During Joshua Klein’s research into the woodworking life of Jonathan Fisher of Maine, Joshua has found several tantalizing entries in Fisher’s journal about mechanical marvels he has invented or made for his workshop. But perhaps most interesting is when Fisher hooks up his lathe to his windmill.
Joshua has been looking for other historical references to people using wind power for turning. Check out his blog entry here.
If you have any clues for Joshua, drop him a line.
— Christopher Schwarz
Jeff Burks has written here several times about the drinking habits of 17th- and 18th-century woodworkers viz. they used to work like the devil all day and then spend all of their hard-earned largesse on gin (known as “mother’s ruin” here in the old country). Workshops typically set up a system of penalties for unsuspecting apprentices to generate alcohol for the journeymen.
It should not have been a surprise that when students joined Chris for the first New English Workshop course the evenings were, in short, a mess; our group of budding anarchists simply reverted to 17th-century type. They worked like the clappers and then went nuts every night.
Inevitably talk turned to differences between U.S. (i.e. damned colonial) and The Queen’s English. It all started innocently enough with the usual woodworking terms: English “timber” being U.S.’s “lumber,” the English cutting “rebates” whilst Americans cut “rabbets” (though there is evidence that “rebate” was originally pronounced “rabbet” here in dear old Blighty). Then we moved onto the more general terms like “chips” in the UK being “French fries” in the U.S., pedestrians getting hit with the hood of the car in America whereas we run them over by hitting them with the bonnet. You get the picture.
I can’t remember who mentioned it in the deepening alcohol-induced haze but somehow the word “chub” came up, and Chris and another American plain flat out snorted their (warm) beer through their noses. So for the next 5 minutes:
Americans: Hooting with laughter.
English: Staring in shock, bemused.
We managed, eventually, to get out of them that in America a chub (chubb?) is a semi-erect willie, whereas in civilised parts of the English speaking world it is a fish or a brand of lock. I’m serious: Englishmen everywhere lock up their homes with a large Chubb at night and fine upstanding Englishmen spend long hours on riverbanks here trying to catch the biggest chub they can….
But then in the U.S. if you have a “semi” you are driving an articulated truck, whereas here in the UK you have a semi-erect johnson… Result:
English: Hooting with laughter.
Americans: Staring in shock, bemused.
But then there are always going be differences: In America “Hooters” is a chain of family restaurants with a friendly owl as its mascot. We also have “Hooters” in the UK but this is dirty, salty, saucy Edinburgh Hooters that has naked ladies of the pole writhing barely inches above your burger and chips. (If my better half is reading this, I heard that on BBC Radio 4, I swear.)
So, thanks to the power of alcohol we established each evening that The Special Relationship is alive and well. Our sorry anarchic crew would then troop into the workshop each morning, scarf down a litre (about a quart) of water and crack on banging out tails in time to the jackhammer pounding in their head. But then on a course where everyone got their bottom ripped French style (see photo above) at least once isn’t a special relationship just what you need?
– Paul Mayon, the New English Workshop
Say you’ve found something great. It might be a reference in an obscure book, or some odd device you lucked into on eBay, or a damn good bottle of Calvados brandy – whatever. Your first thought is of the guy you want to show it to, to share it with, the one guy whose judgment and appreciation gives you the measure of all things. For me, that guy was Jay Gaynor, and I am so very sad to lose him.
Jay was more than the touchstone for us in historic trades. His joy was that free-yet-disciplined inquiry that held the doors open for his fellow explorers. He took risks with new ideas and worked to help them succeed if they stumbled at first. I personally owe him much for that.
Jay was the right man in the right place as the leader of Historic Trades at Colonial Williamsburg. Through tough times, Jay was the hub of the wheel that kept the program on the right path. Thoughtful with his responsibilities, it was always because he knew that playing by the rules made the game more fun for us all.
Some years back, I visited Jay at his house for a meeting on the Working Wood Conference. Covering the dining room table was his in-progress, scale model of a Higgins boat infantry landing craft! Certainly Jay was proud of his family members that served in World War II, but the broader truth is that he honored all honest, energetic endeavor. He lived in quiet awe of the best, creative works of mankind.
It is a lucky man who can have a model Higgins boat spread all over the dining room table for months at a time. The man who can do that and still share his life with a fine woman is doubly blessed. Jay’s partner in love and life, Jane Rees, made up a happy team. Her loss is greatest, but the rest of us carry no small share.
News of Jay’s passing came to me when I was in the company of a dozen other workers in wood. I shared the news with all, too stunned to know what to do. The silence was broken when of the men then raised his saw and said, “Then let us salute him on his way.” All the tools were raised then as they called out, “Bon voyage, mate!” and “To Jay!” into the air. In my mind’s eye, I saw Jay look back, and I do hope so much that I saw him smile.
— Roy Underhill
Read more about Jay:
Editor’s note: Craftsman David Savage has kindly agreed to post here a series of articles on setting up and using Japanese planes, all told from the perspective of a skilled (very skilled, actually) Western woodworker who demands a high level of performance from his tools.
A sharpened steel wedge in a block of wood that will, when set up right, pull off gossamer shavings leaving a polished finish straight off the tool. That is where we are going.
I am to take you on a journey. A journey into a way of working with wood that may change the way I shine pieces of furniture. It may work, it may not; artists are used to taking this kind of risk, accepting that more than half of our daft ideas are just that, daft ideas. But this time you will come with me. I will report periodically on what I have learned, and share it with you; if it’s a failure, that too I will share.
Way back in the 1970s, Japanese tools came, along with James Krenov, into the lives of many British woodworkers. I picked up, used and reviewed Japanese chisels. What I learned about Japanese tools in 1980 I learned from an American monthly newsletter called “Mahogany Masterpieces.” I learned about the forging process involved in creating a high-quality blade. This was a development from the Japanese Samurai sword-making history – super-sharp edges that could chop through three bodies at one blow….
What they created for us was a supremely sharp and hard-wearing edge. Made of two steels, a hard steel at the cutting edge, with a backing of softer steel. The hard steel itself had been forged. That is, it had been put into a hot forge, made a red and then beaten with a hammer. This forging process not only changes the shape of the steel, but it changes its structure. Steel has a structure a little like long-grain rice. When it is beaten and hammered, those long grains align and form a narrower, tighter structure. This is why these edges are capable of becoming sharper.
This forged cutting-edge is then laminated to a softer backing steel to make sharpening easier and to make the blade accept shock. The laminating is done in the hot forge and results in the best cutting edges a woodworker can get hold of.
I have known this for years and benefited from using great “Ouchi” chisels for the last 30 years. But I never messed about with planes until now.
Japanese planes were tricky. There was a mystery to setting them up that was not so easily unraveled in the days before World Wide Web. And, after all, we were having enough of a problem setting up our Western planes. Japanese planes needed very careful setting up; the blade never fitted the body, and the bodies needed to have convex bases to function and you pulled the damn things not pushed them. So why bother?
But these hand planes are sublimely simple and very sophisticated. A sharpened steel wedge in a block of wood that will, when set up right, pull off gossamer shavings leaving a polished finish straight off the tool. That polished surface, that handmade shine, THAT is what I want! Something elemental that cannot be put there with plastic polishes. That, combined with CAD development, a three-dimensional printer and a CNC machine will, I hope, take my furniture to places I have yet to see.
So why are you always on that laptop Carol asks? The truth is that eBay to a newcomer can become quite a distraction. I have, after hours of research, bought an antique Japanese plane iron. I was quite startled when my bid was accepted at £23.30. My bid was £11 and my reserve £30 and it all happened in the last 20 seconds! I admit to being no eBay Warrior, but I enjoyed the tussle so much that another Kanna, for that is the proper term for a Japanese plane and blade, will be arriving soon. Just don’t tell Carol.
When it arrived, I was like a child at Christmas tearing open the package; I can’t remember getting this excited by tools for more than 30 years. I was stunned by how heavy and elemental these two bits of metal were. Clearly a skilled person had invested hours into their existence and other skilled hands had used them perhaps for 30 or 40 years. Half the life of the blade was still there, and I plan to use what remains of it.
Next I will tell about flattening and restoring this blade to sharpness and finding a body to fit it to. Apparently for each blade there will be 10 bodies, all of them dead.
Toodle ooo….
— David Savage, http://www.finefurnituremaker.com/