— Suzanne Ellison
The Skep: The Symbol of the Artisan
When we started Lost Art Press, we kicked around several ideas for what should be the symbol of our small company. We toyed with a saw and then a plane, and we eventually settled on using Joseph Moxon’s compass.
The dark horse candidate was to use a skep, a woven, basket-like beehive. The beehive has long been the symbol of the industrious, and I love its shape and the parallels between the world of the bee and artisans.
But few people (aside from Mormons, Freemasons and the history-obsessed) associate the skep with building things. I’d like to change that and have been working on a T-shirt design that marries the skep with the tools of the joiner.
To prove that I’m not nuts, take a look at some of these images. The cover of “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” a Victorian reprint of an 1830s volume, features a skep at front and center in the cover design.
Or check out this 18th-century certificate from the New York Mechanick Society. Yes, we all see the hammer and the butch muscles. But check out the little bird just to the left of the hammer.
Yup. It’s a babe with a skep. (Note: Lost Art Press does not endorse walking around while carrying a beehive and a shovel. There are easier ways to get someone to buy you a drink.)
— Christopher Schwarz
The History of Wood, Part 38
Details on Drilling and Reaming
To make the conical mortise for a piece of staked furniture, I first bore a hole that is the smallest size of the overall joint – typically 5/8” in diameter. Then I follow that up with a tapered reamer that turns the cylindrical mortise into a cone-shaped mortise.
There are lots of good ways to do this. Here is the method that suits my tools, head and hands.
I make the 5/8”-diameter mortise with a brace. You can do this with a drill press with an angled table or any other boring tool. But after trying many methods during the last 11 years I have settled on making the initial hole with a brace and an auger.
I sight the drilling angle against a bevel gauge that I tape or clamp to the underside of the seat. As long as I sight against only one angle (what we call the resultant angle), then I can get within a fraction of a degree with this method.
Like with all good augering, I reach below the seat to feel for when the auger’s lead screw pokes through on the exit side of my hole. When I can feel the lead screw, I flip the seat over and finish the mortise from that side.
That’s the easy part for me. For many years I struggled with reaming. When I used a brace I tended to create an elliptical mortise, which is no good. After much practice, I still made a wonky mortise. I know other people do this operation with ease, but it’s out of my hands, apparently.
Then I tried reaming with a cordless drill that was set to a low speed and maximum torque. For some reason, this fixed my mortises. Instantly. Perhaps I’m suited to focusing on the direction of the cut while the drill supplied the round-and-round.
I’m not saying this is the best way, but it’s something to try if you have the same problem.
— Christopher Schwarz
How I Remember ‘Rake’ and ‘Splay’
First-time chairmakers often confuse the terms “rake” and “splay” – and never mind the other names for the other angles in a chair.
After I took my first chairmaking class 11 years ago, I made up this little explanation for myself so I wouldn’t forget.
Chairs are like saws.
When you look at a saw from the side, you can see the teeth raking forward or backward (depending on the filing). When you look at a chair from the side, you are seeing the rake of the legs. And chair legs can rake forward or back – just like sawteeth.
When you look a saw from the front, you can see the teeth bent out from the sawplate. This is called the set. When you look at a chair from the front, you can see the legs splay out (they never splay inward that I know of). “Set” and “splay” both begin with “s.”
OK, it’s not the most perfect explanation, but it has prevented me from mixing up the terms for many years now.
— Christopher Schwarz