-rotted wood is fine for a conference table or fireplace mantle. That’s because it won’t see much abuse (and it likely will see a lot of epoxy). But if you put that same wood in a workbench, disaster might find you.
One of my workbenches had a thick benchtop of black cherry (Prunus serotina) that had been sitting out in the parking lot of a woodworking shop for a couple seasons. The price ($0.00) was right, and I could see some areas of the top were spongy. So, I filled these voids with a flexible epoxy that I tinted black. This was in 2010, and – oh my lord I just realized that this fact puts me at the forefront of the “bigslabs with epoxy pour” movement. Kill me.
Anyway, the epoxy wasn’t strong enough to stabilize the entire cherry slab for use as a benchtop. And during a public event a couple years later, Roy Underhill knocked a chunk off the benchtop while setting a holdfast in it. (And that’s why there are now two giant lag screws in its front edge.)
So, check any slabs for punkiness before purchasing. Probe any dis- colored areas with a pocket-knife, which will plunge into the bits that are too soft. Here’s one more clue: If you pick up a slab and it seems entirely too lightweight, it’s probably been turned into a Golden Corral by the insect world. Put the slab back.
REPAIR TO A ROTTED SECTION Despite the epoxy, a chunk of the bench had to be bolted back on.
Some Red Herrings If you remove the above three kinds of woods from your list of potential species, you still have an enormous range from which to choose.But some people will insist that you narrow it down even more. Don’t let them. Some people just like to be a bossy-pants, and so they come up with other hurdles for you to leap over when choosing a wood. Here are some dumb pieces of advice trying to lead you astray.
Use only light-colored species. This advice seems to make sense at first. A lightly colored bench will reflect light in a dark shop. It also will be easy to sight your plane soles against the benchtop to deter- mine if its cutter is centered in the mouth.
But in reality, its hue doesn’t make a ding-dong bit of difference.
Light-colored benches become dark with age. Dark-colored benches become light with age. Everything ends up as middling brown. I’ve seen old maple benches that look like walnut. And old walnut benches that look like maple. And working on either of these benches is no problem whatsoever. If you are struggling, sight that plane sole against a piece of wood on your bench. Or the floor. Or a piece of paper.
I’d probably pass on building an ebony bench because it’s just an expensively dumb choice for a workbench. But if I had some nice walnut or cherry that was dirt cheap and thick, I’d turn it into a bench without remorse.
Dumb advice, part two: Use only a closed-pore or diffuse-pore species. The theory here is that if you use an open-pored species, such as ash or oak, then the pores might collect metal filings or other debris that will scratch your work. I have never, ever found this to be a problem. Oak, ash and other open-pore species are great for building workbenches.
Part three: Use only hardwood for your benchtop. Again, this seems to make sense on the surface. A hard benchtop is nice. But “hard- woods” aren’t always hard. Basswood (Tilia americana) is an American hardwood. But it’s as easily dented as Eastern white pine. If a hard benchtop is your goal, then you need to start comparing the different Janka ratings of the species on your short list.
Janka hardness is a number that expresses the pounds of force required to push a steel ball (that is .444″ in diameter) halfway into a board. It’s a number you can easily look up if you want to go down the Janka rabbit hole.
I tend to lurk around the rim of the Janka rabbit hole. If the wood is really soft (Eastern white pine’s Janka rating is 380 pounds-force) I want to know that before I get building. (By way of comparison, hardmaple’s Janka rating is 1,450 pounds-force. Ipe’s is a ridiculous 3,510
pounds-force.) The hardness of a species is something to consider, but
it’s not my first concern. So, what is?
How much the wood costs, per pound.
That might sound weird. Let’s talk about it.
Let’s Talk About Weight When you compare the weights of species, you need to make sure the comparisons are all at the same moisture content (12 percent is the typical comparison unit). You can compare the density of a species by comparing its “specific gravity,” which is a method that compares the weight to a cubic meter of water. Or you can look at the average dried weight of a cubic foot of the wood (also at 12 percent moisture content).
These are useful, but I think you can also make some important comparisons by factoring in the local price of a species. It’s like buying meat at the butcher. Is rib eye ritzier than hamburger? The price per pound helps us answer that question (and yes, it is).
For example, a cubic foot of hard maple consists of 12 board feet of maple. If maple is $4.73 a board foot, then a cubic foot of maple costs $56.76. That cubic foot weighs 44 lbs. Or $1.29/pound.
Longleaf pine (a yellow pine) is 78 cents a board foot (for No. 1 grade), so a cubic foot costs $9.40. That cubic foot weighs 41 lbs. Or a remarkably cheap 23 cents per pound.
Because I live to poke fun at Ipe, let’s run those numbers. Ipe costs $17 a board foot, so a cubic foot costs $204. That cubic foot weighs 69 lbs. So Ipe is $2.96/pound. Not a great deal at the wood butcher’s.
The chart (below) compares some of the common U.S. hardwoods and softwoods using typical Midwestern retail prices circa 2020 (this is not wholesale or trade pricing). This cost-per-pound calculation is simple to do yourself using your local prices.
Here’s how: Take your cost per board foot (use 8/4 prices) and multiply that by 12. That’s the cost for a cubic foot. Now divide that number by the weight of a cubic foot of that species (a statistic that is easily found in books and online). The result is the cost per pound.
Do the Math From the chart, ash looks like a good choice among the hardwoods. The problem with that assessment is that by the time you are reading this book, white ash might be almost extinct. The emerald ash borer has devastated the ash forests in the United States. So, you might not be able to buy it at any price. And if you do find it, you want to ensure it hasn’t rotted. We have been plagued by punky ash for the last few years as the sawyers have milled up trees that have been standing dead.
Aside from ash, poplar and the maples are a great bang for the buck. Both are easy to work, readily available and fairly cheap by the pound. I’ve made workbenches using all three species and think they’re fine. Neither is considered a noble species for a workbench, like European beech. But as long as you aren’t out to impress anyone, go for it. You’ll have no problem finding those species at almost any lumberyard in America.
But if you want to go full redneck, read on.
Softwoods that are used for structural members in home construction – the yellow pines, Douglas fir, hemlock and some spruces – are an outstanding value. They are heavy, cheap and readily available at any lumberyard. After working with them most of my life in residential construction and workbench building, they remain my No. 1 choice for workbenches.
Here’s why: Anyone can buy it. You don’t have to search out a specialty lumberyard or set up a commercial account. Just go to the home center if you want (though I always prefer family lumberyards). They have plenty.
Also important: They have plenty. A typical home center or family lumberyard will have hundreds of planks of 2x material in the racks on any given day – everything from 2x6s to 2x12s – with lengths from 8′ to 16′. At a home center, you can spend hours sifting through the racks to find the best boards – the employees don’t care. At a family lumberyard it pays to ask permission (they will sometimes be happy to help you). Either way, just be sure to restack the lumber nicer than you found it.
Here’s another buying tip: Some lumberyard chains carry No. 2 yellow pine, others carry No. 1. The price difference is minimal, but the quality isn’t. No. 1 is worth the extra nickels. If you find a yard that deals in No. 1, you might be able to buy all the wood for your bench in one swoop. If you buy No. 2, you might have to hit all the yards in your town, county or region.
YELLOW PINE NEEDLES, HOT SPRINGS, ARK. Yellow pines are identified by how their needles are bundled on a twig. Yellow pines typically have two, three or five needles per fascicle (or bundle).
Yellow pine is easy to work. I’ve built yellow pine workbenches using only hand tools, and using a full-on machine shop. It’s friendly stuff. Yes, there can be some knots, but if you pick your boards with care, you’ll have almost none of those to deal with.
So there must be disadvantages. Yes, but they are slight. Construction lumber is sold in a wetter state than hardwood lumber. While hardwoods are typically sold at about 12 percent moisture content (or at equilibrium with some environment) that is not the case with construction lumber. It is wetter.
How wet? In the Midwest it might be 15-20 percent moisture content. On the West Coast, it might be even wetter (as in wet enoughto ooze and squirt water). So, you need to gather up what you need to build your bench, cut it to rough length, stack it and wait a bit.
It might also be “case hardened” because it was kiln dried too quickly. When lumber is rushed through a kiln it can develop tension that is released when you cut it. It’s particularly obvious when you rip a board. Sometimes the wood will pinch so hard on a blade it will stop a 3-horsepower table saw like pinching out a candle.
How do you deal with this? It’s not difficult.
1. Plan to cut things a bit over-wide. And have some wooden wedges handy to keep the kerf open when you rip the wood. After that first rip, a case-hardened board will usually lose all of its fight.
2. Make your rip cut to a shallow depth at first – less than half the thickness of the board. Then raise the blade, flip the board end-over-end and finish the rip.
The final disadvantage: Softwoods are uber-redneck. No one is going to “ooh and ahh” over your choice of yellow pine. It’s the mullet of the forest.
$175 WORKBENCH AFTER 20 YEARS OF USE, 2020 The yellow pine in this workbench is now about as hard as maple and moves little with the seasons.
The True Cost of Yellow Pine Per Pound I’m not a trusting soul. After I calculated the cost of yellow pine per pound (23 cents) based on published statistics, I decided to see if that worked in the real world. So, I weighed several 2x12x8s and came up with an average weight of 30.4 pounds each.
These were boards I’d had in my shop for months, so they had likely lost some of their water weight (as all softwoods do). Plus, the boards in this particular pile were fairly average – not full of sap or with lots of heavy summerwood. In other words, they were a bit on the light-weight side.
Each of these boards cost $8.81 each, so that’s 29 cents per pound – about 6 cents per pound more expensive than the published weight tables indicate. But still a great deal.
I wondered, how did that work out after surfacing the boards and gluing them up? What was the cost per pound of “finished” yellow pine?
Here’s how I calculated that. The benchtop for the workbench at the end of this book is made from nine 2x12s, ripped in half, glued up and planed so the top is 5″ thick. Nine 2×12 x 8s cost $79.29. After gluing up the top, I managed to weigh it on a heavy-duty scale we use for shipping crates. The top weighed 240 pounds. That’s 33 cents per pound. Still a bargain (if you ask me).
POPULAR WOODWORKING, FEBRUARY 2001 The opening spread for the $175 workbench article, my first published workbench plan.
Back to the $175 Workbench As I built the “$175 Workbench” for Popular Woodworking I encountered all the advantages and disadvantages of yellow pine mentioned above. A fair number of the boards were case hardened, so gettingthem ripped and glued up was a challenge. It took two of us to wrangle the laminations for the benchtop.
But, and here’s the kicker, I still own that workbench. And it has taught me other important lessons about construction-grade softwoods, yellow pine in particular. Here are two: It doesn’t move much in service and it gets harder and harder with age.
True and embarrassing fact: When I started woodworking, I assumed that softwoods moved more with the seasons than hardwoods. This was based on working with home center softwoods. I’d buy what I needed and start working it the same day. By the end of the day, the wood would be a warped mess. And sometimes unusable.
The real problem was that the pine was wet and hadn’t acclimated to my workshop. And – here’s another fun fact – all woods tend to move a lot as they expunge that last little bit of water to become at balance with their environment.
So, I was working with pine at the worst possible time.
If you let softwoods dry for a few weeks, the stuff barely moves at all when you plane it and saw it. In general, softwoods move less in service than hardwoods.
I also love how yellow pine gets tougher with age. I’m told that this is because the sap hardens, first to copal then (after a couple million years) into amber. The difference is dramatic. When I purchase newly cut yellow pine, I can dent its soft earlywood with my knuckle or fingernail. After a year or two, it seems as hard as Formica.
My yellow pine bench was still soft and spongy when I finished it in 2000. Soon after that, the magazine had an evening event where we brought in a bunch of local readers. We did this sort of social event every few months or so. Sometimes it was for a focus group. Sometimes it was to test some new tools from a particular manufacturer.
After this event, a bunch of readers gathered around my new workbench and asked questions, which went something like this: “Nice bench but, yellow pine?”
Once again, I was unprepared. All I could manage to say was that it was cheap and heavy. The readers didn’t disagree with me, but they also weren’t impressed.
That’s when I decided to plow into the book “Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material,” which is published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This book is free online – our tax dollars paid for it – and it is filled with all the numbers and terms that will impress people: modulus of elasticity, modulus of rupture, rolling shear strength, tensile strength and (the term that will always get you laid if you bring it up at a bar) Poisson’s ratio. I also learned that most wooden roller coasters and telephone poles are made from yellow pine.
The “Wood Handbook” proved what I knew in my heart: yellow pine is an outstanding workbench material. It is heavy, strong and stiff. I then had the numbers, and I could use them to defend my choice of yellow pine.
However, there’s no need to get into a discussion of those facts and figures. Or to reproduce the tables that explore wood as an engineering material. That’s because any decent design for a workbench renders most of those tabular charts moot. If you make your benchtop so it’s between 4″ and 6″ thick, even balsa wood is technically stiff enough to do the job. Pick a somewhat heavy species, and your thick benchtop will provide all the weight and stiffness you need – even if your bench’s legs are white pine.
In other words, a thick benchtop renders the pointy-headed statistics a bit meaningless. Simply overbuild your bench – especially the benchtop – and almost any species will do
