“I try to keep in mind that if I dropped dead tomorrow, all of my acrylic workplace awards would be in the trash the next day, and my job would be posted in the paper before my obituary.”
— Bernie Klinder, a consultant for a large tech company, The New York Times, Jan. 26, 2019
We are pleased to announce that we’re working on a new book about Dick Proenneke who lived alone in the wild Alaskan wilderness for 31 years. You may know Proenneke as the subject of four PBS documentaries that have fascinated many, including “Alone in the Wilderness” and “Alone in the Wilderness Part II” (all Bob Swerer Productions).
Author Monroe Robinson, a woodworker and log restoration specialist who, along with his wife, K. Schubeck, has been involved with all the work of maintaining Proenneke’s cabin for the past 19 years, is currently sorting through hundreds of photographs and building some replicas of Proenneke’s hand tools for illustration.
The lifestyle of Proenneke reminds me of Henry David Thoreau on steroids. The lulling-yet-captivating films remind me of a mash-up of Bob Ross, “Planet Earth” and “Primitive Technology”. And the deep exploration of Proenneke’s handcrafted life reminds me of Joshua Klein’s “Hands Employed Aright”.
To say we’re thrilled about this project is an understatement.
May 21, 1968, Proenneke traveled to Twin Lakes, Alaska, at the age of 52. He had spent the year prior scouting a site for a cabin and cutting logs in preparation to build a cabin the following year. And he did build his cabin, by himself, using only hand tools. He also built all his own furniture, a cache to store his food and many of the hand tools he used.
Proenneke ended up living in his 11- x 15-foot cabin, alone (although, perhaps, alone is not the right word as he found great company in nature), for 31 years, only occasionally leaving to visit family. He kept detailed journals and documented his life on film while maintaining his cabin, hiking up to 35 miles in a single day and working closely with the U.S. National Park Service.
Proenneke left Twin Lakes in 1999 at the age of 82. He died in 2003. He donated his cabin to the U.S. National Park Service, and it’s now part of Lake Clark National Park.
While a handful of books have been written about Proenneke and his life, none focus solely on his use of hand tools and only materials found in the wilderness. Monroe has taken an in-depth look at how Proenneke used the things he made and sought to repair instead of replace.
“Dick lived a full and challenging life while limiting his consumption of today’s material possessions,” Robinson says. “It is an invitation, an inspiration, to feel the joyous wonder of making what one needs with simple tools and materials around you.”
We hope to have this book available early 2020.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Several people have asked for more construction details on the white oak stick chair I posted on the blog this morning. Many of the components and processes are similar to those in the Staked Armchair chapter I posted on the blog late last year.
There are, however, some important differences. This chair has an H-stretcher that is 12-1/2” from the underside of the seat. The resultant angles of the legs are also different than shown in the chapter. The resultant angles for both the front and rear legs is 22°.
Here is the cutting list:
Hope this helps you design your own chair. With this format of chair, no two chairs are alike.
— Christopher Schwarz
OK, so that’s not going to happen.
When Chris Williams came here in May 2018 to teach his first U.S. chairmaking class, he tried to help me pronounce a few Welsh proper nouns. This is what it sounded like (to me).
Chris Williams: “It’s ‘Blah-blah.’”
Me: “Blah-blah.”
Chris: “No, it’s ‘Blah-blah.’”
Me: “Blah-blah.”
Chris: “Um, no…. It’s….”
And repeat until we retreat to the Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar. I do not have an ear for Welsh, though it’s in my blood and in my brain. I know this because when I visited St Fagans with Chris in October 2018 I could feel the chairs there invade my brain and hands.
Since my visit there, I’ve built a number of chairs for customers, and each one inches toward what I absorbed while there.
The chair shown here might not look like much of a departure from what I’ve been building since 2003, but to me it looks like a different animal.
The legs and seat are thinner. I was surprised by how some of the components of the chairs at St Fagans were more delicate than photos or drawings suggest. These legs are 1-3/8” in diameter, and the seat is 1-3/8” thick.
The undercarriage is low. Stretchers are not de rigueur in Welsh chairs, as they are on American chairs and factory English chairs. But when the Welsh chairs have stretchers they tend to be near the floor. This might be by design or by the fact that the antique chairs have had their legs worn down by use. Either way, that is what I saw.
The wood in this new chair has more figure. I don’t seek out curly wood. In fact, I’ve spent my career sidestepping it. But when you examine the chairs at St Fagans, the seat in particular has a lot of character. This might be by design – seats with interlocked grain are stronger. Or by default – the only bits of wood that big were a bit squirrely
Either way, I embraced interlocked grain with this chair.
I’m not done with the changes to my chairs. I can make only so many alterations with each generation. But I am happy with where things are headed, and I am forever indebted to Chris Williams and the staff at St Fagans for helping me build Welsh, if not speak it.
— Christopher Schwarz
This is an excerpt from “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years: Volume I” published by Lost Art Press.
Recently we came across an old type of bow-saw which had been sent to a veteran village carpenter for repair. Its precise origin could not be traced except that, a couple of generations ago, it had come from the estate workshop of a north-country peer. The feature of the tool is an ingenious method of tightening the saw when special rigidity is required. As, too, the saw frame could be made at home, a brief description may be of interest.
The arms (A), of 7/8 in. beech, are about 21-1/2 ins. long, shaped as indicated. Width at top (extreme) is 1-3/4 ins. and at the blade end 1-1/2 ins. The arms are chamfered as shown for comfortable handling, bored for the 1/4 in. top rod, slotted for the saw and notched for the cross stay (B). This latter is of 7/8 in. by 5/8 in., the 5/8 in. width showing on face.
The saw blade is 2-1/4 ins. wide, toothed as shown, and the threaded straining rods have the type of swivel indicated for tightening. The saw may be used for any kind of cross-cutting, plank or round timber, up to a thickness of over 9 ins.
Tightening Device. Turning to Fig. 2, it will be seen that this bow-saw is provided with a second cross-stay (C) which, with the saw shortened, can be fitted to exert special pressure on the blade.
This extra stay is the same as (B) except that it is shaped from a length of beech 1-1/2 ins. wide full by 5/8 in., the swell in the middle being required for piercing on the bevel. This bevel is shown in detail. The stay (B) passes through the bevelled aperture in stay (C), extra notches being cut in the arms (at E) to receive the short tenons on the stays.
The advantage of these crossing stays will be obvious. When the saw blade is adjusted to length, the cross stays fitted and the straining rod tightened, extra strong pressure is applied to the arms at the points XX and the saw will remain rigid for the heaviest work.
In its normal position (Fig 1), the frame, over all, measures fully 2 ft. 6 ins., the height being about 1 ft. 8-1/2 ins.
On the saw described the extra cross stay (C), instead of being thicknessed at the middle, is fitted with an iron collar 4-1/2 ins. long, as at Fig. 3. The opening in this collar has bevelled sides through which the other stay (B) passes. The stay (C) is of course in two parts, both bevelled to fit tightly into the collar. It is believed that the original stay was thicknessed as in Fig. 2, and that the collar was added later as a repair. The collar itself represents an exceptionally neat piece of ironwork.
— Meghan B.