In some old images of staked stools and chairs, you’ll find the legs and other components are a bit curved. Sometimes this is the result of the “hedge carpenter” using a curved branch scavenged from the woods. Or from using sections of a log that are riven from the swelling at the butt of the tree, which is naturally curved.
Today I encountered a description of a hedge carpenter that was charming that led me back to Walter Rose’s “The Village Carpenter” (of course).
“Thus they had never become enslaved to line and level; their minds had not been trained to revolt if their work deviated from the square, or if it was slightly on the twist and the faces of their joints not absolutely flush. They themselves made no claim to art – I doubt if they knew the meaning of the word. But the work they did was part of the beauty of the countryside; the cleft fence-rails and posts split from oak saplings, with the bark left on in places, and the rough knots trimmed with axe or drawing knife.”
During the last couple months, Katherine and I have revamped her soft wax business to fix some problems and improve the overall product. And today, she is ready to ship out a big batch of 8 oz. glass jars of soft wax made using a waterless process.
After selling hundreds of tins of the stuff, we listened to customer feedback and the few problems and complaints that came up. Here’s what we heard:
Problem: There was some rust in the bottom of the tin.
At first we were making the wax in a slow cooker that was aided by a water bath – each batch took two hours to complete. If the heating process took too long, then water would condense on the lid, and a little would drip into the wax. The water would end up at the bottom of the tin and rust.
Solution: New process and jars
We devised a different manufacturing process that uses no water. We rapidly heat the solvents in a temperature-controlled glass kettle-like device (it takes only two minutes) and then add that to the wax. It quickly melts the wax. This change does two things: There is no time for a significant amount of water (even from the atmosphere) to get introduced to the process. Second, there is a lot less time dealing with hot solvents, which is safer.
Second, we eliminated the tins. They looked cool and vintage, but the lids didn’t screw on and they would rust. We switched to a cosmetic glass jar with a metal screw-on lid. The interior of the lid is coated with a waxy and sticky substance to lock the lid during transit and prevent the lid from rusting.
Problem: Katy ran out of wax all the time
Solution: Use bigger jars and buy beeswax in bigger volume
We now use 8 oz. jars instead of 4 oz. tins. Because we sell by volume (not weight), you actually will receive about three times the volume of wax that we shipped in the tins. There is more room in these jars, and they can be filled much closer to the brim.
The retail price of these new 8 oz. jars is $24, which is twice the price of the 4 oz. tins. And you are getting way more wax. How did we do this? We bought beeswax in volume.
Earlier, Katy was buying wax in 8-pound increments. However, we decided to bite the bullet and buy a 55-pound box, which cut the per-pound price in half.
(Have I mentioned that Katy is learning a lot about economics with this business?)
There are lots of other improvements – a new Indestructo box and live shipping rates. You pay exactly what it costs to ship the jar.
If you would like to order a jar, here’s the link. Thank you for your patience as we made these improvements.
“The Intelligent Hand” is entering the final stages of print production at the plant in Tennessee and we are on track to ship the book in mid-October.
Until the book ships, we are offering all customers who purchase the book a free pdf download of the entire book at checkout. The pdf is hi-resolution and searchable. Even if you don’t enjoy reading books on a screen (and I do not), the pdf is handy for taking along on a trip or for searching.
Also, like all our digital products, we offer it without DRM (digital rights management). So you can easily integrate it into your personal library without passwords or having to be connected to the internet when you read it.
As of now, the hardcover book and pdf cost $50. When the book ships, the price for the book plus the pdf will be $62.50.
For those who might be unsure if this book is their cup of tea/coffee/Red Bull, we offer this hi-resolution excerpt of the first section of the book. It’s short, but will give you a good taste of what this book is about. It is, by the way, a massive book – 302 pages – and a visual treat of photos, line drawings, watercolors and historical images. Click the link below, and the download will begin:
Because of my deep personal interest in this book, I was the art director and page designer for this title. As David poured his heart into the text, I went all out with the images and page design to create something I am (and I rarely say this) particularly happy with.
I am pleased to announce that Molly Brown, one of John Brown’s daughters, will be creating many of the key illustrations in the upcoming book “The Life & Work of John Brown” by Christopher Williams.
Molly specializes in linocut illustrations, a process that is particularly well-suited to show off the graphic forms of Welsh stick chairs. Linocuts are similar to woodblock printing in that the image is drawn on a piece of linoleum and the background is carved away. Then the image is inked and pressed into the paper.
This week, Molly showed us one of her initial prints. Chris and I are very pleased.
Our plan is to have Molly provide the construction illustrations for the book. That might sound odd if you are used to reading CAD-generated drawings. But computer-created illustrations with precise measurements are the exact opposite of what John Brown liked, as he explained clearly in “Welsh Stick Chairs.”
John Brown thought every chair should be an individual, and we wanted the illustrations in this new book to reflect that.
In addition to the technical drawings, Molly will create spot illustrations that will be used throughout the book, such as tools and details of the chair. Recently, she visited Chris in his workshop in Wales to see his chairs, look over columns written by her father and get acquainted with the project.
Molly plans to show more of the process of making the prints for her book on her Instagram feed. You can follow her here if you’d like to watch the process. If you’d like to see some of her delightful non-chair prints, you can visit her website here.
Chris is working on a new chair design these days, and if you haven’t followed him on Instagram, remedy that here.
Also, like all our digital products, we offer it without DRM (digital rights management). So you can easily integrate it into your personal library without passwords or having to be connected to the internet when you read it.
