I have accused the red oak species, Quercus rubra, of being a weed. It is overused in kitchen construction here in North America, it has a barfy pink cast when finished with modern film finishes and it is usually flat sawn to show off its least-attractive grain orientation.
For this chair, and for many of the projects in “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I embraced red oak because it has three other characteristics that trump the ones listed above. It is cheap. It is widely available. And it is strong.
So the real trick with red oak is how to con it into looking like something other than a full-overlay bathroom cabinet door at Desperation Acres Phase II.
Here’s how I gave the species a makeover for this chair.
Don’t Settle for Flat Sawn The seat of the chair is a combination of rift and flat-sawn woods. The more-attractive rift material is at the front of the seat, which is more noticeable. The wide cathedrals of the flat-sawn stuff is at the rear where your farts will make it smell better.
The legs have their quartersawn faces facing the viewer. The armbow is 100-percent quartersawn so it shows off its medullary rays.
The spindles have dead-straight grain, so you aren’t going to see many (if any) ugly cathedrals. Just straight grain lines and some medullary rays. The crest is flat-sawn but the bevel on the front pulls the grain into a smile shape. That’s distracting (in a good way).
Also, there’s just not a lot of wood in this chair, so its form is somewhat dominant compared to the wood’s figure.
Select for Color Red oak has a lot of color variation. That can be caused by where the tree grew or if it is a subspecies in the red oak family. So with the exception of the sticks, all the wood for this chair came from a single tree. And all the sticks were selected carefully for color.
Avoid the Modern Film Finishes About a decade ago I had to build some cabinets for a customer’s suburban home. And I had to match the finish on the home’s existing red oak cabinets. I found that by using modern waterborne finishes or some modern lacquers that were more water-white, I could mimic that depressing pink cast in many kitchens.
Avoiding this color is easy. Use old-fashioned finishes that add a red or orange cast. This chair is finished with organic linseed oil and beeswax. While this finish will require maintenance, the low sheen also helps obscure its Quercus rubra roots.
And if all else fails, paint the stuff and tell everyone it’s rare English brown oak.
Registration is now open for some additional fall classes at the Lost Art Press Storefront. Each student is supplied with a heavy workbench with a full suite of workholding options. And the climate-controlled storefront is filled with natural daylight and features hardwood floors (which are kind to your back). The storefront itself is situated in the heart of Covington’s Main Strasse historic district. Students are steps away from great food, bars and lodging.
And if you bring your family, there are lots of activities for them to enjoy in Cincinnati, which is only eight blocks away.
Classes tend to fill quickly. If you are interested in a class and it is full, please do sign up for the waitlist – spots do open up.
Tomorrow morning (Aug. 3, 2018) at 10 a.m. Eastern, registration will open for a handful of new classes scheduled through the end of this year:
To those we’ve added one from Joshua Klein: Restoring & Using Wooden Bench Planes. It’s a one-day class on Friday, Sept. 7, and Joshua is staying for the LAP open house on Sept. 8 to celebrate the release of his new book, “With Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847).” (Joshua and his wife, Julia, are making the long trek from Maine for the Open House and book release – they don’t often make it to this part of the country – it’s worth stopping in to say hello and check out a copy of his gorgeous book!)
Here’s the class description from Joshua:
“I do not think the tools such as were used in the days of my youth can be surpassed. Even admitting the excellence of the modern tools that are used by hand, the old joiner’s affection remains for the old style of tools. He feels a spirit of affinity in a plane made of warm beech that does not seem to exist for him in cold hard steel.” – Walter Rose (1937)
Wooden bench planes are more than quaint relics screwed to the walls of kitschy restaurants. In fact, the entire pre-industrial world was built using this ingenious tool that is little more than a block of wood with a cutting iron wedged into it. This is astonishing to modern woodworkers who assume newer is always better. But wooden planes have many advantages over their metal-bodied counterparts including: lightness, lack of sole friction, comfort in use, intuitive adjustment, tactile feedback and a matchless beauty.
In this class, students will bring their own grubby second-hand planes to learn to remove grime while preserving patina, repair broken components, fine tune the bed, wedge, and iron/cap iron for optimal performance, flatten soles, and finish with shellac. The remaining time in the class will be spent exploring the (intuitive and simple) adjustment method in practical use at the bench.
The goal of this class is to empower 21st-century woodworkers to give these time-tested, but often neglected, tools a new life.
There are 10 spaces available (not much space is needed for the work, so we’re able to share a few of the longer benches for this one). Registration for the class is free, then students will be billed $150 (which includes everything but the planes).
Newsy began filming a detailed profile of Crucible Tool right before we launched our first two tools – our Improved Pattern Dividers and our Iron Holdfast.
Today Newsy gave us their kind permission to post the video here for you to enjoy.
In other Crucible news, we are about to launch our fourth tool – a Lump Hammer – within the next two weeks. Raney is milling the heads all day and we are getting set to assemble the first huge batch next week.
More details to come soon. In the meantime, enjoy the moviefilm.
Le maître du trait, Abbaye de la Trinité, Vendôme, France.
The trades of the carpenter, joiner, cabinetmaker and turner, and their tools, have long been an inspiration for artists. Woodworkers and tool historians have, in turn, studied artwork to learn how tools were used in the past and how they have evolved. Some artwork centers around a celebration of just the tools and in some cases tools are arranged as amusements.
Note: If you are a long-time reader of this blog you will see some familiar images.
‘Life of the Infant’ by Hieronymus Wierix (1553-1619), Antwerp. Rijiksmuseum.
This title page for a portfolio of 12 plates about the childhood of Jesus is one of the iconic images in the woodworking world. Wierix used a square cartouche for the title with a surround of tools. The clutter can be overwhelming, however, when all the plates are assembled and each page studied the title page gets easier to figure out.
All of the tools used by Jesus, Joseph and the helper angels, as well as the implements used by Mary, are “summarized” on the title page. Wierix essentially made a tantalizing opening sequence of just the tools, perhaps not surprising as his father was a painter and cabinetmaker.
The construction of Noah’s Ark has been a rich source of information on early woodworking tools and methods.
From ‘Physica Sacra, Volume I’ by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733), Swiss. Internet Archive.
The four volumes of Scheuchzer’s ‘Physica Sacra’ contain numerous engravings illustrating the Old Testament and its natural life. Each engraving is augmented with a tableau which provides a frame for the image. At the top, the spool of the line marker (to the left of center) unwinds, the line wends it way to the right, drops over the side and draws the eye to the bottom set of tools.
Of course, the top and bottom tableaux let us look at the tools in use at the time of Scheuchzer, but not necessarily available to Noah.
Tool Trophies
How better to honor a woodworker than to surround his portrait with his tools?
Hans Bach, 1617, carpenter and fiddler, BnF. Adam Billaut (1602-1662), cabinetmaker and poet, Château Versailles.
Hans Bach is portrayed with his carpentry tools, his fiddle and his favorite beverage (?). The placement of his tools is similar to a trade card. As can be seen in Billaut’s portrait a more formal arrangement is to form the tools into trophies.
A trophy is a celebration of victory and achievment. The items in a trophy are tied in bundles with a line or ribbon and the bundles hang vertically. Trophies often feature weapons and armor (spoils of war) or tools of a trade. Other than a plaque or maybe a mythical being the trophy is all tools. In the Wierix engraving two small trophies hang on either side of the title cartouche. And on the title page to Plumier’s opus on turning (above) two very neat trophies help introduce the tools used in turning.
Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1789), dated 1770, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, New York.
Delafosse crammed in so many extras into his trophies for ‘La charpente et la Menuisier’ that it is hard to see the tools for the flourishes. These trophies are more a tribute to the professions than an attempt to fully display the tools.
Johannes of Lucas van Doetechuk, 1572, Rijksmuseum.
Completed two hundred years before Delafosses’s work, this trophy (one of four on the same paper) gives a clearer view of the tools. It has the surprise of including a workbench with a holdfast. I am convinced the most appropriate method of viewing a trophy is to first drink a glass or two of beer or wine. A relaxed mind is crucial.
A 19th century cabinetmaker’s sign with a spectacular asking price of $18,000.
Two modern versions of a trophy from the delightful ‘Grandpa’s Workshop’ by Maurice Pommier. Maurice fills his book with creative depictions of tools and I urge you to get this book (from Lost Art Press).
Caricatures
There are many books illustrating trades with a small engraving and a short paragraph. The lighter side of this category is the Costumes Grotesques, or Costumes of the Trades in which the tradesman is dressed with the tools of his profession.
Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756), Wellcome Library. Nicolas de Larmessin (1632-1694), BnF.
While both versions of the menuisier are fascinating, de Larmessin’s is the more creative rendition. He “clothed” his menuisier in finely worked wooden panels. Engelbrecht, on the other hand, provided a legend for the tools and a corresponding female, or wife, of the tradesman. Unfortunately, the wife of the menuisier is not yet available in the public domain.
Martin Engelbrecht, Wellcome Library.
We do have the charming carpenter and the carpenter’s wife with actual hats on their heads instead of glue pots.
Imagerie Dembour et Gangel, 19th century, Bibliothèques-Médiathèques de Metz, France.
Cross a tool trophy with a cariacture of a tradesman and you get a blacksmith and a woodworker composed entirely of tools. If you have visited the Lost Art Press storefront and made a trip to the men’s room (the one with the urinal) you probably have seen the black and white version of this image.
Tool Storage
How tools are stored can also be a work of art.
Portion of the H.O. Studley tool cabinet, private collection. Photo by Narayan Nayar.
Studley used exotic woods and incorporated architectural elements to display his many tools. His artistry is such that the tools and the design elements are in harmony; the gothic arches and chisel handles sit comfortably together and the hand plane is not lost in the arched niche.
Photo by Narayan Nayar.
In the photographer’s own workshop his eye for composition and balance offers another way to store tools in his ‘Tool Triptych.’
The Tool Chest Lid
The woodworker’s tool chest is another canvas for artistic displays of tools.
Joiner’s tool chest, 1790s, Building of Bath Collection.
The Bath joiner, with beer in hand, gives us a warm wecome to his shop and a gander at his most important tools.
Top of the F.W. Ballack tool chest, 1845.
Finch & Co. Auctions in London had a Prussian cabinetmaker’s tool chest up for sale a few years ago. The chest was made in Mewes, now known as Gniew in northern Poland.
Interior lid of the Ballack tool chest with the cabinetmaker and apprentice.
No lock is visible on the front of the chest and how it opens it is a puzzle (see the gallery for the solution).
In 2015 there was a collaboration on this traveling tool chest. Chistopher Schwarz built the chest with bomb-proof joinery. The fancy-pants lid was created by Jameel Abraham.
As long as there have been woodworkers artists have been beside them documenting their tools and work. From orderly arrangements to dizzying aggregations, the artwork of tools gives recognition to the hands that make and use them.
–Suzanne Ellison
In the gallery: 1. the full page of four trophies by van Doetechum (Rijksmuseum); 2. ‘Implements Animated’ by Charles Williams, active 1797-1830 (Met Museum); 3-5. the front, top compartment and hidden lock of the F.W. Ballack chest (Finch & Co.); 6. arranged for sale: French gimlets (Objects of Use) and antique breast augers (Robert Young Antiques); 7. tools from the ‘Book of Plates’.
Registration is now open for some additional fall classes at the Lost Art Press Storefront. Each student is supplied with a heavy workbench with a full suite of workholding options. And the climate-controlled storefront is filled with natural daylight and features hardwood floors (which are kind to your back). The storefront itself is situated in the heart of Covington’s Main Strasse historic district. Students are steps away from 
Tomorrow morning (Aug. 3, 2018) at 10 a.m. Eastern, registration will open for a handful of new classes scheduled through the end of this year:
