Lost Art Press

Ingenious Mechanicks: Ah-ha!

Posted on by saucyindexer
Top: House of the Vettii, Pompeii, March 2017. Bottom: Saalburg, Germany, June 2017.

This time last year Chris Schwarz and Narayan Nayar were in Naples, Italy. In between consuming vast quantities of pizza they made a visit to Pompeii to study and photograph a fresco depicting a Roman workbench (Daedalus and Queen Pasiphae are also in the picture). Not long after Chris returned from Italy his limited edition letterpress book, “Roman Workbenches” went to press. And in June, Chris and his friends Görge Jonuschat and Bengt Nilsson traveled to the Roman fort at Saalburg to meet with archaeologist Rüdiger Schwarz to study and photograph two extant Roman workbenches.

The transformation of the planned expanded version of “Roman Workbenches” into “Ingenious Mechanicks” started in mid-July. Things, lots of things, started turning up in our research. While putting together a couple blog posts on Latin American workbenches during the Colonial era, this 18th-century workbench from Colombia turned up.

San Jose carpentero, artist unknown, Museo de Arte Religioso, Duitama, Boyaca, Colombia.

One of the mysteries of the Saalburg workbench is the two dovetail-shaped notches found on the long side of the bench. Half a world away, the Colombia bench had a similar notch and was equally perplexing. Was it for riving, securing a piece for tenoning, a place for a jig or other device? A few days later a different notch showed up, this time from Italy.

San Giuseppe nella Botega di Falegname, 1640-1692, Francisco Refini. Fondazione Zeri Photo Archive, Bologna.

A notch on the end of the bench was not so unusual and was normally used for riving or tenoning. This image went into an ‘X-file’ until we had other images or information to help decipher the possible uses of the notch.

Mid-July was blazing hot and humid and as I ran workbench searches (in air-conditioned comfort) a flurry of images were turning up. Anything without a date, artist, title or location went into a ‘Find It’ file. I sent Chris pdfs of benches from Italy, Spain, Germany and other European countries. While trying to verify if one particular painting was Italian or Spanish and its physical location, I just stopped to take a good look at the detail. I was drawn to the toolbox to left of Saint Joseph.

The Dream of Saint Joseph, ca. 1700, Luca Giordano (Neopolitan), completed in Madrid. Indianapolis Museum of Art. Photo by Christopher Schwarz.

Next, because Chris and I have discussed baskets for tools, I took a look at the tool basket…and there it was. Holy Cow! At the end of the bench a wedge was in a notch. I sent this off the Chris. He had it one of the pdfs I sent but now I was sure he had not yet seen this detail.

Was this a wedge in a dovetail- shaped notch? Could it be used as a planing stop? Could the wedge be taken out and the notch used for tenoning or something else?

Chris was on his way out of town but quickly replied. He was stunned. Very soon after he returned from his trip he drove the two hours to Indianapolis to see the painting for himself. In the blog post he wrote about it he said he almost wet his pants. Huh. I am pretty sure, although he was over 500 miles from me, I heard him shriek like a little girl, a 6 foot-3 inch-ish little girl.

One detail, well to one side of a painting, opened the door to further workbench explorations and discoveries.

On the end: notch, wedge in notch.

One of the paintings in my ‘Find It’ file was found on a Spanish site. It turned out to be German, part of a ten-panel work by 16th-century artist Bernhard Strigel of Memmingen and in the collection of the German National Museum in Nürnberg. It has a squared notch on the long side of the bench the painting is dated in the same year as the Löffelholz Codex.

Top: Löffelholz Codex, 1505, Nürnberg. Bottom: Hans Kipferle guild table, 1561, Bolzano. Right: Holy Family, 1505-1506, Bernhard Strigel, Memmingen.

Two other images of workbenches with the straight-side and square notch have long been known to woodworkers: the Löffelholz Codex from Nürnberg and the guild table from Bolzano/Bozen.

Strigel’s painting helps to confirm the presence of the notch on workbenches, at least in this southwestern part of Germany and/or Löffelholz wasn‘t crazy. Additionally, the Hans Kipferle table tells us that a half-century later the side notch was still in use.

Map by Brendan Gaffney.

If we step back to the time of the Roman Limes Germanicus and the Roman road network you can see another dimension to the European workbenches with side notches: where the workbenches are located.

So what happened next? Chris went to the shop to try out the theory of the ‘notches and wedges’ on the Saalburg and Holy Roman (Löffelholz) workbenches.

Saalburg workbench. Dovetail-shaped notch ready to cut.

The side notches with the wedge in place serve as side stops for traverse planing.

Wedges in side notches and Roman iron planning stop in place.

On the Holy Roman workbench notches were cut on the end and one on the side.

The notch cuts in progress and the finished bench.

Several weeks before he finished “Ingenious Mechanicks” Chris invited some woodworker friends to a Benchfest. He challenged them to use and critique the three workbenches, French belly and shaving horse attachment that he built for the book. He took notes and Narayan Nayar took photos. The notches with wedges and the notch as vise (with a small wedge) worked beautifully. It was another example of a seemingly simple workbench feature having multiple uses in the shop.

Since the publication of “Roman Workbenches” and the Saalburg visit a cornucopia of workbench and workholding ideas have surfaced and are packed into the forthcoming “Ingenious Mechanicks.”

If you are still on the fence, undecided or torn about adding “Ingenious Mechanicks” to your library Chris will post a short video later in the week to illustrate some of the features of the workbenches.

— Suzanne Ellison

Drawing the Acanthus Leaf

Posted on by meghanlostartpress

Drawing-1This is an excerpt from “Carving the Acanthus Leaf” by Mary May.

DRAWING THE SYMMETRICAL ‘S’ CURVE
This example works with multiple curves and shows how to draw a symmetrical design that identifies the midrib of the leaf for Chapter 5. By using a compass and a horizontal line divided into eight segments, a slow, gentle “S” curve (also referred to as a cyma curve) can easily be drawn.

• Draw a horizontal line and divide it into eight equal segments.

• Set your compass to Length A (four segments).

• Position the compass point on Compass Point 1 and strike a mark above the line as shown.

• Position the compass point on Compass Point 2 and strike another mark above the line, creating Compass Point 4 where the lines intersect.

• Place the compass point at Compass Point 4 and draw an arc intersecting the horizontal line at Compass Point 1 and also Compass Point 2.

• Notice that the distance between Compass Point 1 and Compass Point 2 is only three  segments, thereby causing the arc to become slower, or more open.

• Position the compass point on Compass Point 2 and strike a mark below the line as shown.

• Position the compass point on Compass Point 3 and strike a mark creating Compass Point 5 where the lines intersect.

• Place the compass point at Compass Point 5 and draw an arc intersecting the horizontal line at Compass Point 2 and also Compass Point 3.

Drawing-2

DRAWING A SPIRAL
Now let’s draw a more challenging curve – the spiral, scroll or volute. Many acanthus leaves terminate with a spiral shape at the base of the leaf, while other designs have entire leaves curling in the shape of a spiral.

This process shows the technique of drawing a basic spiral using straight lines and a compass.

• Draw a vertical and horizontal line with a small square at the intersection. The larger the square, the more open the spiral; the smaller the square, the tighter the spiral.

• Begin by placing the compass point at the upper right corner of the small square and strike a curve in only the upper left quadrant. The size is your choice – try experimenting with various sizes.

• Moving counterclockwise around the small center square, reposition the compass point to the upper left of the square and strike a curve in the lower left corner, beginning and connecting with the end of previous curve.

• Continue repositioning the compass point counter-clockwise around the small, center square and repeat the steps above, forming a continuous spiraling line.

Drawing-3
The illustration above shows an incorrect flow of a spiral, a correct flow using the compass method  shown and the completed drawing of the Baroque style leaf based on the curves drawn (Chapter 16). Notice how your eye is invited to follow along the gentle curves of the correctly flowing line, where the incorrect lines are jarring and uncomfortable to view. The lines represent the approximate center of the leaf. Notice the line that joins the two scrolls is drawn freehand and should appear to be flowing  directly from the top scroll as shown.

— Meghan B.

‘We’re All Frauds’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

adam-bede-w

The book that became “Chairmaker’s Notebook” began as a chat with chairmakers Peter Galbert and Curtis Buchanan. We made a plan to produce a video of Curtis building a chair that would be accompanied by a pamphlet from Peter illustrating the construction details.

In the end, Curtis’s detailed videos ended up here. And Peter’s “pamphlet” became the best book on chairmaking I’ve ever read.

But that’s not why I remember that meeting with Peter and Curtis. Instead, I am continuously struck by something Curtis said to me in that cabin in Berea, Ky. Curtis began talking about teaching woodworking.

“We’re all not as good as people think we are,” he said. “We’re all frauds.”

This was Curtis Expletive Deleted Buchanan. A guy who has more skill than 10 magazine-grade woodworkers. And he was sitting before me explaining that – like all human beings – he has insecurities about his work.

If I ever get a tattoo, it’s going to be that quote from Curtis.

So this blog entry is a public service announcement. No matter how facile you think another woodworker operates, know that he or she spends a significant amount of time in personal freak-out mode.

This week was my week for this. I have a magazine article due on Monday about a simple chair with tricky geometry. I spent the entire week ruining $200 worth of perfectly good pieces of maple. And on Friday afternoon, I built the chair for the fifth time, and it actually worked.

I am a fraud. The craft of woodworking kicks me down the stairs and steals my lunch money on an almost daily basis. The only thing I have going for me – my only superpower, I suppose – is that I get right back up. I take a short walk to calm my mind. And I build the damn chair for the fifth time.

— Christopher Schwarz

Finishing Up ‘Cut & Dried’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

CandD_cover

Richard Jones’s opus on wood technology – “Cut & Dried: A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology” – is almost ready to go to the printer. There are just a few last-minute freak-outs to tend to today. And wrapping up the cover, which turned into a craft project this week.

“Cut & Dried” will be one of the largest books we’ve published (at about 400 pages) and covers every aspect of our beloved material, from how it grows, all the way to how it behaves when it’s in a finished piece of furniture. In between, Jones covers every aspect of the material, from fungi and pests to sawmills and kilns.

And, most importantly, the book is told from the perspective of a woodworker. Jones is a lifelong professional woodworker and instructor. While there are many other fine books on wood technology out there, Jones thought they were aimed more at a scientific audience than at furniture makers. And we agreed.

So Jones spent many years researching, writing, photographing and drawing this book to develop what we think is the most complete and understandable guide to wood.

We’ll be talking more about Jones’s exhaustive treatment of the topic in the coming days. But first, a look at how we developed the cover. It also involved woodworking.

tree_burn_IMG_0875

“Cut & Dried” delves deep into the structure of trees and how that affects your work at the bench. And so I wanted a cover that displayed the structure without being too technical about it – this book is not written for wood scientists.

During my experiments with shou sugi ban, I became fascinated with how a torch can burn away the earlywood in some softwoods, leaving the hard latewood and exposing the pores that transmit fluid in the tree. I wondered if this could result in a woodblock-like print for the cover. After searching around, I became inspired by the work of Shona Branigan who does this sort of thing but takes it to a sublime artistic level.

This week, Megan Fitzpatrick, Brendan Gaffney and I spent a day messing around with different trees to make a block for the cover. In the end, Megan snitched an offcut of a neighbor’s Christmas tree – a Scot’s pine – that we cut, burned, brushed and inked. It took us about 25 tries to get the look we wanted.

If all goes to plan we’ll be offering this book for pre-publication ordering next week. When it’s released, we’ll have details on pricing and the ship date.

— Christopher Schwarz

Ingenious Mechanicks: Finding Saint Joseph

Posted on by saucyindexer
Alter of the Marienbaum Shrine, Germany.

Although Saint Joseph was a carpenter it can be a challenge to find him working as such in many paintings of the Holy Family. Prior to his rejuvenation during the Counter-Reformation he was often an ancillary figure, off to the side, as Jesus and Mary were venerated. In paintings of the Nativity is wasn’t uncommon to see Saint Joseph mingling with the livestock or peering over a wattle wall at the newborn Jesus. Sometimes Joseph was making soup.

Finding good workworking scenes was a matter of studying the details of the many paintings and manuscripts that were vetted for inclusion in “Ingenious Mechanicks.” First, I had to find Saint Joseph, then figure out what he was doing.

The painting above is a good example of how it can be difficult to find Saint Joseph. Take away the many decorative elements and look only at the painting. Two of the three Magi are in the foreground and in the center middle ground the third has just dismounted his horse. Where is  Joseph?

Adoration of the Kings, 1515, by Barthel Bartholomaeus Bruyn.

Oh, there he is, sqeezed off to the right side, holding a plane while standing at his bench. Without the bench and plane (and no halo) we wouldn’t know it was Saint Joseph.

The next three paintings were put into a timeline that I used to write my chapter (that would be Chapter 4).  The time line was used to determine possible patterns of when and where low workbenches were found.

The Merode Altarpiece, 1427-1432, workshop of Robert Campin. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Merode Altarpiece is legend among woodworkers. And it is fortunate that the three panels are still together for the viewer to see the entire story. The center panel depicting the Annunciation is the main event, however, Saint Joseph is not usually seen when the angel appears to Mary. Which makes me think if the panel with Saint Joseph was separated from the triptych would we know it was Saint Joseph? Anyway, I’m assuming Joseph lives in a different part of the house and has squeezed into his own mini-workshop. With incredible detail we can see his bench, tools, the two mousetraps already made and a work in progress.

Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1480 by the Master of the Legend of Saint Barbara (active in Brussels 1470-1500). Collection of the Palazzo Colonna, Rome.

This is a good example of how I might first encounter a painting online: someone took a photo of the painting hanging on a museum wall. It turns out this is a center panel of a triptych that has apparently been separated. After lightening this a bit the darkness to the left reveals Saint Joseph.

Detail from an article by Anne L. Williams in The Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, Vol. 10.1.

There he is. Not too far from the livestock, sitting on his staked bench, a finished mousetrap on his workbench as he starts work on another project.

Saint Luc Peignant la Vierge, est.1465-1493, by Colijin de Coter. Eglise Notre-Dame, Vieure, France.

Saint Luke is the patron saint of artists and is usually depicted writing portions of the Bible or painting a portrait of Mary and the Baby Jesus. This is a painting I put aside to study later for my own amusement, not expecting to find Saint Joseph. When I did take a closer look at the background it seemed there was a possible Saint Joseph, but the resolution was too low to make out the details. I went to the RKD database and found a photo of the painting.

Saint Joseph looking none too happy has been relegated to the garden while Mary sits for her portrait. A few tools on the ground, a plane and chisel on the workbench and he is working on ghe same project as the other two Josephs (or the same Joseph, but at different times?).

To satisfy my curiosity I had to find out what the three Josephs were making. I found the answer on a French woodworking forum: a chaufferette. If it was cold weather and you didn’t have a sixteen-pound heater cat to curl itself around your feet you needed a chaufferette, otherwise known as a foot warmer.

Chaufferettes: Right: detail from The Milkmaid by Vermeer. Left: detail from Joost Cornelis Droochsloot’s self-portrait.

A wooden chaufferette was a ventilated box lined with metal into which hot coals were put. It might have a hinged top or open side. Chaufferettes could also be made of other materials.

After Saint Joseph’s make over in the Counter-Reformation he became a more important, and often central figure, in paintings. Although he might not be engaged in woodworking in every painting he is always easy to find.

Next time I’ll tell you about two ‘Ah-ha!’ moments that we had during research for “Ingenious Mechanicks.” I believe one instance caused Christopher Schwarz to wet his pants.

–Suzanne Ellison