Lost Art Press

The Dream of the Brown Monkeys

Posted on by Lost Art Press

monkeys-&-trestles-2

For the last two years, Peter Follansbee and I have been having a conversation about trestle tables – or rather, we’ve been talking about two different forms of furniture that seem to share the same name.

The term “trestle” is first recorded in the English language about 1400 (“Richard Cœur de Lion” c1330-1450): “They sette tresteles, & layde a borde”). These early references and the paintings from the same period indicate a “trestle table” is actually two or more freestanding stools that are then covered by a board to make a table. It is early knock-down furniture.

Sometime in the last few hundred years, that form has mostly disappeared as a dining table, and the name “trestle table” now belongs to a permanent table where two end assemblies are joined by a long stretcher. The top is joined to the base. Something more like this:

trestle_modern_62-01

This is basically the form of table that I have at my home, and I love it. It is remarkably lightweight, strong as heck and requires little material to build (the materials for the base cost me $30). I have no desire to replace this table, and I don’t think it could be improved in any way. I even like where my youngest daughter burned through the finish with some nail polish remover the week after I completed the project.

But I need to build another “trestle table” for an upcoming class on the form at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking that starts Monday, July 8. During this class, we’ll spend a day learning about trestle tables from the 1400s to the present so that each student can design a table that suits their minds and materials.

Me, I’m going to build a table like the one shown being dismantled by apes in the early 16th century Flemish painted glass window quarry at the top of this blog entry. The “trestles” are built much like an early sawbench. The top of each trestle is fairly thick, and the legs are tenoned into that thick piece. Each trestle has three legs that are splayed for stability – it looks more like a Windsor chair or perhaps a Roman workbench if you squint your eyes a bit.

I don’t expect any of the other students in the class to follow me down this dark path, so I’ll be loading my laptop with tons of photos of later trestle tables, from the Shakers to George Nakashima.

If you would like to blow off your job and join us next week, there are a few spots open in the class. Click here for details. Otherwise, stay tuned here and to my blog at Popular Woodworking next week as we build a bunch of different tables – all that share the name “trestle.”

— Christopher Schwarz

A trestle from the wreck of the Mary Rose, a 16th-century English ship.
A trestle from the wreck of the Mary Rose, a 16th-century English ship.
15th-century French A-trestles.
15th-century French A-trestles.
15th-century German trestles.
15th-century German trestles.
Another 15th-century trestle.
Another 15th-century trestle.

Walnut Timber from Arkansas

Posted on by fitz

log_raft

The towboat Ida reached New Orleans, out of the Arkansas River, on June 8, with a walnut log raft* of unusual proportions. Additional interest attaches itself to this raft on account of it being part of an order for 10,000,000 feet from a Bridgeport, Conn., sewing machine factory. The growing scarcity of this desirable wood in the Eastern States, and the demand by European furniture makers has developed distant sources of supply.

The raft in question had been ninety days making the trip from the forests along the White and St. Francis rivers, in Arkansas, and in that time drift, five feet deep, had accumulated beneath the logs. Of these the raft contained 2,500, 2,000 being walnut and 500 cypress. The latter are used as buoys for the heavier timber. This log island measured 400 by 208 feet, and many of the walnut logs were over six feet in diameter.

They were cut by a band of 200 Canadians who are adepts at working in hard timber, and can get out 500 logs per day under favorable circumstances. From New Orleans the logs go by rail to New England, this transportation being found to be just $2 per 1,000 less than by steamship. Col. S. M. Markel, of Missouri, has this contract, and has orders for walnut logs from Liverpool parties. The raft in question contained 600,000 feet, and is among the first shipments of the kind to the East.

*Note: There was no photograph included with this article. The above image is a substitute.

Scientific American – July 24, 1880

– Jeff Burks

Manufacture of Saws in Sheffield

Posted on by fitz

cast_steelAlthough some of our readers are doubtless well acquainted with the manufacture of the above-named articles we think that the greater part of them are ignorant of anything connected with the manufacture of saws, and that a few facts relative to this subject will be perused by them with interest.

We therefore propose giving an account of a visit we paid to one of the principal saw manufactories in Sheffield. On reaching the factory, we were shown into a comfortable office, and were told that one of the principals would wait upon us in a few minutes, and we were soon after introduced to the managing partner, who after receiving us with great politeness, told us that he would have great pleasure in sending the saw manager to show us over the works, and explain the various processes.
(more…)

Machinery and Hand Labor

Posted on by fitz

boring_machine

There was a time when, as a rule, workmen looked upon machinery as being injurious to their interests; and a feeling of antagonism was naturally raised in them against any invention that aimed at rapid production of manufactured goods. This feeling of hostility was quite natural in the uneducated artisan, who fancied he saw in every new invention an implement of oppression.

It must be admitted, however, that in some instances, at any rate, the introduction of labor-saving machinery has been of great benefit to many of the working classes. But while it cannot be denied that the hours of labor have bean shortened, wages advanced, and to some extent necessaries cheapened, it will be found that employees have increased out of all proportions, and that a larger amount of skilled labor remains idle than ever before; and that although some necessaries are cheaper in name than they were fifty years ago, it must be remembered that the purchasing power of a dollar is but little more than half what it was at that period.

The great cry, also, of high wages being given to mechanics, has but little force, when the fact is taken into consideration that the amount paid to-day has but little more purchasing power than one-half the same amount had half a century ago. We are not prepared to say that the introduction and use of labor-saving machinery have not been a benefit to the world at large; but we think we are safe in saying that whatever may be the benefits derived from this source, they are evidently not evenly divided.

Carpentry and Building – July 1879

– Jeff Burks

I Wish we had a Copperplate Press

Posted on by Lost Art Press
A 19th-century copperplate press on display at the Dutches Museum in Munich.
A 19th-century copperplate press on display at the Dutches Museum in Munich.

One of the most astonishing things about studying early plates in books such as A.-J. Roubo’s “L’Art du menuisier” is that the plates are not simply two-dimensional. There is a great deal of texture. The paper is radically depressed in the field where the paper went through the copperplate press. And you can feel every line.

Last week at the Deutches Museum in Munich I spent the most time in the museum’s section on printing. I didn’t need to read much about the letterpress; we had one of those in college that I played with all the time instead of studying. But the copperplate press and its exhibit were fascinating. The exhibit showed how the thin copper plates were coated in acid-resistant wax and soot, and then how the engraver etched through these top mediums to create the image. Then the plate was dipped in acid to cut the image into the copper.

You can read more about this process on Wikipedia here.

Here is the (uncorrected) description of how the press works from the Deutches Museum.

A great deal of pressure is necessary for the manufacture of a copperplate engraving, in order to press the paper into the cuts and to suck the ink out. Letterpress printing machines with a platen are not really suited to the purpose. In the sixteenth century, presses with their own back pressure cylinders were used for the first time.

With the star wheel, the copperplate printer moves the running board, plate and wooden cloths through between the two rollers. The upper roller produces the pressure, the lower one transports the running board. Due to the high pressure, the printer needs both his hands and also his feet to move the star wheel.

The copperplate press is a reminder of the sheer amount of labor and willpower needed to create a book like Roubo’s in the 18th century. Even though our translation seems like a lot of work (I’m proofing the index today), it pales in comparison to what Roubo and the printers of the day had to do to produce the original volumes.

Viva la Macintosh.

— Christopher Schwarz