The cabinet I made in pippy (also known as burly) white oak with shop-made walnut-and-maple beading and hardware in walnut, based on Gimson’s original 1919 design for a sideboard for Guy de Gruchy in “Ernest Gimson: Arts & Crafts Designer and Architect.”
Nancy Hiller’s “Shop Tails,” a companion book of essays to “Making Things Work.” “Shop Tails” is different from “Making Things Work” in that it is structured around the animals that came in and out of Nancy’s life, with each chapter focusing on a different one (or several different ones). The animal tales are sandwiched between some serious existential and biographical content provoked by her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and all of it is interwoven with true stories about non-human animals, in addition to reflections on how much they taught her about life, love, illness, expectations, parenting, and death.
I continued to run up against the crucial big-picture question that so many books and articles told me I had to answer: What was I living for? What gave me joy? I still had no satisfactory response. Looking back over my life while fitting doors and discussing next steps with my oncologist from the top of a ladder as I painted cubbies for sheet music and CDs, I realized that I had rarely been motivated by a vision or a dream. I could recall few well-defined goals or desires. Sure, I had a basic three-fold vision: Do good work, make a home, have a happy partnership. But this was just an outline that would take a lot of filling-in. Why was I so vague about what I wanted?
In part, I realized, it was because I was raised not to want, but to be grateful for what already was. I worked at being happy, whatever situation I faced, and went from one situation to another without any real plan. When my mother told 8-year-old me that wanting things would make me unhappy, she was probably not referring to the important stuff, but to the latest toys we saw advertised on TV. But you can’t really predict what a kid will do with the Buddha’s First and Second Noble Truths, which, in a nutshell, see all life as suffering, and suffering as a product of selfish desire. I don’t recall any discussion about the need to envision my future, let alone plan my studies around my need to earn a living. Sometimes I was happy. Sometimes I was miserable. But eventually something would change and things got better. Only in my 30s, when I was reading Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in graduate school, did it dawn on me that desire can be among the most powerful motivations for good; what matters are the nature of that desire and its goal.
In place of motivation by well-founded desire, I had spent my life in search of validation that I didn’t get at home. Growing up, it seemed my sister and I were constantly being urged to be other than we were: Hold in your stomach, don’t slouch, don’t whine, get off your backside and do your chores – much of it the typical, benign work of training Baby Boomers for adulthood. The critical messages far outweighed any expressions of approbation.
My sense of never doing or being enough was only worsened by the father figures introduced to our household in the aftermath of our parents’ split. When I was 14, our mother’s boyfriend, George, told me I had a naturally down-turned mouth and should make an effort to smile, lest my face put others off. He said I was getting fat (I wasn’t) and should go on a diet, so I ran with that and developed an eating disorder. He told me I knew nothing – true, relatively speaking, but how does angrily hurling “You know nothing!” at a teenager really help matters? (Answer: It doesn’t. There are more precise and effective ways to make the point about youthful over-confidence versus lack of life experience.) His general demeanor was that of a smug, entitled guy who had put his degree from Oxford to profitable use by getting a job in law or finance in London and resented the intrusion of his girlfriend’s teenage daughters on what would otherwise have been his uninterrupted “me time.” I recognized his bitterness as evidence of his own unhappiness, but his words had lasting effects.
So when this arrogant man who arrived at our doorstep a few times a week, only to be ushered into a comfortable chair and handed a drink to enjoy while he read the evening paper, promised me 5 pounds for every A I got in my O-Level exams, I happily stuck it to him. I’d already experienced the satisfaction of earning good grades in middle school and realized I had the power to view my teachers less as unreasonably demanding authority figures than as partners in my education; I would do my best for them, as well as myself, not least because at the slightest imposition of real discipline, most of my fellow students complained. It had to be tough, being a teacher.
I lived by my As and A-pluses, my 10s-out-of-10. With every one, I felt better about myself and hoped that my teachers felt better about themselves, too. I worked hard to get into the University of Cambridge, only to discover, once accepted, that I had no idea why I was really there, even though I loved the day-to-day life of a scholar. What mattered most to me, I’m embarrassed to say, is that I got in – and with an honorary scholarship. No one could ever again call me lame-brained, even though my stepfather would do his best to prove my intellectual inferiority to his own sophistication in argument and repeatedly called me “useless” to my face. The same went for university after I returned to the States. I was determined to graduate Phi Beta Kappa, as my mother had. And I did. But again, in grad school, I was struck by the realization that I really had no idea why I was there, beyond my awareness that I enjoyed learning, having my mind lit on fire by new perspectives, and proving my ability to excel. In the end I did not want the life of a professional academic. And the most oft-cited alternatives for those with a doctorate in ethics, which I had planned to pursue, were nothing I wanted, either; I had no interest in being an ethics advisor to some big corporation, a job that too often means circumventing profit-diminishing foundational moral stances through arguments on behalf of ethical exceptions. What I wanted, for 50 years, was to prove that people were wrong about me, to exceed their low expectations. When people mentally translated my work as a furniture maker to “She makes ‘furniture’ out of pallets or fruit crates and decorates her work with cut-outs of ducks and bunnies – you know, because that’s what women like,” I would show them my take on an Edwardian hallstand with a perfectly fitted door and drawer and a cornice of compound bevels. Anyone who assumed that, as a tradesperson, I would be less intellectually curious and articulate than someone who works in an office (any kind of office would do; this is a matter of longstanding prejudice against “manual” and “blue-collar” workers) would have to square that assumption with a growing body of published essays and books in which I brought my academic training in Classical languages, history and ethics to bear on the social and economic significance of commonplace things such as kitchen furnishings. I did my best to illustrate the ways in which a house, typically thought of as “property,” could fulfill many of the roles we usually associate with a human partner. In response to the critics who might deride my ways of putting cabinets together, I would point out that there really are as many ways to build a cabinet as there are cabinetmakers, not to mention that the cabinets I build, however simple their construction, are far stronger than most that are commercially made.
No ducks and bunnies. Edwardian Hallstand, circa 2002. Curly white oak with locally quarried limestone counters. (Photo: Spectrum Creative Group.)
Throughout all of this, I now saw, I had moved forward in reaction to others. I was dangerously dependent on outside forces, people who expressed their opposition, no less than their approval. It suddenly felt deeply exhausting. I let my awareness of that exhaustion sink in. Whatever might happen with the course of my cancer, I was not going back to my old ways of living.
To be fair, those other-influenced decisions always reflected something of me – a love of houses, gardens and animals; an intellectual fascination with the endless ways in which people make meaning out of the seemingly random circumstances into which we are born; a desire to make myself a home. But viewing the span of my working life as a whole, I was staggered by a deep, yet vague sense that I had always been running away. What was I running away from – the person I was not, but was too often taken to be?
After an absurd number of delays, The Stick Chair Journal No. 2 is now shipping. The new issue contains complete plans for a Hobbit-esque stick chair, plus lots of photos of original chairs (for inspiration), techniques to help you at the bench and a profile of Welsh chairmaker Gareth Irwin.
The new issue is $25. Because of the arrival of the new issue, we are closing out copies of issue No. 1 at a special price. And offering a bundle of both issues Nos. 1 & 2 for a discount.
Every order of the Journal comes with a pdf download of the Journal itself, plus a pdf download of the full-size patterns for the chair in each issue.
Important note: We have printed 2,000 copies of issue No. 2 of the Journal. Once that press run has been exhausted, we will not reprint this issue.
And if you haven’t noticed, the Journal is the same physical trim size as “Welsh Stick Chairs” and “The Belligerent Finisher” so all your soft-cover stick-chair material is an identical size (for people who are into that – see below).
Not One Chair, But 1,000: Some chairmakers become obsessed with perfecting one form of chair. That’s fine. But stick chairs ask something different from their makers.
‘Preflight’ Avoids Assembly Disasters: The most common problem stick chair makers face is with cracked arms. These simple techniques reduce the chance of a cracked arm to almost zero.
Gareth Irwin, Chairmaker in the Forest: We visit the Wales shop of Gareth Irwin, who builds his chairs entirely by hand. With lots of inspiring photos.
The Tyranny of Tables: The seats of modern chairs are too high (18″) for short sitters. Why don’t we lower the standard seat height of chairs? Simple answer: The dang tables we dine at. We offer a solution.
Stick Chairs in the Wylde: A detailed photographic look at a selection of antique stick chairs from Tim and Betsan Bowen, antique dealers in Ferryside, Wales.
John Brown’s Cardigan Chair: To our surprise, we now own the first chair that John Brown built in the United States. This article is a close examination of the Cardigan chair, both its virtues and faults.
Hobbit-y Armchair: This chair is inspired by a prop from “The Fellowship of the Ring.” It combines elements of British and Germanic elements into a chair (actually, a backstool. Kinda?) that is perfect for the hearth and telling tall tales.
Control the D#^& Tenon Cutter: If you struggle with the Veritas Power Tenon Cutter, this article will set you (and your tenons) straight.
The desk and bookcase was an essential piece of furniture for a minister because it housed his most important books.
The following is excerpted from “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847),” by Joshua Klein. In this book, Klein (founder of Mortise & Tenon Magazine), examines what might be the most complete record of the life of an early 19th-century American craftsman. Using Fisher’s papers, his tools and the surviving furniture, Klein paints a picture of a man of remarkable mechanical genius, seemingly boundless energy and the deepest devotion. It is a portrait that is at times both familiar and completely alien to a modern reader – and one that will likely change your view of furniture making in the early days of the United States.
The Desk & Bookcase The value of a minister’s library was substantial and, therefore, the fact that Fisher invested time in the construction of a desk and bookcase is not surprising. One biographer calculated that Fisher owned approximately 300 books, describing it as “not an inconsiderable store for a poor minister in a small village.” That Fisher valued reading is even seen in the plans for his house in which one of only two items of furniture depicted was a bookcase in the kitchen.
Though Fisher’s desk and bookcase is not explicitly mentioned in the surviving journal entries, attribution can be confidently made based on provenance, numerous construction features and the homemade wooden lock on the door.
The desk is constructed of pine and was painted (although the current paint is modern). The desk has three drawers and downward-extending lopers that provide a slanted writing surface. At the top of the writing surface, there is a small secret compartment with a sliding-dovetail lid for valuables. The bookcase has both full-length shelves as well as small compartments for letters, etc. The panel doors lap with a beveled edge when closed, and a homemade wooden lock secures the minister’s library from tampering. Despite the fact that the lock operated with a key that is now missing, there is an identical lock on the door to his clock face that still functions, operating by turning a knob. Fisher made many wooden latches in his house, all of which are fascinating, but these locks are particularly delightful. They are easy to overlook by assuming that they are the same metal locks Fisher might have purchased from Mr. Witham’s store at the head of the bay, but they are clearly Fisher-made and completely made of wood. Their delicateness and smoothness of operation add a touch of sophistication to an otherwise unassuming piece of furniture.
It is understandable that Fisher’s work has been compared to that of the Shakers but there are differences, especially in ornamentation.
Fisher’s work has been sometimes compared to that of the Shakers because of its simplicity and conscious restraint. While the overall association stands, it is significant to point out that the primary difference between Fisher and the Shakers is their view of ornamentation. While classic Shaker work has little to no moulding, Fisher relished elaborate profiles. The cornice of this desk (as well as that of his wardrobe) sat like a crown over Fisher as he studied. His artistic vision of furniture design, though similar to the Shakers’ in its modesty, was less inhibited. Even as a young child, his mother, Katherine, taught him to value artistic expression. Katherine, whose drawings look so much like her son’s, saw a world in which chastity and artistic beauty were not mutually exclusive. Fisher was not afraid of flourish. His work fits much more squarely in the Federal vernacular classification than that of the Shakers.
The cornice on the desk and bookcase sets it apart from Shaker work.
The floral drawings Fisher’s mother, Katherine, drew in her notebooks are reminiscent of her son’s. Katherine Avery Fisher, untitled hand-bound booklet, 1778; paper, string, ink, pencil, 6-1/8″ x 3-5/8″; collection of Historic Deerfield, HD 56.296. – Courtesy of Historic Deerfield, Photo by Penny Leveritt.
The desk carcase is interesting in that it is constructed like a six-board chest, with the sides extending to the floor with bootjack feet. The dados are a scant 3⁄4″ wide, matching his surviving dado plane. The backboards are unplaned, rough-sawn boards nailed into rabbets in the sides. The drawers (with the exception of the bottom one, which is a replacement) are of conventional dovetail construction – half-blind dovetails at the front, and through-dovetails at the back. The drawers’ bottoms are beveled and fitted into grooves in the sides and front, and are nailed to the drawer backs
Rather than rely on measurements from a ruler, Fisher relied on simple whole-number proportions used in classical architecture.
The overall composition of this piece illustrates the minister’s education. Even this simple desk was designed with classical proportions from his architectural training. Fisher’s fluency in this geometric layout is obvious from his college geometry notebooks in the archives. These notebooks are full of compass exercises to lay out complex patterns. Designing a desk was easy compared to the drawings he usually did. This “artisan’s design language” (as George Walker has called it) [6] must have been intuitive in Fisher’s cosmos of order and mathematical rationality.
The lock is made of wood, with the exception of the metal pins. This is exactly the kind of detail work Fisher seemed to enjoy.
The top panel was beveled on all four sides to fit in the groove, but the bottom panel was thin enough to fit without beveling. This board must have been thin before planing because rough-sawn fibers can still be seen in places.
The panels in the doors are interesting in their irregularity. Their flat sides face out in the Federal style and are beveled only where needed on the inside. The insides of the panels have heavy scalloping from the fore plane, even leaving behind evidence of a nick in the iron of the plane. This tendency to continue to use a nicked iron without regrinding the bevel is consistent throughout his work and concurs with the notion of pre-industrial indifference toward secondary surface condition. For the bottom two panels, he seems to have run short on material because the panels are only barely as thick as the 5⁄16″ groove and, even at that, both retain minor, rough-sawn texture. It appears he was scraping the bottom of the barrel to get those doors finished.
Willard wrote his name all over the house. His father’s bookcase door was no exception.
The insides of the doors have several inscriptions. “Willard” is written in red ink on one door, and “Josiah F” on the other. There are also compass-scribed circles on the inside of both doors whose randomness appears to have no significance beyond doodling. Even more perplexing, however, is the recording of “1 gallon of vinegar” on the inside of the door. This pattern of documenting purchases (and then crossing them off when paid) as well as notable life events is seen in several other pieces throughout the house. Jonathan seemed to have started the habit but Willard definitely took it far beyond his father. Willard’s name, agricultural notes and weather reports appear all over the house and his son, Fred, seems to have continued the tradition.
The Standing Desk
The standing desk was once painted blue and never had a drawer pull. It is said to have been used by Fisher for preparing sermons.
The standing desk is said to have been used by Fisher and is attributed to him. There are remnants of the light blue paint Fisher used extensively in his furniture, but there is no mention in the journals of his building the desk at all. Fisher did describe building a “high writing table” but this would be a surprising description for such a recognizable form as a desk on frame. Furthermore, Fisher was described as “below medium height.” Because the average height of a Civil War soldier was 5’7″, it seems reasonable to surmise Fisher was certainly no taller than 5’5″. If this were his desk, it would have been uncomfortably tall for him without a stool to stand on. Perhaps, though, the “standing stool” Fisher built soon after moving into his house was intended for that purpose.
6. Walker, Geo. R, and Tolpin, Jim, “By Hand & Eye,” Lost Art Press, 2013.
In this book, Cianci (aka The Saw Wright) teaches you the fundamentals of maintaining backsaws and handsaws: how to file and joint your saws with the correct rake, fleam and pitch to keep them cutting sharp. You’ll also learn how to deal with saw teeth that are in good shape but dull, plus how to successfully doctor teeth that have been abused.
Plus, Matt shows you how to identify and restore vintage saws (i.e. is that yard sale box lot a good buy?) – and basic sawsmithing – how to hammer out a bent blade, and how to re-set the spine on a backsaw.
Do you remember sitting in junior high geometry class and trying your best to stay awake? Me too.
While we don’t have to talk about the Pythagorean theorem in this chapter, it is important to understand the basic shapes and angles related to saw teeth. We’ll also cover basic terminology. Grab your highlighter.
Hand Saw Anatomy Western-style hand saws come in many forms, but the two most common to woodworking are the handsaw and the backsaw. A hand saw (two separate words) refers to any saw worked by hand power. This includes large two-person timber saws for felling and bucking trees to pit saws for sawing boards from a log, and even tiny keyhole saws and dovetail saws for fine joinery with all types in between. Hand saws can have a thin, narrow blade tensioned in a wood or metal frame, or the blade can be unrestrained and of sufficient gauge to remain stiff and resist buckling in use. A handsaw (one word) is a particular form of hand saw that includes a wooden handle with closed grip on one end of an unrestrained blade, which is used for making straight, dimensioning cuts in boards of all kinds. Handsaws are identified in size by the length of the toothed edge of their blade, which can range from 12″ to 30″. The most common size is 26″, which is the prototypical carpenter’s saw.
A backsaw is a hand saw with a thinner blade and an applied metal rib along its top edge to provide stiffness in use. It has an open- or closed-grip handle ,and is used for making precise joinery or fine dimensioning cuts in wooden components of all kinds. Backsaws are also identified by the length of the toothed edge of their blade and typically range in size from 6″ to 20″ , with 12″ being the most common. A special variety of backsaws, called miter box saws, are designed to be used in manufactured miter boxes, and can be up to 30″ in length.
Backsaws: from top to bottom, a 10″ Disston No. 68 gent’s saw, my reproduction of an unmarked 18th-century dovetail saw, a 12″ backsaw of my own design, and a 14″ Disston No. 4.
There is common language used to identify the parts of both handsaws and backsaws that you should understand before you learn about saw teeth. The thin steel body of the saw that contains the teeth is referred to as the blade. The toothed edge of the blade is called the toothline, and the opposite edge is called the back. The other major component of a handsaw or backsaw is the handle, which is self explanatory and usually made of wood. The two ends of the toothed blade are distinct. The end with the handle is called the heel; the opposite end is called the toe. Unique to backsaws is the metal reinforcing rib, called the back, along the top edge of the blade. These can be made of iron, steel or brass.
Rip teeth (left) and crosscut teeth (right).
Parts of Teeth The teeth of Western saws are shaped like triangles, and each part of these teeth have a specific name and function. Understanding these elements is the first step in learning to sharpen your saws. The point is the acute apex of the tooth where the wood fibers are first cut. Depending on how you file a particular saw, these points can have different geometric distinctions and cut wood in different ways. The face of the tooth is the side of the triangle that first contacts the work when the saw is in use. Because Western-style saws cut on the push stroke, these faces are always on the toe side of the toothline. Logically, then, the opposing side of the tooth is called the back. The site where the back and face meet is called the gullet.
Backsaw anatomy.
Handsaw anatomy.
In use, all four parts of the tooth work together to cut a kerf into a piece of wood. The kerf is the empty space created by the saw as it cuts. Here’s how it happens:
The acute point of each tooth is pushed down into the wood as the saw is thrust forward. As the point penetrates the surface of the wood it cuts and lifts up a tiny chip of wood.
This chip then slides up the face of the tooth as the saw moves forward.
As the chip reaches the gullet it breaks apart and collects with other chips in the gullet.
As the tooth exits the work on the backside of the kerf, the chips of wood fall out of the gullets. The saw is drawn back and the process repeats.
For conceptual purposes, it has long been suggested that the cutting action of saw teeth is similar to the cutting action of many other edge tools, like chisels and knives. And while this is true for an individual saw tooth, it does not give the full picture. Planes, chisels, knives, axes and all other edge tools possess a single cutting edge, whereas a typical handsaw can have more than 200. For a saw to cut well, each of these teeth must not only be sharp, but also must be uniform and harmonized with all neighboring teeth. Uniformity in partnership with sharpness is the goal for saw teeth. This is why saw sharpening can be so challenging for even the most experienced woodworkers. The efficient and accurate function of the saw is not solely dependent on the quality and geometry of a single edge, but on the quality and uniformity of many edges in relation to each other.
Now that we have defined the parts of a saw’s teeth and how they cut in general, let’s look more closely at how changing the size, shape and geometry of the teeth can make them better suited to different kinds of work.
Saw tooth anatomy.
Tooth Spacing Tooth spacing determines the size of a saw’s teeth and is measured by the number of teeth a saw has within one linear inch. There are actually two different but often confused units of measurement common to hand saws for tooth spacing, and they are points per inch (ppi) and teeth per inch (tpi). They are, in fact, not the same unit. On handsaws, tooth spacing was traditionally stamped onto the heel of the saw on the medallion side of the blade right below the handle. Backsaws had no such marking.
Points per inch (ppi) vs. teeth per inch (tpi). You wouldn’t say yards when you meant meters, would you?
To identify the ppi tooth spacing of any saw, take a rule and place it on the toothline of the saw. Line up the 1″ mark on the rule with one of the tooth points at the heel of the saw. Begin to count the number of tooth points starting with the point aligned with the 1″ mark and progressing up to and including the point under the 2″ mark. This count is the ppi tooth spacing of the saw.
To measure the tpi tooth spacing of a saw use the same rule, but this time line up the 1″ mark with the gullet of a tooth at the heel. Now count the number of full saw teeth (gullet, back, point and face) from one gullet to the next until you reach the gullet under the 2″ mark. This count is the tpi spacing of the saw. If you completed this task correctly, you should arrive at a tpi spacing that is one less than your ppi measurement. This means that a points-per-inch measurement of a saw will always be one greater than the teeth-per-inch unit. Represented in an equation: ppi = tpi +1. So, a 6 ppi saw is not the same as a 6 tpi saw. A 6 ppi saw is equal to a 5 tpi saw, and a 6 tpi saw is in fact equal to a 7 ppi saw. Got it? Good. Of note, I only use ppi when describing tooth spacing.
This will be on the test: Tooth size is determined by the distance between the points.
If you followed the steps above to identify a particular saw’s tooth spacing, and you are finding that the points (if you are using ppi) or the gullets (if you are using tpi) are not lining up with the exact inch marks on your rule there could be a couple of reasons why. Historically, full-size handsaws were commonly available in half-point increments in coarser sizes. So that means that 6-1/2, 5-1/2, 4-1/2 and 3-1/2 ppi saws are commonly found. In fact, 5-1/2-point ripsaws are about as common as any other ripsaw spacing in the wild. A discrepancy in measurement could also mean that your saw has morphed over years of careless filing into an odd spacing. This is especially common on backsaws with very small teeth that are easy to misfile. For handsaws, look for the heel stamp (noted above) to confirm the original spacing. Also, always measure teeth at the heel of a handsaw because ripsaws were commonly toothed one point finer at their toe to allow for easier starting of the cut. This means that a 6-point ripsaw has 6 ppi spacing at its heel and 7 ppi at its toe.
So why are these distinctions about tooth spacing so important? Because more than any other element, tooth spacing affects how a saw will cut, and unlike the other geometric features of saw teeth we will discuss later in this chapter, tooth spacing is not typically changed once it is established. Tooth spacing determines how large or small the teeth are on a saw, which in turn determines how large or small a bite of wood each tooth will take. This is due to the distance from one tooth to the next and the resultant gullet volume the teeth create. In use, a saw tooth will continue cutting chips of wood as long as its point is able to reach the bottom of the kerf. Once the gullet in front of a point fills with chips, it is overcome and can no longer effectively bite into the wood. So a saw with a greater amount of space between each tooth point, and hence a greater chip capacity in its gullet, can go on cutting and creating chips longer than a relatively smaller tooth. But this speed comes at a cost. Larger teeth may cut faster, but they leave a rougher surface on the wood and are not as inclined to the precise work of joinery. Conversely, fine-toothed saws for joinery sacrifice speed, but they allow a smooth, even stroke, whose tiny teeth gently nibble away at the wood to cut a finer line.
Tom grew up in Eugene, Oregon. He spent his childhood outdoors knocking around Eugene’s urban forest areas wearing moccasins he made after immersing himself in books on Indigenous American material culture, fly fishing with his dad and cruising around town on his bike with friends. He has an older sister, now a journalist in Boston. His mom dipped in and out of various jobs including full- and part-time caregiving, and working at a marketing firm, an organic food store and University of Oregon’s (UO) Clark Honors College. He remembers watching his dad, an academic librarian who spent his entire career at UO’s Knight Library, tying his own fishing flies and making knives.
The closest public school just happened to be a French immersion school. Learning another language served as a good brain teaser growing up, and now helps him navigate Europe, “in my very enthusiastic French, which may or may not be correct,” he says, laughing.
When Tom was about 8 years old his mom took him to REI. A rock climbing gym across the street had set up a little climbing wall in the store. Tom tried it out.
“And I just got obsessed with rock climbing,” he says. “Until maybe 15 or so, that was my life.”
Bouldering in Wyoming, 1996.
It was the very early days of the Junior Competitive Climbing Association (Tom was member No. 12). He climbed in competitions all over the West Coast, and even went to nationals a few years.
In 8th grade, Tom got into a bad bike crash. With forced time off from climbing competitions he realized how much more fun it was to simply climb outside with friends. He left the pressure of competitions behind and moved on to alpine climbing and backpacking. He helped start a mountaineering club at his high school. And he did several big climbs – Mount Hood, Mount Shasta and smaller volcanoes in Oregon. He also took some big backpacking trips, including a month-long NOLS course in Wyoming when he was 17.
Mount Shasta, 2013.
Tom looks back with a bit of awe at how trusting his parents were, allowing him to head off with friends and adult climbing mentors to climb mountains, take a 12-hour trip to Spokane for a competition or spend the weekend backpacking.
“It was pretty wonderful,” he says. “It showed a lot of trust. I had some really wonderful mentors and learned a lot.”
Dartmouth’s Outing Club & an Education In Timber Framing, Geography & Studio Art
Tom attended Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he was given the freedom to create his own major – part geography, part architectural history, part architectural justice, part studio art. He likes to call it “cities and buildings.” Tom focused on human geography, looking at how the built environment affects people, privileging some and criminalizing others. He took lots of architecture studios. Timber framing and the buildings in New England, so different from where he grew up, inspired him. When Tom asked to forge his own path, the deans at Dartmouth simply asked for a proposal.
“That trust of students still inspires me in my work,” Tom says.
To further illustrate this trust, Tom shares a story. In middle school, he took a class at a cycling center and got really into fixing up old bikes. At Dartmouth, he noticed abandoned bikes locked up on bike racks for months on end. After about a year, he decided to liberate them. His intent? Fix them up for friends. While liberating one such bike a campus police officer showed up. Tom explained.
“Yeah, I can tell that it’s abandoned but you can’t just take it,” the officer said.
Long story short, Tom ended up in a room with one of the deans. He braced himself for consequence but was instead met with curiosity. The dean asked him to put together a proposal for a program for abandoned bikes, and Tom did. It included a budget, storage solutions and how they would be distributed via the college’s cycling club. Tom says the abandonment of hard-and-fast rules for trust, responsibility and accountability in that moment was eye-opening.
Tom largely chose the college due to the Dartmouth Outing Club, “which is this wonderful storied institution that started in 1909,” he says. It’s student driven, and nearly a quarter of the college’s students are members. In addition to networks of trails, shelters and cabins, the Outing Club offers nearly every outdoor program you can think of, from water sports, skiing, hiking and climbing to hunting, fishing and forestry.
“It’s just an amazing organization and a real education because, again, the amount of trust and responsibility the adults gave the students was such a gift,” Tom says. “We were put in charge of pretty significant projects.”
An example: The summer after Tom’s freshman year, he and two fellow undergrads were responsible for rebuilding a long stretch of the Appalachian Trail that ran along the side of a mountain in New Hampshire. Dartmouth provided them withacourse called “Wilderness Chainsaw Use,” taught by the U.S. Forest Service, then simply gave them a truck, tools and list of work. That summer they replaced rock steps, rebuilt water bars and built a bridge.
“It was incredible,” Tom says. “I teach at a university now and that would never happen now. Never, ever. And it doesn’t happen at Dartmouth the same way. There’s much more supervision.”
Roofing a trail shelter in New Hampshire, 2007.
Tom dedicated his time to the Outing Club’s Cabin and Trail division, which was responsible for maintaining almost 75 miles of Appalachian Trail (these days it’s less). Responsibilities included maintaining all the three-sided Adirondack shelters along the trail and their associated privies. During a meeting it was announced that the Cabin and Trail club’s Cabin Maintenance chair was studying abroad and they needed a replacement.
“For some reason I raised my hand not knowing anything,” Tom says. “And I got handed my first assignment, which was to replace two outhouses.”
As luck would have it, a man named Ira Friedrichs showed up at this same meeting. Ira wasn’t a student. An apprentice to Jay White Cloud, a master timber framer in Thetford Hill, Vermont, Ira was simply hoping to meet some people and maybe help out with a few projects. He and Tom hit it off, and Ira suggested they timber frame the privies together. Ira taught Tom Japanese timber framing and over spring break they pre-cut two small timber frames for the privies. Appalachian Trail regulations required the outhouses be wheelchair accessible, which meant each structure needed a 4′-wide circle. Despite using 2x4s and 4x4s, the frames were heavy. One of the privies was to be located a couple of miles in on a flat trail. Tom and Ira lashed the timbers to wheelbarrows and carts, hand carried them, and put them up in a weekend, hanging the walls on French cleats. The second outhouse, however, was on top of a mountain.
“And that was pretty brutal because we had to slog through mud and this dude was trying to help us with an ATV but that kept getting stuck,” Tom says. “So we’re skidding these timbers up and it was a disaster. But we got them up there eventually and we kind of bodged it together and it was fine.”
Timber framing, 2006.
Velvet Rocks Trail Shelter, Hanover, New Hamshire, Hemlock, 2007. Built in collaboration with Ira Friedrichs.
Tom fell in love with timber framing. He and Ira timber framed the Appalachian Trail’s Velvet Rocks Shelter, and the summer after he graduated, Tom designed and timber framed a sugaring house for an organic farm. He felled the trees, worked with a local sawyer to mill them and erected it on site.
“That was just a really neat farm-to-table building experience,” Tom says.
An Open Woodshop
While at Dartmouth, Tom also had access to the Student Woodshop, located in Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Arts.
“It started in the ’20s and the story I heard was some alumnus said, ‘The men of Dartmouth are getting weak and not learning how to use their hands. I’m going to endow a woodshop so that they can remember what it is to be real men!’ You know, some bullshit like that. But the institution has definitely lasted and it’s just wonderful. It’s an enormous woodshop with wonderful tools and a full-time staff.”
There are no woodworking classes, rather the Student Woodshop is simply an open studio. Tom wanted to build a blanket chest so he checked it out. Staff including Greg Elder, director of the Student Woodshop, taught him how to use the tools, how to think about what’s needed to take rough lumber to square, and how to balance hand work with machine work.
“It was just an amazing privilege to have access to that and that just gave me such a bug,” Tom says.
Occasionally, Walker Weed, former director of the Student Woodshop, would come by to use a machine. Reed was a well-known New England studio woodworker who had been featured in Fine Woodworking, “a good legend and guiding light at that place,” Tom says.
Sugar house, built 2008
Throughout college Tom made a bunch of little blanket and sea chests – a lot of machine dovetails, he says. After graduating in 2007, he sharpened tools at the Student Woodshop a few hours a week, giving him full access to the shop. Then, he started getting commissions. First was the sugaring house for the organic farm. Then Jay hired him to help build a small wing onto his house. And a local guy asked him to build a fly-tying desk.
“I just bit off way more than I could chew,” Tom says. “I made this really elaborate crazy-ass thing. The whole base was basically timber framed with all these big wedged through-tenons. And then the top was all hand-cut dovetails on this stepped, Tansu-looking series of little cabinets, all hand-cut dovetail drawers, and I think I asked for what at the time felt like an impossible price and then of course I ended up making about $3 an hour.”
Patmos, Greece, 2008.
During his senior year, Tom learned about a grant from Dartmouth’s art department: An alum had given money so that students could go to Europe and be inspired by architecture. That sounded pretty good to Tom so he applied and got the grant. After graduation he stuck around Hanover for about 10 months then bummed around Europe for three months, stretching the grant as long as he could.
Archival Clothing
Once back from Europe, Tom returned home to Eugene, where he lived for a few years part-time. He took occasional jobs at Dartmouth and traveled, and when in Eugene he worked as a prep cook in a French restaurant, later moving to the restaurant’s coffee shop where he slung espresso for a while. Around this time he reconnected with an old friend, Lesli Larson.
“She was a very influential person,” Tom says. “She loves old clothing, fishing and outdoor clothes, and she had this great blog called Archival Clothing. And we are just really good buds. We’d go on long-distance bike rides and chitchat about all the old clothing and ephemera that she had.”
Eventually, Tom and Lesli decided to make some things inspired by Lesli’s collection and sell it on Lesli’s blog. They found a sewing contractor in the Yellow Pages – T & J Custom Sewing & Design. The owners, Julie and Terry Shuck, turned out to be “amazing folks,” Tom says, and coached them through the conception-to-reality process.
Tom with Terry Shuck, 2010.
First up was a bag. The Shucks asked for a drawing and material, and explained how the pricing would work. Using what he learned about technical drawing in his architecture studios, Tom drew up some pencil fashion plates and sewed some crude prototypes. With that, the Shucks made 20 bags, and Tom and Lesli put them up on Lesli’s blog. They immediately got snapped up.
“We thought, That’s really fun,” Tom says. “And then we just kept doing that. We did a bigger run of bags and a bigger run of bigger bags and we made backpacks and before you knew it we had a third business partner, one of Lesli’s college friends. And we had a full-on company on our hands called Archival Clothing.”
Tom began to look more closely at product design as a career. He applied and was accepted into the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, to earn a master’s of industrial design degree. His thesis was on the physical infrastructure of home cooking but his real education, he says, had more to do with the success of Archival Clothing.
Prototyping at Pratt, 2014.
“It was really good timing,” Tom says. “I moved in summer 2010, the peak fever of the men’s heritage trend. Everyone wanted Filson stuff and Barbour stuff and wax cotton this and heavy wool that and that has always been Lesli’s thing.”
Living in Brooklyn, Tom was able to go to New York Fashion Week events and meet with stylists. Archival Clothing did a co-op with Barneys New York. The company was mentioned in The New York Times. Tom met Archival Clothing’s Japanese, Scandinavian and other European distributors. He went to shows in Berlin.
At a New York City trade show, 2013.
“It was a really incredible education and I think I might have learned more doing the Archival Clothing stuff than in grad school just because it was so applied and so immediate,” Tom says. “It was just a phenomenal, and sometimes difficult, education in product design, production and sales.”
Tom says if he had his wits about him he would have been a little more consistent, studying domestic manufacturing of soft goods, for example, versus industrial design.
“One of my many foibles is over-enthusiasm that spreads me a little thin,” he says.
From Office to Classroom
Tom and Lesli are still best friends, but after some disagreements with their third business partner, Tom left Archival Clothing. In 2014 he got a job as design director at Best Made Co., where he was immediately thrown into the deep end, being tasked with designing everything from men’s shirting, outerwear and bottoms to steel storage solutions.
“The founder might have an idea for something and then with relatively limited marching orders I was responsible for making it happen,” he says.
He also learned some valuable lessons.
“I definitely had my share of fails where I just overpromised what I thought could happen and I had to learn a lot about being realistic in industry production and maybe not trusting everything that everyone says all the time,” he says. “I’m a very trusting person by nature and that definitely bit me in the ass a couple of times. But it was a great education, some super nice folks and I learned so much.”
About a year in, Tom was feeling burnt out. He was spending 50 to 60 hours a week in the office, in front of a computer. He missed making. So in 2015 he quit and teamed up with a friend, Anthony Zollo, to build custom furniture in New York, France and Sweden. Then, after six years in New York, he moved back to Oregon.
“I was ready to be somewhere with some trees,” he says. “Somewhere I could have a car and get out to the sticks a little bit better.”
Duck hunting, 2012.
Motorcycling, 2017.
Elk hunting, 2021.
Tom was building fences and decks while contemplating his next move when an Archival Clothing contact who worked at UO reached out and said that one of their product design adjuncts had just bailed. They wondered if Tom would be interested in teaching a studio in the upcoming term.
“One thing led to another and in no time flat I was teaching full time,” Tom says. “It was just an immediate fit. It just felt right.”
Teaching Studios, Building, Research & More
Timber framing, 2014.
Cedar Pavilion, Portland, Oregon, 2018.
Teaching wasn’t entirely new to Tom, who had taught a number of timber frameing workshops in upstate New York, Oregon and California. After teaching just one studio at UO, he remembered how much he loved it.
“The students were so inspiring and awesome and the conversations were exciting and challenging – it was just an immediate good feeling.”
And while he always has side projects, Tom has been a career instructor ever since. In some of his classes in UO’s Product Design department, Tom introduced students to woodshop tools, teaching them how to use jointers, planers and table saws, and how to think critically about the tools and materials so they can design accordingly. The goal of these classes is not to crank out expert woodworkers but to teach process and materials, resulting in future designers who are more comfortable navigating different aspects of their career. Tom also taught students how to use industrial sewing machines, how fabric works and how to design bags and garments. Students would sew pouches, cases and totes, learning how to work though different seam constructions and how different materials function in different applications. In advanced studios, students tackled a single subject for the entire 10-week term.
“Last term I taught an advanced studio and I had students design headlamps,” he says. “And it was a great one because there are so many tiny details to attend to.”
The studio starts broad, with concept design and Tom asking questions: Why make this? There’s a lot of stuff in the landfills, do we really need this? Where does this fit in? He taught the students how to think critically about intuitive functioning, how to easily communicate multiple settings and how to make special considerations for niche users, such as runners. Students explored their concepts via sketches, models and technical drawings that become more refined with time.
Because of Tom’s professional background in soft goods, he frequently taught garment and bag design studios. Frustrated with the plastic Janome sewing machines in UO’s sewing studio, Tom helped build out a more legit lab with industrial machines.
This year a tenure-track position at UO’s satellite campus in Portland opened up, and Tom applied and was hired. The campus is home to fourth-year undergrads as well as two-year master’s students studying sports product design. Tom’s focus will be on soft goods, such as garments, shoes and bags.
“I’m really excited about it,” he says. “It’s going to be a big shift. I’ve been dating my partner, Karen, for two years now and we’ve been long distance. She lives in Portland. So I’m very excited to be finally moving in with her. And I’ve got a ton of friends in Portland because I’ve spent a lot of time up there. I’m very comfortable in the city so I know what I’m getting into. It doesn’t feel as scary as a move might be otherwise.”
When applying, Tom put a lot of thought into his proposal for his research project and how it might relate to the UO’s institutional hiring plan, which was focused on health and human performance, as well as environmental responsibility.
“I was applying to this program in sports product design but I wanted to come at my research at a really genuine angle,” Tom says. “I couldn’t say I wanted to design football cleats because that’s not my thing, it’s not my world. I would love to work with a student who is designing football cleats and I think I could do that very well, but myself?”
A love of outdoors has been the straight stitch in Tom’s life, something everything else has stemmed from, sometimes in surprising ways. Tom rooted his research proposal in ultra lightweight backcountry travel design concepts that could translate to other situations, such as wildland firefighting.
“That’s such a high-risk, high-demand, super-necessary job and those firefighters carry so much stuff,” he says. “Even if we could reduce that pack weight by just 10 to 15 percent, that would make a huge difference toward their health and human performance. But it’s all pretty new. I’m starting in the fall and we’ll see how the research goes.”
Designing for Lost Art Press
Tom had been following Christopher Schwarz and Megan Fitzpatrick’s work from afar as an enthusiastic woodworking for quite some time. While working at Best Made Co., Tom cold emailed Lost Art Press and said they were interested in selling Lost Art Press books online and in Best Made Co. stores, perhaps reaching a slightly different audience. The books sold well, particularly Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain.”
In 2015, while driving across country in his move from New York City to Oregon, Tom stopped in Indiana and took a class with Chris at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. That was their first time meeting in person. They got along well.
“We both like to bullshit and drink beer,” Tom says.
Tom noticed that Chris was wearing this great French chore coat. He told Chris to hit him up if he ever wanted to make chore coats.
“And that was it,” Tom says. “I’m not good at selling, being pushy with my services. I think that’s all I said. And maybe a year later he hit me up and was like, ‘Hey, let’s make a chore coat.’”
Together they produced a limited run of chore coats at a factory in Oregon. It’s still the favorite item Tom has designed for Lost Art Press.
Measuring a chore coat, 2018.
“They were so nice,” Tom says. “That was the first round where we used this really, really fancy and horrifically expensive Japanese reverse sateen moleskin, which is this really lovely fabric. And the factory did the run and then they changed the pricing on us. Producing clothing is always very challenging. But the sales were great and we produced well over a thousand coats for Lost Art Press.”
These days he and Chris have focused more on workshop accessories, in part because workshop accessories don’t come in different sizes.
“I think it was a surprise for the Lost Art Press folks to see that 5 to 6 percent of the clothes just come right back,” Tom says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, guys. Sizes. Busts and arms and shoulders. It ain’t like a book.’”
Sew Valley in Cincinnati makes the plane and pencil pockets. Tom worked with Megan and Chris to not only make sure each pouch would function properly but that it could also be produced within Sew Valley’s capabilities.
“That’s such a big part of designing, just understanding what machines your suppliers have and therefore what kind of operations they can do with those machines,” Tom says.
Tom also enjoys designing bandanas for Lost Art Press.
“I love doing the hankies just because it’s a different prompt every time,” he says. “Chris and I will generally chat a little bit on the phone and then I get to doodle around and it’s just a fun way to get lost in some illustration and do something that just feels a little free. And the vendor we work with does a beautiful job. One Feather Press makes really nice work, really great printing and high-quality material. They just do a really nice job.”
Tom says the profit sharing Lost Art Press does with its authors and designers is unheard of.
“It’s so easy to work with Chris and Megan because they trust me and that is rare as a freelance designer, to be trusted,” he says. “And they are always down to try something and if it doesn’t work they’re like, ‘Cool. We tried it.’ No one is ever upset when we don’t achieve maximum profitability on something. It’s just a really special organization to work with. Chris walks his values in a way that I’ve almost never seen before. And don’t tell him I said that because he can’t take a compliment. It’s insane. It’s remarkable.”
A Shift
Tom is spending this summer getting his house in Eugene ready to rent and going on a couple of backcountry motorcycling trips in Oregon.
Motorcycling, 2024.
“There’s just so much public land, mountains and desert and forest here in Oregon that it’s just a great way to get around and see some cool country,” he says.
He also has a couple backpacking trips planned, and a trip to Ireland with his family to celebrate his mom’s birthday, who is from an Irish family but has never been. Karen, his partner, is really into fishing, so there will be a lot of that as well. And then Tom will move to Portland. Work starts in August, as he helps facilitate a campus move.
“It’s going to be a big year of change and I think it’s going to be really positive,” Tom says.
