The Romans used the square to layout the ubiquitous half-circle arc flutes along the length of their temple columns. You can too: Just set alignment pins at the start and stop points; hold the square against the pins; hold your marker at the apex of the square; and scribe away!
— Jim Tolpin, ByHandandEye.com
One of the advantages (or curses) of studying a lot of old furniture is you can feel certain designs tug at you as you work on a piece. This weekend I got a little time to work on this Hall’s Croft chair and I could feel several other similar chair designs tug at my brain.
First, I abandoned the pine seat and switched to quartersawn sycamore for the seat, arms and crest. The spindles are hickory and the legs are beech. I selected the stock so I could use an oil and wax finish instead of paint or a dark pigmented finish.
I changed the seat profile slightly to make the front corners sharper. I altered the leg shape a bit. But the biggest change is going to be the crest rail. Instead of the “three holey mountains” of the original I’m going to use a different shape I’ve been experimenting with. It uses rived stock that is somewhat triangular in cross-section.
When I offer it for sale, I’ll give the customer both crest rails and let them decide which they prefer. Or they can swap them out when they are feeling sassy.
— Christopher Schwarz
One of the tropes in journalism is to bring a story full circle in the last paragraph. It’s called the “kicker” or the “kick” and it is supposed to leave the reader amused, saddened or something. The following story has a six-year arc, and today comes the kicker.
It started in 2010 when I received Patrick Leach’s monthly tool list (subscribe here; it’s a thing). In that list of tools for sale, Leach had offered a graphic mahogany layout square that spoke to me. But I hesitated on buying it because of the cost, and it sold to another person.
Check out this blog entry to see photos of the original.
Sadly, the original square was destroyed during shipment to its new owner, but Leach had taken some measurements for me so I could build one for myself.
That square became the cover image for by book “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” as it summed up a lot of ideas in one shape: it represented an “A” for “aesthetic anarchism,” it was a beautiful and highly functional tool and it was something you had to make for yourself.
According to Leach, this form of square shows up in England occasionally in the batches of tools he purchases and brings to the United States. The squares are fairly consistent in their design (if not execution), and Leach suspects that the square was used as a manual training exercise in English joinery schools.
I have tried to confirm or debunk that theory with no success. But it is the best idea so far.
In December 2010 I published plans for the square in Popular Woodworking Magazine, and you can download a SketchUp file of the square for free here. You can purchase a pdf of my article from ShopWoodworking.com for $2.99 here.
In 2014 I taught my first class in England at Warwickshire College in Leamington Spa. The woodworking program there is headed by Jamie Ward, an extremely capable and passionate woodworker and teacher.
This year Jamie decided to introduce the square as a project for his students to build. Students in their first year built a basic frame and then were offered the layout square as a more advanced project. One of his older students in his evening classes also decided to take on the square.
“(I)t did push their skills a touch so early on,” Jamie wrote, “but they all enjoyed making it.”
You can see photos of the construction process and the nice templates Jamie made via this link. When Jamie sent the photos to me this week I could only smile. An English square that was likely a manual training exercise for joinery students traveled to America and – thanks to happenstance – returned to England to become a manual training exercise.
That is a proper kicker.
— Christopher Schwarz
While picking up some work from Steamwhistle Letterpress, the owner, Brian Stuparyk, said he had a workbench to show me.
Brian’s letterpress shop is where all manner of interesting mechanisms end up, including printing presses, woodworking machines and machinist tools. Recently he received a load of woodworking equipment, much of it barely used.
One of the gems was a vintage Danish Levard workbench that looks like it had never been used. Brian said he found only one small sawcut and a single blotch of glue.
It’s the first time I ever had time to examine a Levard in detail. While being extremely well made (details to follow), I was surprised how lightweight it was. I know I’m biased toward massive French benches, but this seemed like a delicate flower.
So now for the good stuff. First take a look at the jaws for the end vise. The top corners of the benchtop and jaw are inlaid with boxwood, like a moulding plane. It’s an interesting detail. That area of a vise can see significant abuse, but I’d never considered adding boxwood to the jaws.
Also interesting: the underside of the benchtop. Like many European workbenches, the core of the benchtop is fairly thin and banded by thicker pieces. This saves on wood, but it reduces the bench’s overall weight and makes clamping things to the benchtop an occasional pain.
What really interested me was the way they had made the thick dog blocks that were glued to the thin core. To save material, the dogs are fully enclosed on only one side. I can’t think of any disadvantage to their approach.
The vise screws were all well-machined and moved smoothly, like someone cared. Also nice: The steel dogs (actually they were more puppy-sized), were well-made with nicely chamfered corners.
All in all the craftsmanship was excellent. I just think it could use a lot more mass.
— Christopher Schwarz
Indexer’s Note: As I reread “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making” and update the index I can hear my father’s voice say the same things that Roubo wrote. “Draw a plan, measure correctly, cut precisely, hand me that hammer.” OK, maybe not that last one. As he points out how the work should be done Roubo interjects his frustration with joiners, chairmakers and caners when they do not work with precision, or try to improve the quality of their work. He is especially exasperated by carvers. I decided to have a little fun at Roubo’s expense.
In the atelier there was a great commotion in the carver’s corner.
But Monsieur Roubo was not done.
The “Masterpiece” was revealed to the atelier and the chair denizens reacted.
Well past midnight Monsieur Roubo faced a terrible reality and was inconsolable.
–Suzanne Ellison