Roy clowning around on the the set of “The Woodwright’s Shop,” his long-running show.
If you’ve ever wanted to meet Roy Underhill and toast his vast contributions to the craft, here is your chance. At 6 p.m. Saturday, March 23, we’re holding a happy hour for Roy at Juniper’s Gin Bar, which is a short walk from our Covington storefront.
The restaurant has kindly agreed to set aside space for us that evening. You can come meet Roy, ask him to sign a book (or your bosom) and purchase some food and drink if you like. We’ll have copies of Roy’s book “Calvin Cobb! Radio Woodworker” on hand for you to purchase and get signed by the man himself.
We have only limited space, and we are asking that you reserve a space through this free guestlist service. It doesn’t cost any money, but there is a price to pay if you sign up and don’t show up. Megan has threatened a curse upon anyone who would skip out on Roy.
So sign up if you are going to be there. If something comes up, please cancel your reservation so someone else can bask in the light of St. Roy.
Punctuating a form creates a distinct beginning, middle and end.
The following is excerpted from “By Hand & Eye,” by George R, Walker and Jim Tolpin. The book is a deep dive into the world of history, architecture and design. And the authors have emerged with armloads of pearls for readers.
Instead of serving up a list of formulas with magical names (i.e. the Golden Section, the Rule of Thirds) that will transform the mundane into perfection, George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin show how much of the world is governed by simple proportions, noting how ratios such as 1:2; 3:5 and 4:5 were ubiquitous in the designs of pre-industrial artisans. And the tool that helps us explore this world, then as now, are dividers.
The key to good design is to master these basic “notes” – much like learning to sing “do, re, mi.” How to do this is the subject of the first three-quarters of the book. It offers exercises, examples and encouragement in opening your inner eye, propping it up with toothpicks and learning the simple geometry that will help you improve your design.
Punctuation is employed to create pauses and transitions to organize a design into something our eye can take in and comprehend. It’s used on the macro level to establish a beginning, middle and ending of the overall form, and can be woven into the smaller details within a form to visually string elements together.
This small inlay plays an important visual role. It tells the eye that one part is ending and something different is about to occur.
Punctuation can be used to organize a design by creating a distinct beginning, middle and end. This is one of the defining features of traditional design. So much so that it’s woven into the way we tell a story, sing a song or design a building. Our own bodies illustrate this tripartite arrangement with feet, torso and head. Because the human form lies at the very core of this traditional approach, designs are primarily organized vertically, with the beginning at the bottom and ending at the top. Without thinking, when we take in a design we note how it’s anchored to the floor and how it terminates at its highest point. In nature we find abundant examples of organic transitions. Trees don’t just jut up from the earth like a utility pole planted by the phone company. Though largely hidden from sight, the roots flow into the tree trunk just above the soil, bulging out in response to the mass above. Pre-industrial artisans wove this theme into their designs, sometimes boldly creating a beginning with a ball-and-claw foot. Or they took a subtle tack and established a beginning with a small bead, inlay or slight change of taper. Brash or subdued, they help the design tell a story.
Traditional moulding profiles often took their cue from nature.
Also note that most of our traditional moulding profiles have a correlation with the transitions or borders we encounter in nature. The series of torus mouldings swelling at the bottom of a column shadow the swelling of a tree trunk at the roots. The gentle arch of a cove moulding mimics the transitions found in tree branches as they spread to form the canopy.
Two simple punctuations at top and bottom create the major parts of this order. The bottom (beginning) portion is called the pedestal, which supports the column (middle), which in turn ends with the entablature.
The classic orders are a textbook of this beginning, middle and ending, with punctuation woven into the form from the major parts down to minor details. From a proportional standpoint they offer several practical examples of how to achieve punctuation, a reminder that it’s about the principle and not about any specific proportions. Probably one of the most profound lessons they offer is the way they help us see the internal relationship between the larger element and smaller. Punctuation is achieved by dividing up a space into five or more equal parts and having the part at one end act as the beginning or ending. The physical act of stepping off the space with dividers helps us see more clearly the proportional dynamic. When I first began making design judgments, I often had a hunch something wasn’t working. I might sense the feet on a chest were too large. But it wasn’t obvious to my eye that I was uncomfortable with the relationship between the height of the feet and height of the case above it. Walking through the different examples of punctuation in the classic orders drove the lesson home. Now, without thinking, I size up border elements with the spaces they punctuate. Often a border might be too narrow and look weak or, conversely, be too wide and look clumsy because the border element competes rather than complements. As you make the connection between the space and its punctuating border, it becomes easier to see how parts relate.
Does your eye sense anything amiss with the relation between the top and the structure below? Knowing the top punctuates the space below it helps to visualize where this feeling arises.
The classic orders are filled with examples of punctuation woven into the overall form as well as the smaller details. The overall form on all the orders are organized vertically by dividing the entire height into five equal parts and making the bottom part the beginning. The bottom part, or pedestal, punctuates the space above it. On a Doric order, divide the remaining height above the pedestal by five again to establish the ending at the top. This top space is called the entablature and punctuates the space below it. The Ionic and Corinthian orders use a slightly different punctuation sequence, dividing the upper portion by six parts to create a more slender feel.
(L) This idea of punctuation repeats itself. Note that the proportions vary (they are not all one-fifth) but still convey the idea of beginning, middle and end, echoing throughout the entire order. (R) A moulding or inlay detail can incorporate punctuation, in effect weaving this idea of beginning, middle and end down to smallest details.
There’s ample evidence from historic design books that artisans became familiar with a small handful of proportional sequences and the visual effect they lent to a composition. I like to think of them as an array of spices. It’s more important to begin by getting a sense for the flavor they impart, rather than for the actual proportions themselves. You can begin to gain a working vocabulary of these proportional relationships by drawing Doric classic orders in the exercise in Section II, Chapter 4.
We have the Lie-Nielsen folks in this weekend for the first Hand Tool Event in at least three years. So we are not able to answer questions online today.
If you are in the area, stop by the storefront and a whole host of people will be happy to answer your woodworking questions.
Megan and I will return next Saturday for Open Wire (I’ll be teaching in Florida next Saturday, but will answer questions in the evening.)
I’m always on the lookout for local materials I can use to build stick chairs. Elm is my favorite wood, but it can be difficult to find for purchase.
Last month Shea Alexander of Alexander Bros. gave me a couple boards of honey locust to try out for a chair seat. It looks a lot like elm, with green undertones and slightly shimmering grain.
After surfacing it, I took a chunk and rived it out to see how it split. Unfortunately, it splits easily and cleanly. So it’s still OK for a chair seat (if I’m careful), but not as ideal as elm.
In the video above, I rive out some honey locust, white oak and American elm to show the differences.
Thanks for the wood, Shea. It really is beautiful and interesting stuff.
Typically, I’m not a fan of Print on Demand (POD) publishers who take low-quality scans of books in the public domain and sell them alongside antique books. I have been fooled a couple times and ordered a POD book by accident.
But here is one exception. The Forgotten Books website in the UK is a massive collection of public domain works that are well-indexed. There I have found about a dozen woodworking books I had never heard of thanks to the site.
There are school manuals for woodworking, William Fairham’s “Woodwork Joints” and more than 100 others.
If you really want to buy one of these books, go ahead. I can offer no promises on the print quality. However, you can preview each title as a guest, and you get to see quite a lot of the interior of the book. More than enough to decide if it’s a book you are willing to chase down on the secondhand market, or perhaps find through archive.org or one of the many other sites that archive scans.
It’s a big list. I think you’ll enjoy paging through it.
