It’s difficult to believe that it has already been 10 years since John Brown died on June 1, 2008. It’s even more difficult to believe that his landmark book “Welsh Stick Chairs” is not in print.
With a little luck, we hope to have “Welsh Stick Chairs” in your hands in June 2018 for the 10-year anniversary of his passing. Today I uploaded the final files to our printer and they should start production on the book on Monday afternoon.
We hope to open pre-publication sales of the book next week. We’re still waiting on a couple elements of the print job to make sure we have the costs correct. We’re shooting for $27 to $29, which will include domestic shipping.
Note that we have the rights to distribute “Welsh Stick Chairs” only in North America. Not in Europe, the UK or – oddly enough – Wales. We’ve been told another publisher in the UK will be publishing a version for that market. But we don’t know when or what it will look like.
Ours will be printed in the United States on heavy and smooth coated paper. The signatures will be sewn for durability. And the book will be covered in heavy 100-pound Mohawk cardstock with a vellum texture. (We love Mohawk paper – it’s made with wind power.)
The dark blue cover will then be stamped with a matte silver foil. It’s going to look crisp and have a lot of nice textures.
This is a common fault even amongst experienced men who should know better. The wood between the dovetails is torn out, leaving an unsightly gash which robs the joint of much of its strength. In nine cases out of ten it is concealed when the joint is assembled, and this is probably the reason why so many do not take the trouble to avoid it. There are cases, however, when the blemish is seen, especially when the wood tears just below the surface. When the joint is levelled it is easily possible to plane into it with the result that an unsightly gash is disclosed. The fault is easily avoided as explained below.
FIG. 2. WHY WOOD IS TORN OUT. The waste is completely removed as at A. When reversed it is unsupported and is levered over, tearing out the fibres as shown
Let us first consider the reason why the wood tears out in this way. There is first the downward chop short of the gauge line across the grain, as at (A), Fig. 2, followed by a horizontal cut which splits away the waste piece. Next is another chop right on the line and a second horizontal cut. So far no tearing out has taken place, yet it is this preliminary cut that is the cause of all the trouble. The wood is now reversed and a similar chop made, as at B. It is easy to see what happens. The shock of the blow causes the unsupported waste to bend over, and it tears out the fibres from the shoulder as shown. If the chisel happens to be blunt the defect is so much the worse. It is all due to the projecting waste piece having no support when the wood is reversed and the second cut made.
The remedy is simple. Begin by chopping down across the grain short of the gauge line as before, and then make a sloping cut to meet it as at (B); Fig. 3. Make a second cut a little nearer the gauge line followed by a second sloping cut, and finally right up to the line, as at C. Note that sloping cuts leave a short piece of uncut wood at the corner. On no account cut away the waste horizontally from the end. If now you reverse the wood and chop down, the grain will not tear out because the waste piece is supported. You can ease the work too by splitting away the waste at the end. It does not matter once the wood has been reversed.
FIG. 3. CORRECT PROCEDURE. Wedge shaped piece is removed leaving the corner Intact
It will be realised that in working in this way the removal of the wedge of wood enables the chisel to penetrate easily when the second chop is made closer to or right on the line. The idea is shown pictorially at (D), Fig. 3. In thick wood or extra hard wood it may be necessary to make several cuts, easing away a wedge of wood after each, as at (C), Fig. 3. The great point in avoiding tearing out, however, is to leave the wood untouched at the corner so that it is not forced downwards when the wood is reversed. The corner supports it, as shown in Fig. 4. Chopping in with the grain at the end after the wood has been reversed however enables the chisel to penetrate more easily.
FIG. 4 . HOW UNCUT CORNER SUPPORTS THE WASTE WHEN THE WOOD IS REVERSEDFIG. 5. WEDGE INSERTED TO SUPPORT WASTE
If for any reason you have cut away the waste right to the end in the first chopping, you can still prevent tearing out by inserting a little wedge of wood beneath the overhanging waste as in Fig. 5. This gives support and prevents it from bending over under the force of the blows and so wrenching the fibres.
When I was a kid, my family had a wide selection of “bathroom books.” These were books that had been taken down from the shelves on a whim and left behind on the shelf above the toilet, either because their contents were intriguing or seemed appropriate for a brief perusal. I remember a manual on grading gravel roads, a book of palindromes and, most memorably, one called “The Art of Chindogu.” Chindogu, as I learned over many short reading sessions, is the Japanese art of the unuseless (yes, unuseless) invention. These creations either fulfilled a need or solved a problem, with the catch that the solution was often overbuilt, silly looking or impractical.
What I grew to like about chindogu was the enthusiasm and professionalism with which the wacky, hyper-specialized or odd inventions were pursued by their inventors. Each one was (somewhat) professionally manufactured and photographed, despite being prototypes that were never meant to be sold. They seem like a byproduct of the design process – sometimes, pursuing something niche, unprofitable or outlandish can teach us a lot about our work that doesn’t fall to such an extreme.
And so, I spent last weekend with Narayan Nayar and Daniel Clay in a coopering class at Tillers International learning to make a handled bucket, called a piggin, despite having no need or particular desire to begin producing buckets or barrels.
Don’t get me wrong – the world still needs coopers and new barrels. Our teacher, Eric Edgin, makes vats and barrels for food fermentation. Just last January, Eric traveled to Japan to learn more about the art of soy sauce vat making. Coopering is also full of clever solutions to unique problems. Coopers have a wide range of woodworking tools and techniques that are at once specialized and widely applicable.
One of Eric’s fermentation vats, made during his trip to Japan. Photo by Narayan Nayar.
But coopering is what I would call an unuseless skill for my work. I don’t plan to make barrels, buckets or piggins any time soon. It was fun to make a bucket entirely by hand, with only a few sharp tools, but the work in no way resembles my own.
The solutions that coopers have found to their particular set of problems, however, are likely to impact or inform the way I do a few things in the shop. The use of a stationary jointer plane, to which one brings the workpiece, makes a lot of sense when tuning the edges of beveled and tapered parts. The “clapper gauge” is really a specialized style of sector, which accurately measures the outer angles of a stave against a desired diameter. The shavehorses used are familiar looking, but the use of a “belly” is common, as are all sorts of clever body mechanics and workholding.
Just like I was looking for an excuse to study something outside my usual practice, I was also looking for a reason to head to Tillers International. Located outside Kalamazoo, Mich., Tillers runs what I call a friendly “Robin Hood” non-profit model. The school teaches classes on woodworking, metalworking and all manner of skills for traditional homesteading and farming to those who can pay for them. Then, Tillers use that money to teach those same skills to those who cannot afford to pay for these classes. The organization has worked with people across the globe and is explicitly dedicated to improving the lives of people in rural areas worldwide, by teaching them skills they can use to be self-reliant and independent. This makes the act of paying a sum of money to learn to make buckets all the more sweet – it’s definitely going to a good cause.
It was a joy to spend time in a beautiful place with good friends, honing my bucket-making skills. I did not walk away a cooper – but I did walk away a furniture maker with a few new tricks. These skills may take some time to come about as a need in my work, but sometimes, a little inspiration from a bathroom shelf or an age-old vessel-making tradition is just the kind of inspiration or enrichment you need. Who knows? Maybe I’ve got a few round cabinets in me.
(From left) Me, Eric Edgin, Narayan Nayar and Daniel Clay with our brand-new buckets.
I am off to Charleston, S.C., for the rest of the week to help settle my father’s estate and clean out his house. So I won’t be posting much on the blog, if at all.
In my absence, I give you this embarrassing reading of the poem from “Ingenious Mechanicks: Early Workbenches & Workholding.” It always takes me a little time to get any perspective on my own work. This book seems to be an unusual combination of deep and difficult research with Cheeto jokes. I can say at this point that the printing job is spectacular. And the paintings that Suzanne Ellison dug up for the book are worth the price of admission.
The poem is an exhortation on the sort of woods that are appropriate for a workbench. The audio was recorded and edited by Brendan Gaffney. The plates are from from M. Duhamel’s “de L’exploitation des bois.”
A toothed planing stop is an indispensible appliance for a low workbench. Yes, it marks your work, but many times this isn’t a problem if you consider carefully the order of operations on a board (i.e. crosscut the marks away at the end). Photo by Narayan Nayar.
The first time I saw the bench in Peter Nicholson’s “Mechanic’s Companion” (1831), I thought: That’s not right – the benchtop has only a planing stop. There are no holes for holdfasts, dogs or other workholding devices. While the front of the bench features a screw-driven face vise, I thought surely the illustrator forgot to draw in some details.
These early workbenches have little in way of workholding. Where’s the tail vise? Do you need one? (Peter Nicholson’s “Mechanic’s Companion” (1831)).
Then I got a copy of André Félibien’s “Des Principes de L’Architecture” (1676-1690) and the workbenches shown there (below) are also stripped down. They feature a planing stop and some holes in the top and legs for a holdfast. As I worked my way backward through the visual record of workbenches in technical manuals and paintings, the message was clear: Early workbenches had simple workholding.
It would be easy to assume that early benches are simple because the screw vise hadn’t been invented. Yet, large scale screws show up in early Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Assyrian writings and drawings. And archaeologists have found evidence of screw-driven vises (likely for metalworking) at Augusta Raurica, a Roman site in Switzerland active from 44 B.C. to 260 C.E.
The workbench from André Félibien’s “Des Principes de L’Architecture” (1676-1690).
They knew about screws. Perhaps the screws were too much trouble to make for a woodworker’s workbench. Or they simply preferred to work without them.
So, I stopped using a tail vise and didn’t miss it one bit (I still don’t). I began to plane up panels with only a planing stop and became quite fast at processing stock. This small taste of success drove me to experiment with pegs, wedges, battens and notched sticks. Things that looked like they could never hold your work (such as a doe’s foot) worked brilliantly.
I am convinced there is a world of workholding out there that doesn’t require gizmos, but instead requires a little cleverness and some basic skills with the tools. The following account only scratches the surface of what’s out there. Every tradesperson, from the armorer to the shoemaker to the block builder, had simple ways of holding the work that don’t look like much to the modern eye. These are just a few of the devices that show up repeatedly in the historical record.
Planing Stop On early workbenches, the simple planing stop is the foundation for all the other bits of workholding for woodworking. In fact, some benches are equipped with only a planing stop. There’s a lot you can do with a planing stop and a little skill.
Most planing stops are comprised of a square piece of wood that is long enough to penetrate the benchtop and give the woodworker a lot of height for planing boards on edge – 3″ x 3″ x 12″ is a typical size.
Add a thin batten in front of your planing stop and you’ve made an effective planing stop for wide panels.
The stop is adjusted up and down with hammer blows so it needs to be a durable wood – oak is typical – and dry.
You might think that fitting the planing stop requires you to consider how wet the benchtop is and the current season. Will the stop and benchtop (or both) shrink as they dry? Or, if the stock is bone dry, will that component swell during the humid season? Most bench builders have a slab that is somewhat wet that might take years to acclimate to the shop, plus stock for a planing stock that is at equilibrium with their shop.
There are formulas and lots speculation for how tight or loose to make things. I ignore it.
When I fit a planing stop, I assume that I’m going to have to adjust it later on if it becomes too tight or make a new one if things get too loose. So, I focus on getting a good snug fit that day. I want the stop to move about 1/8″ with each heavy mallet blow.
After I get that fit, I simply pay attention to how it is working during the months ahead. If the stop becomes almost impossible to move, I remove it and plane it a tad. If it’s too loose you can glue some veneer onto the existing stop or make a new one. In time, the wood will settle down and your planing stop will do the same.
