Craftsman W. Patrick Edwards recently made an interesting video on marquetry in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago. Patrick discusses the video, which you can view at his site, and also explores the history of the “chevalet” – a saw guide that assists the craftsman.
Very good stuff and worth watching.
Read about (and watch) the videos here.
Read about the chevalet here.
— Christopher Schwarz
Thanks to a 60 percent chance of rain today, we received our shipment of Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain: A Craftsman’s Guide to Understanding Wood.”
John Hoffman and family are boxing up the books now and the parcels will enter the mail stream immediately.
“With the Grain” will be carried by Lie-Nielsen Toolworks (plus a DVD hosted by Becksvoort), Lee Valley Tools and Tools for Working Wood.
— Christopher Schwarz
For me, the hardest part of making half-blind dovetails isn’t the sawing. It’s chiseling out the waste between the pins. So when I have a crapload of half-blind dovetails to make, I use my drill press and a Forstner bit to bore out the bulk. Then I finish up with a regular bench chisel.
I’m in the midst of a sea of half-blind and full-blind dovetails for my latest campaign chest. All together, I have 16 half-blind corners, two full-blind corners and 10 through-dovetail corners to make. In my book, that’s a crapload.
I set my drill press so that it bores just shy of my baselines – I don’t trust its depth stop. (The stop has bent many times; I should replace it.) So there’s still some chopping and paring I need to do with each joint.
With any luck, I should have the lower carcase of this chest glued up this afternoon. And thanks to my drill press, I’ll have saved several hours I can devote to editing some upcoming books. That’s also removing waste, but it’s a process that my drill press can’t help with.
— Christopher Schwarz
But what of this new style that has been struggling through to beauty in these post-war years? One sees the impressionistic school of pre-war days. One sees a war-racked England, struggling to get away from its own nerves – the nerves that it inherited form the past. The race feels intensely that things must change.
There are creations like flashes of lightning, or the stars seen by one dazed by a blow; jazz designs in upholstery, sideboards with the oddest shapes stuck on their ends, things designed to meet eyes that are too weary to rest.
— The Woodworker, April 1933
Sticky? Yes. It’s made from three sticks. So it’s quite “sticky.”
I just finished up this campaign stool based (loosely) on A.J. Roubo’s model shown in “L’Art du Menuisier.” I turned round legs, whereas Roubo shows legs that are pie-shaped in section. When those legs fold together, they make a cylinder. Clever.
I know how to make legs like this, but I have to come up with a way to do this that doesn’t waste a lot of wood.
As I explained in an earlier post, the pivoting hardware is made using an eye bolt, all-thread rod, washers and acorn nuts. It looks OK, but I’m going to use different hardware for the next version to make it look bad-asser.
The leather, oiled latigo from the saddle industry, is great. Ty Black finished hand-stitching the seat last night. I attached the seat to the legs using No 10 x 1-1/4” solid brass screws from the maritime industry – they are sweet – plus some brass finishing washers from the home center that look like they had been hanging out there since Johnson was in office.
The stool sits really well. It barely weighs a thing. And it folds up nicely. That’s pretty good for a second prototype. But the next stool will be better.
— Christopher Schwarz
