My daughter Maddy has been stuffing envelopes this afternoon and reports she still has more than 300 sticker sets left. So don’t worry about us running out.
Several customers have included notes that say: If you are out of stickers, it’s no problem. Keep the $5 for your education.
And people say this is a mean world.
If you’d like a set of stickers for your very own, send an SASE and a $5 bill to:
Stick it to the Man
P.O. Box 3284
Columbus, OH 43210
Maddy will take your SASE and put three high-quality vinyl stickers – one of each design – in your envelope and mail it to you immediately. (If you send $10, she’ll send two sets; $15 will get you three sets). These are the nicest die-cut stickers we could find and should even be suitable for outdoor use, according to the manufacturer. The stickers are made in the United States, of course.
This is Maddy’s second job, by the way. She also intubates pigs for a research lab.
By the way, Katy has been making more wax and we have some up in her etsy store now. Check that out here – there’s plenty of time for Christmas delivery.
Editor’s note: One of the other books we have in the works is tentatively titled: “Go, Go, Go: The Life, Influence and Woodworking of Tage Frid” by Bill Rainford. In this post, Bill introduces himself and explains a little bit about the book. Were thrilled to work with Bill on this book about Frid (1915-2004), one of the most influential woodworkers of the 20th century.
— Christopher Schwarz
I’m driven by a lifelong desire to learn, build, experiment and share. I love examining furniture to see how it was made and read the tool marks. I enjoy digging through period sources to learn a new technique or build something that has not been seen for generations. I also search out designs that take form and function into account. These inclinations can often take me down some deep rabbit holes or on crazy adventures. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
As I progressed in my woodworking I got tired of building predominantly power tool projects from magazines. I wanted to design my own pieces and get into more traditional tools and techniques. Around that time I was referred to the three-volume set of books “Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking” by the Taunton Press. This iconic set of books was eye opening. Tage’s no-nonsense approach, acerbic humor and amusing anecdotes made for a memorable read.
Many of the tenets of Frid’s teaching resonated with me and still guide my work. A core principle of Frid’s mentoring was to teach several different techniques to accomplish a given task so a student had a deeper well of technical knowledge to draw upon when the time came to use it. Long before “hybrid woodworking” was a coined phrase, Frid espoused the use of power and hand tools to help a craftsmen compete and make a living. In addition to a respect for traditional techniques and wood itself, I also appreciated his efforts to show how a craftsman should strive to make something that is functional, comfortable, tailored to the room or audience and also affordable.
The Rainford Family (From left to right): Alyssa, Bradley, Bill and Henry Rainford
My Background
I grew up on Long Island, N.Y. I’ve been a lifelong woodworker and maker. I’m at my happiest when I am out in my workshop. I started out helping my father and grandfather around the house as a child – finishing the basement, building a deck etc. I grew up watching “This Old House” and “New Yankee Workshop” and building power tool oriented projects. Once I got a place of my own I got into building things such as a custom mantel, a loft, staircase, bookcases etc. but I didn’t feel fulfilled. I wanted to get into more intricate hand work. That’s when I learned about the North Bennet Street School (NBSS), which is the oldest trade school in the United States. After taking some hand tool fundamentals and carving workshops at the school I went on to become a graduate of the two-year Preservation Carpentry program. I now develop and teach traditional woodworking workshops at NBSS, the Boston Architectural College, Historic Eastfield Village and other regional schools, conferences and events.
I consider myself to primarily be a traditional joiner, building and restoring traditional windows, doors, trim and casework though though I’ve also built a fair amount of furniture, restored timber frames and worked on historic buildings such as the Old State House in Boston, the Harvard Shaker Meeting House in Harvard, Mass., and similar properties.
I’ve written for Fine Homebuilding, Popular Woodworking, Early American Industries Association, Fix.com and my blog RainfordRestorations.com
I live in southern New Hampshire with my a wife, Alyssa, and two sons, Bradley and Henry. I’m thankful to my wife for being supportive of all my woodworking activities and for my two sons who love watching me work around the house.
Genesis for the Book
A couple of years ago I wrote up a blog post which shared my thoughts about Tage Frid and his work and wondered what ever happened to his tools and furniture. You can read that post here. In response to that post I received a comment from Tage’s grandson Oliver Frid and had the opportunity to visit Tage’s son Peter’s home.
Oliver and Peter Frid (right) with one of Tage Frid’s iconic 3 legged stools
It was an inspirational visit and they were gracious hosts to put up with me being excited to see many of Tage’s tools and furniture pieces in person. You can read more about that visit in this post. As I learned more about Tage’s life and work I realized there were a lot of interesting stories to be shared with a wider audience.
What will the Book be About?
The book will be a mixture of biography, woodworking projects with plans, interviews and an exploration of the impact of Frid’s work. From Frid’s time working for the Royal Danish Cabinetmakers (at the time Kaare Klint was running the department), to his time at the School for American Craftsmen and the studio art movement through his time at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Penland, the goal is to share projects based on Frid’s work in those periods and some by those whom he taught and inspired. It will be an eclectic mix of chairs, tables, casework, built-ins and workshop projects that explore the various forms Danish modern designs can take on in a flavor reminiscent of Frid’s aesthetic.
After working on colonial and Shaker styles of furniture and buildings for such a long time, I’ve found that Danish modern designs really appealing. I’ve been intrigued by how well Danish modern pieces can fit into a traditional home in large part due to their expressed construction, use of traditional joinery and respect for and re-interpretation of traditional forms.
Bill standing at his new workbench. (Photo by Doug Levy for the related Popular Woodworking Magazine article)
Upcoming Article
One of Frid’s most-remembered projects is his traditional Scandinavian workbench with a shoulder vise, square dogs and a tail vise. It was similar to the bench I was trained on. Inspired by Frid’s design and my own preferences I built my own interpretation of this bench and made a series of modifications to address many of the criticisms folks have had with Frid’s earlier workbench. The bench I built was about 2′ longer, a few inches deeper, built up in some areas to add weight and makes use of some newer construction techniques and new easier-to-install hardware that was not available to Frid in the 1980s. If you’d like to learn more about this workbench and whet your appetite for the forthcoming book, I encourage you to check out my article in the February 2017 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, which is due out next month.
If you’d like to learn more about me and my explorations in woodworking, please check out my blog or follow me via my other social media accounts below.
My oldest daughter, Maddy, processed her first batch of stickers last night and braved the rain to drop them off at the closest mailbox.
First off, she thanks all of you for spelling her name correctly (Maddy with a “y”). And she was very impressed with how organized (read: OCD) everyone was about the self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASE). Except for the guy who sealed the $5 bill in his SASE.
We still have plenty of stickers and you can get your set (plus a bonus sticker until they run out) by enclosing $5 in an envelope along with a SASE. Send it to:
Stick it to the Man
P.O. Box 3284
Columbus, OH 43210
Maddy will take your SASE and put three high-quality vinyl stickers – one of each design – in your envelope and mail it to you immediately. These are the nicest die-cut stickers we could find and should even be suitable for outdoor use, according to the manufacturer. The stickers are made in the United States, of course.
Here are answers to a few common questions.
Q: What if I want two (or three) sets? Do I have to send multiple SASEs?
A: We’re not barbarians, and Maddy is good at math. If you send $10 you’ll get two sets; $15 will get you three and so on. All in the same envelope.
Q: Will a regular business-sized envelope work?
A: Yup. These stickers are about 3” long – not huge.
Q: If I’m in another country and have some U.S. bills, can I participate?
A: Yes. We’re working on a way to process international orders. But if you send Maddy an SASE with a $5 (U.S.) bill and sufficient postage, she’ll fill the order.
I just received a text from Maddy and she has picked up the second day of orders and will process them immediately.
Thanks for all your support. Maddy is thrilled to be doing this and it really does help her make ends meet in college.
This is an excerpt from “The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon; commentary by Christopher Schwarz.
The waving engine described in plate 5. fig. 7, hath A B, a long square plank of about seven inches broad, five foot long, and an inch and a half thick. All along the length of this plank on the middle between the two sides runs a rabbet [a raised track], as part of it is seen at C. Upon this rabbet rides a block with a groove in its underside. This block is about three inches square and ten inches long, having near the hinder end of it a wooden handle going through it [that is] about one inch diameter, as D E. At the fore-end of this block is fastened a vise, [that is] somewhat larger than a great hand-vise, as at F. The groove in the block is made to receive the rabbet on the plank.
At the farther end of the plank is erected a square strong piece of wood, about six inches high, and five inches square, as G. This square piece has a square wide mortise in it on the top, as at H. Upon the top of this square piece is a strong square flat iron collar, somewhat loosely fitted on, having two male screws fitted into two female screws, to screw against that part of the wooden piece un-mortised at the top, marked L, that it may draw the iron collar hard against the iron [that cuts the moulding], marked Q , and keep it stiff against the fore-side of the un-mortised piece, marked L, when the piece Q is set to its convenient height. And on the other side the square wooden piece is fitted another iron screw, having to the end of its shank fastened a round iron plate which lies within the hollow of this wooden piece, and therefore cannot in draft be seen in its proper place. But I have described it apart, as at M. {Fig. 9.} Its nut is placed at M on the wooden piece. On the farther side of the wooden piece is fitted a wooden screw called a knob, as at N. Through the farther and hither side of the square wooden piece is fitted a flat piece of iron, about three quarters of an inch broad and one quarter of an inch thick, standing on edge upon the plank; but its upper edge is filed round {the reason you will find by and by}. Its hither end comes through the wooden piece, as at O, and its farther end on the opposite side of the wooden piece.
Upright in the hollow square of the wooden piece stands an iron, as at Q , whose lower end is cut into the form of the moulding you intend your work shall have.
In the fore side of this wooden piece is [a] square hole, as at R, called the mouth.
To this engine belongs a thin at piece of hard wood, about an inch and a quarter broad and as long as the rabbet. It is disjunct [distinct, unconnected] from the engine, and in fig. 8. is marked S S, called the rack. It hath its under[side] flat cut into those fashioned waves you intend your work shall have. The hollow of these waves are made to comply with the round edge of [the] flat plate of iron marked O {described before}. For when one end of the riglet [workpiece] you wave is, with the vise, screwed to the plain side of the rack, and the other end put through the mouth of the wooden piece, as at T T, so as the hollow of the wave on the underside of the rack may lie upon the round edge of the flat iron plate set on edge, as at O, and the iron Q , is strong fitted down upon the reglet [sic]. Then if you lay hold of the handles of the block D E and strongly draw them, the rack and the riglet will both together slide through the mouth of the wooden piece. And as the rounds of [the] rack ride over the round edge of the at iron, the rack and reglet will mount up to the iron Q , and as the rounds of the waves on the underside of the rack slides off the iron on edge, the rack and reglet will sink, and so in a progression (or more) the riglet will on its upper side receive the form of the several waves on the underside of the rack, and also the form or moulding that is on the edge of the bottom of the iron. And so at once the riglet will be both moulded and waved.
But before you draw the rack through the engine, you must consider the office of the knob N, and the office of the iron screw M. For by them the rack is screwed evenly under the iron Q. And you must be careful that the groove of the block flip not off the rabbet on the plank. For by these screws, and the rabbet and groove, your work will be evenly gauged all the way (as I said before) under the edge of the iron Q , and keep it from sliding either to the right or left hand, as you draw it through the engine.
Analysis Of course, the No. 1 question you have to have about the “waving engine” entry is what the heck the thing actually does. Is it a planer? A moulding machine? Well, yes. It works like both a planer and a moulding machine to produce what are called rippled or waveform mouldings, which were all the rage during Cromwell’s reign in England.
Wave mouldings show up in many picture frames of the era and reflect light in a most unusual way – thanks to their undulations or ripples.
Moxon’s device seems complex from the description because he is writing about a thing that doesn’t exist in this exact form today. In essence, the waving engine produces rippled mouldings much like a duplicator lathe or a pattern-cutting bit in a router. A flat piece of iron follows a block with the desired pattern cut into it. This moves the stock against a fixed cutter, which gradually (very gradually) cuts away the waste to reveal the final wave shape in the workpiece.
The workpiece, by the way, is pulled through the waving engine by hand. If you are interested in this fascinating machine, I recommend you check out a 2002 article by Jonathan Thornton, who built a close reproduction of Moxon’s waving engine and shows how it developed into a fancier machine that worked with a crank. It’s easily available in pdf format from Stanford University’s web site for the Wooden Artifacts Group (http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/wag/authorindex.html).
Editor’s note: As we revealed yesterday, we’re excited to announce that Lost Art Press will publish a book on the life and work of the late Welsh chairmaker, John Brown. Here, the author, Chris Williams, shares how he met John Brown in the late 1990s.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
I never knew his name at the time, other than there was a mythical chairmaker from the western seaboard side of my native homeland of Wales. He made chairs by hand without the aid of electricity and lived in his workshop. In the early 1990s, with some research, I found out that he had written a book called “Welsh Stick Chairs.” It was being sold in a bookshop less than an hour’s drive from me.
I drove to Newport Pembrokeshire to buy a copy of the book. I later learned that the man I had held the door for on entering the bookshop was John Brown. He had just dropped off a box of books for them to sell. The owners were very enthusiastic at my interest in the book, and I was ushered into a side room where they showed me a chair that John had made them.
The book was a revelation to me. It was so informative on this little-known subject and included a photographic chapter that was truly inspiring. I was hooked on the chairs and the author. I read John’s monthly articles in Good Woodworking magazine fervently. His writing was great — nothing of the anorak in his articles. And I thought his take on life was so different than the norm.
My day job as a carpenter and joiner was a varied one, but the chairs were deep in my psyche by now, and I dabbled somewhat with them for a few years. Looking back they were poor. I hadn’t yet been fueled by the Zen-like teachings which were to come.
Several years later my partner, Claire, and I were in Australia and New Zealand on a gap year/working holiday. I enjoyed the change of scenery and meeting new people but something was missing. There is a word in the Welsh language, “Hiraeth,” which loosely translates to a longing, with a sadness, for an absent something — not homesick. By chance I picked up a copy of Fine Woodworking (the Nov./Dec. 1997 issue) in Melbourne in which there was an article on John Brown — a great article. It was at this point that I realized it was time for me to head home to make chairs, and to meet John Brown in person.
It was with some trepidation that I telephoned him. To my surprise, his number was in the phone book. The conversation was a blur — lots of nerves on my side. But it must have gone OK because a few days later I head west to John’s home. I was given clear instructions on the whereabouts of the workshop, but alas I got lost in the wilds of North Pembrokeshire. I eventually found the workshop down a long narrow lane under the shadow of Carn Ingli, which translates to “mountain of the angels.” It was a truly beautiful landscape of small fields with stone-walled boundaries and small wooded valleys meandering down to the Celtic sea — a landscape that obviously inspired John. The undersides of John’s chair seats were embellished with a simple Celtic cross for which the area is famous for.
I was greeted politely but hurriedly by John as he was in the process of gluing up a chair. I watched him work but also took in the hand tools that were everywhere, neatly placed in various racks and shelves. Photos, paintings and poems also adorned the walls of the workshop. I had truly come across a different type of life, at least one in contrast to my conservative Welsh upbringing. It felt more like a home than the cold and soulless workshops that I had spent years in. I felt at home when I was offered a cup of tea. Two pots later, it was it time to leave. I left buzzing after the experience and little did I know then what adventures the next 10 years would bring for both of us. It was far from a happy-ever-after story but one that would change my life profoundly forever.
— Chris Williams
Photo courtesy of Tim Bowen Antiques.Photo courtesy of Tim Bowen Antiques.
