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Deluxe Roubo Live in the Store
A Direful Scarcity of Plank and Scantling
An addreſs to the public.
That the preſent era bids fair to finiſh the human character, in this our happy hemiſphere, muſt be evident from an enumeration of ſome late diſcoveries. In Maſſachuſetts, an unlettered mariner has hit upon the art of ſeparating freſh-water from ſalt water, without the inſtrumentality of heat! In Connecticut, a tallow chandler has laid open the ſecret of uniting water with tallow, a diſcovery of no ſmall importance to mankind; inaſmuch as it muſt render light cheap, by lowering the price of candles!
In Pennſylvania, a ſociety of ſages, aſſiſted by the legiſlature of the ſtate, have found out a method of improving philoſophy by means of digging of cellars, and keeping rooms to let. It is likewise notorious, that certain alchymiſts, in the pay of New-Hampſhire and South-Carolina, have inſtructed the people of thoſe republics in the myſtery of converting old houſhold furniture or barren land into bona fide gold or ſilver.
This alludes to the laws making property a tender in payment of debts.
Inſpired by ſuch examples, it is not to be preſumed that ſo reſpectable a ſtate as Maryland will doſe away the bright morning of peace, without a ſingle atempt at diſcovery, beyond a town-clock, which, perhaps, may never ſtrike, or a foundered corporation, which may never recover the uſe of its limbs. Surely it is time for an independent people to leave the path trodden by their ſhackled anceſtors, and aſtoniſh the world by ſome new and extraordinary effort of genius!
Now is the fortunate moment when habit is to give place to imitation: when stronger inducements have ariſen, to call upon every lover of his country to unite in providing againſt an evil, which philoſophy ſees approaching with rapid ſtrides.
—I mean, my fellow citizens, a direful ſcarcity of plank and ſcantling even in this timber-ſtate and its extensive territory.
If it ſhould be objected that Maryland is a limited ſtate, and does not, like Virginia, poſſeſs extenſive uncultivated territory, the objection offers one of the moſt cogent reaſons for making the moſt of what we have.
Heretofore, it is true that the political economiſts have widely differenced reſpecting the ſuperiority between deal boards and pine trees. In this point, however, they all agree, that there must have been pine trees, before they could be cut into deal boards.
Here it would ſeem as if the author had read every writer in political economy, as they quaintly ſtyled; his modeſty however, leads him to confeſs that he is not ſure that he has read any one of them. In this inſtance, he has followed the practice of great writers, who make a parade of their reading.
Taking this ſurprising diſcovery of the economiſts for a guiding maxim, it is humbly propoſed, that the carpenters, the joiners, the ſawyers, and all the workers in wood, do forthwith commune together, and form themſelves into a ſociety for inventing the easiest and cheapest method of melting down ſawduſt and chips, and caſting them into deal-boards, without cracks or knots.
The writer’s candor compels him to acknowledge that he has taken the hint of this ſociety from a London news-paper, printed in the year 1720.
I am aware that this undertaking is ſubject to be conſidered as expenſive without being profitble: and that it may alſo be ſaid of it, that the great labour required to make deal boards after this faſhion will prove an inſurmountable obſtacle to ſucceſs. I truſt, however, that ſuch objections can be eaſily obviated, and that a people ſufficiently liberal, will not condemn what is propoſed, merely because it is new!!!
Thomas Coliflower.
Baltimore, April 3, 1786.
The American Museum or Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces,
Prose and Poetical. Vol II – 1787
—Jeff Burks
On Furniture Design and Cooking
The best thing I ever learned about furniture design came from my mom while we were driving the family Suburban somewhere in the Florida panhandle.
My mom is absolutely the best cook I have ever encountered. She can do anything with nothing. She makes it all look effortless and taste amazing. She, quite frankly, opened my eyes to the possibilities of food in the way my dad introduced me to wood.
So anyway, we’re driving back to our beach rental place one summer in the 1980s, and my mom and I are talking about food. And I describe some fruit smoothie. It’s stupid, really, but it’s a fruit smoothie with some weird combination of fruits and juices.
I say: I think that would taste good.
She says: You can visulaize that?
Me: Yeah, no problem.
Mom: That’s cooking. Right there.
That moment has stuck with me for almost 30 years now, both as a cook and a furniture designer. And after much thought, I’ve concluded there are two kinds of designers: cooks and bakers.
I have always been a cook. I am interested in combining different ingredients until I gradually achieve a perfect balance when making a sauce or casserole or carcase. I taste and taste. Modify and modify. And I’m never satisfied until the very last, when I place the food on the table.
My wife, Lucy, on the other hand, is a baker. She treats ingredients like a chemist. She measures. Measures again. And makes fantastic cookies and cakes that I cannot ever hope to make. But – and this is not a criticism – her cookies always taste the same. My shrimp and grits always tastes different, depending on what’s available and my mood.
What the heck does this have to do with woodworking? Everything.
When I design furniture, I am willing to alter the details at any stage. I refuse to use a cutting list. I simply feel my way through the project, step by step. I can do this because I have a vast library of furniture books and images in my head and in my house that I use to guide me. I start with a basic recipe that is based on the material I have, the photos of similar objects I’ve culled from my library and the desires of the person I’m building the piece for.
When I build this way, I am always happy with the result.
During my years at Popular Woodworking Magazine, I tried to build things according to more of a baking paradigm. I took the print, developed a cutting list and stuck to it. At times this process worked. The baking soda was right to the granule. Other times, I felt like I was simply reproducing someone else’s mistakes.
So, bottom line, I want my mistakes to be my own.
The problem with my approach is that it’s hard (no, impossible) to teach to others. I much prefer the approach of George Walker and Jim Tolpin in “By Hand & Eye,” who teach woodworkers to develop their designer’s eye through exercise and exploration.
My approach is more like Anthony Bourdain. Eat everything. Make yourself sick again and again until you you can find the balance between beauty and botulism. Yeah, sometimes you’ll throw up on the street, but sometimes you’ll find something that can silence a room.
— Christopher Schwarz
Dreams or Swords
I (Heart) Inlaid Brass Hardware
After 18-plus months of building campaign furniture for this upcoming book, I’ve experimented with several different techniques for insetting the ubiquitous brass hardware that adorns every piece.
I’ve used electric routers and templates, routers freehand, drills, firmer gouges, chisels and carving tools. Sometimes I combined several of these tools.
All of the methods work just fine, and so I don’t have any particular recommendation as to the tool set you use. I’m going to show all the different ways in the book.
What was surprising to me is that the 100-percent hand-tool methods (chisel, gouge, router plane and mallet) weren’t slow at all. Yesterday I inlaid 25 pieces of brass into a trunk that I’ll be finishing tomorrow, and I did the whole job in four hours.
That’s on par with the time it takes me to do it with a router and a template.
In other “Campaign Furniture” book news: I can’t draw for possum poo. Yet, I want all the drawings in this book to be hand-drawn by my hand. The solution: Photoshop, a light table and tracing paper. All week I’ve been experimenting with taking my SketchUp drawings, combining them with bits from photos and then tracing the results.
I am not where I want to be. But it looks better (to me) than a CAD drawing in a book that discusses pre-Industrial furniture and has a “manual” feel to its design.
— Christopher Schwarz
