A Milestone for ‘Roubo on Furniture Making’
Except for the last few pages being batted back and forth between Michele, Philippe and me, the translated and edited manuscript for “To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making” now resides in Chris Schwarz’s lap. Given the number of projects fighting for space on the scrawny lap, I would suggest Chris go on a “donut-an-hour” diet for the foreseeable future.
I am often asked the problematic question, “So what did you find in Roubo that surprised you the most?” (Or some such variation. Why not just ask me which of my children I love more?) I am not sure of the answer, but there are some interesting “tonal” differences between “Roubo on Furniture Making” and “Roubo on Marquetry.” Though our first volume, “Roubo on Marquetry,” contains material that was presented later in “L’art du Menuisier” than the material in “Roubo on Furniture Making,” I find the tenor to be quite different. In “Marquetry,” Roubo assumed the reader knew how to use woodworking tools and techniques, but he also recognized that the reader might not know how to use these particular woodworking tools and techniques, and the instructions are quite detailed as a result.
In “Furniture Making,” Roubo makes no such allowances. He knows the reader can use the tools and techniques, so he spends his time telling the reader how to use those techniques to accomplish a particular end. The difference is both subtle and fundamental. While he covers the subjects pretty thoroughly, he wastes no time waxing ecstatic about joinery. His attitude seemed to be if you do not already know how to do it the right way, you are not ready to read his treatise. No breathless prose. Just do it, Grasshopper. Perfectly.
Nevertheless, nuggets of solid gold are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. One of my great regrets is that there was not a recording being made of our readings and comment sessions as we worked our way through the manuscript. Sometimes our discussions of a topic engaged us for scores of enthused minutes. I suspect they may do that for you as well.
“Furniture Making” will be a larger book but will include fewer essays than “Marquetry.” I cannot yet tell if that is because Roubo addressed the topics in a more straightforward manner and the topics were more familiar, or perhaps we were just getting inside his head and knew what he was saying. Chris will have to provide feedback on that one.
At the moment there are plans for four major essays and perhaps a half-dozen short ones. Of the long ones, I am writing only the essay on truing rough-sawn lumber a la Roubo. His method made me smack my forehead and exclaim, “Of course!”
Some guy name Schwarz is contributing an essay on The Workbench – a moment of silence, please – to augment the text accompanying Plate 11. We presented the text accompanying that Plate to the FORP participants last summer, and I think they would confirm it is killer stuff.
Philippe Lafargue will provide an essay comparing his training as a classical chairmaker at Ecole Boulle in the 1980s to the account contained in Roubo, and historical upholsterer Mike Mascelli will recreate and photograph some of the techniques from the chapter on chairs.
When? To quote our publisher, “It will be ready when it is ready.”
— Don Williams, www.donsbarn.com
Tools of Freedom or Oppression
My first woodworking job was at Therma-Tru, a door-making factory in Arkansas. For eight hours a day, I cut rails and stiles for fireproof doors on a sloppy and unguarded radial-arm saw.
To say I hated that machine isn’t a fair measure of the word “hate.” I was scared of the machine, and I would have a close call almost every day when the saw would lurch or bind.
But when I inherited my grandfather’s tools and machines in 1993, I was thrilled to obtain his sloppy, unguarded Craftsman radial-arm saw (aka the “radical-harm” saw).
For me, whether or not I like a tool has nothing to do with whether it’s powered by hand or electricity. Instead, it is about whether the tool keeps me “down on the farm” or sets me free. I know it sounds like a dimestore Marxist theory, but it’s true. (And if you think I’m a Marxist, then we haven’t met.)
Despite my love for handplanes, chisels and handsaws, I will never speak ill of my thickness planer, jointer or table saw. All of the tools in the previous sentence have allowed me to squirm free of being employed by someone else. Because I own those tools, I am entitled to the fruits of my labor (and theirs).
When I crank up my table saw, I am grateful for its ability to rip hundreds of feet of stock for a woodworking class or for a customer. When I remove the burr from the back of a chisel, I am thankful for its ability to chop and pare dovetails to an airtight fit.
Most of all, I love the fact that all of my tools allow me to build things that suit my aesthetic, that use raw materials that are renewable and that will last well beyond my short life.
Bottom line: I dislike adjectives (not to mention the dirty, filthy adverb). When I say I’m a woodworker, I don’t want anything modifying the noun. Just “woodworker.”
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. So why don’t I write much about power tools? Easy. There are tons of fantastic books, magazines and videos that cover the subject in exhaustive detail. Handwork is, for our generation, an undiscovered country.
Update on Peter Galbert’s Book on Chairmaking
Judging from the near-daily e-mails and comments, Peter Galbert’s forthcoming book on building Windsor chairs is highly anticipated.
I can understand the anticipation. I have just finished editing Peter’s text, and it is a fantastic piece of work. I’ve never read a chairmaking book that is its equal.
So here is the latest news on this title.
First, the title of the book. Right now the working title is “The Illustrated Guide to Windsor Chairmaking.” It will be published in a format larger than 6”x9”. Though we haven’t settled on an exact size, it will be close to 8”x10”. Hardbound, sewn signatures and made in the United States, as you would expect.
Price? Somewhere between $30 and $40. We still need to nail down some manufacturing details before we set the price.
Timing: We’d hoped to release this book this summer. That isn’t going to happen. Because of the many, many hand-drawn illustrations that Peter has to make, we are now estimating the book will go to press in August and be released in September. One of his near-final illustrations is pictured above. You can practically build a chair using the illustrations alone.
The book will be worth the wait.
— Christopher Schwarz
French Workbenches: Old and in the Birth Canal
Jameel Abraham at Benchcrafted has been scouting in Georgia to see if there’s enough massive old French oak to put on another French Oak Roubo Project (aka FORP) in fall 2015.
Jameel’s account of his visit to Georgia with photos of big oak can be found here.
If Jameel and Bo Childs do manage to organize a second French Oak Roubo Project, you can bet I will be there to take another chance to work with this amazing material. It is more akin to timber-framing and is both exhausting and exhilarating. The size of the material makes every construction step a challenge.
After last year’s event, I have come up with some techniques to make construction easier and the joinery more precise. So I want another wack.
Stay tuned to this blog and the Benchcrafted blog for details on this event.
While Jameel was in Georgia, he also got to inspect a Féron & Cieworkbench that Childs imported from France. Féron, which branded its products “a la La Forge Royale,” produced tools and workbenches in France.
You can download an early 20th-century Féron & Cie catalog here:
This workbench has some interesting details to consider if you have a workbench on the drawing board.
1. No flush surfaces. One of the most striking things about the bench is that the stretchers, front legs and benchtop are not in the same plane (a feature common on earlier French benches). The benches in the catalog are drawn similarly, so I don’t think this one is a fluke.
Make what you will of it. I suspect the non-flush surfaces made the bench easier to manufacture. Personally, I want all those surfaces in the same plane to make clamping doors and long boards a lot easier.
2. A splined or tenoned slab benchtop. One of the details from Jameel’s photos is that the slab benchtop is in (at least) two pieces. Along the seam there are pegs. My suspicion (and Jameel’s) is that there is a spline or loose-tenon in there, and the pegs keep everything together and aligned.
English benchbuilder Richard Maguire uses a similar detail on his benchtops, and he drawbores the loose tenon to keep the seam shut. After talking to maguire and seeing the detail on this Féron bench, I am itching to try it on a future workbench.
3. It’s a knockdown design. The top can be removed from the Féron bench. The top sits on tenons on the legs and is secured with a threaded wooden post.
After looking at the joinery in Jameel’s other photos, I am wondering (but am not convinced yet) if the bench was sent to the customer in pieces and the customer glued up the bits to the base and then attached the top. That is how I’d do it. And it’s how Plate 11 Bench Co. does it. But this is speculation only.
4. Nails in the planing stop. This feature shows up on old benches in place of an iron toothed stop. The benches in the Féron catalog show a planing stop that is just a shaft of wood. No nails. No toothed stop as best I can tell.
5. A simple parallel guide. The parallel guide in the leg vise is held in the chop with an open notch. This is a time-saving feature for the builder.
Thanks to Jameel for the photos and background information on this important bit of bench-building history.
— Christopher Schwarz