By the 18th century, there were lots of people throughout Europe who were writing about the material world and how it worked. Thanks to people in the French Academy of Sciences in general and individuals such as Denis Diderot, A.J. Roubo and Henri-Louis Duhamel, people began documenting mechanical practices, such as woodworking.
And so we have a wealth of information on how woodworking was practiced from the 1700s to the present. As we look further back in time, however, there are fewer and fewer sources.
So when researcher Suzanne Ellison and I began looking for images of workbenches from the 1400s, there weren’t a lot of sources. There is no “Big Book of Woodworking During the Hundred Years War.” Though I wish there were.
I don’t know how, but Suzanne got the idea we should be looking at misericords. These small wooden seats in European cathedrals were many times intended for choir members to rest themselves. And they were sometimes carved with different scenes. Because the carvers were woodworkers, sometimes those scenes were of woodworking. And so we began searching the image files of every church’s website we could find.
Suzanne hit gold with a misericord in the Chapel of St. Lucien de Beauvais in northern France that was carved circa 1492-1500 of a woodworker planing on a thigh-high workbench. Take a look at the photo above.
It is built with square legs that are vertical to the top (it’s not a staked bench with legs that rake and splay). The legs are pierced with holes for pegs or holdfasts. There is a planing stop. But what else is going on in this image?
Does the bench have stretchers? I think it’s difficult to say with any certainty. There is a big timber below the bench. Is that a stretcher that is joined to stretchers that we cannot see between the front legs and back legs? Or is it just a big board underneath the bench? It sticks out at the front of the bench quite a bit, but not much at the back. My guess is it’s a board that is unattached to the workbench.
What about the structure that is between the front leg and the benchtop that is angled at 45°? Does that prevent the bench from racking? Or is it a part of the carving left to strengthen the carving itself against damage?
My guess is this is a bench much like what is shown in the famous Stent Panel. No stretchers. But I could be wrong. In any case, stretchers for workbenches are definitely on the way. Soon.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. This blog entry is an expansion of my work in “The Anarchist’s Workbench.” You can download it for free here. We don’t have any physical copies of the book in stock as of now.
You can now place a pre-publication order for the expanded edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” The book is in the hands of the printer and should be complete in early January. If you place a pre-publication order before January, you will receive a free pdf download of the book at checkout.
The expanded edition is 200 pages longer than the first edition and includes six additional projects, plus new chapters on the design and philosophy that is the backbone of the book.
The new edition is $49 – that’s only $2 more than the first edition. We’re also sewing in a red bookmark ribbon in each book. I’ve always liked bookmark ribbons, though they add some expense to the manufacturing.
What hasn’t changed: The book is still produced and printed entirely in the United States. The 656 pages are casebound, the pages are sewn for durability and the book is covered in a tough hardback cover. We want our books to outlast us.
You can order your copy from our store via this link. As always, we hope all our retailers will carry the book, but it is entirely up to them. Please contact your local retailer for information.
The Chapters
Below is the table of contents for the expanded edition. I’ve set the new chapters in italics.
Preface
1: The Furniture of Your Gaoler
2: A Guide to Uncivil Engineering
STAKED FURNITURE
3: An Introduction to Staked Furniture
4: Staked Sawbench, Plate 1
5: Extrude This 6: Staked Low Stool, Plate 2 7: Staked High Stool, Plate 3
8: Drinking Tables, Plate 4 9: Furniture in the Water
10: Worktable, Plate 5
11: Staked Bed, Plate 6
12: Trestle Tables, Plate 7
13: Seeing Red 14: Chairs! Chairs! 15: Notes on Chair Comfort
16: Staked Backstool, Plate 8
17: Staked Chair, Plate 9 18: Staked Armchair, Plate 10
BOARDED FURNITURE
19: All Aboveboard 20: Bare Bones Basics of Nail Technology 21: Low Boarded Bench, Plate 11 22: Boarded Tool Chest, Plate 12
23: To Make Anything
24: Six-board Chest, Plate 13 25: Mule Chest, Plate 14 26: Boarded Settle Chair, Plate 15 27: Boarded Bookshelf, Plate 16
28: Aumbry, Plate 17
29: Fear Not
30: Coffin, Plate 18 31: The Island of Misfit Designs Afterword
APPENDICES
A: Tools You Need
B: On Hide Glue
C: On Soap Finish
D: On Milk Paint E: Tenons by Hand F: Machine Tapers
G: Seat Templates
Acknowledgments
Supplies
Index
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. If you have a print or pdf copy of the original edition, you can download the new contents for free – no matter where you purchased the book. Here’s how.
P.P.S. Also, several people have asked why we didn’t simply publish a “Volume 2” of the design book containing only the new material. Two reasons: You need the information from the original edition to make sense of the new material. I dislike books that cannot stand on their own. Second: A second volume of 200 pages would have cost about $35 retail (the printing business is complex). So owning both volumes would have cost readers $82. The way we’ve done it is (I think) the most fair and the least wasteful. But that’s me.
As always, I begin this annual gift guide with: The Listing of the Caveats.
In general, “gift guides” are marketing trash that try to trick your family members into buying a set of Silicone Domino Flashy Budgies with Bubble Level.
When a celebrity woodworker promotes a gift guide, it is usually just a list of trash given to them by a sponsor – usually a woodworking store. Sometimes the celebrity gets a kickback from each sale. It’s not illegal, but it’s slimy.
This gift guide is simple. It’s a list of tools I’ve bought during the last couple years that I’ve tested and really like. I paid full retail for these doo-dads. I am not an affiliate with any of these manufacturers (or any manufacturers at all). Also, I try to keep the price of the items in this gift guide low because it might be your kids who are buying this stuff for you.
If you don’t like this gift guide, please start a better one so I can take the Christmas season off for once.
Star-M F-type Bits
From the Japanese makers of the wonderful WoodOwl bits come these incredible little buggers. I was first alerted to these bits by Kyle Barton almost two years ago.
Their claim to fame is that they won’t splinter out the exit hole. You can drill straight through a board without a backing board. Also, the bits in general cut cleanly, aggressively and have a long center point (which allows you to angle the bit quite a bit).
While I’m sure they are sold elsewhere, I buy mine from Workshop Heaven in the U.K., which keeps a regular stock of them and ships them fairly reasonably. They are metric, but they are sold in such small increments that a U.S. workshop won’t notice.
The bits feature a hex shank, which allows them to fit in bit extenders and tools with a hex chuck. I definitely prefer the hex shank whenever possible; it prevents the bit from slipping in the chuck.
I bought an entire set as they aren’t terribly expensive – basically as much as a good Forstner bit. I use them extensively for chairmaking because they work really well at odd angles and I don’t need backing boards behind my work.
Here is the exit hole when I tried to force feed the bit through a piece of cherry to attempt to blow out the backside. Not bad. If you aren’t a Thundarr about it, you’ll get even cleaner exit holes.
If you make staked furniture, you’ll probably want to try the 16mm bit, which is close to 5/8”. I’ve beat the heck out of this particular bit and can report that it is still dang sharp after almost two years of use and maybe 30 chairs.
There’s got to be a downside, yes? Yes. Sometimes the bits seize up as they cut the exit hole and activate the clutch on your cordless drill. Turn the clutch off when you use these bits (or better yet, use a corded drill without a clutch). But that’s the only criticism I’ve got.
Star-M does it again.
— Christopher Schwarz
If you want to read some of the older gift guides, the 2013-2018 entries are here at Popular Woodworking. The guides from 2019 to the present are here.
The circa 1580 bench by Hieronymus Wierix (1553-1619). It’s important, but it’s not the earliest example of this form.
Each of my books about workbenches has been about missing links in the history of workbenches.
“Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” (Penguin Random House) was about the benches that preceded the dominant style of bench in the 19th and 20th centuries: the Euro-Scandinavian-German-Ulmia-style bench.
“Ingenious Mechanicks” was about the first recorded workbenches in Italy up until the 15th century when modern vises began to appear.
“The Workbench Design Book” (Popular Woodworking Books) was about another kind of missing link. My boss at Popular Woodworking said our unit needed to come up with $30,000 to $40,000 in revenue to avert a layoff or two. Could I write a follow-up book on workbenches?
So what’s “The Anarchist’s Workbench” about? On the surface, it’s about the workbench form that I have come to prefer after more than 20 years of building benches. But for me, it’s also about an important change in the way workbenches were constructed between the end of the 15th century and the end of the 16th century.
During this period, workbenches went from being built like a chair – staked furniture with splayed legs – to being built like a rectilinear timber frame with square mortise-and-tenon joints and stretchers connecting the legs. This is a time period that researcher Suzanne Ellison and I have visited before, but for “The Anarchist’s Workbench” we dug deeper to try to discover evidence of the evolution.
I think we found it.
As always, I have to thank Jesus Christ for His help with this book. Not so much for being the Son of God, but for being the son of a carpenter. Because of the connection to woodworking, tools and workbenches show up in religious paintings and drawings in every century.
When I started the book, the best evidence we had of this evolutionary change was a circa 1580 drawing by Hieronymus Wierix (1553-1619) of Antwerp. He was the son of a cabinetmaker and produced an influential folio of drawings about the early life of Jesus. These drawings are a gold mine of woodworking information from the period.
The Wierix drawings and their proliferation across Europe could be the subject of a book in and of itself. Wierix and his brother, also an artist, were colorful characters. And Wierix spent time in prison for murder.
Have a look.
This carpentry drawing is my favorite in the series. It shows a low bench but it looks like it is built with square joints. And it might have a stretcher. There’s a holdfast and all manner of tools to ogle. I also love the ladder and its square through-tenons.
In the drawing of the infant Jesus sawing, we get so one of the “batwing” squares I’m so fond of. Plus dividers, a hammer, a mallet and some helpful angels.
The third drawing of a workshop is also awash in tools. Check out the marking gauge on the bench and all the tools on the back wall. Also fun: stacking lumber in the corner until it becomes hazardous is an ancient practice that hasn’t changed.
But after more digging, Suzane and I found that Wierix was not the earliest illustrator of this important bench. But that bench wasn’t far away.
— Christopher Schwarz
You can download a pdf of “The Anarchist’s Workbench” for free here. We are currently sold out of hardbound copies of the book, but we expect to restock as early as next week.
A copy of Wierix’s drawing from the Netherlands, 1617.
Another copy of Wierix. This one from Paris and dated 1646.
Editor’s note: We present to you today an early chair made out of wood. It is brown and has four legs but there may be more to it. Read on if you would like to know more about early French chairs with back rests. As always, please do not read on if you are offended, intimidated, or otherwise bothered by pathetic immature toilet humor and early fart jokes.
Rudy: OK, I’ve got another one. Perhaps you might not want to see this one. Here we go:
Klaus: Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Chris: BWAHAHAHAHA
Rudy: It’s French.
Klaus: A pallet chair.
Chris: It’s like that chair made a ladder to escape itself.
Klaus: What the hell?!
Rudy: Staked meets ladderback.
Klaus : Staked meets pallet. The legs are SO wrong compared to the rest.
Rudy: And the rest is so wrong compared to every chair in the world.
Chris: More snakes-eating-a-big-rat shape. Just look at those legs.
Klaus: But are those chunky two-by-fours actually mortised into the seat? I mean the back posts?
Chris: The back is really interesting. The slats are notched into the back uprights.
Klaus: Yeah, that’s a nice detail. I wonder why he didn’t just nail the slats on with 4″-long nails.
Rudy: I have more pictures. Or shall we do the armchair?
Chris: This is good.
Klaus: Nah, this is great
Rudy: OK, on y va:
Rudy: The initials “PV” obviously stand for Penis Vagina.
Klaus: Or Pallet Vood
Chris: Somebody went to a LOT of work for very little benefit here.
Klaus: I don’t even know where to start.
Rudy: How about the wooden nails?
Klaus: I just noticed them.
Chris: This feels like something you would see on a movie set.
Klaus: Really, how?
Chris: No evidence of real wear. All the same color.
Klaus: Good point.
Chris: Lots and lots of work on something that is supposed to look primitive.
Rudy: DESCRIPTION: A primitive handmade ladderback Alpine chair in solid ash. France, early 1900s. Dimension: H74cm (29-1/8″) x W51cm (20-1/16″) x D35cm (13-3/4″) Color: brown Materials: wood Style: vintage
Klaus: Just the squareness of it all…makes it look so bad.
Chris: Or something you would see at a store that specialized in primitive furniture from third-world countries.
Rudy: Color: brown.
Klaus : Style vintage…nice.
Rudy: Material: wood.
Klaus: Oh, it’s made of wood!
Chris: Also: Is a chair. Really. We swears it.
Rudy: And it has legs!
Klaus: Well, that can be debated.
Chris: Legs: Number, four.
Rudy: Back rest: It has one.
Chris: I know I’m a suspicious lad, but this one smells. But I don’t know why anyone would fake this.
Klaus: Looks like the seat is rounded off at the corners with an axe.
Rudy: The maker really did his best with all the facets on the seat.
Chris: And then colored everything perfectly brown.
Klaus: It does look like it has never been sat in.
Chris: Or someone took a GIANT SHART on it. Once.
Klaus: After eating snails.
Chris: And then they put polyurethane on the shart.
Rudy: Like any good French person would do.
Chris: I think it’s something to fool the tourists.
Rudy: You may be right about that.
Klaus: It sure looks like someone decided to make a primitive-looking chair and didn’t do ANY research.
Rudy: That seat is mega thick.
Klaus: And made of material: wood.
Chris: Modern planer marks on the back edge.
Klaus: Hah! Good eye! Look at that! Or are they band saw marks?
Rudy: The wood also doesn’t look worn or aged at all.
Klaus: Nope.
Chris: Could be a band saw.
Rudy: Can you tell the brand by looking at that picture?
Klaus: It’s definitely not JB’s old Startrite.
Chris: Definitely Alpine.
Rudy: An Alpine band saw with a saw blade. And it runs on power.
Klaus: Yes, with a French opening.
Chris: Definitely an electric tool. Not a reciprocating saw.
Klaus: The maker is SO busted.
Chris: Another theory: This was made for a living-history museum.
Chris: Frenchie de la du Faker Chair™.
Rudy: Yes, and then it ended up with an antiques dealer who thought it was authentic.
Chris: Or went along with the ruse.
Klaus: Could be, but if I was the museum director, I would not pay the maker for this piece of crap. It doesn’t resemble anything.
Chris: Unless it was the Alpine Crap Museum. Ever been?
Rudy: Well, it does have a nice brown color. Le museum de la turdy.
Chris: Because it is at at the Crap Museum! Everything is brown at the Crap Museum!
Rudy: Exactly. Everything! And it smells in there!
Klaus: Been temped many times, but always ended up going to Champs Turdysees instead.
Chris: Hahaha, both of you.
Chris: I hope no one bought this chair. And I worry about the smell if used as firewood.
Chris: The Hot Fart Chair
Rudy: Ze’ot fart-chaire, as the French would say.
Rudy: £909 – nope, not sold.
Chris: Well there is a god.
Klaus: Hahaha…Is there anything more to add about this fart-smelling wood-material fake?
Chris: When they say “early 1900s” maybe early one day in the 1900s?
Chris: 8 a.m. on Dec. 31, 1999.
Klaus: Hahaha. That is funny
Rudy: Hahahaha!
Chris: Early, 1900s. It’s all about the comma.
Rudy: Early in the morning, sometime in the 1900s.
Chris: Yes. No one ever talks about that aspect of furniture.
Rudy: One brown morning, in the 1900s.
Chris: Hahaha.
Klaus: Good point. There are so many great chairs made after 4 p.m.
Chris: The late chairs.
Rudy: Late 2000s.
Klaus: Hahaha. Someone should make a timeless chair
Rudy: This chair is from the era of shut the f*ck up.
Chris: Early shut the f*ck up. To be specific.
Klaus: Get the f*ck up early and make a chair.
Rudy: Not the mid-shut the f*ck up. Those were horrible.
Klaus: I think this chair was f*cked up from the start.
Chris: From the early start.
Rudy: Do you think the maker started with the legs, seat or back first?
Klaus: Hey, it’s actually handmade, too, says the info. That is a lie. I think he started with the CNC. Or not.
Chris: CNC drawknife.
Rudy: CNC drawknife™
Chris: We need to invent CNC for froes, axes and drawknives.
Klaus: That could make you rich. Peter Galbert would love it.
Rudy: CNC milk paint.
Chris: CNC hide glue.
Rudy: Early CNC hide glue.
Klaus: That is the best.
Chris: From the morning cow.
Chris: OK, I take all back. This chair is real.
Klaus: Ze Chaiur.
Rudy: The chair is real because it says so on the Internet. Everything on the Internet is true.
Klaus: The maker probably had three cloves of garlic up his a$$ while making it.
Chris: De bonne heure chair.
Klaus: I don’t know what that means
Chris : De bonne heure marron.
Klaus: All I know in French is au revoir.
Chris: Early Brown.
Rudy: Hence the brown color.
Chris: And the earliness! So, so early.
Rudy: So early it can almost not get any earlier.
Chris: So early it is almost late.
Rudy: But hey, the maker fooled us with his wooden nails – not a pocket screw in sight. Clever guy.
Klaus: Haha. Good point. A good chairmaker hides his pocket screws. Right?
Chris: They are under the wooden plugs
Rudy: Says the expert.
Chris: I have no shame about that!
Rudy: None needed!
Klaus: You should not!
Rudy: I use pocket screws in almost all of my carvings. And cover them with wooden plugs. No shame.
Chris: I’m not going for the East Wales vibe.
Klaus: That pocket-screw trick with the three-piece arm is one of my favorite chairmaking tricks!
Chris: Thanks. Better than a JB dowel.
Rudy: You mean you think it’s authentic?
Chris: Early authentic.
Rudy: Right. De bonne heure authentique.
Chris: Oui, mon petite chou chou.
Klaus: Early authentic is better than this mid-day fake chair.
Rudy: Early authentic is actually a great way to describe this chair.
Chris: Sounds like marketing speak.
Rudy: The seat has some nice cracks.
Chris: Nice cracks to hold the nice brown.
Klaus: So, a name for this one? Many to choose from.
Chris: Yeah. Who ever edits this one can choose the name.
Rudy: Something with “early” perhaps?
Chris: And “brown.”
Klaus: I bet the back posts are screwed into the seat. The whole chair is screwed, in fact.
Chris: The buyer is especially screwed
Klaus: Haha.
Rudy: Haha.
Chris: OK, I gotta help Lucy unload the groceries. So I’m gonna sign off. She has beer. BYE!