The school year ended Friday. To celebrate, Katy came home and made 66 tins of soft wax (her biggest load yet), which are now available in her etsy store.
Thanks to everyone who has been patient with and supportive of this endeavor. Let’s hope she can make enough wax so her father can buy some…..
— Christopher Schwarz
“Whatever tools you need, you have the eye as the calipers, and the nose as the square; in the old days all work was done by the eye.”
That is how old time measuring is popularly described. This method of doing everything by the eye was quite common in the villages until the end of the 19th century, the hand often aiding as a measuring instrument. To this day some of the Avinurme container makers measure the size of various containers by the hand span, the middle finger and the width of the palm. Thus, for instance, the average-sized wash tub has a base and sides of two spans (12″ or 30 cm), a cabbage dish – three spans, an average-sized vat – two spans and a middle finger (22″ or 59 cm), etc.
Until inches were introduced, the accepted unit was the “pöid,” which was actually the equivalent to an inch but had no subdivisions. A measuring rod was made by “cutting the pöids on a straight rod.” The measuring rods were used by craftsmen and it was the general practice to prepare rods of fixed sizes. Thus, for instance, sleigh builders would have a rod the length of the sleigh width, of the spoke of the wheel, etc. It was not till the end of the 19th century that the ruler divided into inches was introduced and it could then be bought in the shops.
— Ants Viires, from the forthcoming official third edition of “Woodworking in Estonia” from Lost Art Press
An excerpt from “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” by Anon, Christopher Schwarz and Joel Moskowitz.
England, 1839. Victoria has just become Queen of England (1837) and was about to marry Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The Industrial Revolution had begun changing the lifeblood of England. New ways of manufacturing iron and steel arose, changing everything. Factories and mass production began replacing the small craft shop. The woodworking industries were also beginning to change, and “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” was first published.
In 1839, the craft trades were highly differentiated. Specialization allowed speed – which was critical for commercial success. It’s a mistake to assume that the factories of the early 19th century produced low-cost goods because of mechanization. While that was partially true, the real cost savings came from division of labor and specialization. Most crafts people did highly specialized work. A razor grinder in Sheffield, for example, needed considerable skill to freehand-grind straight razors so that they were thin and flexible, without drawing the steel’s temper (softening the steel through excess heat). But that’s all the razor grinder did. Someone else, equally skilled, would forge the blanks; someone else would make the handles. In these factory-like situations, craftspeople were paid by piecework. In many cases, complicated documents were written that specified exactly what each sub-craft did and how much was paid for the work. In the case of furniture, the chairmaking industry in England was centered in High Wycombe, where they made nothing but chairs in a factory system of highly divided skills and a complicated piecework formula. In 1872, the High Wycombe chairmakers had a printed list of prices detailing charges for more than 250 different processes (of which only one was a process using machines for assistance) divided over about nine or 10 distinct trades. It would have been difficult for a local craftsperson to compete on a lower-priced chair for an occasional customer when a group of specialists did nothing but make cheap chairs by hand, all day, every day.
The job of the joiner varied depending on where he lived. In urban areas, joiners were carpenters who specialized in finish carpentry, built-in furniture, windows, doors and any other trim that was made on-site. Ideally, joiners did their preparation work in a workshop but then moved the parts to the job site for installation and finishing. Even within the basic job description of “joiner,” some would specialize in making windows, some on doors, and others focused on mouldings and trim. Stair making was the most complex area of joinery, and these specialists were used for all except the simplest of staircases.
A cabinet maker was a person who made free-standing furniture, usually of a fancy, custom nature. The cabinet maker would do only the joinery and casework. Turnings, carvings, inlay and other details were done by other specialists. In rural regions, small cities and towns (where it is implied that Thomas, the hero of the book, does his apprenticeship), there wouldn’t have been a work demand to sustain completely separate trades. There, a joiner would be called on to do a range of work, from finish carpentry to rough furniture to fine work – anything that required working in wood. But in large cities such as London, everyone specialized.
In “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” Thomas is called on to make everything from a rough shipping box to a fine dresser. But it should be realized that Thomas really doesn’t learn how to do the finest work, with lots of inlay or carving, because typically there would not have been the demand for that in rural areas. If someone wealthy in the hamlet wanted to commission such a piece, he or she would go to a shop in a major city where they had the specialists. By the same token, an average middle-class person in his area, say a farmer, would have been happy to hire Thomas’s shop to fit out a barn or make a door, but would have purchased mundane items such as chairs by buying them mass-produced and ready-made, in the latest style, shipped via railroad or one of the canals that covered the country, from the great chairmaking city of High Wycombe. There is no mention of a lathe in the shop in “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” and in the few places where turned work is mentioned, the text implies that the work would have been either bought finished as a stock item or jobbed out to a local turner.
— MB
Though Katy has her final exams this week and is studying upstairs, she is also trying to keep wax production going. Several people have asked for an update when she has made more soft wax, so here it is: Katy made 33 tins last night and has put them up on her etsy store here.
She’s also been working on customer service this week – we had a mistake in the last batch. Here’s the funny thing: It was my fault. I was helping her pack tins and grabbed the wrong label. I should be fired.
— Christopher Schwarz
Getting inexpensive and effective die-forged nails is about to become a lot easier in North America. Lie-Nielsen Toolworks will start carrying a selection of Rivierre nails within the next few weeks, says Deneb Puchalski at Lie-Nielsen.
The shipment is on its way from the 19th-century factory in Creil, France, which is about 50 kilometers outside Paris.
For starters, here are the types of nails Lie-Nielsen will carry and the sizes:
Deneb says they will likely expand the types of nails they carry from Rivierre (the company boasts it makes 2,800 types). And that the director of Rivierre was willing to discuss making other types of nails the company does not make now, such as clench nails and headless brads.
Deneb visited the factory earlier this year to see the operation and meet the employees, who work in a gorgeous late 19th-century factory that looks virtually unchanged from when the company started in 1888.
Founded by Theodore Rivière, the factory originally made nails for upholsterers and cobblers only. After two years, Theodore died and his wife, Marie, took over the factory operation at the age of 27 and ran it for 35 years. The factory was then run by Forges et Aciéries de Commercy, bombed during World War II and rebuilt. It was sold to its current director, Luc Kemp, who is running the factory as it was in 1888 as much as possible.
Because of this, Rivierre was named a “Entreprise du patrimoine vivant” (Living Heritage Company by the government.
“It was incredible to walk through the building. All the machines are where they were in the 1890s and everything is completely covered in (vegetable) oil,” Deneb says. “The owner, Luc Kemp, is a determined man. He will not be denied. This is a labor of love.”
(And why vegetable oil? Deneb says Rivierre uses that because their upholstery and cobbler customers hold the nails in the mouth while working. So it’s for safety.)
The nails start as round wire that is first stretched to the appropriate gauge and then fed into a machine that presses the wire into the square-shanked tapered shape in a die. Then the nail is headed and pointed in separate motions.
Nails are deburred in a rotary bin filled with wood chips (the owner had to buy a company that made wood chips to get what he wanted, Deneb says). Then they are heat-treated and colored black or blue – or left as raw steel.
Then they are packaged. For some customers, such as Lie-Nielsen, they are put in plastic bags of 100 nails. The company also makes heavy folded paper boxes using an origami-like process for packaging nails in 4 or 5 kilo orders. If demand is strong, Deneb hopes they will also start carrying the larger quantities in the folded boxes.
As you can guess, I am quite excited that these nails will become available here in the United States. Since discovering them last June, I have used easily 5 kilos of nails on a variety of projects. The hold remarkably well – better than any other nail I’ve used – are finely made and look fantastic. You won’t believe how nice a nail it is for the price.
Stay tuned to Lie-Nielsen’s site (and this blog). When they are available for sale, I’ll post an announcement here.
— Christopher Schwarz
