Jeff Burks turned up this fantastic image from the 1850 book “Bilder des Todes oder Todtentanz für alle Stände” (“Images of death or the Dance of Death for all classes”) illustrated by Johann Gottfried Flegel and written by Carl Merkel.
See the complete book here.
In August we are hosting a coffin-building party for a few friends (it’s part of the research for “Furniture of Necessity”). I am sure that at some point during the weekend we’ll be re-enacting this image.
— Christopher Schwarz
I hate hearing someone say: “I would get in to woodworking but I can’t afford the equipment.”
Woodworking does not have to be an expensive hobby. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. A simple workbench can be built in a day with hand tools for about $100. Many tools can be picked up at garage sales and at tool meets. Online auctions or classified sections of woodworking lists such as WoodNet are another great source, as are Craigslist and e-bay.
Do you really need stationary equipment for your hobby? Machines can be expensive – moving them, getting your shop wired, dust collection and etc. will add up quick. Many times it is quicker to do something by hand than to set up a machine or design jigs for machines to do the job.
I find that machines pay off when making multiples. It is the skills that are hard to come by. Lack of skill is what really costs us time and money. The $5 handsaw is rusty and dull, so you need to know how to clean and sharpen it. Find someone to show you how or take a class; learn to do it properly and well. You may have $100 invested in that first saw when you are done, but you also will have a new skill. While your next rusty saw will be $5 plus your time to clean it up, you will also know if it is any good before you buy it.
Learn how to saw. Many of the tools we buy are created to replace a skill, to make a task so easy a child could do it. They very seldom live up to their hype. How many of you have purchased a tool to improve your dovetails or to enable you to saw better?
The chisel needs to be used and understood before you move on to the saw and plane. You probably don’t need a new chisel; you need to learn how to efficiently sharpen the one you have.
You need to know the properties of wood before you can work it properly, including how to read grain direction and plan for wood movement. Knowledge is the thrifty woodworker’s friend. Knowledge will ensure your materials are stored properly, tools and equipment are maintained, the shop is clean and organized and layouts are done efficiently for both time and materials.
Knowledge of power tools, if you choose to use them, can save you time, money and pain; know how to safely use them. Using a power jointer and planer can save a lot of preparation time if you don’t get your hand in there. Power tools are also efficient at spoiling material if you don’t really know what you are doing. “Knowing” that you need a tool to be more efficient at your work is better than “hoping” that a new shiny gee-gaw will make you a better woodworker. Don’t buy a tool that you can’t maintain unless you plan to pay to have someone else do the maintenance. You cannot buy your way in.
Say you buy a shop full of tools and equipment and a pile of wood, now what? Buy some plans? Hire somebody to come in and do the work?
—Mike Siemsen, Mike Siemsen School of Woodworking
Editor’s note: We are in the final stages of Mike’s new DVD “The Naked Woodworker.” It will be a two-DVD set. More details in the coming week.
Like a sharp knife, cutting lists are helpful when used properly but downright dangerous in the wrong hands.
Case-in-point: In the 1990s I wrote an article on building a Limbert bookcase and had an error in my cutting list. I think I had the kick piece as the wrong width. Anyway, I soon got a phone call from an angry reader. He was making a run of these bookcases to sell and had cut out all the parts to the exact sizes in the cutting list. When it came time to assemble his bookcases, he discovered my error.
He demanded that I reimburse him for the wood he wasted because of the mistake.
When someone gives me a cutting list, I consider it as accurate as a map sketched on a napkin. It will probably get me where I’m going, but only with some interpretation, flexibility and wrong turns.
If I’m going to build a run of something, then I need to develop a cutting list that will account for small variations in the construction process. It needs to be a map that will get me to my destination every time.
That is the sort of cutting list that I design when teaching classes. The school needs a cutting list with finished sizes so their employees can cut everything before the class begins. Each student needs a pile of boards that will always create the desired object.
For example, here is the cutting list I’ve developed for the Dutch tool chest class. It is different than the cutting list I published in Popular Woodworking Magazine. If you cut all these parts to the exact sizes listed below, then you will be able to build the chest, even if you make a slight flub or two.
Item T W L
2 Sides .75” 11.25” 24”
1 Bottom .75” 11.25” 27”
1 Shelf .75” 11.25” 26.5”*
1 Front .75” 7.5” 27.125”*
1 Bottom lip .75” 1.5” 27.125”*
1 Lid .75” 16”* 28”
2 Skids .75” 1.25” 11”
4 Back boards .75” 7.25” 27.125”*
1 Fall-front .75” 9”* 27.125”*
2 Panel battens .5” 1.5” 8”
1 Catch .75” .75” 4”
1 Lock .25” 2” 18”*
* This dimension is slightly oversized for trimming
Note that some pieces are marked as “oversized.” These oversized pieces accommodate the most common mistakes people make when building this chest:
1. The shelf is overlong in case you make the dados in the sides too deep.
2. The bottom lip and fall-front are over-long so you can trim them to the final size of your chest.
3. The backboards are (in aggregate) wider than necessary because some people mess up the tongue-and-groove joint and need the forgiveness.
4. The lid, fall-front and front pieces of the chest are over-wide because some students muck up the 30° angle on the case’s sides. If the angle is too steep or too shallow, then these dimensions need to change.
Bottom line: Never trust a cutting list. Or, as we were taught in journalism school: “If your mother says she loves you, verify it.”
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The photo above shows my small Dutch chest with its new lower case. You can read more about it on my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine here.
Last week, I burned a passel of vacation hours from my day job so I could travel to North Carolina to hang out with Roy Underhill and Chris Schwarz (an excellent way to spend vacation hours), and take some time together to look at 1930s tomes for binding/cover treatment inspiration, talk about illustrations for the book and bug Roy about his manuscript. (I’m eager – nay, salivating – to read the revised text, give it a copy edit, and put it in the hands of the book designer.)
After much deliberation, we’re switching tactics on the book’s illustrations; instead of Hardy Boys-style line drawings, “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker! (A Novel with Measured Drawings),” will include vintage photographs of the places and things that Roy’s radio-woodworking uncle, Calvin*, mentions in the text. (It will, of course, also have measured drawings of the woodworking projects – otherwise, we’d have to change the title.)
Because Calvin’s day job involves manure spreaders, along with pictures of 1930s Washington, D.C., and other locales, there’s going to be some bullsh*t – some funny, funny bullsh*t.
And while we were at The Woodwright’s School (where Chris was teaching a Dutch tool chest class and I was helping out in between Diet Coke breaks), Roy had a truly inspired idea for the chapter spots (the little images one often sees at the beginning of a novel’s chapters – think “Harry Potter”). So, he raced all over town (Pittsboro…it can be covered quickly) taking pictures. I think they’re brilliant – and I’m ever so eager to share them with you…but not yet.
— Megan Fitzpatrick
p.s. Yes, we’re still on track for publication late this fall.
* You’ve heard Roy talk about his grandfather…so I know you’ll believe this, too…right?