Madeline reports she is almost out of the latest batch of stickers. They’re $7 for a set of three and are available from her etsy store (she ships worldwide).
Your sticker dollars go to supporting Madeline’s wack-doodle cat, named Chickpea, who insists on unraveling and eating articles of clothing (among other things). I think Madeline is purchasing a variety of calming fluids and cat treats to soothe the savage Pea….
This grouping of stickers is a fun batch. We have the “Rest for the Weary” sticker that features a silhouette of one of the chairs I copied from St Fagans National Museum of Wales. There’s a “#NeverSponsored” sticker that proclaims your independence from sponsorship – it felt great to paste that one over the brand names on my machines. And there’s our Chester Cornett sticker that features the sales slogan from his workshop’s sign. Translation: “We Make Anything or it Can’t Be Made.”
“Every now and then there comes a work of exceptional importance for a wide range of woodworkers,” writes J. Norman Reid in a review of “Cut & Dried: A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology” by Richard Jones. “This volume, by British cabinetmaker Richard Jones, is such a book. In “Cut and Dried,” Jones examines a broad spectrum of issues concerning the character, qualities, and uses of wood, with particular emphasis on its application to cabinetmaking.”
After a thorough review of the book’s contents, Reid writes, “Cut & Dried” is one of the most complete and detailed works on wood and wood technology available to non-specialist cabinetmakers. For this reason, it merits a place on the reference shelves of all serious woodworkers. I highly recommend this important book.”
Thank you, Norman, for the kind review. You can read the entire review here. You can learn more about “Cut & Dried,” and purchase it, here.
I wonder if Chris understood what he was unleashing when he
first wrote about the Dutch Tool Chest. It’s the perfect blank canvas for
woodworkers to exercise their ingenuity. Just a quick internet search will
spill pages of configurations, colors, and creativity.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about DTC design and
execution lately. This spring I’m co-teaching a class where students will build
a version of the chest — but with a twist. My partner in crime is Thomas Latanè, one of the best blacksmiths working today, so
the surprise spoiler is students will be both building the chest with me AND
forging the hardware with Tom.
My influence for the project is easy to see but Tom’s comes from the tool chests that were attached to the sides of Conestoga wagons (a form curiously similar to the DTC). On many surviving pieces the strap hinge swings on a clenched staple as opposed to a standard barrel and pin. The example chest in the photo wears Tom’s vision for the hardware but there is opportunity for students to create something as complex or as simple as their skill set and time allows.
I’m really excited to be a part of this, it’s a wonderful
handshake between two crafts that frankly ought to hang out together more
often. The class will be divided into two, spending the morning with one
instructor and trading to the other for the afternoon.
We’ve chosen to host the class at the picturesque Tunnel Mill Craft School just a few miles south of Rochester, Minn. Unlike many schools, they offer a dormitory bed and meals included in the price of tuition. After the official class time is over, it’s open campus where students can catch up in either area they feel they need to or just hang around the common room and enjoy the community.
Now the important stuff:
The class is May 2-5, and there are openings for only eight students this go around – so please don’t miss your chance. Dual skill classes are a rarity.
For pricing, booking, and questions email Carol Adams
at jc-adams@msn.com or call 507-289-4189.
To develop a good eye for chairmaking (or spoon carving or alligator wrestling), you need to study as many chairs as possible. Do it until your eyes glaze over.
Here’s a set of nice “Spinnstuhls” compiled by Rudy Everts in Bavaria. These so-called sewing chairs are from southern Germany and the Alps. These chairs are interesting to me in several ways. Some have a traditional undercarriage for chairs from this region – radical rake and splay, legs that taper to the floor, battens to thicken the seat – but some do not.
Check out the bent legs on a couple examples. A good guess is these came from a bent section of the tree, perhaps a branch or from the root section of a trunk.
Also, the variety of uppercarriages is fascinating. Some are joined, some look sawn from solid and some look bent.
Look through the gallery. Zoom in. Class dismissed.
Building a hayrake table. Killer joinery (exposed tenons with trapped, scribed shoulders; bridle joints; cool geometry), carving lambs’ tongues, decorative gouging and inlaid butterfly keys—all at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking.
Laying out a lamb’s tongue
Cutting one exposed tenon with shoulders scribed to a curved stretcher is fun. Cutting a pair when the shoulders are trapped between stretchers at a fixed length is a challenge.
Preparing to trim a stretcher tenon
At the end of six days you’ll go home with a table–or, depending on your proficiency and other variables, you’ll at least go home with parts of the table ready for you to finish working on them, and you will be familiar with the techniques required to complete the build.
The class will run from July 8-13 (six days) and students are encouraged to build their table to their own dimensions. You can bring your own lumber or buy it before the start of class at Edensaw Woods.
