My stick chair, patiently waiting in the shadows for its next victim.
When I came to “A Vampire Chair,” while copy editing Issue No. 1 of The Stick Chair Journal, I side-eyed my own stick chair in my house. Without even reading the first sentence, I thought, There’s more than one?
Turns out the story in The Stick Chair Journal is about a fabled chair in Tennessee that was broken apart to murder its owner and, once repaired, begins acting odd. Although my chair was never broken apart to murder anyone, my entire family insists it’s hell-bent on trying. And I’m to blame.
In late 2004, I was an editor at Popular Woodworking Magazine, and in between copy editing, they’d throw me into woodworking classes. Given that this was almost 20 years ago, the details are a bit fuzzy, but I do remember I got married in October 2004, and soon after I returned from my honeymoon I was building a Welsh stick chair with Don Weber and several other editors at the magazine in a week-long class. I remember Chris being particularly excited about this opportunity, and I knew it was a big deal.
So I tried to soak in everything Don said. And not just about building chairs. I was going to start doing yoga every morning on a beautiful rug in a stream of sunlight! I was going to start making my own lemon curd! I even considered wearing vests.
I was also a nervous wreck. I was 25 years old, had majored in magazine journalism, and was finally getting used to rabbets being spelled with an “e.” But everyone was more than kind; I had a lot of help, and I built a stick chair.
I’m pretty sure I was behind everyone else in the class because I think Chris was done and helping me finish my chair when he told me I might want to break my edges a bit.
“No,” I said.
Why? I don’t know. I was a stupid stubborn 25-year-old. Or maybe it was because he had presented it as a choice instead of an order. Still, Chris was my boss, and to break up the awkwardness, I think I said something along the lines of, “I want it to look crisp,” as if I knew what that even meant/how Welsh stick chair edges were supposed to look/what I was even talking about.
Chris just let me be, which he always graciously does.
So I brought the chair home, which, looking at, y’all will probably criticize, but I was (quietly) proud of this chair. Crafting letters into sentences came naturally to me. Crafting wood into something sturdy and useful did not. And as young, broke newlyweds, this chair was, by far, one of the nicest, and most useful, pieces of furniture we owned. Even if it looked a little wonky.
My husband, Andy, and I painted the chair. (If you ever want to test a marriage early on, take two very different personality types, add a can of milk paint and paint a stick chair together. We are still married. I’ll leave it at that.)
Beforepainting, Andy asked if I wanted to break the edges a bit.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I asked/yelled. “They look so good sharp! I want them crisp!”
I’m pretty sure I let out an exasperated sigh, as one does in your mid-20s, thinking no one understood me or my good taste.
My chair listened to my mulishness and responded in kind. It had no mercy.
It cut everyone it encountered.
Friends would come over and, looking at it, a bit perplexed, Andy would say, “Kara made that!” which was very kind and loving. And I swear the chair, in response, would magically beckon them over because the next thing I know, they would be touching it/sitting in it and then there would be blood and then I would be apologizing and getting them a Band-Aid.
But I was stubborn.
“You could still break the edges,” Andy said.
“Everyone is just sitting in it wrong,” I said.
Then we had kids.
First Sophie. Then two years later, twins, James and Owen. Once they were old enough to walk and talk, they didn’t call it The Vampire Chair. They called it The Evil Chair. Anytime they bumped into (or, as they claimed, the chair reached out and bit them), they carried on about how this chair was trying to kill them.
“It’s behind me, isn’t it.” – James
My kids, pointing out the scars my Vampire Chair has given them.
For a while, the Vampire/Evil Chair lived in our attic.
There are benefits to accidentally building a Vampire Chair:
1) If you ever find yourself parenting a 4-year-old and two 2-year-olds in a small home, and you are tired, and they are (always) not tired, you will eventually learn the only way you can keep them from (literally) swinging from the dining room chandelier is to put all the dining room chairs up on the dining room table when not in use. We did this for over a year. Because our kids refused to engage with my Vampire Chair, if all our dining room chairs had been Vampire Chairs, we wouldn’t have had to go to this trouble.
I wasn’t lying.
2) We like to have people over and especially when you’re young and broke, seating is limited. We’d bring out everything we had – the random rusty folding chair in the garage, plastic outdoor chairs, pillows on the floor for cushions. Sometimes my Vampire Chair, which had gotten a bad rap, would sit empty. This would annoy me to no end and I’d usually sit in it to gently prove a point. (No garlic, I simply had a whole move down I made so I could sit without drawing any blood.) But every once in a while a friend or family member would visit and despite a still very-present scar on their skin they would, unafraid, make way for the Vampire Chair and settle in. Respect.
3) If no one is sitting in a Vampire Chair, you always have a place to put things – your coat, your bag, the mail etc.
If I’ve learned anything since accidentally building a Vampire Chair 20-plus years ago it’s that if something you love keeps biting, it’s easy to place blame. “The edges are fine – everyone just needs to be more careful. What were you thinking, wearing shorts?” But love doesn’t have to (nor should it mean) perfection. You can love something you created and admit you made (sometimes many) mistakes.
Also, does this mean I think you should always listen to what others tell you should do?
Nah.
But I do believe we’re all stupid stubborn 20-somethings and stupid stubborn 70-somethings. Real growth happens when we learn when to ignore advice and when to listen. Now in my 40s, I think that’s a lifelong thing.
(For what it’s worth, our Vampire Chair is no longer in the attic and it has stopped biting! Or, the edges have been broken finally. On flesh.)
Tom grew up in Eugene, Oregon. He spent his childhood outdoors knocking around Eugene’s urban forest areas wearing moccasins he made after immersing himself in books on Indigenous American material culture, fly fishing with his dad and cruising around town on his bike with friends. He has an older sister, now a journalist in Boston. His mom dipped in and out of various jobs including full- and part-time caregiving, and working at a marketing firm, an organic food store and University of Oregon’s (UO) Clark Honors College. He remembers watching his dad, an academic librarian who spent his entire career at UO’s Knight Library, tying his own fishing flies and making knives.
The closest public school just happened to be a French immersion school. Learning another language served as a good brain teaser growing up, and now helps him navigate Europe, “in my very enthusiastic French, which may or may not be correct,” he says, laughing.
When Tom was about 8 years old his mom took him to REI. A rock climbing gym across the street had set up a little climbing wall in the store. Tom tried it out.
“And I just got obsessed with rock climbing,” he says. “Until maybe 15 or so, that was my life.”
Bouldering in Wyoming, 1996.
It was the very early days of the Junior Competitive Climbing Association (Tom was member No. 12). He climbed in competitions all over the West Coast, and even went to nationals a few years.
In 8th grade, Tom got into a bad bike crash. With forced time off from climbing competitions he realized how much more fun it was to simply climb outside with friends. He left the pressure of competitions behind and moved on to alpine climbing and backpacking. He helped start a mountaineering club at his high school. And he did several big climbs – Mount Hood, Mount Shasta and smaller volcanoes in Oregon. He also took some big backpacking trips, including a month-long NOLS course in Wyoming when he was 17.
Mount Shasta, 2013.
Tom looks back with a bit of awe at how trusting his parents were, allowing him to head off with friends and adult climbing mentors to climb mountains, take a 12-hour trip to Spokane for a competition or spend the weekend backpacking.
“It was pretty wonderful,” he says. “It showed a lot of trust. I had some really wonderful mentors and learned a lot.”
Dartmouth’s Outing Club & an Education In Timber Framing, Geography & Studio Art
Tom attended Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he was given the freedom to create his own major – part geography, part architectural history, part architectural justice, part studio art. He likes to call it “cities and buildings.” Tom focused on human geography, looking at how the built environment affects people, privileging some and criminalizing others. He took lots of architecture studios. Timber framing and the buildings in New England, so different from where he grew up, inspired him. When Tom asked to forge his own path, the deans at Dartmouth simply asked for a proposal.
“That trust of students still inspires me in my work,” Tom says.
To further illustrate this trust, Tom shares a story. In middle school, he took a class at a cycling center and got really into fixing up old bikes. At Dartmouth, he noticed abandoned bikes locked up on bike racks for months on end. After about a year, he decided to liberate them. His intent? Fix them up for friends. While liberating one such bike a campus police officer showed up. Tom explained.
“Yeah, I can tell that it’s abandoned but you can’t just take it,” the officer said.
Long story short, Tom ended up in a room with one of the deans. He braced himself for consequence but was instead met with curiosity. The dean asked him to put together a proposal for a program for abandoned bikes, and Tom did. It included a budget, storage solutions and how they would be distributed via the college’s cycling club. Tom says the abandonment of hard-and-fast rules for trust, responsibility and accountability in that moment was eye-opening.
Tom largely chose the college due to the Dartmouth Outing Club, “which is this wonderful storied institution that started in 1909,” he says. It’s student driven, and nearly a quarter of the college’s students are members. In addition to networks of trails, shelters and cabins, the Outing Club offers nearly every outdoor program you can think of, from water sports, skiing, hiking and climbing to hunting, fishing and forestry.
“It’s just an amazing organization and a real education because, again, the amount of trust and responsibility the adults gave the students was such a gift,” Tom says. “We were put in charge of pretty significant projects.”
An example: The summer after Tom’s freshman year, he and two fellow undergrads were responsible for rebuilding a long stretch of the Appalachian Trail that ran along the side of a mountain in New Hampshire. Dartmouth provided them withacourse called “Wilderness Chainsaw Use,” taught by the U.S. Forest Service, then simply gave them a truck, tools and list of work. That summer they replaced rock steps, rebuilt water bars and built a bridge.
“It was incredible,” Tom says. “I teach at a university now and that would never happen now. Never, ever. And it doesn’t happen at Dartmouth the same way. There’s much more supervision.”
Roofing a trail shelter in New Hampshire, 2007.
Tom dedicated his time to the Outing Club’s Cabin and Trail division, which was responsible for maintaining almost 75 miles of Appalachian Trail (these days it’s less). Responsibilities included maintaining all the three-sided Adirondack shelters along the trail and their associated privies. During a meeting it was announced that the Cabin and Trail club’s Cabin Maintenance chair was studying abroad and they needed a replacement.
“For some reason I raised my hand not knowing anything,” Tom says. “And I got handed my first assignment, which was to replace two outhouses.”
As luck would have it, a man named Ira Friedrichs showed up at this same meeting. Ira wasn’t a student. An apprentice to Jay White Cloud, a master timber framer in Thetford Hill, Vermont, Ira was simply hoping to meet some people and maybe help out with a few projects. He and Tom hit it off, and Ira suggested they timber frame the privies together. Ira taught Tom Japanese timber framing and over spring break they pre-cut two small timber frames for the privies. Appalachian Trail regulations required the outhouses be wheelchair accessible, which meant each structure needed a 4′-wide circle. Despite using 2x4s and 4x4s, the frames were heavy. One of the privies was to be located a couple of miles in on a flat trail. Tom and Ira lashed the timbers to wheelbarrows and carts, hand carried them, and put them up in a weekend, hanging the walls on French cleats. The second outhouse, however, was on top of a mountain.
“And that was pretty brutal because we had to slog through mud and this dude was trying to help us with an ATV but that kept getting stuck,” Tom says. “So we’re skidding these timbers up and it was a disaster. But we got them up there eventually and we kind of bodged it together and it was fine.”
Timber framing, 2006.
Velvet Rocks Trail Shelter, Hanover, New Hamshire, Hemlock, 2007. Built in collaboration with Ira Friedrichs.
Tom fell in love with timber framing. He and Ira timber framed the Appalachian Trail’s Velvet Rocks Shelter, and the summer after he graduated, Tom designed and timber framed a sugaring house for an organic farm. He felled the trees, worked with a local sawyer to mill them and erected it on site.
“That was just a really neat farm-to-table building experience,” Tom says.
An Open Woodshop
While at Dartmouth, Tom also had access to the Student Woodshop, located in Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Arts.
“It started in the ’20s and the story I heard was some alumnus said, ‘The men of Dartmouth are getting weak and not learning how to use their hands. I’m going to endow a woodshop so that they can remember what it is to be real men!’ You know, some bullshit like that. But the institution has definitely lasted and it’s just wonderful. It’s an enormous woodshop with wonderful tools and a full-time staff.”
There are no woodworking classes, rather the Student Woodshop is simply an open studio. Tom wanted to build a blanket chest so he checked it out. Staff including Greg Elder, director of the Student Woodshop, taught him how to use the tools, how to think about what’s needed to take rough lumber to square, and how to balance hand work with machine work.
“It was just an amazing privilege to have access to that and that just gave me such a bug,” Tom says.
Occasionally, Walker Weed, former director of the Student Woodshop, would come by to use a machine. Reed was a well-known New England studio woodworker who had been featured in Fine Woodworking, “a good legend and guiding light at that place,” Tom says.
Sugar house, built 2008
Throughout college Tom made a bunch of little blanket and sea chests – a lot of machine dovetails, he says. After graduating in 2007, he sharpened tools at the Student Woodshop a few hours a week, giving him full access to the shop. Then, he started getting commissions. First was the sugaring house for the organic farm. Then Jay hired him to help build a small wing onto his house. And a local guy asked him to build a fly-tying desk.
“I just bit off way more than I could chew,” Tom says. “I made this really elaborate crazy-ass thing. The whole base was basically timber framed with all these big wedged through-tenons. And then the top was all hand-cut dovetails on this stepped, Tansu-looking series of little cabinets, all hand-cut dovetail drawers, and I think I asked for what at the time felt like an impossible price and then of course I ended up making about $3 an hour.”
Patmos, Greece, 2008.
During his senior year, Tom learned about a grant from Dartmouth’s art department: An alum had given money so that students could go to Europe and be inspired by architecture. That sounded pretty good to Tom so he applied and got the grant. After graduation he stuck around Hanover for about 10 months then bummed around Europe for three months, stretching the grant as long as he could.
Archival Clothing
Once back from Europe, Tom returned home to Eugene, where he lived for a few years part-time. He took occasional jobs at Dartmouth and traveled, and when in Eugene he worked as a prep cook in a French restaurant, later moving to the restaurant’s coffee shop where he slung espresso for a while. Around this time he reconnected with an old friend, Lesli Larson.
“She was a very influential person,” Tom says. “She loves old clothing, fishing and outdoor clothes, and she had this great blog called Archival Clothing. And we are just really good buds. We’d go on long-distance bike rides and chitchat about all the old clothing and ephemera that she had.”
Eventually, Tom and Lesli decided to make some things inspired by Lesli’s collection and sell it on Lesli’s blog. They found a sewing contractor in the Yellow Pages – T & J Custom Sewing & Design. The owners, Julie and Terry Shuck, turned out to be “amazing folks,” Tom says, and coached them through the conception-to-reality process.
Tom with Terry Shuck, 2010.
First up was a bag. The Shucks asked for a drawing and material, and explained how the pricing would work. Using what he learned about technical drawing in his architecture studios, Tom drew up some pencil fashion plates and sewed some crude prototypes. With that, the Shucks made 20 bags, and Tom and Lesli put them up on Lesli’s blog. They immediately got snapped up.
“We thought, That’s really fun,” Tom says. “And then we just kept doing that. We did a bigger run of bags and a bigger run of bigger bags and we made backpacks and before you knew it we had a third business partner, one of Lesli’s college friends. And we had a full-on company on our hands called Archival Clothing.”
Tom began to look more closely at product design as a career. He applied and was accepted into the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, to earn a master’s of industrial design degree. His thesis was on the physical infrastructure of home cooking but his real education, he says, had more to do with the success of Archival Clothing.
Prototyping at Pratt, 2014.
“It was really good timing,” Tom says. “I moved in summer 2010, the peak fever of the men’s heritage trend. Everyone wanted Filson stuff and Barbour stuff and wax cotton this and heavy wool that and that has always been Lesli’s thing.”
Living in Brooklyn, Tom was able to go to New York Fashion Week events and meet with stylists. Archival Clothing did a co-op with Barneys New York. The company was mentioned in The New York Times. Tom met Archival Clothing’s Japanese, Scandinavian and other European distributors. He went to shows in Berlin.
At a New York City trade show, 2013.
“It was a really incredible education and I think I might have learned more doing the Archival Clothing stuff than in grad school just because it was so applied and so immediate,” Tom says. “It was just a phenomenal, and sometimes difficult, education in product design, production and sales.”
Tom says if he had his wits about him he would have been a little more consistent, studying domestic manufacturing of soft goods, for example, versus industrial design.
“One of my many foibles is over-enthusiasm that spreads me a little thin,” he says.
From Office to Classroom
Tom and Lesli are still best friends, but after some disagreements with their third business partner, Tom left Archival Clothing. In 2014 he got a job as design director at Best Made Co., where he was immediately thrown into the deep end, being tasked with designing everything from men’s shirting, outerwear and bottoms to steel storage solutions.
“The founder might have an idea for something and then with relatively limited marching orders I was responsible for making it happen,” he says.
He also learned some valuable lessons.
“I definitely had my share of fails where I just overpromised what I thought could happen and I had to learn a lot about being realistic in industry production and maybe not trusting everything that everyone says all the time,” he says. “I’m a very trusting person by nature and that definitely bit me in the ass a couple of times. But it was a great education, some super nice folks and I learned so much.”
About a year in, Tom was feeling burnt out. He was spending 50 to 60 hours a week in the office, in front of a computer. He missed making. So in 2015 he quit and teamed up with a friend, Anthony Zollo, to build custom furniture in New York, France and Sweden. Then, after six years in New York, he moved back to Oregon.
“I was ready to be somewhere with some trees,” he says. “Somewhere I could have a car and get out to the sticks a little bit better.”
Duck hunting, 2012.
Motorcycling, 2017.
Elk hunting, 2021.
Tom was building fences and decks while contemplating his next move when an Archival Clothing contact who worked at UO reached out and said that one of their product design adjuncts had just bailed. They wondered if Tom would be interested in teaching a studio in the upcoming term.
“One thing led to another and in no time flat I was teaching full time,” Tom says. “It was just an immediate fit. It just felt right.”
Teaching Studios, Building, Research & More
Timber framing, 2014.
Cedar Pavilion, Portland, Oregon, 2018.
Teaching wasn’t entirely new to Tom, who had taught a number of timber frameing workshops in upstate New York, Oregon and California. After teaching just one studio at UO, he remembered how much he loved it.
“The students were so inspiring and awesome and the conversations were exciting and challenging – it was just an immediate good feeling.”
And while he always has side projects, Tom has been a career instructor ever since. In some of his classes in UO’s Product Design department, Tom introduced students to woodshop tools, teaching them how to use jointers, planers and table saws, and how to think critically about the tools and materials so they can design accordingly. The goal of these classes is not to crank out expert woodworkers but to teach process and materials, resulting in future designers who are more comfortable navigating different aspects of their career. Tom also taught students how to use industrial sewing machines, how fabric works and how to design bags and garments. Students would sew pouches, cases and totes, learning how to work though different seam constructions and how different materials function in different applications. In advanced studios, students tackled a single subject for the entire 10-week term.
“Last term I taught an advanced studio and I had students design headlamps,” he says. “And it was a great one because there are so many tiny details to attend to.”
The studio starts broad, with concept design and Tom asking questions: Why make this? There’s a lot of stuff in the landfills, do we really need this? Where does this fit in? He taught the students how to think critically about intuitive functioning, how to easily communicate multiple settings and how to make special considerations for niche users, such as runners. Students explored their concepts via sketches, models and technical drawings that become more refined with time.
Because of Tom’s professional background in soft goods, he frequently taught garment and bag design studios. Frustrated with the plastic Janome sewing machines in UO’s sewing studio, Tom helped build out a more legit lab with industrial machines.
This year a tenure-track position at UO’s satellite campus in Portland opened up, and Tom applied and was hired. The campus is home to fourth-year undergrads as well as two-year master’s students studying sports product design. Tom’s focus will be on soft goods, such as garments, shoes and bags.
“I’m really excited about it,” he says. “It’s going to be a big shift. I’ve been dating my partner, Karen, for two years now and we’ve been long distance. She lives in Portland. So I’m very excited to be finally moving in with her. And I’ve got a ton of friends in Portland because I’ve spent a lot of time up there. I’m very comfortable in the city so I know what I’m getting into. It doesn’t feel as scary as a move might be otherwise.”
When applying, Tom put a lot of thought into his proposal for his research project and how it might relate to the UO’s institutional hiring plan, which was focused on health and human performance, as well as environmental responsibility.
“I was applying to this program in sports product design but I wanted to come at my research at a really genuine angle,” Tom says. “I couldn’t say I wanted to design football cleats because that’s not my thing, it’s not my world. I would love to work with a student who is designing football cleats and I think I could do that very well, but myself?”
A love of outdoors has been the straight stitch in Tom’s life, something everything else has stemmed from, sometimes in surprising ways. Tom rooted his research proposal in ultra lightweight backcountry travel design concepts that could translate to other situations, such as wildland firefighting.
“That’s such a high-risk, high-demand, super-necessary job and those firefighters carry so much stuff,” he says. “Even if we could reduce that pack weight by just 10 to 15 percent, that would make a huge difference toward their health and human performance. But it’s all pretty new. I’m starting in the fall and we’ll see how the research goes.”
Designing for Lost Art Press
Tom had been following Christopher Schwarz and Megan Fitzpatrick’s work from afar as an enthusiastic woodworking for quite some time. While working at Best Made Co., Tom cold emailed Lost Art Press and said they were interested in selling Lost Art Press books online and in Best Made Co. stores, perhaps reaching a slightly different audience. The books sold well, particularly Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain.”
In 2015, while driving across country in his move from New York City to Oregon, Tom stopped in Indiana and took a class with Chris at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. That was their first time meeting in person. They got along well.
“We both like to bullshit and drink beer,” Tom says.
Tom noticed that Chris was wearing this great French chore coat. He told Chris to hit him up if he ever wanted to make chore coats.
“And that was it,” Tom says. “I’m not good at selling, being pushy with my services. I think that’s all I said. And maybe a year later he hit me up and was like, ‘Hey, let’s make a chore coat.’”
Together they produced a limited run of chore coats at a factory in Oregon. It’s still the favorite item Tom has designed for Lost Art Press.
Measuring a chore coat, 2018.
“They were so nice,” Tom says. “That was the first round where we used this really, really fancy and horrifically expensive Japanese reverse sateen moleskin, which is this really lovely fabric. And the factory did the run and then they changed the pricing on us. Producing clothing is always very challenging. But the sales were great and we produced well over a thousand coats for Lost Art Press.”
These days he and Chris have focused more on workshop accessories, in part because workshop accessories don’t come in different sizes.
“I think it was a surprise for the Lost Art Press folks to see that 5 to 6 percent of the clothes just come right back,” Tom says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, guys. Sizes. Busts and arms and shoulders. It ain’t like a book.’”
Sew Valley in Cincinnati makes the plane and pencil pockets. Tom worked with Megan and Chris to not only make sure each pouch would function properly but that it could also be produced within Sew Valley’s capabilities.
“That’s such a big part of designing, just understanding what machines your suppliers have and therefore what kind of operations they can do with those machines,” Tom says.
Tom also enjoys designing bandanas for Lost Art Press.
“I love doing the hankies just because it’s a different prompt every time,” he says. “Chris and I will generally chat a little bit on the phone and then I get to doodle around and it’s just a fun way to get lost in some illustration and do something that just feels a little free. And the vendor we work with does a beautiful job. One Feather Press makes really nice work, really great printing and high-quality material. They just do a really nice job.”
Tom says the profit sharing Lost Art Press does with its authors and designers is unheard of.
“It’s so easy to work with Chris and Megan because they trust me and that is rare as a freelance designer, to be trusted,” he says. “And they are always down to try something and if it doesn’t work they’re like, ‘Cool. We tried it.’ No one is ever upset when we don’t achieve maximum profitability on something. It’s just a really special organization to work with. Chris walks his values in a way that I’ve almost never seen before. And don’t tell him I said that because he can’t take a compliment. It’s insane. It’s remarkable.”
A Shift
Tom is spending this summer getting his house in Eugene ready to rent and going on a couple of backcountry motorcycling trips in Oregon.
Motorcycling, 2024.
“There’s just so much public land, mountains and desert and forest here in Oregon that it’s just a great way to get around and see some cool country,” he says.
He also has a couple backpacking trips planned, and a trip to Ireland with his family to celebrate his mom’s birthday, who is from an Irish family but has never been. Karen, his partner, is really into fishing, so there will be a lot of that as well. And then Tom will move to Portland. Work starts in August, as he helps facilitate a campus move.
“It’s going to be a big year of change and I think it’s going to be really positive,” Tom says.
As the Industrial Revolution mechanized the jobs of the joiner – building doors and windows by hand – one anonymous joiner watched the traditional skills disappear and decided to do something about it.
That joiner wrote two short illustrated booklets that explained how to build doors and windows by hand. And what was most unusual about the booklets is that they focused on the basics of construction, from layout to joinery to construction – for both doors and windows.
Plenty of books exist on building windows and doors, but most of them assume you have had a seven-year apprenticeship and don’t need to know the basic skills of the house joiner. Or the doors and windows these books describe are impossibly complex or ornamental.
“Doormaking and Window-Making” starts you off at the beginning, with simple tools and simple assemblies; then it moves you step-by-step into the more complex doors and windows.
Every step in the layout and construction process is shown with handmade line drawings and clear text. The booklets are written from a voice of authority – someone who has clearly done this for a long time.
During the last 100 years, most of these booklets disappeared. Booklets don’t survive as well as books. And so we were thrilled when we were approached by joiner Richard Arnold in England, who presented us with a copy of each booklet to scan and reproduce for a book.
We have scanned both booklets, cleaned up the illustrations and have combined them into a 176-page book titled “Doormaking and Window-Making.” In addition to the complete text and illustrations from these booklets, we have also included an essay from Arnold on how these rare bits of workshop history came into his hands.
VENETIAN, or, as they are sometimes called, marginal light, windows are very fashionable at the present time, having in a great measure replaced the bay window, although the same style is sometimes adapted to the bay, instead of the usual upai1d-down sliding sashes. These windows are, as may be gathered from the drawings, of the casement variety, and the sashes should be made to open outwards if possible, this being the better way to keep out the wet.
In Fig. 108 we show one of these windows fitted with four lights or casements, the two outside ones being hinged to the jambs, and the two middle ones, which fold together, being hinged in like manner to the mullions. The casements in this frame run from sill to head, the upper part being divided into small squares as shown, which is the simplest way of forming an artistic window.
Another method of filling in these window frames is shown in Fig. 110, which shows the filling between the mullions. Here the casements are in two heights, the bottom pair being hinged in the ordinary way to the mullions ; the other, which is wide enough to fill the whole space, is hinged at the top, and opens outwards, the bottom rail of this fitting to the others either as section, Figs. 111 or 112. The former is the simplest way and least liable to get out of order, but the latter is best as regards the stopping out of wind and water; but when the window has been repainted a few times it is apt to work badly.
Windows made in this way are very convenient, as it is possible to have the top only open, or the whole, as required. The folding casements in either style of window come together with a rebated joint, as Fig. 113.
Suitable sections for head and sill for these frames are shown in Fig. 114, the grooves in the latter being to form a cement key under, and to take the window board. It will also be noticed that the bevel of the sill finishes with a hollow, forming an undercut rebate ; this should not be omitted, owing to its use as a water trap. The same also applies to the groove in the bottom rail of the casement, which tends to the same purpose. In these windows the jambs are the same in section as the head, and the mullions the same, but worked both sides ; thus there is no need to· give sectional illustrations of these.
Fig. 115 shows a window of a more ambitious kind, and which is not strictly Venetian, though often called so. In addition to the mullions, as in the former example, the present window is divided in height by the insertion of a transome. A half-sectional plan of this window is given in Fig. 116 (this will also serve the same purpose for Fig. 108, both being alike in this respect), and a vertical section in Fig. 117. In these sections the whole of the framing is flush at both sides, the sashes being kept back from the face sufficiently far to allow of a somewhat heavy chamfer being run round, as shown in Fig. 118, but the frame is improved if the transome and sill is made to project as in the section (Fig. 119). This is also an additional safeguard against the wet, the projections allowing of a water groove being made underneath, as shown.
Fig. 119 also shows an alternative moulding on the inside of the frame, in place of the chamfer shown in Fig. 114, and in many cases the transome is made use of to introduce more or less elaborate mouldings. These, however, make no difference as regards method of making, though it may do in the setting out, which must in every case be dealt with according to requirements.
In Fig. 120 we show the rod for setting out the frame of the window shown in Fig. 115, which, for the sake of illustration, is 8 ft. wide by 6 ft. high outside, the framing throughout being 4-1/2 ins. wide by 3 ins. thick. The width of the frame is on the side of the rod marked A, the marks B show the full width of frame, outside. From B to C, inwards, should be the thickness of the framing after it is planed up, which will probably be 1/8 in. under the 3 ins., and from C to D, outwards, is the depth of the rebate. From C at each end set off the width of the side lights, or, rather, the distance from jamb to mullion, and the thickness of the framing again, which gives us E and F, and from these mark off the depth of the rebates again, thus getting G.
In setting out the stuff from the rod, the marks D and G will be for the mortises, those coming in the rebates, as shown by dotted lines in Fig. 119, and if the sashes have to come flush with the framing outside the same marks will be the shoulder lines for the transome on the outside edge. The dotted lines on the rod will be the shoulder lines for the inside of the transome, and also for the outside, if the framing is allowed to project, and is chamfered as in Fig. 118.
The height rod is set out on the side marked H, the lines I showing the full height, 6 ft. K is the thickness of the sill (which we should have said is 4 ins. instead of 3 ins.), then L and M for the depth of rebate and the bevel respectively, the latter being made to correspond with the inside chamfer.
From I at the top set off the thickness of the framing and back the depth of the rebate, thus getting N and O respectively. Now measure up the height of the bottom casements from K, set off the thickness of the framing above this, and back from each, 1/2 in. for depth of rebate, and again from the top one of these for the bevel on transome. This gives us the marks P, R, and S, respectively.
In setting out this from rod, the marks M and 0 are the shoulder lines at sill and head on the outside, L giving the angle in the former, while S will be the shoulder lines for the mullion under the transome. T is the same above the transome, and the line between R and T gives the angle.
The shoulder lines on the inside are the same as M and T at the sill and upper side of transome, and as dotted lines under the latter, and at the head.
The rod for setting out of the sashes of Fig. 118 is given in Fig. 121, and as this is simply the same as what is met with in ordinary windows, no detailed description is necessary, the sizes marked on being sufficient.
In-progress stocks for Vesper Tools sliding bevels…as photographed for Instagram.
Kara Gebhart-Uhl, Christopher Schwarz and I have selected a few of our favorites from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” – some have already been posted; there are some still to come. Chris wrote about the project that “these columns during the Hayward years are like nothing we’ve ever read in a woodworking magazine. They are filled with poetry, historical characters and observations on nature. And yet they all speak to our work at the bench, providing us a place and a reason to exist in modern society.”
Our hope is that the columns – selected by Kara from among Hayward’s 30 years of “Chips from the Chisel” editor’s notes – will not only entertain you with the storied editor’s deep insight and stellar writing, but make you think about woodworking, your own shop practices and why we are driven to make. When Australian toolmaker Chris Vesper (vespertools.com) read “A Kind of Order” it prompted him to write a few responses, one of which we give you below.
— Fitz
Everything in its Place
Hands and mind work as one to create when a maker is in the zone – be it woodwork, making furniture, fixing the lawnmower, working on an old car, or machining some gizmo in the sanctity of space that is your workshop on a lathe and milling machine.
When working on a project or even just tinkering the excitement can be palpable, especially when the finish is in sight among the setbacks (and occasional oopsies). The bench is a mess, with tools everywhere, things lost under piles of wood shavings and no cares given. And we all know this one: “That 10mm socket has got to be somewhere,” then many minutes later: “HOW the heck did it get there??!” Clearly too much fun is being had! Time lost equals the inverse of size be it chisels, sockets or even spanners. Big ones are easy to find – but small ones?
In our education as makers we refer to glossy mags or online tutorials that show impeccable workshops with perfect lighting. You may even feel some shame at your own space, so you set personal goals; you dream of what could be. But you can’t see that great pile of crud just out of their camera shots.
As for some professional work, with undersides of tabletops and backs of drawers sanded and polished to within an inch of their lives (not to mention the bits you actually see): this way of work is not for everyone, be it from lack of desire or a skill set not quite up to it. We see this perfection and perhaps gaze over our own work, and wonder at our own pleasing sanctuary of shavings piled up knee-high from attacking tear-out in a board. Perhaps we observe the results of a slightly wonky glue up. We see tools not stored properly and perhaps deteriorating from rust or being banged about – all that work to get those tools shiny the first time is lost.
In the intensity of enjoyable work, things will inevitably slip and chaos creep in. In machining work, the tool cart empties as the bench and floor fill with tools, grease and some strange black goop that gets on everything one touches. In woodworking, the tool cabinet and workbench are similarly affected (minus the black goop, hopefully). After a good, all-absorbing session of work I find it therapeutic to tidy and clean as I think back over the job, the tools used and why, the mistakes and the triumphs. Be it a daily ritual or an end-of-job ritual it’s a nice one to have.
The plier drawer – after my tidying ritual.
Everything in its place.
But always keep this in mind: When I take a photo for social media you don’t know about the unsightly pile of freaky colored rags or glue encrusted ice-cream containers I just flicked out of the way to make the shot a little better.
In-progress stocks for Vesper Tools sliding bevels on the bench…with rags, glue bottles and Shibee the Shiba Inu pushed out of the close-up.
FIG. 73. Wooden spoons: 1. Spoon from Muhu, Mäla village, ERM A 290:150; 2. Spoon from Karja, Koikla village. EM 16957.
The following is excerpted from “Woodworking in Estonia.”The author, Ants Viires, devoted his life to recording the hand-tool folkways of his country without a shred of romanticism. Viires combined personal interviews and direct observation of work habits with archaeological evidence and a thorough scouring of the literature in his country and surrounding nations.
If all this sounds like a dry treatise, it’s not. “Woodworking in Estonia” is an important piece of evidence in understanding how our ancestors worked wood and understood it more intimately than we do. Viires records in great detail everything from the superstitions surrounding the harvesting of wood (should you whistle in the forest?) to detailed descriptions of how the Estonians dried the wood, bent it, steamed it and even buried it in horse dung to shape it for their needs.
Viires covers, in detail, the hand tools used by the Estonian, including many that will be unfamiliar to moderns (a beehive turner?). He then discusses all the different products Estonians made for their own use and for sale in the markets, including bent-wood boxes, chairs, chests, tables, sleds, carriages, spinning wheels, spoons, tobacco pipes, bowls and beer tankards.
During the Early Middle Ages the hollowing method was at least as important in peasant woodwork as was the process of hollowing the contours of timber. Special tools were used for this process, such as the scooping axe, the hive-scooping blade, the spoon chisel, the draw knife, etc. which, as we have already seen, were used already in the Early Middle Ages. Moreover, their forerunners date as far back as the Stone Age. The Estonian language has many words meaning “hollowing” (“õõnestama, õõnitsema,” southern Estonian “kaivama, kaevama”). Similar words bearing the same meaning are known in other Finno-Ugric languages. The scooping of small objects, such as spoons, cups, etc., are usually described by the words “kõverdama, kööveldama, kõm(m)eldama” (Finnish: “kovertaa”); this also has a bearing on the terms used for the spoon chisel and draw knife.
The common feature of all the above utensils is the quality of the timber from which they were made, which usually had to be green wood. Its softness made it pliant.
Hollowed utensils may be divided roughly into two groups based on the technology of production and outward appearance. The first group contains objects such as are scooped out from the side (spoons, ladles, certain kinds of shovels, cups, troughs, boats, coffins). The second group covers the utensils processed from the top with an inside penetration forming a cylindrical body, such as vats and a number of household containers. In working the former group the main tool applied is the scooping axe (for smaller objects the spoon chisel and draw knife), whereas working the latter group requires the use of the hive-scooping blade as well as the draw knife.
Objects Scooped from the Side. Until the beginning of the century, spoons and ladles for home use were generally produced by the peasants themselves. The preferred timber was that of birch, hard pieces of birch root and sometimes juniper. To prevent these articles from cracking, they were frequently boiled in hot water (they were also known to have been dried in the bread oven) (4). The bowl parts of the Estonian spoons (as well as the Latvian and Finnish ones), are of elongated shape, differing in this respect from the Russian round-bowled spoons. (5)
Often the spoons were covered with carved designs (Fig. 73). The Russian spoon with the round bowl, often pointed, became known in Estonia in the course of the 19th century mainly through being introduced by men returning from military service from Russia. Only toward the end of the century did the Russian spoon appear in the shops, or they were bought from by hawkers. The following is from Räpina: “Later, about 40 years ago [= ca. 1900] then no longer country spoons were made for eating. The Seto people started to bring and sell wooden spoons. The Seto exchanged spoons against grain and rags. There was a factory in Pihkva (Pskov) that made them. It was better to eat with factory spoons than with spoons made by ourselves. There was thick paint on them and there was no need to wash them so thoroughly and the color stuck well. Country spoons remained only for making of butter and cooking. Old people, who had not been accustomed to eat with the other spoons, ate a long time with self-made spoons.” (6) In the first decades of the 20th century metal spoons put a full stop both to country spoons as well as the Russian wooden spoons as tableware. Wooden spoons remained in use only in cooking.
It is worth mentioning that although the Estonian and Russian wooden spoons were quite different, the word “lusikas” (south Estonian “luhits, luits”) is actually an old Russian loanword (Old Russian “льжька,” Russian “лoжка”), as a result of which it has been believed that Russian spoons were spread already quite early as an article of trade among Baltic-Finnic people, and because of it the original old names have been forgotten. (7) One of such old names could be “koost,” which denotes a wooden spoon on the western shore of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa (Karuse and Varbla). That Russian spoons were actually found in the Baltic counties at an early time is confirmed by a find of typical Russian spoons in Riga, in all likelihood from the 13th to the 15th centuries. (8) To a certain extent the previous position is in a certain contradiction with what people have stored in their memories – which, as we have seen, link the appearance of Russian spoons at a rather late date. It is also interesting that the word “lusikas” (spoon) has in its turn spread into the speech of Russians on the other side of Lake Peipsi as “лузик” (9) (it may be to distinguish it from the different spoon with a longish bowl which Avinurme home industry people could have sold on their commercial travels in the 19th century on the other side of Lake Peipsi). The words used for ladle, “kulp” or “kula” (the latter is a west Estonian term used to describe a ladle with the bowl at an angle, used to scoop milk from the urn), are probably of Baltic–Finnicorigin. (10) On the other hand the south Estonian term “kopp” originates from the Lower German “koppe.” (11) The same word is applied in other parts of Estonia to mean a wooden bowl with a handle. In the Võru dialect and in other eastern parts of the country the wooden bowl with a handle, especially the one for use in the bath, is known as “korets, karits” (Russian “korets”).
FIG. 74. Hollowed bowl, Põlva, Kaapa village, ERM A 227:86.
Bowls (Fig. 74) were usually made of softwood – linden, aspen, alder, sometimes also from birch. Usually they were made from a stem cut in two, crosswise, although lengthwise was sometimes preferred. The latter were not as durable and had a tendency to crack. Tools used in the manufacture of homemade bowls were the scooping axe, the chisel and the draw knife. However, in the 19th century most bowls were already being produced by turnery, and the bowl ceased to be a homemade article (see the chapter on Turning). There are only a few such bowls in museum collections, as by far the greater number of bowls have been turned. This shows that in the 19th century making of bowls was mostly the duty of turners, and no longer belonged to the circle of the peasant’s home carpentry. The production of bowls by hollowing was a laborious process often aided by burning. This may be seen from extant bowls such as one from Lüganuse, where “the hollow was burnt out, not hollowed out. After burning it was smoothed over by a rough stone.” (ERM A 395 : 142). Following is a fuller description from Viru-Jaagupi: “The bowl was first hollowed out by a chisel; you then put hot, glowing charcoal inside and blew to keep it glowing. Ever so often you scraped out the burned wood and threw out the ashes. Then you put in more coal and went on burning until the bowl was deep enough.” (12) There are no specific words in the Estonian language to denote a bowl hollowed out by burning. The word “kauss” (bowl) is borrowed from Latvian “kauss,” while the southern Estonian dialect uses the term “liud,” which is closely connected with the Latvian “bļoda” and the Russian “blyudo.” (13) The old northern Estonian terms “ge(n), vaanas” have also been taken from the Russian “vaa-ganki.” (14) In the coastal area and in Hiiumaa the word “tisk, tiski” has its origin in the Estonian-Swedish dialect (< Swedish “disk”), as well as from the Finnish (< Finnish “tiski” < Swedish). (15) All these terms could be found already in 17th century dictionaries. At the same time, none of them are any older than the millennium. It is quite evident that they became popularly known in the Early Middle Ages. We can further deduce that, previous to feudal days, i.e. during the communal primitive society, earthenware bowls were mainly used. With the introduction of turnery, the wooden bowl became the dominant tableware in the peasant home. (16)
FIG. 75. A washing trough in the yard, Rapla, Tõrma Village, Photograph by the author, 1957.
In southern Estonia wooden bowls were not commonly used as regular tableware, even in the 19th century. Tubs and firkins were preferred. In fact, not every household owned a bowl; only on festive occasions, such as weddings, were they considered the right tableware to serve food. (
While the bowl remained basically the product of turnery, i.e. of specialized craftsmen, the trough (Fig. 75) was essential in every household, and was produced by each peasant for his own purposes. Pig troughs, draw-well troughs, washing troughs, etc., were generally hollowed out of pine or aspen trunks. Bread troughs (known in the southern Estonian dialect as “mõhk,” and in the islands as “leiva-lõime”) were usually made of oak in the islands or spruce on the mainland. Most of the work of hollowing the trough was with the ordinary axe, and only in the last stages of the job was the scraping axe applied. Animal troughs were mostly made with the axe alone, while bread and washing troughs were finished off with the draw knife. In view of the tendency to crack, especially at the ends, the troughs were mostly coated with tar.
Troughs are the oldest artificially made containers used for agricultural and household purposes. The terms denoting them originate in the primitive communal period (northern Estonian “küna,” southern Estonian “ruhi”). (18) Their use remained widespread right into the 19th century; in addition to the uses already enumerated; the troughs were employed for beer brewing, wine making, corn chaffing, etc. Even small-sized troughs used as tableware were not unknown.
The trough as a water-going vessel is of even older usage on all inland waterways, but especially so in southern Estonia where they may be seen to this day. A similar clumsy conveyance was also used in the Emajõgi, Pärnu and Kasari river basins.
Building river craft is obviously more intricate and difficult than hollowing out a trough, and was therefore taken over by the boat builder rather than being left to home industry. Hollowing out a boat is externally similar to boats constructed of planks. They are generally 16′-20′ (5-6 m) long, up to 3-1/2′ (1 m) wide, very light and easy to sail.
They were made of aspen, which is light, easy to process and shape, green wood being used. Because the sides had to be fairly thin (in some places 3/4″ to 1″ or 2–3 cm), the wood had to be carefully worked so as to not cut through it. There were various means of checking the thickness of the side so as to gauge the correct measurement.
The simple way was by knocking on the side with the axe, the sound produced indicating the extent of hollowing. In the Pärnu and Emajõgi rivers basins a more advanced method was employed. Before the hollowing process was begun, a number of holes were bored along the side of the stem at intervals of about 11-3/4″ (30 cm), the depth of which corresponded to the required thickness of the sides of the boat. When the hole became visible from the inside, this served as an indication that the correct thickness had been reached. When the work was done, the holes were plugged with pieces of wood.
Sometimes the plugging was done before hollowing, in which case wood of a different color was used for plugging. There was a special measuring rod for the plugs whereby they were cut to the correct length, corresponding to the desired thickness of the sides of the boat.
FIG. 76. Expanding the boat. Tori, Riisa village, Photograph By M. Riis, 1920. Photo library 133:38.
Prior to proceeding with the final curving of the sides of the boat, it was heated by boiling water or, what is simpler, by plunging heated stones into the water in the boat. Planks the length of the desired width were then pressed into the boat, giving it the required width (Fig. 76). If the first sticks were too short, they were replaced with longer ones until a sufficient width was achieved.
For propping up the upended boat, arched wooden ribs were inserted; these were generally made from naturally shaped timber (usually roots). In order to secure the ribs, varying methods were applied. In Pärnu special hooks (known as “nakid, kabad”) were knocked into the inner sides of the boat, the ribs being attached thereto with strips of bast. In Kasari the ribs were secured with pegs or wedged in. In the Emajõgi river basin the ribs were simply knocked into the sides of the boat.
Similar types of boats were known in many lands where man navigated rivers and lakes, throughout northern Eurasia, and as far south as the lands of the South American Indians. In Northern Europe the eastern Baltic coast constitutes the limit of popularity of this type of boat. (19)
Finally, consideration must be given to the trough-shaped coffin hollowed out of pine trunks. In Latvia a few such coffins were still being made in the previous century. (20) In Russian forest areas these coffins were sometimes homemade (in Kostroma in the 19th century). (21)
Research has established the existence of such coffins in eastern Estonia, in what was called “the old days.” (22) Hollowed-out coffins were recently used for the burial of small children (V. Jaagupi, Lutsi). The only eyewitness description in Estonia comes from Hargla by Kusta Lipstok (b. 1866), who remembers seeing such a coffin being made in his boyhood. (23) “The coffin was made in the forest. It was worked like an ordinary trough. First a groove was made with an axe, big enough to get the scooping axe in. Then it was scooped out further. At the bottom it was narrower than at the top. The lid was made from a different log and a cross-bar was secured at one end of the coffin.” Grooves were scooped out along the sides of the coffin and the lid was made to slide inside along those grooves. Some sources believe that the log used was cut half horizontally, so both the coffin and the lid came from the same trunk (Narva region, Jõhvi, Vastseliina). This was also the accepted method for processing hollowed coffins in Latvia.
At any rate, it is clear that in the second half of the 19th century hollowed coffins were rarely used in Estonia. This means that coffins made of boards were already in use in the Estonian village throughout the 19th century and possibly earlier.
4 e.g. KT 101, 9, Räpina. 5 Such spoons with an oval bowl occur in the Slavonic area in Central Europe (Opole) since the 10th to the 12th centuries. (Hołubowicz, Fig. 122:1 p. 277). Wooden spoons used in the 15th to the 16th century are relatively similar in their shape to Russian spoons of the 19th century. (Рабинович. Из иcтoрии быта, Fig. 10:7. p. 51). 6 KT 101.9–10 (Joosep Hermann, b. 1866), cf. also EA 15, 116 Avinurme; KV 78, 124 Jõhvi. 7 Mikkola, p. 45, 66; Kalima, Slaavil, san., p. 120. 8 Šnore, plate II, 5, 8. 9 Kalima, Ostseefinn. lehnwörter, p. 157. 10 Хакулинен I, p. 103; Ariste, Hiiu, p. 176. 11 Saareste p. 245. 12 EA 3, 489. Also the hollow of an ancient tool, the mortar, has been frequently burned by means of hot coals, but unfortunately there is no closer description of that work. The mortar was usually made of spruce or pine. As it was always necessary to hollow it along the timber and conically downward, making of a mortar was rather cumbersome without the help of burning. This has been pointed out in Poland (Moszyński, p. 670), in Finland (Arkisto III. p. 237), among the Chuvash, (Никольский, p. 137), among the Mari (Kрюкова, p. 59) and others. A more thorough description of the hollowing of the mortar in that way is in Hungary (Bátky, p. 316). 13 About these words see Saareste, p. 244. 14 Kalima, Slaavil, san., p. 180. 15 Ariste, Eesti-rts., p. 107. 16 Wooden tableware was quite usual in Europe in the Middle Ages. It had an important place in Russian cities in the 11th to the 17th centuries. (Рабинович. Из истории быта, p. 50-51. In Germany on the Lübeck citizens’ tables it ruled until the 16th century (Neugebauer, p. 190) and on Finnish peasants’ tables as well as in Estonia it dominated as late as the middle of the 18th century (Sahlberg, p. 37). 17 KT 18, 32-33 Rõuge; cf. also EA 35, 761 Sangaste, EA 39, 371 Hargla, EA 37, 182 onward. Saarde. 18 See Saareste, pp. 246-248. Later the Low German mold, moll, loanword (< “kasks molde, molle”) which usually denotes a smaller trough has been added to the names mentioned before. Also the name of the long cattle drinking trough in southwest Estonia is of late origin. 19 See I. Manninen, Zur Ethnologies des Einbaums. – Eurasia Septentrionalis Antiqua I, Helsinki 1927, pp. 4-17 About their manufacture in Finland a well-illustrated overview: Vilkuna-Mäkinen, pp. 302-313. 20 Bielensteil, p. 181; J. Janusems, Bluka zārki. – Senatne un māksla II, Riga 1939 pp. 41-52. 21 Laugaste. p. 77 (79). 22 e.g. EA 38, 157 Narva parish.; KT 76, G–Jõhvi; EA 3. 491 V. Jaagupi; EA 40, 303 Simuna; EA 2, 417 Rõngu; EA 39, 347 and the foll., Hargla; EA 36, 771 Vastseliina; EA 31, 177 Lutsi Estonians. 23 EA 38, 347 and the foll. Figs. pp. 351, 355.
