Lost Art Press

The Degree to Which Your Angle Lies

Posted on by fitz

Here’s an old school carpenter’s (or landscaper’s) method of laying out a line, such as a foundation form or a hedge row, to a specified angle. The tools needed are simple, primitive even: A length of rope marked at a certain distance and a 10′ pole marked in 1′ increments (i.e. the once ubiquitous carpenter’s 1o’ pole). Or you can join the 20th century and use a tape measure.

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Let’s jump right in and lay out an 8° angle from a baseline. The drawing above is pretty self explanatory, but I’ll explain it anyway in my hopefully not too pedantic step-by-step fashion:

Step 1:  Establish the baseline (via a stretched string) and set a pin (a sharpened stick works) at the focal point where the angle will converge.

Step 2:  Make a loop at the end of a non-stretchable rope (i.e. avoid nylon) and run it out along the baseline from the base pin. Measure out 57′ 2-1/2″ from the pin along the rope and make a mark with a Sharpie or tie on a piece of string. Also, set a pin at the baseline at that distance.

Step 3:  Now arc the rope away from the baseline in the direction you want to lay out the angle.

Step 4: Set the base of the 10′ pole at the baseline pin and orient it to the rope. When the 8′ mark on the pole passes over the mark on the rope then the angle to the baseline is (drum roll) 8°.

So how does this work you might ask? As my friend Joe Youcha of buildingtoteach.com explained to me: “The answer is buried in the math we were all injected with in grammar school.” We were all told about the “transcendental number” called “pi” which when inputted into your calculator would provide you with either the circumference of a circle based on its diameter or vice versa.

Artisans of antiquity, however, had no knowledge of the decimal number pi. In fact, decimal numbers in general had not been described in detail in the Western world until the late 1500s by the mathematician Simon Stevin. But artisans did have an excellent working relationship with the straightforward (non-cendental?) proportional ratio system. In the case of the relationship of the diameter of a circle with its circumference, they would just step out the diameter into seven segments and know that 22 of those segments would, to a high level of accuracy, give them the length of the circumference. Good enough for government work (such as the Parthenon) as they say.

Because we apparently need to work with degrees (probably because the architect speced out the angle in degrees instead of the length of a chord as they would have in antiquity), we would need to know what number of segments the diameter would be if the circumference were stepped out to 360 segments. That number is, of course, an arbitrary but widely accepted convention since Babylonian times as a convenient way to divvy up a circle. We like it as it can be evenly divided by so many whole number divisions – though for a time Europeans were quite fond of 400 degrees.

But I digress; back to how it works: If you go to the trouble of physically stepping out along the circumference of a circle with dividers, you’ll discover that when 360 segments do the trick, 114 and 5/12ths of another segment will define the diameter. Of course, using al-Jabr (given to us by the Islamic mathematicians), we can quickly solve for this result using an algebraic equation to solve for an unknown.

For this purpose we’ll use half of the diameter segments – fifty seven and two and one half twelfths – to lay out the radius length on the rope. The bottom line: We find that a radius of 57 feet, 2-1/2″ produces a circumference length of 360 feet. So for every foot we swing the arc, we produce an angle of 1°.

— Jim Tolpin, ByHandandEye.com (Drawing by Andrea Love)

The Piano Maker

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
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This account celebrates Studley’s accomplishments and leaves no doubt as to the stature he – and his tool cabinet – held in the world of piano craftsmen. (Image courtesy of Arthur Rebletz)


This is an excerpt from “Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley” by Donald C. Williams, photographs by Narayan Nayar.

Unfortunately we have no record of exactly what Studley did at any point of his employment with Smith. However, the later portrait of Studley as a piano’s action builder does allow us to propose that he had a similar role at Smith.

In his 60th year, Studley left Smith American Organ Company to work for the recently formed Poole Piano Company. The reasons, motivation and terms of that change are unknown, but the reference in The Music Trade Review of Dec. 17, 1921, to Studley’s having been hired by Poole Piano to be in charge of its “voicing” (or action) department surely means he was well-accomplished and respected for the tasks and responsibilities incumbent to the new position. Part of the larger economic reality of the organ and piano trades at that time was the falling popularity of organs and the growing role of pianos in the American home.

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The decorative details of the organs built during the early part of Studley’s career, such as this illustration from a Smith American Piano and Organ catalog (roughly coincident with his tenure there), no doubt served as inspiration for many of the decorative details in the tool cabinet. (Winterthur Library)

The 1899 illustrated catalog from the Poole Company, roughly contemporary to Studley joining the firm, emphasized its grand and upright pianos and is instructive, even given the florid prose of Victorian marketing. Three brief passages in particular caught my eye. “We make no pretensions as manufacturers of cheap instruments. Considering the fact that we use only first-class material and employ only the most skilled workmen…”

And, “[finish] may apply either to the workmanship of the action and other interior details, where it cannot readily be seen and appreciated, or to the exterior appearance. Straws indeed show the direction of the wind, and the nicety of adjustments and carefulness with which every detail of our instruments is worked out, although such things may be regarded as unimportant, certainly show the character of the final work.”

Finally, “Tone. It will be admitted that this is a much-talked-of and much mystified subject. The general public can get little knowledge of it by reading over the worn-out adjectives usually employed in piano catalogs.

“If, however, we may attribute any special quality of excellence to the characteristic of the Poole Piano, we would say that the almost freedom of vibration is insured by the well-drawn scales employed, and the nicety with which every detail is worked out.”

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Though this aesthetic is decidedly over the top for our sensibilities, it is the atmosphere in which Studley perfected his skills and achieved renown. (Winterthur Library)

Of course there is no way to know how much of this is bloviation and how much is an honest statement of mission and purpose, but at least rhetorically Poole is throwing down a marker. The advertising copy is saying all the right things to describe an atmosphere that allowed Henry Studley to express that excellence in his work ensemble.

To the extent that there is any historical record of him in either the organ or piano trades, it refers to him as a prominent and respected craftsman. The indication of Studley’s stature in the Boston piano manufacturing world can be seen in an article in the periodical The Music Trade Review during the final year of his career, celebrating his 46 years in the trade. Simple arithmetic allows us to affix approximate working dates for him as 1873-1898 for Smith American, and 1898-1919 for Poole Piano. The breadth of tools in the cabinet, combined with the photographic portrait, leads us to the fully defensible conclusion that Studley was at various times both a case builder for Smith and a builder of piano actions for Poole.

In the only known image of him, Studley is seen as an 80-year-old man standing formally at a workbench, his famous tool cabinet hanging on the wall behind him. Dressed in the peculiar (to us) attire of a dress shirt and necktie that was typical for skilled tradesmen of the era, he is shown with a felt cutter in hand and an open upright piano nearby. Thus we are left with the distinct impression that he was not merely running the action department, he was still actively engaged in the trade himself.

— MB

‘Sloyd in Wood’ by Jögge Sundqvist

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Marc Adams is a difficult man to impress.

He runs the largest woodworking school in the world, has seen work from the best living woodworkers and is an astonishing craftsman in his own right. And yet, last year I sat next to Marc and he was transfixed, spellbound and speechless because of the work of Jögge Sundqvist.

Jögge and his work are difficult to describe without slipping into the fantastical. He makes all manner of objects that we would classify as “green” woodworking – chairs, knives, bowls and other hand-carved objects. Yet their execution and their bright colors defy that simple categorization.

For me, the best word is that Jögge’s work is magical.

While I’ve known of Jögge for many years (he is woodworking royalty), I first met him at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. He was teaching his first class there. I was teaching my last.

During one evening at the school, he gave an extended presentation of his work, and I was hooked.

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During the last 12 months, John and I have worked our butts off to secure the rights to his book “Sloyd in Wood” and get it translated into English. I am happy to announce that all the contracts have been signed, the people have been paid and the translation is underway. Our hope it to have the book published by the end of 2017.

“Sloyd in Wood” is an introduction to the way Jögge sees the work, the way he works and the details that permeate the things he creates. Yes, it’s a book on carving spoons, but it is more a book that looks at the tree and sees the spoons inside.

The book is 100-percent gorgeous with beautiful photos and illustrations. Of course, we will meet or exceed the production quality of the original with our translation.

If you’d like a peek at more of Jögge’s work, visit his website or follow him on Instagram.

— Christopher Schwarz

Disposable Goods for a Disposable Planet

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Some of the pieces I worked on were well over 100 years old, still strong and easily repaired, while much newer, mass-produced pieces were already broken and not worth fixing.

This experience reacquainted me with the ethic of craftsmanship. In retrospect, this was something I think my parents and grandparents had tried to teach me. But I grew up in the postwar consumer culture of cheap manufactured goods and planned obsolescence. We were making disposable goods for a disposable planet. Craftsmanship seemed like an antidote to that kind of thinking, and I think that is why those old pieces of furniture resonated with me. It seems terrible naive to see it in print, but I thought that maybe the first step in making a nondisposable planet was to make things as if they would be passed down to future generations.

— Craig Nutt on his transformation from a period furniture maker and restorer to a maker of art furniture. In “The Penland Book of Woodworking” (Lark Books).

Hancock Candle Stand DVD

Posted on by fitz

It’s funny how something can look so easy and end up being so daunting. It is also surprising to me that one of the most famous pieces of Shaker furniture has gone so many years without being properly measured and documented. I am referring here to the candle stand in the collection at Hancock Shaker Village. There are plans for this table in many books; many claim to be measured from the table in Hancock’s collection, but I have yet to find a published plan that has the correct dimensions and shapes.

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Original table at HSV, photo by J. Farnsworth

After numerous attempts to build a table that had the elegant flow of the original using the published plans from several different books and photos of four different original tables, I failed at every attempt. I ended up contacting the folks at Hancock, and they were gracious enough to let me document the table in their collection.

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Magic legs!

I also managed to wrangle Joshua Farnsworth into doing a video on the candle stand. He and I traveled to Hancock to measure and photograph the original table, as well as a couple other projects. A short video about our trip is available here.

The video on the candle stand just went up for sale at Wood and Shop store today. It is 244 minuets long and includes footage of our trip to Hancock, an examination of the original piece and detailed step by step instruction on how I reproduce this epic piece of Shaker furniture. The measured plans I made from the original table are included on the DVD as well. And yes, I really did measure the original!

Below is the link to the preview of the candle stand video.

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A reproduction table I made using the patterns from the original.

Of all the things I have made, these tables generate the most comments from folks; almost everyone likes them. I’m not completely sure why that is other than the fact that it is minimalistic but not plain. No bull$%&*. “It is what it is” type of thing (I think). For me it has been one of those projects that when I sit back and look at what I have done, it simply makes me happy.

— Will Myers