— Charles Hayward, The Woodworker magazine, March 1962
Stretchers on Your Workbench are Optional
The video we’ve recently released, “Roubo Workbench: By Hand & Power Video,” is intended to be a brain dump from me and Will Myers on building slab workbenches. Not only do we show the techniques we’ve developed to make it doable for the home woodworker, we also seek to dispel a lot of the myths and misdirection encountered by the bench builder.
We take the following topics head-on:
- You can use (very) wet wood for the benchtop.
- The finish can be simple (or non-existent).
- The species you use isn’t all that important.
- Moving big slabs doesn’t require a forklift or Roman garrison.
- You might not need a tail vise.
- The lower stretchers are not very important.
This last detail always makes my bench-building students crazy. They go to great lengths to make the mortise-and-tenon joints between the stretchers and legs massive and tight. While I’ll never bad-mouth a good joint, the stretcher joints are not as important as the joints that join the benchtop and the legs.
Early workbenches didn’t use these stretchers (check out the Stent panel for one good example). In fact, I think the biggest job of the lower stretchers is to make it easier to install a shelf below the benchtop for your bench planes and appliances.
As a result, I don’t think the joints for the stretchers have to be massive. To prove the point we used a Domino XL to make one of the stretcher joints on our bench. I probably wouldn’t use a pocket screw or a biscuit for this joint, but loose tenons are an excellent choice, whether you use a router, drill or Domino.
In fact, some Roman boats were built using loose-tenon joinery, and those seemed to do OK.
— Christopher Schwarz
Nancy R. Hiller: Cold Hands & Difficult Handwork
The glaring disparity between my skills and those of most of my fellow students in the vocational school’s furniture making classes just magnified my sense of incompetence. So I felt a certain schadenfreude when the bench room, normally quiet, rang with an unfortunate reproach at some unfortunate fellow: “Pirtle! What are you doing to that plane iron?” Or “Spratt! Stop! You’re about to cut off your finger!” At least I wasn’t completely alone.
It was only my determination to make my stepfather eat his words that got me through the year-long training. During the first week I spent two whole days trying over and over to cut a simple lap joint with a saw, chisel, and mallet. Overwhelmed by frustration, I felt my face flush as tears filled my eyes. I hid behind my workbench, pretending to look for a tool on the lower shelf. I was clearly not cut out for this kind of work; I belonged in the world of writing and books. I should forget about learning to make furniture. But as I squatted behind my bench contemplating my options, it occurred to me that the prospect of admitting defeat to Joe was even worse than that of persevering in my effort to cut a straight line. By the end of the day I had made my first well-fitted lap joint.
The City & Guilds curriculum of the time focused heavily on traditional handwork skills. Even before the lap joint, we had learned to use hand tools to transform a rough plank into a workable piece of lumber with two flat faces and edges that were straight, square, and parallel, the kind of board commonly identified as “S4S” (square on four sides) that you might find shrink-wrapped at an indoor lumberyard today.
The main room was laid out with 10 or so workbenches, each long enough to accommodate two benchmates. A pair of doors separated the bench room from a larger room filled with industrial machinery, most of it manufactured in Great Britain. Only after we had learned to flatten and square up a board by hand were we allowed to use the machines to perform the equivalent labor. When the machine room was in use it was deafeningly loud, with a daunting atmosphere of purposeful activity. I made a paint of visualizing my fingers running into the blade every time I prepared to press an on switch to remember to keep my hands away from those areas.
Each weekday I rode my bike to and from the college. Between November and May there was no escape from the cold. I wore two pairs of socks covered by plastic bags inside my work boots, imagining the bags would provide insulation. Instead, I later learned, they hastened tissue damage by trapping moisture. Invariably, when I got to school my toes were throbbing, and my fingers shot with pain as the flesh revived in the warmth of the woodshop. Despite this daily revival, my toes turned purple and my fingers took on a reddish cast that lasted all year. I discovered that this precursor to frostbite had a name: chilblains. To this day, my fingertips tingle at the first hint of fall’s approach.
— Nancy R. Hiller, from “Making Things Work: Tales from a Cabinetmaker’s Life”
Nancy will read from her new book at the Lost Art Press storefront at 7 p.m. Saturday at 837 Willard St., Covington, KY 41011. We still have a few spots left; get your free tickets here.
Last Chance for Black-stained Pages on ‘Anarchist’s Design Book’
We just ordered the third printing of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” and decided to omit the black staining of the book block for this and future printings.
Though we love the look, it is incredibly expensive, tricky to do and time-consuming – adding weeks to the process. So if you want one with the black stain, I recommend you order one soon. We had 637 in stock as of last week.
The book will remain the same price as always: $47 with free shipping to Canada and the United States. You can order a copy here.
— Christopher Schwarz
Wandergesellen
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Today’s New York Times has a nice article about the Wandergesellen, the journeymen tradition, that continues in parts of Europe. There are loads of photos and you can read it here.
It also confirms that bell-bottoms never go out of style.
–Suzanne Ellison