Boys precede men and apprentices precede journeymen. The boy is the father of the man. It is an old saying and a true one. Almost all boys are naturally mechanics. The constructive and imitative faculties are developed, in part, at a very early age. All boys are not capable of being developed into good, practical, working mechanics, but most of them show their bent that way. There are a few cases in which the boy has no competent idea of the production of a fabricated result from inorganic material, but such cases are rare. Given the proper encouragement and the means, and many boys whose mechanical aptness is allowed to run to waste, or is diverted from its natural course, would become good workmen, useful, producing members of the industrial community.
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Bostwick’s Giant Riding Saw Machine
A simple method of quickly cross-cutting a log has long been required by those who have to do with unsawn timber. The time and trouble involved by the employment of two sawyers is a serious item in lumbering expenses, and even where a circular saw is available the log has perhaps to be removed from some distance to be placed upon the bench. The ingenious invention illustrated herewith essays to get over these timber-dealing difficulties, and after practically testing its merits we are able to say that it effectively does all that is claimed for it.
The merit of this contrivance mainly consists in the fact that every particle of power in the body of the operator is brought to bear on the work. The feet, hands, back, and even the weight of the man is brought to bear on the saw, whilst the operator sits in the saddle, with his feet upon the treadles and hands upon the lever, in a perfectly easy and natural position. The saw is driven by motions of the body so easy and natural that they are hardly felt, certainly not more than riding a horse. The principles of leverage employed in its operation afford a perfect application of power and the force is applied just “where it will be the most use.” Every “foot-pound” of power produces a foot-pound of good honest work.
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How to Select a Saw
I often derive great pleasure and profit from reading the choice bits of information in “ours,” and was much interested in reading, in No. 623, suggestions respecting the purchasing of saws. They are from an American source, and will no doubt be very useful to any one purchasing an American-made saw, but are incomplete, and do not contain all the information necessary for any one to possess who desires to know what he is buying of any make. I take the liberty of sending you the following suggestions, and, if you think that they will be of interest to your readers, shall be glad if you will insert them in “ours.”
It would be invidious to recommend any name to be sought after in choosing a hand-saw, but I would say this, give a fair price, and go to a shop of good reputation, and trust to the seller, who should certainly, for his own sake, sell you none but the best maker’s. After trying if the handle suits your hand, and is fixed at such an angle on the plate as to present the teeth at the right angle to the wood when held in the position for working, so that the grain of the wood is not crossways of the handle, as every user of a saw knows to his cost that handles break soon enough with the fibre of the wood lengthways of the weakest parts, without the handle being weakened by the grain being crossways. I have never met with this defect in English-made saws, but have many times in American-made ones.
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The Art and Mystery is Invaded
CABINET-MAKERS who labour under the disadvantage of belonging to the sterner sex must look to their laurels. The art and mystery is invaded by the ladies, and according to a contemporary the movement in this direction is extending. Not only are the light painted articles of furniture receiving the attention of the fair workers, but carved work is also being executed by their nimble fingers, thanks chiefly to the School of Wood-Carving at South Kensington, which affords practical tuition to a large number of female pupils.
There may be nothing very serious in all this, but it is a fact not to be despised. Feminine competition is gradually affecting the labour market in all sorts of branches, and although, no doubt, a very desirable thing that our “sisters, cousins, and aunts,” should be able to earn their own living, the prospect of men standing idly by while the women do the work, is not particularly pleasing. There is no doubt that they come to many employments with great advantages, being usually more patient, more painstaking, and defter in manual occupations requiring great nicety of touch. Consequently their male coworkers must endeavour to foster these characteristics if they hope to cope successfully with them.
There is one drawback to a workshop full of members of the gentler persuasion. Those conversational powers so frequently granted to them would, we fear, tend somewhat to retard the progress of work, and a suite or sideboard might be disastrously delayed owing to a heated discussion on the merits of a new bonnet or a fresh colour in ribbons, unless, indeed, our fair carvers are superior to such frivolities.
The Furniture Gazette – (London) May 1, 1889
– Jeff Burks
Don’t be Ridiculous
First-time visitors to the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, Maine, are sometimes bemused by all the machinery used to make handplanes.
“Wait,” I heard one say during a tour, “I thought you made all these tools by hand – no machines. Shouldn’t hand tools be made by hand?”
Similarly, I get asked the following questions almost every time I’m in public.
“You accept credit cards and call yourself an anarchist?”
“Wait, you don’t process all your stock for your woodworking classes by hand?”
“Don’t you think it’s strange to use the Internet to promote the use of non-electrical tools? That’s an electric tool.”
Since we concocted the lever, wheel and other simple machines, we have always sought to harness some sort of mechanical advantage to make the labor easier. We have drawings of sawmills from 1250. Planing machines go back to at least the 18th century.
These technologies supplied hand-tool shops with the stock to make furniture and other household goods (think: “Little House on the Prairie”). I doubt that any woodworker who built a highboy started the process in the forest with an axe and ended with a French polishing rubber.
So yes, I have some machines. I couldn’t build a campaign chest in a reasonable amount of time if I had to start with the tree. And our ancestors who built campaign chests didn’t start with a tree, either. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m doing things in the historically correct and expedient manner: Machines process the stock; hand tools cut the joinery.
And I’m happy to change modes when the work calls for it. Stick chairs are best when they are built from rived – not sawn – wood. So when I build these sorts of objects, it’s best to start with the tree. It’s efficient. Plus it produces a stronger and better-looking chair.
Similarly, if I ever have to build another Eames piece, I’m going to borrow a hydraulic press to mold the plywood sheets. It’s simply the best route from point A to B.
As to the other questions listed above, here’s how I respond:
1. On credit cards. I don’t like them, but we accept them as a convenience to our customers. Know that we use the smallest bank in town. I know all the tellers’ names; they know mine. When it comes to the topic of banking, I think it’s a matter of who is in charge of the relationship. I have no debts, so the bank has no power over my business. As we are on equal footing, it’s just a matter of negotiating their fees and the interest they pay me on my money.
2. On using the Internet. I consider the Internet to be the most decentralized communication system ever devised. It is, compared to all other forms of mass communication, fairly lawless (in a good way) and democratic (with a small “d.”). Lost Art Press wouldn’t exist without it because the Internet has allowed us to avoid working with book distributors, such as Ingram and Amazon, which seek to control our pricing and our business. So once again, it’s a matter of control.
So when I’m ripping out 600 sticks of mahogany for a class on Roorkhee chair class, I am thankful for the machine that granted me an astonishing amount of freedom, both in woodworking and in making a living.
And when I’m cutting 120 dovetails with a dovetail saw, I am again thankful for the saw in my right hand that has granted me an astonishing amount of freedom in how I cut my joinery and in the resulting appearance of my furniture. Same with handplanes and chisels.
Bottom line: Tools (banking, CNC, carcase saws) can enslave or liberate. Take your pick.
— Christopher Schwarz
