I am pleased to announce that you can now purchase Nancy R. Hiller’s book “Making Things Work: Tales From a Cabinetmaker’s Life” in the Lost Art Press store. The price is $33, which includes shipping in North America.
We rarely carry books from other publishers in our store. Why? Well, we sell goods made in North America only, and most publishers print their books overseas. While we don’t have anything against Chinese printing plants – many of them do good work – we believe in supporting our neighbors first.
Second, we are picky about content. We have to love a book to be willing to carry it.
Hiller’s book satisfies both of those conditions, and we are thrilled to offer it. It is funny, thoughtful and terrifying, especially if you’ve ever considered trying to turn furniture into food. Her tales of trying to make ends meet, to stay warm and to find a place to use the restroom – all while building well-made furniture – will inspire you to take the plunge (or keep your day job).
CROSS HALVING WITH HOUSED SHOULDERS The cross-halving joint, with notched or housed shoulders (Fig. 1), is only rarely used in actual practice. In ecclesiastical woodwork it is occasionally seen on a cross, and at times (though less frequently) in outdoor woodwork framing when the timbers are fairly stout.
The cutting of the joint is shown at X. The notching (or shoulder) is never more then one-sixth of the width, and is sometimes less. Although the cross piece is slightly weakened by the shouldering, the joint is really a strong one as in gluing there is an extra hold at each side. The joint moreover is a neat one and has been used effectively for high-class joiner-made estate gates.
FIG. 2. SADDLE JOINT FOR UPRIGHTS
SADDLE JOINT For this Joint (Fig. 2). the name “saddle” is distinctly obvious, especially if it is turned the reverse way; the V-shaped aperture in the post fits saddlewise on the triangular projection in the notching. The joint is used to connect upright posts to sills, or to the head horizontals of similar framing.
In everyday outdoor work it may be hardly worth the additional labour, but for indoor joinery it is a good joint. It weakens the framing much less than a mortise and tenon joint, and there is little effect of shrinkage on it. Its great advantage is that the saddle (the V) keeps everything in alignment. Depth of notch in sill should not exceed one third or two-fifths of the thickness of the timber.
FIG 3. HALVED JOINT WITH DOUBLE DOVETAILS.
FIG. 4. PLAN AND EDGE VIEW OF JOINT SHOWN IN FIG. 3.
DOVETAILED SCRIBED OR HALVED JOINT This (Fig. 3) is a joint which, in former days, was used in better class interior woodwork when pieces of timber had to be lengthened.
When accurately marked and cut the double dovetails ensure against any gap showing. In Fig. 4 the separate parts are shown in plan and elevation. Sections at both ends of the joint (A and B) are also indicated. From these diagrams the setting out of the joint can be followed. For general building the double dovetail involves too much work to justify its general use and it is rarely seen. In the Handicraft Centre, however, the joint has often been used as an exercise, and the home worker who has a flair for accuracy in marking and cutting would enjoy a couple of hours on it.
FIG. 7. SPOKES OR ARMS OF BARROW WHEEL THREE-WAY HALVED
THREE-WAY HALF-LAP JOINT
The rather complicated three-way halved joint at Figs. 5-8 is one of the most troublesome to mark out and construct with flawless accuracy. It has always been widely used by pattern makers, chiefly for the lap-jointed arms of pulley patterns.
In former days, however, the village carpenter knew it and used it for barrow wheels. Fig. 5 shows a wheel with built up rim (the joints probably bridled). Fig. 6 shows the three arms, or spokes, lap-dovetailed to the rim and “three-way lapped”, or, as it is sometimes termed, one-third lapped, together. The separate arms cut and ready for assembling are shown at A, B, C, Fig. 7. For clearness piece C is shown reversed—that is, upside down.
If the centre joint part of Fig. 6 is drawn full size it is worth while setting out the parts. Take the width of arm as, say, 2 ins., and the thickness 1-1/2 ins. Two points may be noted as a guide.
On the width face all the lines can be set out with T square and 60 degree set square. The thickness (1-1/2 ins.) is divided into three in order to get the three planes or steps of the joint. Hence the term “one-third” lapped.
Fig. 8, in conjunction with Fig. 7, will show how the parts are assembled. The “step” of piece A is 1/2 in. thick, the edges of the cut part above being 1 in. Over this B lies at an angle. It covers the flat step of A, but leaves two little triangular gaps (x) (Fig. 8) which are later filled by the corresponding triangular steps marked on C, Fig. 8.
FIG. 8. ORDER OF ASSEMBLY OF SPOKES OR ARMS
Piece C (shown reversed) rests at the correct angle on the halved upper face of B, the little mid-step projections fitting into the gaps (x) left on Piece A. The piece C is the same as A except for these extra triangular steps (x).
When the parts are glued it will be seen how firmly they are interlocked. Incidentally, if the reader can lay his hands on a medium-sized turnip, it is an interesting study to make a small experimental model joint with a penknife. The parts need not exceed 1 in. by 3/8 in. It is not the first time that turnips have been used for model joints.
If you’ve ever wondered who would win an epic battle between an 18th-century French joiner and a mutated lizard…. well you can keep on wondering. We don’t condone such things.
But my daughter Maddy has now turned 21 and clearly is working the fighting lizard circuit in central Ohio. Here her boyfriend’s bloodthirsty gecko is shown with one of the stickers Maddy peddles to our readers.
Would you like stickers for your lizard or fighting marmoset? It’s easy.
You can order a set of three from her etsy store here. Yes, she accepts international orders.
Or, for customers in the United States, you can send a $5 bill and a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to Maddy at:
Stick it to the Man
P.O. Box 3284
Columbus, OH 43210
She’ll put the three current sticker designs in your envelope and mail them back to you. These are nice, 100-percent vinyl weatherproof and lizard-proof stickers. After our civilization is gone, cockroaches will collect them. They’re that durable.
The last day to order a handmade copperplate print from “The Anarchist’s Design Book” is April 10. After that, artist Briony Morrow-Cribbs will get to work making the prints one at a time.
The prints are $110 each. The complete boxed set is $1,300. You can place an order and read more about the prints here.
Making these prints is a lot of work, but the result is something unlike any modern printing method. The intaglio process creates an image of astonishing texture and clarity. You can read more about them here and here, which has a movie of Briony making the prints.
Are we becoming adjusted to speed? I was talking a few days ago to a factory worker who thinks we are and that men are changing and will go on changing under its influence. “Everybody is working,” he said, referring to husbands and their wives, even children in holiday times. “The pressure is terrific.”
Conversely, so are the tensions. Perhaps these are at the root of the restlessness of some men, who seem to be always on the move, and in the growing number of others who, in their leisure, embark on creative, often very exacting work. With outlets like these, tensions tend to diminish, more so than if a man simply relaxes into complete idleness.
The important difference is that we make our own speed and with this comes the feeling of release. When we want to work quickly, there are the small power tools to take the edge off our impatience. When we want to taste to the full the luxury of unhurried, relaxed work, then we can settle down to a job with all the sober pleasure of an oldworld craftsman, finding perhaps some stray particles of wisdom touch us unaware.
But however we work, the thing of prime importance is to live, really live in the job of the moment so long as it lasts. Once we begin to cast our eyes ahead to the next item on the schedule, away goes peace and back come the tensions. When this happens, reasonable speed looks only an irritant, hands fumble through sheer unmitigated impatience. And that kind of impatience is the very devil in creative work. Unless we are careful, it mars the work, it certainly mars our temper and our enjoyment of the job. For the great thing about craft work when we do it on our own terms, is that it can be so thoroughly enjoyable. It has the power to take a man right out of himself, right into the thing he is doing, an excellent therapy against the stringencies of a busy world.
But the mind, being so much quicker than the hand, can easily betray us, so that a great part of the patience of true craftsmanship comes from keeping the mind reined in, never to be tempted to dream about the following job while we are doing this one, so risking making this one look like an interminable nuisance. “Little by little and bit by bit, that’s the way you does it,” as an old gardener once said to me reprovingly, and it is a good, steadying philosophy when we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
As a matter of fact, it is quite remarkable how many men today are learning to take the long view. They may have bought a partly derelict property at a bargain price or have determined to modernise their old-fashioned house, but whatever it is that starts them going the project is often one which has to be carried out over a long period of spare-time work. Some men even put themselves to school first for one or other of the essentials, such as bricklaying, engaging this with some other skill they already have. The result is often first-class. When a man puts his whole mind and will to a job, amateur or part amateur though he be, it is remarkable what excellence he can achieve. The trouble with most of us most of the time is that minds and wills are only half engaged. Put the whole of ourselves into a job and the good thing emerges. What is most noticeable is how readily these men shape down to the steady, progressive, long-term view, neither hurrying, nor unduly worrying, but taking each stage as it comes, dealing with it so thoroughly that care goes a long way towards meeting the demand for expertise. Because their number is now increasing all around, there is almost certain to be a friend or neighbour able to help and advise at difficult moments. And it is not at all unknown for a lecturer at a Technical College, becoming interested in the ambitious projects of his pupils, going out to give them a hand over the tricky bits.
It is a new wave of craftsmanship that has come upon us, born of changed social conditions. Before the war no ordinary householder, however skilled, would have dreamed of attempting single-handed the jobs which his modem counterpart undertakes. It is craft work from quite a different direction, bringing with it an ability and sense of independence which are the best kind of answer to the various pressures which make up the modern world.
It is the ordinary man standing squarely on his own feet, learning to “do” for himself once more and finding quite a bit of enjoyment and an amazing potential in the doing. The general collapse and withdrawal of handicrafts from industry is helping to bring about a revival in our very midst. Truly we are adjusting ourselves to changes of all kinds, not only pace. Pace, indeed, can kill. It can also be exhilarating.
I am pleased to announce that you can now purchase Nancy R. Hiller’s book “Making Things Work: Tales From a Cabinetmaker’s Life” in the Lost Art Press store. The price is $33, which includes shipping in North America.
