I get asked to promote crowdfunding efforts all the time. I almost never say yes because most of the campaigns are ridiculous, ill-planned or just bad ideas. But this one is different.
Auriou (Forge De Saint Juery) is fighting for its future after 162 years of operation. Business it good – as it should be because Auriou rasps are the best – but the company’s equipment is outdated. They need new equipment and training to survive.
You can read all about it here. The page is in both English and French.
I know it’s not a sexy cause – like a gun that shoots salt at housefies – but it is an investment in the future of our craft. A set of good rasps is essential to curved work – I discuss them in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
If you love Auriou rasps, please consider making a contribution to help this fantastic company. I am making my contribution today.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. For those of you who are experts on running light industrial factories in France, you might want to hold off on your critiques unless you know the whole history of the company, the labor challenges it has faced during the last decade and its financial book. For those of you who are *not* experts on French manufacturing, you *definitely* should keep your trap shut.
Editor’s Note: For those of you who have purchased “Hands Employed Aright,” you’ll note that we also used Jessica Roux’s illustration as endsheets. It was more expensive than typical endsheets, but worth it in every way. And now you can purchase a poster of this gorgeously detailed work of art.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
When I got home from work yesterday, the long-anticipated shipment of the Jonathan Fisher workshop posters was sitting on my front porch! This poster features the incredible illustration that was commissioned for my new book, “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847).” The image is a recreation of a typical Jonathan Fisher workshop scene, in which the parson is hard at work making furniture for his and his community’s homes. Everything from the barn he worked in, the tools hanging on the walls, the partially assembled desk in the foreground, to the sheep inside and pigs outside are all based on surviving artifacts or documentation. Little in this illustration is conjecture.
When I pitched this idea to Chris during the book editing process, he said “yes” without reservation. We agreed that this rare opportunity to see the pieces of this story come together seemed too good to pass up.
Because I’ve long admired the folk whimsy of artist Jessica Roux, having her do the artwork was a no-brainer. And we couldn’t be more pleased with how it came out. It is rich in detail, color and texture, and is something we knew folks would want to hang on their wall.
This 18″ x 22″ poster was printed in the U.S. on 100-lb. matte-coated paper. Jessica’s super high-res work means this poster was printed with crisp detail. Mike and I are now beginning to ship these posters out into the world. The poster is $15 and can be ordered here. (Yes, we take international orders.) We’re only doing one run, so if you want one now’s the time to order.
Instead of reveling in my dotage, today I assembled this staked stool.
Maybe I’m just a crappy writer, or people read yesterday’s blog entry while half in the bag. Either way, I was surprised by many people’s reaction to my leaving Popular Woodworking Magazine. That was not an obituary. Or a retirement notice.
I am in no way slowing down my writing, research, building, traveling or publishing. I will continue to blog here almost every day. All the material I once generated for my blog at Popular Woodworking will be posted here instead. The Anarchist’s Gift Guide will continue here every November.
I write about 1,000 to 2,000 words a day – it’s a force of habit. And that stuff – whether you consider it BS or fertilizer – has to go somewhere.
The only difference going forward is that I plan to take on woodworking topics that I avoided in the past to avoid offending or embarrassing my corporate employer and its advertisers. I have little regard for the sneaky way we are manipulated to buy woodworking stuff on social media. Advertising is one thing. Sponsored content is fine as long as it’s disclosed according to the law (and there is a law; here’s a common-sense guide). But for the most part, thousands of dollars are spread around every day to attract you to shiny objects without you being told the relationship between the corporate sponsor and the social media star.
I’ll be honest: Among the problems facing our world today, this social media legerdemain is small potatoes. And it’s certainly not my lone crusade. I’m far more interested in getting people to pick up the tools and build stuff. But when I see this sort of chicanery in the future, I’m gonna mention it.
For example, we have all been choking on the coverage of the latest Craftsman tools event, which was a junket designed to get editors and writers to ooh and ahh over some unproven tools. (I hope they provided all the attendees with Craftsman-brand kneepads.) Craftsman has a lot of bridges to mend with me and other woodworkers. So I recommend you check out the tools in person before buying them. Or better yet, let some other early adopters take the bullet for you.
For me, woodworking tourism is the best kind of tourism, though I resist dragging my family along when I go to lumberyards, museum exhibits or auctions. I want them to remember me fondly when I’m dead.
Luckily, these days I have Brendan Gaffney working alongside me in the shop, and he’s always up for a ridiculous day trip. This week we went to Amish country in north-central Ohio to visit a tool store, some lumberyards and – most importantly – Keim Lumber.
Keim is about a three-hour drive from Cincinnati, so it’s a bit of a stretch to shop there regularly. But I’ve heard so much about the place during my life here that I had to visit it. What is Keim? It’s a lumberyard and home center that caters to the furniture maker and high-end carpenter.
The lumber section, for example, is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Keim stocks both domestic and exotic species that you’d be hard-pressed to find, such as Tree of Heaven, Osage Orange, Butternut, Sassafras and a couple dozen others. On the exotic side, the stock was equally amazing. I’m not into exotics, however, so I didn’t retain a lot of the species names (you can browse the inventory here).
What is equally impressive is how the lumber is presented. Every board is beautifully planed with no tear-out and then drum-sanded. Yup, drum sanded.
The tool section is equally impressive, though it is geared to professional furniture makers with production equipment. Keim carries several lines of machines, such as SawStop, Jet and Rikon. But where the store really shines is in all the shop supplies and accessories. They have every sawblade imaginable, an entire aisle of sanding supplies and deep inventory on handheld electric tools. Plus they do repairs.
There’s an impressive section of hardware, though most of it is geared to the production woodworker (though they had Acorn strap hinges). Plus a huge section for finishing (5-gallon buckets of boiled linseed oil).
And there were entire sections of the store we didn’t explore, such as the custom millwork area.
Oh, and the prices were considerably lower than in the city.
If you are ever passing near Charm, Ohio, I highly recommend a visit to Keim. We’re already planning a return trip to the area to visit some additional lumberyards in the area.
— Christopher Schwarz
The employee parking lot. As many of the employees are Amish, there are more bikes out back than cars.
Moxon’s square. This square – more stylish than modern ones – is made from wood and is designed to be trued on occasion. Its decorative ends are similar to what Roubo will show about 100 years later in France.
This is an excerpt from “The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon with commentary by Christopher Schwarz.
Joseph Moxon’s text is in italics.
Of the square and it’s use. The square, marked D, is two adjunct sides of a geometrical square. a The handle. b The tongue. c The outer square. d The inner square. For [a] joiner’s use, it is made of two pieces of wood, the one about an inch thick, and the other about a quarter of an inch thick. These two pieces are severally shot exactly straight and have each of their sides parallel to each of their own sides. The thick piece {called the handle} has a mortise in it as long {within a quarter of an inch} as the thin piece {called the tongue} is broad, and so wide, as to contain the thickness of the tongue. The tongue is fastened into the mortise of the handle with glue and wooden pins so [that] the two outer sides {and then consequently the two inner sides} may stand at right angles with one another.
The reason why the handle is so much thicker than the tongue is because the handle should on either side become a fence to the tongue. And the reason why the tongue has not its whole breadth let into the end of the handle is because they may with less care strike a line by the side of a thin than a thick piece: For if instead of holding the hand upright when they strike a line, they should hold it never so little inwards, [then] the shank of a pricker [an awl-like marking tool] falling against the top edge of the handle would throw the point of a pricker farther out than a thin piece would. To avoid this inconvenience, the tongue is left about half an inch out of the end of the handle.
Another reason is that if with often striking the pricker against the tongue it becomes ragged or uneven, they can with less trouble plane it again when the stuff is all the way of an equal strength [that is, same grain direction] than they can if crossgrained shoulders be added to any part of it.
The pricker I presume? This tool is missing a call-out, but it is shown with the dividers and a rule, so it could be surmised this is the pricker that Moxon discusses. It does seem to be a marking tool.
Its use is for the striking of lines square – either to other lines or to straight sides, and to try the squareness of their work by. To strike a line square to a side they have already shot, they apply the inside of the handle close to the side shot and lay the tongue flat upon the work. Then [on] the outside of the tongue they draw with a pricker a straight line. This is called striking, or drawing of a square. To try the squareness of a piece of stuff shot on two adjoining sides, they apply the insides of the handle and tongue to the outsides of the stuff. And if the outsides of the stuff do all the way agree in line with the insides of the square, it is true[ly] square. To try the inward squareness of work, they apply the two outsides of the square to the insides of the work.
Analysis Moxon’s explanation of the try square’s anatomy is fairly straightforward, though the description of the square’s tongue is a bit awkward, despite efforts to unscramble it. What Moxon is saying is that it’s easier to scribe a line against a thin tongue than a thick tongue. Why? You are less likely to miss your mark when you tip your awl (or knife or pricker) and place it against the tongue. If the tongue is thick, your error can be greater.
Moxon’s other two explanations for why the tongue is thinner are better: The handle can then be used as a fence against the work, and the tongue is easier to plane back to square after it becomes ragged.
I think Moxon also has made a small error here: He first implies the tongue should extend out of the handle 1∕4″. Then he says later it is 1∕ 2″ (which is the distance used by Roubo in his later work). It’s impossible to tell which is correct from the illustration.”
We also learn a bit about the pricker here, though it is not called out in the plates. (Could it be the bulbous tool shown beneath the dividers on plate 5? This tool is not on F.libien’s plates to my knowledge.) One guess is that the pricker is like a striking awl: A rod of steel sharpened to a point at one end that is used for striking lines for joinery.
The description of using the square is revealing: It implies that the inside and outside angles of the square should both be square. Some writers have suggested that only one or the other is important. Here Moxon is clear: The try square is square on both the outside and inside of its tongue and is used for both striking lines and confirming that your work is square, inside and out.
