I’m writing this on Friday night. There’s a small chance Megan and I will not survive to see a new day. We ate dinner at Purple Poulet, and the food there is so rich and delicious that our hearts might simply stop.
But if we do live, we are happy to answer your woodworking questions here on Open Wire. Simply type your question into the comment box below. Post it. We will read it and answer as best we can.
Sometimes there is a lag between the asking of the question and the typing of the answer. But we do answer all questions. Sometimes we answer them after comments have been closed – it just depends on our schedule for the day.
Please forward this to any budding author in your life.
It’s the last week of December, so our inbox is filling up with queries – people who want to write a book and would like us to publish it. We don’t accept unsolicited queries (it’s right here on our “About Us” page where it has been for years). But that doesn’t stop the mighty digital flow of “Dear Sir or Madams….”.
On the one hand, I’m happy that woodworkers still want to write and publish books. Heck, the fact that anyone thinks books should exist is encouraging.
But here’s the deal. If you are a first-time author, a query letter is like telling all your friends about your hot Canadian girlfriend from band camp last summer. There’s a huge chance that you are simply full of deluded crap.
I wrote my first novel, “Fish Eye,” in the 1990s. I got to the end, realized it was a piece of garbage and burned it. I would be embarrassed – even as a desiccated corpse – if it ever saw ink. I wrote my second book (on workbenches) starting in 2006. I wrote it, paid people to copy edit it, laid it out in InDesign and had it press-ready before I told anyone it existed.
It was accepted by F+W Media about 15 minutes after I submitted it (and is now published by Penguin/Random House). Book editors are stressed and over-worked. If you have an article, series or book that is both 1) compelling and 2) ready to go, then you are probably going to receive good news.
Note that I am not talking about fiction writing here. That world is one Inscrutable 8-Ball, and I have no good advice for you.
In the world of non-fiction and technical writing, however, queries are worse than garbage. They are promises of garbage. Mere whiffs of garbage.
And so I implore you: Just write your damn book. I mean COMPLETELY write it: photos, captions, bibliography, forward, afterword, colophon (it’s not about colons), table of contents and author bio. You don’t need me or some other publishing imprint to validate you.
Yes, this is a test. Most authors who decide to write a book will never finish it. I know this; you know this. By writing the book, you are ahead of about 90 percent of the potential authors out there who are pitching their next book idea to someone in the next bathroom stall.
And when you are rejected by every publisher?
Publish the book yourself. There are dozens of places that will print your book “on demand,” where you can order one copy or 40 (heck, the Cincinnati Public Library will even do it). We use Lulu for some in-house skunkworks projects. The quality gets better every year (though still nothing like a casebound, Smyth-sewn book). Give away digital versions of the book for free to people on the internet. Try to build an audience for your next book. Do that, and you will have a track record that other publishers might notice.
But if you do all that, then you might not care when publishers come calling. You might have started your own publishing imprint.
One of the more difficult bends I make. This is for a Welsh chair I measured at St Fagans.
I love using Cold-Bend Hardwood for the bent parts of my stick chairs. During the last 10 years I have basically a 0 percent failure rate with the stuff (the only failure was my fault – more on that in a bit).
When I steam-bend arms, I typically lose about one-third of my bends.
People think it’s expensive. I disagree. Each chair arm costs me about $100 in material. But there is almost no time involved in making the bends. Today I opened a new pack of Cold-Bend Hardwood, sliced it to size and bent three chair arms (by myself) in less than 45 minutes.
When I steam-bend an arm, I have to find and purchase some suitable material (that takes time). Rive it out (more time). Then slice it, steam it and bend it. And then 33.33 percent of the bends fail during the bend or during drying.
If you live in a forest and have the space and time, steam-bending is ideal. When you live in the city, have no land and every minute counts, Cold-Bend Hardwood is the way to go.
Note the holdfasts that secure the form. And the extra length sticking out the front of the bend. And the calm atmosphere….
My Tips Below
Before you even order the stuff, build your bending forms because you need to bend the stuff within a few days of its arrival. The packaging will get damaged in shipment. The plastic will get a tiny hole in it. And your stuff will dry out.
Do not let it sit around. Assume the plastic is letting out moisture.
Order stuff that is overlong by about 18” to 24”. You need the extra length to provide leverage as you make the bend. If you won’t do this, you’ll need to use a bending strap with a long handle to give you leverage.
That extra length is the difference between a cakewalk and a desperate slog.
Order stuff that is the correct thickness for your bend. You cannot joint and plane this stuff. It will explode in your machinery. You can’t rip it on the table saw (crosscuts are OK). Again, it will self-destruct.
There are only two ways to dimension the stuff when it’s wet: the band saw and abrasion. After it is dry you can machine it and shape it with hand tools. But until then: band saw and sanding only.
I fasten my bending forms to the end of my bench with holdfasts. The holdfasts pass through both the form and the benchtop. Simply clamping the form to the benchtop rarely goes well. The form comes loose during the bend.
Allow some extra length at the beginning of the bend. This extra length (cut away later) will allow you to screw a batten across the arm and remove it from the form to dry.
I had one arm crack during a bend when using Cold-Bend Hardwood. The reason was simple: I had waited too long to make the bend, and the stuff had dried out. The fresher the stuff is, the easier it is to bend. I cannot emphasize this enough.
If you are wondering how the stuff is made and how it works (it’s like magic), the company’s website has all that information. If you are wondering if other companies make the stuff, the answer is yes. There’s a place in Amish country in Ohio that makes its own, but they don’t sell to the public. They make the bends for you. I also knew a couple chairmakers in Middletown, Ohio, that made the stuff in their chair factory. They have disappeared. And there are companies in Europe that make it. Google “comp wood” or “compression hardwood” for more details.
Our fearless and fearsome editor (she once made a Marine cry).
Lost Art Press Editor Megan Fitzpatrick has been featured on The Queue – the American Craft Council’s column on noteworthy artisans and artists. Check out the feature here.
The 5/8″ Trident, Drill Extension and Stick Chair Spindle Bushing.
I keep telling myself that modern spade bits are not great, but they’re OK. But I am lying to myself. Anytime I use a NOS (New Old Stock) Irwin spade I am shocked by how good the old ones are compared to the modern stuff.
During the last few chairmaking classes I taught, the modern spade bits could barely make it through one chair before becoming useless. And the cutting geometry was so poor that you had to push with all your might to get them to bite.
So until I find a good (I’d settle for decent) brand of spade bit, I’m looking elsewhere.
But here’s the deal: The bit is resharpenable ($8 to $14 for the job), and it cuts with far less effort than a spade. The Trident comes insanely sharp and plowed through all the mortises for four stick chairs without complaint. And it was still razor sharp at the end.
The Trident in use.
There is a little more fussing around when drilling the mortises through the arm and seat with the Drill Extension. You have to detach the bit and extension to drill the mortise in the seat. But after drilling mortises for one chair (that’s 26 mortises), it became an intuitive operation. So the plusses way outweigh the minuses.
The biggest surprise with the equipment was the little plastic Stick Chair Bushing. It centers the bit in the mortise through the arm. I laughed when I saw it. “Yea right, I’m not using that.”
I fricking love it, and it will reduce errors with students.
Speaking of students, I’m going to switch over to this drilling system for classes. I’m tired of watching students struggle with sub-par spade bits. And I’m tired of smelling the smoking wood as some of the spades have to practically burn their way through the wood after four or five holes.
I am happy to recommend this gear for all makers of stick chairs. I only wish we had a manufacturer of spade bits that did as good a job as BB Custom Tools. Nice work, Kyle and Patrick.
