Lost Art Press

Table of Contents for ‘Roubo on Furniture’

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We are making the final pass through “Roubo on Furniture” during the next couple weeks. Kara Gebhart Uhl is looking for mistakes that have eluded us for the last three years, Suzanne Ellison is updating the index and I’m building the book’s table of contents.

We plan to go to press with the standard edition of “Roubo on Furniture” in early January with a mid-February release. We also will publish a deluxe edition, which design Wesley Tanner will begin working on shortly. Details to come on how to order the deluxe version.

In the meantime, take a look at the table of contents. Whew.

— Christopher Schwarz

Preface xi
A Key to the Text     xiv

The Woods Appropriate for Joinery    3
Section I.     The Different Qualities of Wood    3
Section II.     Fashioning and Stacking of Wood    7
Section III.     The Cutting of Wood    13

The Art of Assembly, its Uses and Proportions    21
Section I.     Different Ways to Elongate Wood    25

Some Tools Belonging to Woodworkers, Their Different Types, Forms and Uses    29
Section I.     Tools of the Shop    32
Section II.     The Tools Belonging to the Workmen    33
Section III.     Some Tools Appropriate for Cutting and Planing the Wood    34
The Plate 11 Workbench: How it (Really) Works     38
Make Roubo’s ‘Winding Sticks’     54
Section IV.     The Tools for Marking and Making Joints    59
Section V.     The Tools for Fretwork, and those for Cutting the Straight and Curved Mouldings    76

The Art of Drawing        89
Section I.     The Way to Take Measurements    89
The Way to Draw the Work on the Plan      93
The Way to Prepare Joinery to Receive Carved Ornaments    95
Section II.     The Way to Glue Wood    99
The Way to Construct Columns in Wood; Bases, Capitals, Entablature and Pedestals    103
Section III.     The Way of Gluing Curved Wood    109

Joinery in Furniture, in General, and the Different Types    112
Section I.     The Tools and Woods appropriate for Furniture    114
Ancient Furniture in General    115
Some Different Types of Seats in Use at Present    119
Section II.     The Description of Folding Chairs, Stools, Benches, etc. Their Forms, Proportion and Construction    120
Section III.     Descriptions of all sorts of [side] chairs, their decorations, forms, proportions and construction    126
The Way to Prepare Seats to Receive Fabric Ornamentation    135
Roubo on Upholstery     137
Section IV.     The Upholstery of Chairs with Caning and the Art of Caning in General    141
The Way to Prepare Seats for Caning     141
Selection of the cane, the way of splitting it and the caners’ tools    145
Various Methods of Weaving and Diverse Operations of the Caner    149

Different Sorts of Seating Forms, Proportions & Construction    155
Roubo, Meet Reality: The Making of A Classical French Chairmaker    164
Section I.     Description of all the major seats, like canapés, sofas, ottomans, etc.    181
Section II.     Description of Private Apartment Seats, like Bathing-tubs, Demi-bathing tubs, etc.    193

Of Beds in General and the Different Sorts    201
Section I.     The Beds of France: Forms, Proportions & Construction    202
Canopies of Beds, Commonly Called Pavilions or Imperials; Their Forms and Construction     210
Section II.     Description of Polish-style Beds, their Proportions, Shapes & Decoration    220
Section III.     Description of different types of campaign Beds, their shapes and construction    226
Section IV.     Description of Daybeds, some Cradles and Cots    235

Tables in General and the Different Types    239
Section I.     Different Forms and Constructions of Dining Tables    245
Section II.     Game Tables and their different types, forms and constructions    249
Description of a Billiard Table, its form, proportion and construction    249
Description of Gaming Tables, their form, proportions and construction    261
Section III.     Tables for writing and their different types, forms and constructions    270
Description of Dressing Tables and Night Tables, and others    293
Description of Screens and Windbreaks; their forms and proportions    296

Case Pieces Known under the General Name of Large Pieces    301
Section I.     Description of Armoires; their decoration, proportions and construction    302
Description of Buffets; their forms, proportions, decoration & construction    309
Description of Commodes; their forms, proportions and construction    315
Of Solid Cabinetry Or Assembly in General    325
Section I.     Description of the Tools of the Furniture Maker, their assembly and how to use them    327
Section II.     Basic Elements on the Part of the Art of Turning necessary for the Furniture Maker    331
Some Screw Taps and Wooden Dies used by Cabinetmakers    343
The Machines Appropriate for Making Fluting for Cylinders and Cones    347
Description of the Machine commonly called the tool for waves     358
Reproducing and Using Moxon’s ‘Waving Engine’    366
Section III.     Different Locksmithing Tools for the Furniture Maker    378
The Way to fit the iron work for cabinetry    392
The Manner of polishing iron and copper relative to cabinetry    402
Section IV.     Different Kinds of Solid or Assembled Cabinetry in General    404            Description of different sorts of embroidery frames    405
Description of a printing cabinet    417
Description of Gueridons and Small Tables    427
Description of Different Forms of Desks    430
Necessaries and Other Types of Boxes    437

Afterword to ‘Roubo on Furniture’    443

Appendix: André-Jacob Roubo    445

Index                451

The Critics Amuse Me, Part 1

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Aerial View - Garrison Ave. Fort Smith, AR

During almost every open day at the Lost Art Press storefront, someone asks the question: How do you endure the sniping, nitpicking and outright hostility toward your work? In response, I tell them one of six stories from my career in newspapers.

It started when Debbie, the city editor of The Southwest Times-Record, hung up the phone and called me over to her desk in the center of the newsroom.

That call, she said, was from the local Ku Klux Klan. They had called to complain about me.

The Southwest Times-Record is the newspaper in Fort Smith, Ark. I had grown up in Fort Smith, attended the segregated public schools there and left to go to college. That summer I had returned to work as an intern at the Times-Record and was assigned to write a history of segregation in the schools. Some of the local African-Americans who had been involved in lawsuits to desegregate the local schools were considering filing a new suit because the schools were de facto segregated again.

The Klan’s message was simple: Send the Jew ACLU lawyer writing these articles back to New York or we will shoot him. We know he leaves the side door of the newspaper every afternoon and drives a red Honda.

While the first part of the message was false, the second part was true. I left the office every afternoon, got into a red Honda and drove to the home where I grew up.

That day, I thought about leaving via another door. I remember that my hands were shaking as I gathered my stuff to leave work that day. But then I decided that if a group of heavily armed rednecks wanted me dead, there was little to do about it. For the rest of the summer I left the newspaper by the same door at my usual time.

So I have to say that on balance, a bunch of cranky old farts with keyboards and chronic back pain make me laugh.

— Christopher Schwarz

Last Batch of Soft Wax for 2016

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Katy has cooked up 35 tins of soft wax – the last batch she’ll be able to make this year.

If the wax is intended as a Christmas present, you might want to order sooner rather than later. We mail the wax via USPS first class. That service is pretty speedy, but you never know this time of year.

The wax is available in her etsy store here.

Personal note: Thanks to everyone who has purchased wax from her this year. Katy has learned a lot about running a business and found she likes working for herself rather than the big grocery store (I wonder where she gets that from?).

— Christopher Schwarz

What the #$%& is the Deal With Your Holdfasts?

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On the Crucible Holdfast from Christopher Schwarz on Vimeo.

There is a contingent of people who think we are nuts for making our Crucible holdfast the way we do: cast, with a 1”-diameter shaft that’s as rough as a cob.

Yesterday I made a short video that explains our thinking on this tool. You can watch it above if you’d like to learn more about this tool.

— Christopher Schwarz

Strong Trunk

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
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Fig. 8.1. A strong trunk in mahogany with ‘riveted’ corners.

This is an excerpt from “Campaign Furniture” by Christopher Schwarz. 

One of the more common pieces of campaign furniture is the simple trunk, sometimes also called a “strong chest,” “traveling chest” or “barracks chest.” The one shown in this chapter, however, has some unusual details you should be aware of. More about those oddities in a few paragraphs.

Trunks typically have square ends – both the height and depth of the trunk can be roughly 15″ to 25″. In general, they are somewhere between 25″ to 40″ wide. The chests are frequently dovetailed at the corners and bound with brass corners and other brass straps. Despite the dovetails, many of the lids and bottoms of trunks were merely nailed to the carcase. It is not unusual to find a trunk with a lid or bottom that has a split.

The trunks almost always had a lock or hasp to protect the contents.

Many of the trunks were raised on some sort of foot. The foot could be as simple as a sledge (sometimes called sled) foot – just a square of wood – all the way to a complex bracket foot.

Inside, many trunks had a small till with a lid, much like a typical household chest. This till stored small items and its lid served as a stop to hold the trunk’s lid open. The chests are typically made from mahogany, oak, teak and camphorwood, which naturally repels moths.

The trunk shown here is typical in many of its attributes except for the joinery at the corners. Instead of dovetails, I have chosen an uncommon (but definitely reliable) type of joinery found on trunks from the West Indies.

strongtrunk2
Fig. 8.2. A ‘rivet.’ This piece of early campaign hardware is held in with screws that then had their heads filed off flush to the pull. This feature shows up on other pieces and even on English infill handplanes.


That’s a Rivet?
I first encountered this joint while haunting antique stores on King Street in Charleston, S.C. One of the trunks there had a series of brass circles that ran in a line up each corner. At first it looked like brass inlay, which is a common feature of some Anglo-Indian campaign pieces.

Instead of decoration, the brass circles turned out to be the joinery.

The dealer, who had imported campaign furniture from the West Indies for decades, explained that some collectors referred to that joint as a “rivet.” He explained that the rivet was nothing more than a brass screw that had been driven in so its head was still proud. Then the screw head was filed flush to the carcase, eliminating the slot.

It’s a surprisingly simple and (I think) attractive way to make a strong joint that looks a lot better than having 12 wooden screw plugs lined up on the corners.

This approach shows up in other applications in the woodworking field. Sometimes, screw heads are filed flush with a piece of hardware. And if you’ve ever seen infill handplanes, you know it was common for the maker to screw in the wooden infills and the lever cap then file off the heads – making for a clean sidewall of the tool.

This trunk is based on several smaller English examples I’ve studied that were dovetailed. But instead of the dovetails, I substituted “rivets” as the joinery to make the trunk look more like one from the West Indies. If you want a more English look, cut through- or full-blind dovetails at the corners. The other decorative details, such as the brass corners and bracket feet, pretty much remain the same.

strongtrunk3
Fig. 8.3. Typically English. This small trunk features blind dovetails at the corners, brass corners, chest lifts and a strong lock.


Almost a Butt Joint

The joinery of the trunk is as simple as a modern kitchen cabinet. The ends are captured by 5/16″-deep x 5/8″-wide rabbets cut on the ends of the front and back pieces. This corner joint is first glued then later screwed. The bottom is captured in a groove plowed in the ends, front and back.

The lid is built a lot like the case below. The ends are glued into rabbets in the front and back pieces. The lid is then nailed on top of that assembly.

When building the carcase, there are two basic paths you can follow. You can build the entire chest and lid as one unit then saw the lid free from the carcase. Or you can build the lid and carcase separately.

I took a path between these extremes. I cut the joints on all the parts. Then I ripped the lid parts free from the carcase parts. I assembled the lid and carcase separately. Why? I don’t like pushing a big assembled carcase over a table saw. But all three approaches work. Choose one you like.

— MB