Patching the floor with materials salvaged from another part of the building.
Work at the Anthe Building is plowing forward with a few necessary diversions and delays. As of now, we hope to begin fulfillment operations on June 15. Our new fulfillment employees start on June 1, so they likely will join our efforts to get the building ready and help install the packing tables and shelving.
There are things to celebrate: We have a paved driveway. The concrete is curing, so we can’t drive on it. But it rises gently and exactly to the shop floor. Also, the HVAC system is completely installed and awaiting electricity.
The driveway going in. The bollards will protect our HVAC’s condenser.
There are setbacks: The “walls” at the front of the building were not stable enough to keep as-is. The walls were only beadboard that was nailed to other pieces of beadboard until the whole shebang was somewhat sturdy. No studs or plates or headers. In fact, it was the frames for the doors and windows that kept everything steady.
So we took down these partitions. We are going to build stud walls and cover them with painted beadboard. So the end result will look much the same, but will be up to code.
The view toward the storefront with the partition walls taken down.
Some revelations: Almost all of the architectural features inside the building are salvaged material. (This makes me happy.) None of the interior transom windows match. And some of the partitions on the second floor are clearly from another building.
We are keeping all of the salvaged items. We are cleaning them up and will reuse them throughout the building, keeping in the spirit of the building’s history.
Finally, the contractors dealt with “the trench.” The trench is an enclosed empty space between our building and the pawn shop next door. (These two buildings were both part of the original Anthe business.) The trench allows light and air into the south wall of the building. It also was filled with decades of trash and debris.
The contractors cleared the trench and unclogged the drain at the bottom, which was filled with decades of silt.
Coming soon: A new accessible (ADA) bathroom, which will be built to look like it belongs in the building. And replacement steel doors for the back entrance.
1) The Workshop, including the design and construction of workbenches, tool chests and wall cabinets. There’s also an entire section devoted to “appliances,”which are workshop accessories such as shooting boards.
2) Furniture & its Details, includes a discussion of all the important Western furniture styles, including their construction, mouldings and metal hardware. This section also includes the construction drawings for many important and famous pieces of furniture examined by Charles H. Hayward during his tenure at The Woodworker magazine.
3) Odds & Sods. In addition to offering its readers practical information for the shop, The Woodworker also asked it subscribers to think about the craft and its place in modern society. We have included many of our favorite philosophical pieces in this final section.
During the last few years the ball catch has become remarkably popular. It is far neater than the old-fashioned turn and is much more convenient in use. There are many occasions when a door needs something to hold it in place when closed but when a lock seems unnecessary. Take, for instance, a sideboard. Often enough locks are not really needed. The key is invariably kept in the lock and it is turned merely to prevent the door from remaining ajar and looking untidy. A ball catch would answer the purpose equally well.
Although the fitting is usually a straightforward job, there are sometimes slight complications. In any case the requirements of the fitting should be understood properly. In the first place, the ball catch itself has a slight flange at the top. When recessed into the door this flange is bound to project. This means that the catch plate must be sunk into the cupboard by an amount rather more than its thickness. If this were not done the flange would strike against the plate and would prevent the door from closing—unless the door was a very loose fit. This is made clear in Fig. 1.
When the door closes in flush with the cupboard the work is simple. First make a pencil line in the middle of the stile at the top and square it across the top edge of the door. Close the latter and transfer the mark to the edge of the cupboard as shown in Fig. 2. Square the mark back for about 1 in. Since the projecting part of the plate must be flush with the front of the cabinet, a gauge can be set to the over-all width (see A, Fig. 3) and the cupboard marked. Holding the plate level with this line and so that the pencil line runs exactly across its centre, mark round it with a marker or sharp pencil. The recess is cut easily by chopping down all round the shape and easing away the waste. The chisel should be placed a trifle inside the line so that the recess is not too large. After a little experience the exact position in which to place the chisel will come automatically, giving a perfect fit. In some fittings the screw holes are pressed out to form a countersink, and this necessitates countersinking the screw holes in the wood to enable the plate to go in flush. Another recess is also needed at the centre where the hole for the ball occurs. This again is best done with the countersink. The ball catch itself merely needs a hole drilled in the door. It is made a fairly tight fit and requires no other fixing.
The fixing is sometimes complicated by the front of the cabinet being chamfered, or having some carved decoration. This prevents the gauge from being used. Proceed as before, marking the pencil line at the top of the door and transferring it to the cabinet. Fit the plate first. Hold it centrally over the pencil line and keep the projecting part of the plate level with the cabinet front (Fig. 4). Having fixed the plate, close the door and mark with a pencil the position its front occupies (see A, Fig. 4). Set a pair of dividers from this pencil line to a line running through the centre of the hole for the ball (B). (This usually lines up with the screw holes.) With the dividers mark the line on the top of the door, keeping one leg of the dividers at the front. This gives the position for the hole for the ball catch.
Derek is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching – well worth a visit to Kentucky to soak up his knowledge about how to break free from 90° as you build a handsome, three-legged table! Tickets are on sale now!
Editor’s note: Andy Glenn reports that he is working on the final edit of “Backwoods Chairs” before passing it along. It’ll be in our hands in Junewhen we’ll start the editing and layout process. “I’m excited, and more than a little relieved, for this to join the stable of upcoming LAP books,” he says. All the images in this post are from Andy’s visit to Randy Ogle’s The Chair Shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Randy’s a third-generation chairmaker, with a chair shop and gallery just off the Craft Loop road. Randy’s also one of the few makers Andy visited with a storefront and open hours, and Andy highly recommends a visit if you get a chance.
Chris and I first discussed this book a few years back – a book on the backwoods chairmaking tradition, one found deep in the hills and mountain communities of central Appalachia. It excited me – to search for and travel to working makers still engaged in the longstanding tradition of rural chairmaking. I had no idea who I’d find still at it. There are no networks or directories for this sort of thing.
I searched and traveled for makers over a couple-year stretch. Covid complicated things immensely at the beginning. I was already an outsider requesting visits and traveling from away. Now I was visiting their shops with the uncertainty of the virus swirling about. So things paused for half a year or so before traveling started in earnest.
Randy Ogle flexing a walnut chair slat into the bending form.
One aspect that made this project such an enjoyable riddle was that I had no idea who I’d find during the search. But I came across plenty of chairmakers (which took me to splendid rural chair shops in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina) during this time to the point I needed to end the search and put the book together, or risk this thing never coming together in print.
I found that I needed to write immediately after a visit or my initial impressions would dull away. Details would muddle, smells would fade and I’d forget the punchline to the jokes told by the makers. No matter how thorough my note-taking, writings from a recalled visit didn’t share the same spark as a fresh experience. So I wrote immediately after traveling, sometimes through the night if I was visiting different makers on successive days.
The issue: I had no idea how the book fit together until after the search or how each visit would relate to the others.
The early writings weren’t chapters but more essay-like. In the best case, they were the primordial chapters. When I revisited an essay, sometimes a year after the visit, the vitality of the day would rush back. Later on, once completely finished with the search, the story arch became apparent and I could see how the independent puzzle pieces of essays fit together. That’s when the book began to take shape.
In the earliest days, I also wrote when considering an issue. The following was cut during the latest edit. Like many of the early essays, this doesn’t fit properly into the book. A few early writings were mercifully deleted (there’s nothing quite like the embarrassment that comes from reading your own bad writing), while plenty of others were adapted and absorbed into the final version.
I don’t remember what prompted the entry below, though I imagine it was in response to friends’ and acquaintances’ perplexed responses to hearing about this book. Most people responded with excitement. A few were so overwhelmingly baffled that they offered no follow-up. Just silence (I actually enjoy these responses very much). But, at times, there was a hint of dismissiveness about these chairs and the value of this book. The essay was likely written with that attitude in mind.
This survived the initial fiery purge of the “delete” button, and it doesn’t cause stomach pain or my face to turn bright red, so I thought it’d be fun to share here.
Randy’s method for putting the back assembly together. He cut the mortises flush to the cutout on the face of the back post. After inserting the slat, Randy twisted the post until the slat crossed the line running vertical from the chuck center of the drill press. He adjusts the post until the slat intersects the vertical line at the shoulder line where it will enter the opposing post.
A three-slat walnut chair with a seagrass seat from The Chair Shop. Early chairs from the family shop were woven with corn shuck.
I love the work of authors Wendell Berry and E. B. White. It is my hope that I subconsciously replicated their style and cadence. It is wholly doubtful I will achieve it, but still a resounding desire.
Their writing styles welcome the reader to share in their experiences through the combination of humor, neighborliness and the strength of their convictions. A running theme in their writings, though maybe more of an undercurrent than a theme really, is the respect each shows toward rural America*. Respect towards its people, their communities and the environment. Seldom explicit (though Berry does speak strongly in defense of rural America against the subjugated qualities of the big, market-based economy and the destructive policies of those in positions of power), the worth of each community member is inherently implied.
To mount a defense for the rural against the urban, either aloud or in writing, immediately puts the defender in the weaker position, and should only be done so when absolutely necessary. As it relates to chairmaking; beyond this, I do not intend to spend any time arguing the value and worth of backwoods chairs when compared to “sophisticated” work or dominant design trends. The worth of the backwoods is inherent, as much as any other place, people and creative work. Rural is only devalued if we choose to devalue it, and, unfortunately, why Mr. Berry must speak to its defense.
Within “Backwoods Chairs,” I follow the chairmaking tradition, rich as it is in the hills and mountains of central Appalachia, out of the rural communities and into larger cities, and even toward different regions when the story points elsewhere. Yet these chairs are most often found in rural areas for a reason; Appalachia has abundant timber for post-and-rung chairs, remote communities in need of seating, along with the low investment and overhead, all of which created an ideal environment for green wood chairmaking.
The beauty of the chair is found in its simple form, the local materials, and the maker’s skill. It’s a subtle chair, one that’s easy to overlook because of our familiarity with the form. But it’s a chair that supported generations of makers, attracts both artists and craftspeople towards its form, and is ripe for contemporary interpretations as the tradition pushes forward.
It’s a chair worth celebrating, along with the resiliency of the makers who continue on this path.
– Andy Glenn
*During their careers, both authors left their homes and opportunities within the city (both lived in New York City at one point) for a rural life. Berry moved toward a familial farmstead along the banks of the Kentucky River while White went northwards to a saltwater farm in coastal Maine.
The Gibson chair that is the subject of a video Megan and I are working on. This week has been so busy that we have stalled on it. It will be finished next week.
Update: I am sad that no one asked about cat care. So I’ve closed the comments, and am going home to sulk with a cat on my lap. – Fitz
I’m teaching a class this weekend, so Megan has volunteered to staff the LAP Open Wire today. So in addition to woodworking questions, feel free ask about home renovation and cat care.
Here’s how it works: Type your question in the comment field. Megan will do her best to answer.
Before you ask a question, please read this.
If you could limit the number of questions you ask to one or two, that keeps the load manageable. And remember brevity is appreciated.
If your question is your first comment here, it will automatically be flagged for moderation. Your question will appear after she approves it.
So here we go…. Note that comments for this entry will close about 5 p.m. Eastern.
