Katherine has just finished making another big batch of soft wax, and it’s available in her etsy store.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the Soft Wax Saga this fall and winter, she’s made some changes to her production and bottling process – upgrading the packaging and refining the recipe. Details are here.
Counting all the jars she’s sold at our storefront (and to me), Katherine has made and sold more than 1,000 jars since she started mixing the stuff in the basement in April 2016. When we began making the stuff, I helped her bottle every batch. Now she takes care of everything herself, except ordering some supplies where she needs a credit card.
So thanks to everyone who has supported her these last three years and your patience when things occasionally went wrong. Katherine’s learned a lot about dealing with adults because of this business and, of course, I’m happy to see her get a taste of financial independence.
This is an excerpt from “Slöjd in Wood” by Jögge Sundqvist.
The snob stick is a long sallow (willow) stick with a knob on the end, on which the bark has been peeled off in a spiral shape. The snob holds the stick by the knob while he haughtily struts around in town. The idea comes from the woodworker Bengt Lidström in Kassjö. As a child, he would pretend he was a snob after he saw haberdashery ads in Västerbottens-Kuriren, the local newspaper. The snob stick makes a nice feature and a support for the flowers in your garden border, in the flower box or the flower pot. If you don’t have a need for snob stick, you can use it as a walking stick instead.
The curtain rod is made from a young, straight-grown birch. The knobs have holes in which are attached rod tenons. The curtain rod can be hung from brackets made from birch crooks.
Material: Dry birch blank for knobs. Dry, straight birch, 25mm to 35mm (1″ to 1-1/2″) for rods. Thin sapling or withy from birch, sallow or hazel about 15mm (9/16″) in diameter for the stick..
SNOB Start with the stick. Select the blank in the early summer, when the bark comes off the wood. Cut a spiral in the bark with the knife using your knee as a support. Hold the knife edge at an angle and rotate until you have scored the entire stick (see illustration below). Leave a space of around 25mm (1″) between the score lines for the next spiral cut. Score the stick again parallel to the first scoring line. Carefully peel off the bark between the cuts, leaving a spiral pattern of bark. After the withy has dried for a couple of days, carve a 20mm (13/16″) tenon on top with a smaller dimension than the stick. A diameter of 12mm (1/2″) is good.
Sawing and splitting of the blank for two knobs has begun.
Snob stick made of birch, detail on the knob.
KNOB Split out a square blank with the same diameter as the finished knob. Cut the blank so it is twice as long as the length of the knob. A total length of 15cm (5-15/16″) is about right. Now you have supporting material at one end that makes it easier to hold, either in your hand or clamped in the shaving horse. At this point, making two knobs is an option, matching the dimensions and design.
Shape the blank smooth and square in the shaving horse or with a small axe and knife. Lay out centerlines on all sides, checking that all angles are 90. including the end faces.
When making two knobs, drill a round mortise in each end with an auger bit with the same diameter as the tenon on the stick. The centerlines act as sightlines so you can align your eye with the drill as you are drilling. Lay out the form on all four sides:
Start by drawing lines that indicate depth, then saw kerfs on the four long sides. Plan the order of work to systematically split off excess material with a knife and hammer to facilitate the carving phase. For example, after the first rough split, you can saw more grooves and split closer to the final form.
Curtain rod finials made from birch. Snob sticks or flower sticks of birch and sallow. Curtain rod bracket of birch trunk with branch.
Bracket for the curtain rod. Choose a branch that has grown in a 90° angle before it turns upward.
When you have finished the initial square shaping, continue shaping into octagonal facets. Finally, carve the shape of the knob smooth with the knife. Go for octagonal or round shapes. For knife grips, see Knobs and Latches on pages 34 and 35.
CURTAIN ROD WITH BRACKET Make curtain rod finials the same way as the knob of the snob stick. Use straight-grained birch, rowan or hazel for the rod. Carve it octagonal or round. For strength, it is a good idea to make the middle part of the rod a little bit thicker. Look for nice bracket blanks when you are out in the woods. Carve the brackets for the curtain rod in the same way as the coat hook. Decorate and go all in with colors and patterns!
One of the typesetting machines on display at the Gutenberg Museum.
While most woodworkers have built a basic bookcase, few have paused to consider the long, complicated and interesting relationship between the history of the book itself and the shelves, cases, stands and lecterns that hold it.
Unlike most furniture, which is designed to suit the human form, bookcases are based on the standard sizes of books, which just might be related to the size of a medieval sheep or calf (seriously).
Kieran Binnie and I have decided to plumb the intertwined history of the book and the casework that displays and protects it. This book, which we are calling “The Book Book,” will explore the origins of bookmaking and the allied development of bookcases, from the time when books were handwritten and chained to the furniture all the way up to the ubiquitous IKEA bookcase.
Along the way, Kieran and I will build some of the more interesting projects we dig up from the historical record. As of now, we have a list of a dozen projects for the book, but I’m sure that will change as our research progresses.
Kieran’s initial explorations have already turned up information about book production that – as a publisher – is quite shocking. Most publishers (me included) think the birth of large-scale book manufacturing occurred when the Chinese and Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type. That’s just not so.
There is lots of evidence that specialized book manufacturing was thriving for hundreds of years before Gutenberg – and not just for royals and the wealthy. And so our search for the earliest origins of the bookcase also will extend way before Gutenberg.
To be sure, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Kieran has completed his work on “The Life & Work of John Brown,” and the remainder of that book is in the hands of Christopher Williams. So Kieran has been diving deep into the historical record and is pulling me along for the ride.
As always, we’ll be sharing the stuff we learn here on the blog. In addition to the research and building, I’m looking forward to designing this book, which will likely resemble some of the early books I got to see on a tour of the Gutenberg museum in Mainz, Germany, in 2017. So expect lots of non-standard typography, layouts and even book structure.
— Christopher Schwarz and Kieran Binnie (visit his blog Over the Wireless)
Happy winner Bill Rainford with his pack horse William.
The winner of a Lost Art Press bandana (man scarf) and Chester Cornett button is ‘speed poet’ Bill Rainford. Within 46 minutes of the posting of the Caption Challenge Bill submitted a four-line poem capturing the pleasures and perils of living in a tree stump:
”There was a young couple who lived in a stump/They had so many children they clearly like to hump/With only one room and only one bed/They should grow an addition as that tree isn’t dead.”
There were 233 entries that arrived before the cut off and there are five that I have selected as Honor Mentions:
Bob Brown submitted, “Man leaves woman in trunk.” A nice murder-mystery vibe and another reminder to me to never buy a very large suitcase.
Samuel Holland submitted, “Why would I ask for a tree bedroom house? It makes no sense.” I like puns and this also reminds me of a guy I ran into once. He kept saying “tree” on the very tree-less waterfront in Jersey.
immltasbi submitted a very short short story that reminded me of Tom Bombadil from ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’: “Let’s cut a tree, to make a home. A branch for spoons and other for the plates…”
Dave was the first to caption ala Chester Cornett: “wey make ur hows ahhom are heit cant B mad.”
Lastly, to award outstanding perseverance, an Honor Mention goes to J.C aka BLZeebub for contributing 14 entries. I want this person on my side in a fork fight.
I will contact the Honorable Mentionees and send you a small thank you for your efforts.
Thanks to all for participating and Happy New Year!
From the advice column “Work Friend” in The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2018
You Can’t Beat Them (You Will Be Arrested)
What are your thoughts on friends who leave high-paying jobs to pursue their creative dreams, then end up broke and complain about it?
— Brooklyn
Obviously, we must all tell them to shut up and get back to work on their canvases and scripts. I thank these folks every day for keeping me on the straight and narrow. As a chronic quitter, I’m the most likely to blow out of Dodge and suit up for a six-month bike trek down the Continental Divide or a nine-month woodworking apprenticeship, only to end up an incompetent waitron in Silver City, N.M. But now we have Instagram, and we can spy on our sad, failed basket-weavers together.
Time, though, will have the last laugh on all our choices. A great novelist is one who quit his job in time; a failed painter is just one who hasn’t died soon enough.
