Stools that have an X-frame for the base are some of the oldest pieces of seating furniture (aside from a stump and buttocks). Sometimes called a “curule,” they were, quite literally the seat of power in Roman times.
These X-style seats have long been produced in metal and wood and were very common campaigning items, according to the Army & Navy Co-Operative Society catalogs. The stool shown above is featured in the 1907 catalog and cost 2 shillings and 1 pence (the catalog entry is shown on page 304 of my book, “Campaign Furniture”).
Thanks to dumb luck, I acquired one of these stools for $25 and have been traveling with it every since. It is remarkable.
When assembled, the stool is 16” high, 15” wide and 8” deep. It can hold my weight (and more) with ease. When knocked down, it is 12” x 8” x 1-1/2”. The stool weighs less than 4 lbs.
I’m bringing this stool, my Douro chair and some pieces of furniture I built to the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in Charleston, S.C. Details are here. On the day before the event, I’m giving a free lecture on the origins of campaign furniture at the American College of the Building Arts. The public is welcome. Details on that lecture are here.
The first campaign chest I built I used sledge feet – simple square blocks that raised the lower case off the ground.
Soon after, I received a pleasant note stating that I had made an amateur mistake. Campaign chests with sledge feet were merely missing their turned feet.
I felt like a fool at first. It was like sculpting a female torso and leaving off the naughty bits. After recovering from my shame, I started looking around at original source material.
First I checked my copies of the Army & Navy Co-Operative Society catalogs. Sure enough, all the chests shown in my copies had turned feet that screwed into blocks in the bottom of the lower chest unit.
But something else nagged at me.
As you know, we love old paintings and drawings here at Lost Art Press. Thanks to Jeff Burks, Suzanne Ellison and our own efforts, we have amassed many hundreds of images relating to woodworking from Roman times to the present. These are important, if sometimes flawed, documents that are as important as written, if sometimes flawed, accounts.
An Officer’s Quarters at Newry, Northern Ireland, C. 1870
So I began scanning my library of paintings and drawings relating to campaign furniture. Sure enough, I immediately found several that showed campaign chests in use on their sledge feet – no turned feet.
There are several explanations: The turned feet were still in the lower drawer or had been destroyed by bugs or water. Or perhaps the owner of the chest was lazy or didn’t care for the feet. Or perhaps that chest was made without the turned feet.
No matter what the explanation, don’t feel like you are wrong if you don’t include them on your chest. Personally, I really like the feet, but some people are turned off by turning.
In 2004, I purchased my first-ever custom anything. A handplane. It was a ridiculous financial move.
I had two young daughters (age 7 and 2), a low-level editing job and almost no disposable income. Lucy and I were throwing every dollar at our mortgage so we could be debt-free and able to do something uber-nutty – like run an independent publishing business.
But after meeting toolmaker Wayne Anderson, I became obsessed with the miter planes he builds. Somehow I scraped up $800 and ordered one. When I finally received the tool, I was overjoyed. It was one of the most beautiful tools I had ever seen, much less owned.
A few months later, thieves at a woodworking show outside Philadelphia stole the plane from my workbench. I was working our booth alone for a short period. Someone distracted me by making a ruckus at one end of the booth. When I turned back around, the plane was gone. (Read about it here in the WoodCentral archives.)
Insurance covered the theft, but I was bummed because they stole my favorite tool. Lots of things get stolen at woodworking shows – I’ve lost mallets, marking gauges, combination squares and (of course) books. I’ve actually had it easy. Some vendors have lost cash boxes with thousands of dollars inside.
To help in the hunt for the plane, Wayne actually stopped making that model, which made it difficult for the thief to fence it on the legitimate market. And Wayne put the word out with his customers and fellow collectors to watch for the tool.
Lo and behold, the plane turned up last week. And just like a stolen sports car, the tool was a wreck when it was recovered. The miter had been caught in a flood and the steel parts were deeply corroded. The brass sides were heavily tarnished and the iron was a bubbly mass of iron oxide. The most unusual fact: It hadn’t been sharpened in 10 years. I could recognize my edge on the tool.
But even in that sorry state, the plane was still fricking beautiful.
I worked out a deal with the plane’s honest new owner to trade another plane for the miter. And today the miter arrived.
After I unpacked it, I took the photos for this blog entry and began stabilizing the rust and damage. I have a long restoration process ahead of me, but it’s going to be satisfying work. Some of the damage is irreversible, but that’s OK with me. We all get a few scars in life.
As for the whole story, you’ll have to forgive my obliqueness. The above text is all I can really tell you. I’m not one to seek out justice, revenge or punishment for stealing a tool. So this is really the end of the story – until the miter is creating beautifully polished surfaces again.
Whether it is that untidiness leads to ruin or that a manufacturer who is losing money has not the moral stamina to keep things in trim, thrifty shape is a hard matter to determine, but true it is that untidiness in the shop and office and ruin are such close friends that they are ordinarily seen together, and the sight of one suggests the other.
We have often seen men of rare industry, judged by their hustling manner, who would spend much time each day looking for tools they had forgotten where they left, stumbling over piles of stray castings left under the lathe or piled on or under the bench, or pawing those castings over for a piece somewhere in this pile or that, when it ought to be in a place by itself, going from tool to tool or bench to bench to find or borrow a drill or wrench or hammer or block, when there should be just one place to find the desired article. (more…)
The Boss Loses Out and Timmins Gets the Job
(Thanks to his Two-Wheeled Runabout)
“Not this afternoon, Mr. Green,” the boss was saying over the phone.
“We are pretty busy here in the shop and two of the boys are out on the other side of town on a job—” “I’m sorry, but I can’t get anyone out to you this afternoon.”
“Have someone out there first thing in the morning, but—” “Won’t do, you say?”—“You’re working on your barn and want someone to come right out to help you.”—“Do I know of anyone you can get?”—
“Well, let’s see. There’s a fellow over on the east side—name is Timmins—thinks he’s a carpenter. You might get ahold of him.”—“I don’t think he’s very busy, and he’s got one of them there motorcycles he dodges about on quite a bit. He ought to be able to get out there to finish up for you this afternoon.”— (more…)
These X-style seats have long been produced in metal and wood and were very common campaigning items, according to the Army & Navy Co-Operative Society catalogs. The stool shown above is featured in the 1907 catalog and cost 2 shillings and 1 pence (the catalog entry is shown on page 304 of my book, “Campaign Furniture”).
