The Lost Art Press storefront will be open this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is your opportunity to talk with fellow woodworkers, ask any questions about the craft that have been bugging you and perhaps learn a new technique at the bench.
We also sell our full line of Lost Art Press books and will have a few Crucible Lump Hammers for sale (we’re working on a big batch this week). But as anyone will tell you, these open days are not about commerce for us. There is no hard sell or soft sell – not even a medium sell.
As always, there are lots of ongoing projects in the shop for you to examine.
I am finishing work on a mule chest for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” This piece offers scads of storage and is quick to build with rabbets and nails.
I should be building the exterior cases for the Nicholson Campaign Chest, which has been a six-month journey. The casework is done and finished.
We should be in the midst of repairing and refinishing our front door. I cracked the glass while repairing a muntin. So…. new glass on the way. And the exterior needs a new coat of oil.
Megan Fitzpatrick is finishing work on a book by Robert Wearing that should go to press next week. The book is on fixtures, jigs and appliances for handwork. You can come take a first look at the proofs if you like.
Brendan Gaffney is off teaching at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking this week. He should be back on Saturday with a cabinet to show.
Come for the Woodworking, Stay for the Food Many visitors to our shop also make a day of it and get lunch or brunch while in Covington. We have some bad news on that front. Main Street Tavern has closed. We are crushed. And so we offer this list of other great places to eat that you can walk to:
Otto’s: A fantastic brunch (you might want to make reservations just to be sure).
Commonwealth: Very Kentucky (that’s a good thing).
Also worth seeing in town:
The Cincinnati Art Museum has an exhibit on the art of Burning Man that is getting rave reviews. The museum also has an impressive decorative arts collection and general admission is free.
And The Cincinnati Museum Center is now reopened after its extensive and impressive renovation. You can lose an entire day here touring the multiple museums.
Apologies for the unvarnished commerce, but I’d rather sell these books here than on eBay.
Lucy and I are relinquishing as many material goods as possible as we prepare to move above the storefront in early August. So duplicate books have to go.
Here we have three books, all hand-bound in leather by Ohio Book with handmade end sheets. Two are copies of “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker” – one in brown and one in black.The other is “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” in black.
The books are $250 apiece. Domestic shipping is included in the price. International shipping will be at the actual cost.
If you are interested, please read with care: Send me a message through my personal site. Let me know specifically which book you want. The first to say “I’ll take it, gets it.” These books are offered without any apology and have no wear whatsoever.
David Esterly (1944-2019) with his piece Quodlibet #7, 2012. Photo: Bernini Poussin
I never had the privilege of meeting David Esterly (1944-2019), who died last month after a battle with Lou Gerhig’s disease. Esterly was a giant in the world of carving. Not only in his technical skill but in his ability to transmit ideas in a beautiful and lucid manner.
His book “The Lost Carving” is not a woodworking book per se. And it is definitely not a book from the “why we make things” genre, which tries to bridge the gap between people who make things and people with “big thoughts.”
Intead, it’s much more of an autobiography of someone who has utterly devoted his life to a craft and can explain what that feels like from the inside. Even if you don’t carve, I highly recommend you read it.
For me, “The Lost Carving” helped resolve many of the frustrations I experience when trying to communicate about woodworking. On the one hand, woodworking is deeply technical. So you have to deal with that. But the technical nature of the craft (tool steels, wood movement, finishing chemistry etc.) is a tiny part of what I think about every day at the bench. Anyone can learn the technical, tacit stuff. That’s what books, magazines and classes are for.
The important stuff is what Esterly wrote about in “The Lost Carving.” Here are two short excerpts, one of which Joel Moskowitz also referenced in his obituary of Esterly.
In the usual way of thinking, you have ideas, and then you learn technical skill so you can express them. In reality it’s often the reverse: skill gives you ideas. The hand guides the brain nearly as much as the brain guides the hand.
The wood is teaching you about itself, configuring your mind and muscles to the tasks required of them. To carve is to be shaped by the wood even as you’re shaping it.
— “The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making” (2012)
This is the real stuff. This is what it feels like for me when working by hand. One example: Years ago, my hands taught my brain how to flatten a board by hand. Before I’d ever heard of Joseph Moxon or I had met anyone who worked by hand, I had boards that needed to be dressed flat with handplanes.
The instructions I had were from modern books – stuff from the 1980s. And the techniques were woefully complex. I knew the task couldn’t be as difficult as described. So I took my jack plane to a warped piece of work and just messed with it. After some with-the-grain missionary-style planing, I tried things that (I thought) were no-nos – planing diagonally, planing across the grain, pulling the tool, taking short and localized strokes.
Within a few hours my hands had some ideas. Then it was just about getting the ideas into my brain so that I could explain the process to myself. Why did diagonal stokes fix warping? Why is traversing a board so effective on the bark face of the board?
I’m sure that all of this seems obvious to the peanut gallery. But that’s because someone probably offered you a good explanation at some point.
The act of sawing is another example. I have learned more about sawing from listening to my hands than to any person, dead or alive.
After I realized that explicit knowledge – the book stuff – isn’t as important as the deep-tissue stuff, I changed my tack as a workshop writer. Starting with “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I tried to dial down the technical information in my books and replace it with text intended to inspire confidence in the reader and cause him or her to pick up the tools. (Whether I succeeded or not is a thread more suited for LumberJocks than here.)
So you have Esterly to thank for that (or not).
If you wish to learn more about Esterly, here are some great links:
P.S. The title of this blog is a hat tip to Doug Stowe’s blog. Doug’s life has been dedicated to preserving skill through teaching children at the Clear Spring School in Eureka Springs, Ark.
I chew through a lot of mechanical pencils in a year. A workshop is a harsh environment for a tool that is supposed to be handled delicately at a drafting table – not treated like a crayon at a daycare for disturbed children (aka our machine room).
The reason most mechanical pencils don’t live long in a workshop is that the tip gets bent. Any movement of the tip, and the pencil lead won’t advance. Pencil game over. Second problem: The mechanism that advances the lead is easily gummed up by dust.
I’ve tried a half dozen brands on the spectrum from “disposable” to “intended for architects.” Only one has satisfied me. It’s the Pentel Graphgear 1000. They are a little expensive (less than $10), but are so durable that the higher price is irrelevant.
Why do they work so well? The tip retracts when not in use – protecting it from the abuses of the shop. The mechanism is quite clever. You press the button at the end of the pencil, and the tip extends and locks with a click. Further presses of that button advance the lead.
When you are done, you press the top of the pocket clip, and the tip retracts with a snap.
The .7mm pencil shown in this photo has lasted five years. That’s 956 years old in mechanical pencil years.
The Graphgear 1000 is available in a variety of lead widths – .3mm, .4mm, .7mm and .9mm. The .9mm is good for general layout. The .7mm is for fine layout lines. And the .4mm is useful (at times) for coloring in lines marked with knives that you need to fill in so you can see them.
I like them.
— Christopher Schwarz
FTC Part 255 Statement: This post has been sponsored in part by your mom.
Gather together documents written by early visitors to America, some 17th century laws and a few 19th century advertisements, run them through a woodworking sifter and what do you get? Read on and see.
A Few Trees of Interest
The early English voyages to “the new found land of Virginia” probed the coastline to document the commodities useful to the English economy. Observations on timber, plants for medicinal use, wildlife and water sources were documented for the corporations that would later have permission to colonize this new country.
Firs (or Firres) were noted by the 1605 and 1606 voyages that visited the northern coast of Virginia, now known as Maine.
They were astounded by the size of the trees and straight growth. This was the Eastern white pine, Pinus strobus.
Eastern White Pine, Pinus strobus.
Before the end of the 17th century the processing of this tree for use as single-stick masts was in full swing. In 1678 Judge Samuel Sewall of Massachusetts, owner of a sawmill in what is now Maine, made entries describing a mast “of about 26 Inches or 28 [diameter]” being pulled out by a large number of oxen. He also went to the coast and observed the departure of a mast ship to England.
The continued use of colonial trees for masts is noted by another visitor, Petr Kalm, of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences He made this observation in the autumn of 1748:
When the English explorers encountered a tree not native to Europe they would use the name supplied by the original residents of the land. In the 1585-1586 voyage made in the name of Sir Walter Raleigh (to the part of Virginia that is now known as Virginia), Thomas Heriot wrote:
The Rakiock turns out to be the Tulip Tree, or Tulip Poplar (also known by several other names). A beautiful tree with distinctive leaves and flowers.
Liriodendron tulipifera.
Petr Kalm also mentions this tree in his visit to Philadelphia:
Kalm continues: “It cannot but be very agreeable to see in spring, at the end of May (when it is in blossom) one of the greatest trees covered for a fortnight together with flowers, with regard to their shape, size and partly colour are like tulips, the leaves have likewise something peculiar, the English therefore in some places call the tree the old woman’ssmock, because their imagination finds something like it below the leaves.”
The uses of the tree are varied and not all joiners are agreed on how good it is:
A third tree described in George Weymouth’s 1605 voyage to the northern part of Virginia (Maine) is valued more for its medicinal uses:
The Sassafras tree (or using the ‘long s’ spelling, the saffafras), Sassafras albidum.
Petr Kalm also observed this tree in Philadelphia:
Kalm continued his entry on the sassafras tree with several accounts of how it was used to make a tea, the bark used to dye wool orange and other parts of the tree to treat illnesses.
Cherry trees were easily identified and noted in all the early voyages to North America. Petr Kalm made an important observation about the tree and the following statement is one of the reasons his notes remain valuable to scientists today.
One last tree for the spoon carvers, so-named the Spoon tree by Professor Kalm.
Mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia.
A gift to Kalm from the first spoon makers in North America:
Nailes, Nayls and Nayles
During the 1585-1586 Walter Raleigh-sponsored voyage to Virginia a note on finding iron was made:
It would be many years before the colony would have the resources to process iron to make nails and other tools. As a consequence the first ships bringing colonists to the new land brought along: nails, nailes, nayls and nayles. And as the colonies grew the demand grew for nails from England. An 1684 order of goods from London included “…Iron is much wanted, and nayls very much vizt 6d 8d & 10d a Tunn of each sort would quickly sell…”
Timber was abundant but nails were not and it seems there is some evidence of colonists burning down buildings to salvage the nails. Two 17th century documents specifically reference burning buildings for nails.
The first is from the Assembly of Burgesses held at James Cittie for the term October 1644 to November 1645, the 19th year of the reign of Charles I. In the February 1645 session, Act VII was passed and is in two parts. The first part of the act made it unlawful to abandon a plantation once it had been seated. It was also illegal to take up a property that had been deserted unless the property was voluntarily relinquished and leased to another. The second part of the act reads:
When a plantation was seated it was the responsibility of the patent holder to protect the land. A large portion of the output of the land, such as tobacco, was a trade commodity controlled by England. If the patentee chose to leave the land (crop failure, other economic loss) they could not salvage nails by burning plantation buildings, thereby reducing the value of the property, and causing the next land patentee to incur the cost of rebuilding. To discourage the burning of a building the person vacating the plantation was compensated with nails equivalent to the number used in the building.
The second document is from Kent County in the Delaware colony. In 1682 this area was transferred to William Penn and he chartered the new Delaware colony. A new court town was to planned and a new courthouse was to be built. The existing courthouse was no longer needed and its demise was determined thusly:
This was a very frugal way to handle the old courthouse and make way for the new (which was finally built in 1697). Burning was an efficient mode of demolition and the nailes could be salvaged. Win-win.
Although it was illegal for colonists to make their own nails they eventually did. In some cases it was with the agreement of officials responsible for stopping such illegal operations sharing in the profits. Nail making was also a cottage industry and the nail makers were often women and children.
By the middle of the 18th century the English controls on colonial economies, increased taxes and no representation in the English Parliaments had the Americans chafing. Then came the Stamp Act.
Advertising is Everything in the New Republic
The American Republic, 1843, New York Public Library.
The furniture makers of today have multiple means to advertise their business: websites, blogs, social media, trade shows, etc. In the first 70 years of the New Republic the usual avenues involved newspaper ads, trade cards and labels. But some things never change. Your ads have to identify what you have to offer and get the customer interested in walking through the door.
In 1840 in Philadelphia J & A Crout placed this advertisement:
Joseph Downs Collection, The Winterthur Library.
This ad is remarkable for the reference to the Franklin Institute and the emphasis on American furniture made with American woods. The Franklin Institute regularly held exhibits on American manufacturing, inventions and scientific advancements, and was very popular with the public. A potential buyer of furniture could see the wood specimens from the exhibit and see furniture made with the same wood. And there are two locations with specific details on each location: over the paper store, across from the State House. Additional details are the trees at the top (American wood) and the eye-catching sofa on-end (otherwise it would be empty space and ad space is money) and the intricate border.
Locations of J & A Crout in Philadelphia in 1840.
Philadelphia developed as an industrial center after the Embargo of 1807 crushed the importation of European goods. In 1840 it was no longer the largest American city but was bustling with industry and competition. Your business advertisement had to set you apart from your competitors.
In 1843 William Allen placed an ad in the Winchester Patriot. His business was in rural Randolph County, Indiana, (along the western border of Ohio) and his ad is a bit different from the Philadelphia-based business. Allen was in a region that was part of the westward expansion of the Republic.
Library of Congress in Indiana Historical Society Publication Vol. 25, No. 1.
His eye-catchers: the first word is what he makes, then an image of what he makes, followed by a catchy slogan. He thanks the past patrons of his business and ensures customers he will be able to meet future demand for furniture. His slogan appeals to the frugal nature of a farming community that needs well-made furniture at an economical cost. The list of items he will accept for payment range from beef cattle to produce and offers his customers flexibility in how they pay. He understands his customers.
The Indiana Historical Society has a few more details about William Allen and his business. He was born around 1821 in Ohio making him in his early 20s when the advertisement was placed in the local paper. He was a cabinetmaker sometime before 1843 until sometime after 1850. In 1850 he had four men in his shop and the annual output included “30 Bureaus $360; 250 Bedsteads $1250; 30 Tables $150; Other Articles $500.” I was able to find a map dated in the mid-1860s showing ownership of farming acreage around Winchester, Indiana and there was a tract of some 40 acres owned by a W. Allen. Did he take up farming after cabinetmaking? We don’t know.
One final ad to consider. When I was mapping the two locations of the J & A Crout business I found another Philadelphia advertisement in the form of a packing label dated 1850.
1850 from The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Ten years after the J & A Crout advertisement one of the two locations, 173 Chestnut St. (across from the State House), was now occupied by a George Henkels. Meanwhile, William Allen was still in business in rural Indiana.
The gallery has a few more items for your perusal.
Want to read more American tree and timber-related blog posts? You can read about the Eastern white pine here. The Chicago and Great Lakes lumber trade is here.
