I’ve cooked up about 10 batches of linseed oil and wax in an attempt to make my own finish, but nine of those batches were unusable. Several batches were almost rock hard. Others were no different than thickened linseed oil.
One batch was perfect. But, of course, like an idiot I didn’t write down the procedure for that batch. I probably got distracted by a squirrel.
The only difference among the products I have found is their viscosity (and their price). The Allbäck is like peanut butter and costs $61 per quart. Tried & True is like snot and costs $35 per quart. And BeesBlock is like a thinned linseed oil and costs $42 per quart. I suspect the difference is caused by how much wax is in the mix, but I can’t say for sure.
From top: BeesBlock, Tried & True Original and Allback.
I love these finishes because they are easy to apply, easy to maintain and they pick up patina quickly. In other words, they don’t offer much protection from life. But that’s the approach I have come to prefer for most of the things I make (when I get to decide on the finish).
Application
Most people put these finishes on too thick. And they don’t remove enough when they wipe it down. Here’s how I apply them. I use a 3M woven grey pad to apply the finish. I like this pad because its slight abrasiveness helps smooth any rough spots, especially up around the spindles where it is hard to work with sandpaper or scrapers.
I put the project upside down on my bench and coat every surface I can easily reach rubbing the finish in. End grain will need extra finish because it will suck it up and leave the surface dry. After I coat all the surfaces of the piece that I can reach, I let it sit for 15 minutes.
Then I take a Huck towel (a surgical rag with no lint) and vigorously rub off any excess finish. I keep rubbing until the surface is dry.
Then I turn the piece over and finish the rest of the surfaces, let it sit for 15 minutes and then rub it with the Huck towel.
I look for dry spots, especially on the end grain, and add some more finish. When I’m satisfied, I let the piece sit overnight. Then I rub it vigorously with a clean Huck towel. The finish is done.
You can apply additional coats of finish if you like, or you can put the project in service. After about a year you might want to apply another coat. Or let nature take its course.
Betty Scarpino at the workshop of her friend Suzanne Kahn.
Several weeks ago, John Scott, a woodworker friend and real-life brain surgeon, suggested that Betty Scarpino would make a good profile for this series. “Don’t know if you know Betty,” he wrote, “but I’ll place her for nomination in your series! She’s a fantastic woodturner in Indianapolis, with pieces in museums all over the country.”
As it happened, I did know of Betty; she’d been in my sights since the early ’90s, though we hadn’t met or even corresponded. Every so often I came across her name as a woodturner.
“Betty is super!” John wrote back, adding, “Susan and I have a couple of her pieces that we purchased from her when she had a small showing in her house many years ago, before she was represented in galleries. I almost choke when I see what her pieces sell for now!”
I was interested in Betty not only as a highly skilled woodworker, but also as a woman who has been practicing her craft for decades while raising two sons, for some of that time as a single mother. But what really got me hooked was her surprising statement that while she’s best known for turning, her great love is carving.
“Gentle Impressions.”
We spoke on a Saturday morning in March. Betty was in her garden in Indianapolis with Diesel, her son Dan’s chocolate Labrador, who’s under her care while Dan hikes the Arizona National Scenic Trail. With springtime birdsong in the background, she told me she was getting ready to deliver a work titled Gentle Impressions to the Indiana Artists Club exhibition at Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art) later in the day. The juried show had serious spatial limitations, which made it a challenge to decide which piece to submit. Betty’s small sculpture was awarded second place by the jury.
Betty has shown her work in many galleries around the country. A quick look at her website reveals an eye-popping list of museums that hold her work in their permanent collections, among them the Renwick Gallery, the Yale University Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Art Museum, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Peabody Essex Museum and Philadelphia’s Center for Art in Wood – an impressive achievement for an artist. No wonder her work is valued more highly today than it was early in her career. Until the last 10 years, Betty was far better known at the national level than in her adopted state of Indiana.
“Slow Dance,” 2020. Maple.
Early Life
Baby Betty with her mother.
The second of four sisters, Betty was born in Wenatchee, Wash., in 1949. Her mother worked at home full-time; her father was an entrepreneur who ran a pawn brokerage and sold sporting goods through stores in southern Idaho and Kalispell, Mont. Because her family moved often, she describes where she grew up as no single location, but “all over the Pacific Northwest.” She attended five different schools in third grade alone; by the time her parents celebrated the 25th anniversary of their marriage, they had moved their family 25 times.
Betty’s older sister, Cindy, her mother, sister Barbara, father, Betty and Carol in 1959.
Betty married Phil Scarpino in 1971. Having spent two years in the army during the 1970s, Phil jumped at the opportunity to attend graduate school. They were living in Columbia, Missouri, where Betty worked full-time as a computer operator and was also training to program computers.
Phil’s evenings were always busy with school, so Betty decided to enroll in a night class. The only one available was woodworking; she signed up. Soon, she was so taken with the work that she quit her job to attend classes full-time. She graduated in 1982 with a degree in industrial arts, the curriculum for which included training in furniture making and the use of woodworking machinery. She had basic instruction on the lathe, turning a bowl and the pedestal for a table, but after that, she learned by doing.
Betty and Phil in Montana, 1970.
During her time in college, Betty also took classes in the art department. She wanted to carve wood sculptures. After graduation, she considered renting a shop where she could build furniture, but soon discovered that renting a workspace would not be practical, especially after she had her first son, Sam, at the age of 34. So instead of investing in a shop, she bought a lathe. The American Association of Woodturners had started up in 1986, “a vibrant, active, inclusive organization that it was really easy to plug into,” she says. Betty edited their journal from 1990-1993, then started to make more of her own pieces, and quickly became known in the turning field.
One of Betty’s first turnings was the pedestal of this table, which she made as a student in 1980.
Phil is a faculty member at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in American history and historic preservation. His job brought them to Indianapolis in 1986; their second son, Dan, was born there.
After Betty and Phil divorced in 2000, Betty continued to piece together an income from a variety of sources. She sold her turnings; she wrote a regular column about turning for Woodworker’s Journal for three years; for six years she was editor of theAmerican Woodturner Journal. She also made money – good money – from turning demonstrations and teaching, and has taught at Arrowmont and Anderson Ranch, to name just a couple well-regarded schools.
What Does ‘Round’ Mean?
“I just made regular bowls to start with, like everybody else,” Betty says. But before long, she began to adorn her bowls with carving. Her sculpting instructor at the University of Missouri had had a lathe in the back room of the art department; she talked with him about using the lathe to make sculpture. “I was 25 when I first went to an art museum!” she says. “I knew nothing.” Her instructor had always said, “’Round objects turned on a lathe are not interesting,’” so in her curious, boundary-pushing way, Betty decided to explore “the vast potential of what resides within ‘round’ objects,” in part by “deconstructing lathe-turned objects.” She’d turn a disc, cut it apart, do a bit of carving and explore what lay beneath the surface. She also appreciates the metaphorical dimensions of this technique, comparing the process of exploration and refinement to that of what some might call soul work. “We’re always working on ourselves, our lives,” she says. “My sculpture’s like that. I turn a disc, then cut it apart, then reconstruct that in a way that’s lifelike and energizing and satisfying.”
“A Touch of Grace.” 2020. Maple, walnut, acrylic paint.
Making a Living as an Artist
Collectors of art in wood were key to Betty’s livelihood and creative development in the 1990s and aughts. “As soon as I made something, it sold,” she says. Betty increasingly worked on sculptures that had nothing to do with turning. “That’s really where my interest has been all along,” she points out. “Until then, I never had the opportunity to explore that kind of work fully. When you have 20 people buying things because they’re turned… I just plugged into that and made money. I enjoyed it. That’s why I ended up becoming known as a woodturner when really that’s not my main interest.”
Betty (second from left) with Suzanne Kahn, Merryll Saylan, Betty’s son Sam and Sam’s wife, Laura, in Philadelphia, 2018.
Considering that her main interest is carving, it comes as a surprise to hear she didn’t study it at university. Her knowledge about the field was far more basic: “I knew that you used a gouge and a mallet.” Betty leapt right in, learning along the way. Today she carves primarily with power tools and generally prefers reciprocating tools to rotary carvers, “because I can find the line better,” she says. Her favorite is an Automach reciprocating carver; she also uses Arbortech tools.
Betty has been through some real twists and turns as she has worked to support herself as a woodturner and sculptor. “Galleries used to exist,” she says bluntly, alluding to the devastating effects on brick-and-mortar-based businesses due to the Great Recession, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. She used to be associated with several galleries that sold artists’ work around the country, but many have closed. Today, exhibits such as the one at Newfields provide visibility. She uses her website to sell existing works and garner new commissions. She also appreciates the value of plain old word-of-mouth. “Along the way, I have had two very generous women patrons who have helped me,” she says. The broader woodworking field has benefited from the Windgate Foundation, which supports the teaching of craft and art in many ways, such as donations to the Center for Art in Wood, a new dorm at Arrowmont School for Arts and Crafts and support of woodturning at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis.
Although Betty’s work is held by prestigious museums, many sculptures spend much of their time in storage and are only brought out for exhibit in the occasional show. Betty’s work is labor-intensive, so her limited output constrains marketing through galleries.
“If you’re a craftsperson you can market your work in a craft store or sell it online. There are also craft fairs, etsy, etc. But my work doesn’t sell well in those venues,” says Betty. Today, her work ranges in price from $3,000 to $12,000 – art-world prices that demand a specific marketing niche or connecting with just the right buyer.
Retirement is not on Betty’s radar. She intends to be carving a sculpture on the day she dies. Now that she has the time and resources to devote to carving, without having to worry about sales, she is excited to see her work evolving to in-the-round sculpture. Betty has come full circle to her first love: carving wood.
Sam, Betty and Dan on Betty’s 70th birthday.
Betty (second from left) with her sisters on her 70th birthday.
The proofs for “Make a Chair from a Tree” arrived this morning; it should be in the store and available in about eight weeks.
William Shakespeare is credited with the invention of 1,700 words (or at least his plays are the first known printed use thereof). Jennie Alexander can be credited with just a few less – and we even left some of them in the third edition of “Make a Chair from a Tree” (if their meanings could be easily gleaned from context). Below are just a handful of the interesting neologisms she coined and a few actual (but rarely used) words and phrases she uttered (and wrote) on a regular basis. Who knows? Maybe in 450 years, everyone will be saying “dingus” instead of “fixture.”
Baby Jerome (n.) Someone who crawls under the furniture (to look at joinery).
clacker (n.) A depth stop made from a chopstick that attaches to a drill bit shaft. It clacks when it hits the work.
clean-out chisel (n.) A chisel with a curve or angle at the bottom for cleaning out a mortise (like a gooseneck chisel, but shop-made).
dingus (n.). Any shop-made jig that gets used over and again. For example, the IYFLL (see below) is a dingus.
dotter (n). A thin stick with screws through it, used to simultaneously mark all mortise locations (or mark whatever you’ve laid out with said screws). Conscripted from the turning world.
furshlugginer (adj.) A piece of junk.
GABG (n.) The Glowing Acrylic Bevel Gauge. A dingus made from green acrylic. Used in sighting legs to the proper angle.
gixerdee (adj.) Something that’s out of truth – synonym for cattywampus (which she used interchangeably with gixerdee).
Goldilocksing (adj.), Choosing the best compromise between alternatives, such as the size of a rung mortise.
IYFLL (n). In Your Face Line Level. A dingus that hooks onto a drill-bit extender to help you keep the bit level.
knocker-docker (n.) a wooden mallet.
Miss Moist-Bone Dry (n.) One of many Jennie’s many pseudonyms.
Mouldy figs (n.) People who listen to early Jazz; Jennie (who was a jazz musician) appropriated it as a term for hand-tool purists.
ovality (n.) The quality of being oval.
spruck (n.) The sound a piercer or spoon bit makes while tearing up the wood fibers as it makes its way around a hole.
truncadon (n.) The remainder of a billet after the sapwood and bark has been rived from it – i.e. it has been truncated into its useful wood.
toothy critters (n.) A metal planing stop with sharp teeth.
— Fitz
p.s. Anyone who spent time with Jennie has more to add – above are the just the words/phrases that Larry Barrett, Peter Follansbee, Christopher Schwarz and I could jot down off the top of our heads. So if you have others, please add them in the comments!
A “knocker-docker” in Jennie’s hand. (Photo by Harper Burke)
The chair we built for the step photos in this book, on display at Jennie Alexander’s celebration of life in 2018.
When I drove away from Jennie Alexander’s Baltimore home in 2014, I had her somewhat-reluctant agreement that together we would publish “Make a Chair From a Tree, Third Edition.”
Her reluctance wasn’t due to a lack of passion for the book’s subject – the simple but gorgeous object that we now call a Jennie Chair had been an obsession of hers for decades.
Instead, she didn’t know if she was physically and mentally up to the task. You see, she didn’t want to simply revise the two previous editions of this book. She had learned too much since they were published. She wanted to start from scratch.
So I enlisted Larry Barrett, a chairmaking student of Jennie’s, to help her write and re-write the text. And I can honestly say that if it weren’t for Larry, the book you are holding would never have existed. For four years, he patiently helped Jennie explore her chairmaking process in almost-molecular detail.
When Jennie died in July of 2018, I wondered if the book was going to the grave with her. We didn’t have a finished manuscript. We didn’t have step photos or even a plan for illustrations.
But what we had was a long list of people who had been touched deeply by Jennie and her work and who volunteered to throw themselves at this project.
Larry polished the latest version of the manuscript. One of Jennie’s daughters, Harper Burke, arranged for us to build a Jennie chair and photograph the process in Jennie’s Baltimore workshop. Brendan Gaffney dropped everything to help with photos and illustrations. Nathaniel Krause, one of Jennie’s students, wove the hickory seat for the book.
And Peter Follansbee, one of Jennie’s most devoted students, volunteered to edit the whole thing into this intensely technical (but easy to understand) and personal (but not maudlin) document.
Suddenly, all the barriers to the publication of this book were swept away. Tom McKenna at Taunton Press graciously allowed us to use drawings from the first edition. Anatol Polillo made any copyright problems disappear.
Basically, we got anything we needed to ensure “Make a Chair From a Tree, Third Edition” made it to press. There’s no room to list everyone who helped. You know who you are. Thank you.
I sometimes wonder what Jennie would think of the finished third edition. I know she’d be delighted by the contributions from the people she taught and who, in turn, inspired her.
But I also know that she’d say the book isn’t finished. There are still some loose strings, especially in the section on “bound water.” And perhaps we should just start again at the beginning….
Thank you Jennie, but the burden of refining your gorgeous chair and its elegant construction process is now firmly on our shoulders.
A rough mock-up of the cover and its diestamp.
Off to Press
This week we sent “Make a Chair from a Tree: Third Edition” to press. With any luck, the finished result will be in our hands in late June or July. When it arrives, we will begin selling it immediately. We will sell both a hardbound edition and a pdf version. For the first 30 days, customers who buy the hardback book from us will also receive the pdf for free at checkout (sorry, this offer is not available to people who buy the book from our retailers). The book will be $37 plus domestic shipping.
Like all Lost Art Press books, “Make a Chair from a Tree: Third Edition” is produced and printed in the United States. The book is 184 pages and measures 9″ square – the original trim size of the 1978 edition. Unlike the original edition, our version is in full color and the book is hardback.
Except for a few drawings, the book is completely revised and almost 60 pages longer.
As always, I don’t have any information on which of our retailers will carry the book. We hope that all of them will, but it is entirely their decision. The best way to find out is to ask the retailer directly.
Dressing Tables are nothing else but ordinary Tables [where] the corners are rounded and around the perimeter you add some ledges of about 3 to 4 thumbs in height and you cover it with muslin or lace, according to the wish or the opulence of those using it. We make use of other small Tables that are portable which contain all [things] which serve the grooming of Women, like the mirror, the powder box, pomades, flasks appropriate for applying perfume and other ingredients of this type, which are put on ordinary dressing Tables.
The small dressing Tables represented in Figs. 1 & 2 are composed of a base and a top, which is divided into three parts in width, namely that in the middle, which holds a mirror and opens vertically, and those on the two sides, which cover two boxes, which fall back at both sides of the Table. Beneath the mirror, that is to say, in the middle of the apron rail is placed a little writing Table about a foot wide which slides horizontally. You pull it out when you wish to use it. Below this writing Table and its two side boxes are placed three ordinary drawers of which the depth, added to that of the side boxes, is normally 6 thumbs; [specifically 3 thumbs at least for the side boxes], and the rest for the drawer and the crossbar that holds it. This reduces the depth of the drawers below the side boxes to very little, truthfully. But it is not possible to take advantage of this given that the knees of the person seated before this Table must fit easily beneath the cross-piece [rail] that holds the drawers. See Fig. 3, which represents the side view of this dressing Table taken from the middle of its length, and Fig. 4, which represents another view taken at the location of a side box, which is filled in with a second box fitted with its cover on top. See Fig. 5, which represents the Table viewed from the top and completely closed, and at Fig. 6, which represents this same Table completely uncovered.
The construction of these types of Tables is nothing special [except] the opening on top, the area that holds and supports the mirror, which is done in the following manner:
You make a groove in the two separations of the Table in which you insert a cross-piece AA, Fig. 7, by which you [open and close on a hinge] the part of the Table that holds the mirror and the exterior ridge that is beveled to give the mirror the tilt that is necessary. When you wish to make use of the latter, you pull it from the front to release it from the bottom of part B, which remains in place. You pull it out and you bring it as close to the front of the Table as you judge to be appropriate, making the cross-piece A run inside the grooves of the sides, as you can see in this Figure.
The two other parts of the top are attached on the aprons of the ends of the Table. You should take care to extend over the center or knuckle of the hinges by an equal distance to the projection of the top so that the latter can fully fold over toward the outside. See Fig. 8. The two sides of the top are closed with a lock in the dividers/separations of the Table and they hold the middle part by means of two pins [handles], a, b, Fig. 2, attached below and at the two sides of the latter.
Other dressing Tables are made totally different from those that I just described, either in general form or in the manner of making them open. But these differences are of little consequence. What’s more, those that I just described are the most convenient and are the most used.
I said up above that we make some writing Tables a bit similar to dressing Tables. These Tables do not differ from the latter except by their opening of the middle part, which folds into three parts, namely that of the rear, which remains in place, like those of the dressing Tables; that of the middle a, b, Fig. 9, which you lift in the form of a lectern; and another small part b, c, of about 2 thumbs in width, which is fitted with the middle part, such that when making this latter move around point d, where it is fastened to the Table, part b, c lifts and serves as the ledge of the lectern. You hold it up by means of a little frame support e, f, which you fold beneath the lectern when you do not wish to use it any more.
The night Tables represented in Figs. 10, 11 & 12 are composed of four legs and of two shelves, one of which is placed at about 18 thumbs high and the other at 26 thumbs at least, on top of which you protrude the legs and the three sides to hold whatever you put on these Tables, which you place next to beds and you use only in the night or in the case of sickness. Underneath the first shelf, that is to say, the lowest, you place a drawer of about 2 thumbs deep, which you make open by the right side of the Table with which it is level/flush. The three sides that surround the space contained between the two shelves of the night Table, are normally pierced [ventilated] so that they diminish all the odor that is possible. We sometimes put there some very thin marble shelves, at least on the top one, which is a very good usage given that the marble is not subject, like wood, to warping with the moisture to which these sorts of Tables are exposed, nor to absorbing any bad odor. See Figs. 10 & 11, which represent a night Table viewed from the side and the front. And Fig. 12, which represent this same Table viewed from the top, which is, I believe, sufficient to show all the necessary theory for this sort of work.
In general, these sorts of Tables are not likely to have any type of ornament. It suffices that they be neat and especially lightweight to be easier to transport. That is why a thumb-and-a-half suffices for the size of the legs, where you make the curve/corner contour connecting the side to the back and only chamfer inside, so that the little wood which remains serves to hold [support] the shelf of the top. However, it is good to make this enter by tongue and groove into the sides so as to prevent any warping. You should pay the same attention for the base, which, like that of the top and the sides of the Table, should be only 4 to 5 lines thickness at most. When you make marble shelves for the night Tables, it is good that they be supported underneath by another wooden shelf (although this is not the custom), which prevents their breaking, as often happens.
There is still an infinity of Tables for all spaces, shapes and sizes, the detail of which I will not enter into given that they are often nothing but the whim of the Workers or of those who use them. What’s more, these sorts of Tables differ little from those that I just described, of which the usage is the most generally received, and after which you could design them in whatever form you judge to be appropriate.
Before ending all that concerns Tables and generally furniture with simple frames, and consequently moving to the description of closed pieces [furniture with closing doors], I am going to give in Plate 267 various examples of ornate leg Tables, as I just announced in the article on table legs, page 697. I will end this chapter with a description of screens and folding screens of different types.
