Lost Art Press

This Summer: ‘The Naked Woodworker’ DVD

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Getting started in handwork doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult. For many years, woodworker Mike Siemsen has been teaching new woodworkers how to get up and running with a basic set of tools, sawbenches and a workbench that can be built in just two days.

We are huge fans of Mike and his no-bullpucky approach to the craft.

So this winter, John Hoffman and I traveled to Minnesota to film our first full-length DVD for Lost Art Press. It is, I think, unlike anything out there. Here are basics.

It starts with a 5-gallon bucket and roll of $20 bills. We took that bucket to a regional tool-swap meet of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association and bought almost every tool you need to get started. I filmed Mike as he picked through the piles of tools and he discussed what he looks for when buying these key tools. I also filmed him haggling with the dealers – fun stuff.

Once we bought the tools and put them in the bucket, we drove to Mike’s shop and started making the tools usable. Mike demonstrated how to sharpen and tune the chisels, planes and saws with dirt-cheap equipment. And we also tuned up the braces, hand drills and layout tools so everything was nice.

The next morning, Mike built a sawbench using the tools, wood from the home center and two 5-gallon buckets that worked as proto-sawbenches. After lunch, Mike built a Nicholson-style workbench using home-center wood and five doses of cleverness. No machines. No difficult joinery. It’s a great bench, and it is designed to work without any metal vises.

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The DVD documents the entire process, from sorting through rust piles of tools to boring the final holdfast holes in the bench and putting it to use.

What is most amazing about the project is how you can get started for little money. Mike kept careful track of every purchase of tools and wood and has documented them in a spreadsheet (which will be included with the DVD, as well as a detailed SketchUp model of the workbench). This spreadsheet shows how you can collect the necessary tools and build the sawbench and workbench for a little more than $571.

That number includes everything, including the glue, screws and bolts.

I am editing the digital video now and we expect this DVD to be released in July.

In the next few days, I’m going to turn over the discussion of this project to Mike, who will tell you a bit about the theory behind the workbench and discuss how to buy the user-grade hand tools you need.

Oh, and why is the DVD called “The Naked Woodworker?” Because it’s about how to get get started in woodworking if you have nothing (yup, a pair of pants is included in Mike’s spreadsheet).

There is no nudity on the DVD – thank goodness.

— Christopher Schwarz

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A Milestone for ‘Roubo on Furniture Making’

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plate313Except 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

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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

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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