I had a few requests for plans for the cutler’s stool I built during Colonial Williamsburg’s “Working Wood in the 18th Century” conference over the weekend.
The Sheffield stool was a common sight in the factories and workshops of the tool-making city. And while the stools are rarely identical, they are similar enough to suggest they were made to a common plan. This version is a typical one, but without the incised rings on the legs.
An undated photo from the Marples factory, Sheffield.
My version is made from a single board of 8/4 red oak and is about 20” tall when finished. Here’s the cutting list:
1 Seat 1.75” x 10.25” x 18.5” 3 Legs 1.75” diameter x 22”
I shaved the legs round with a jack plane and then cut a 1.5” diameter x 2.25” long tenon on one end of each leg. I used a hollow auger in a brace and bit. I then used a tenon saw to cut a kerf in the end of the tenon for the wedge.
Saw the seat to shape and lay out the location of the mortises on the underside of the seat. The sightlines for the front legs intersect the location of the mortise for the rear leg, as shown on the drawing. Set a sliding bevel to 18° (the resultant angle). Drill all three legs using the sliding bevel as a guide. I used a 1.5” diameter “Scotch eye” auger, with a broomstick as the bar.
Then use a jack plane or a drawknife to bevel all the corners of the seat, adding comfort. Cut some oak wedges for assembly. Mine are 1.5” wide, and 2” long. The included angle of the wedge is about 2°.
Assemble the stool with hide glue, driving the wedges into the kerfs. You can then saw the legs so the seat is level to the floor. When the glue is dry, cut the protruding tenons and wedges flush with the seat. Do any “make pretty” that is necessary for a shop stool. Add a finish if you like. I used a beeswax and organic linseed oil paste.
We have opened pre-publication ordering for “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book,” which is currently at the printer and is expected to ship in March. This important reference book is $13 and is built to withstand daily use in a hand-tool shop.
This book has been a long-time coming, and I think you’ll be thrilled with the thing.
We also have just restocked on bandanas. These are green, feature a new design from Tom Bonamici and – most importantly – come from a new maker. One Feather Press in East Nashville cuts, sews, prints and washes these bandanas all by hand in a shed. And they are printed on both sides.
‘The Woodworker’s Pocket Book,’ edited by Charles H. Hayward “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is small – just 4” x 6-1/2” – but it contains 112 pages of critical woodworking information for the hand-tool woodworker.
Edited by the great Charles H. Hayward and published in 1949, “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is a guide to everything from finishing recipes to drawing ellipses to choosing the correct screw or nail.
We own several versions of this book, as it was regularly updated and republished. After reading through all of the versions, we decided to reprint the original edition (with permission, of course). This edition is packed with drawings from Hayward and doesn’t deal much with the metric system, sharpening high-speed steel sawblades or pulley sizes for your machines. In other words, it’s for the woodworker who likes working by hand using fractions, inches and feet.
Also appealing to us is the small size of the book – it literally fits in your back pocket. We recommend keeping it in your tool chest or tool cabinet. It belongs in the shop and is more like a tool than a book.
To ensure the book’s long life, we made sure this book is designed for a shop environment. All our books’ signatures are sewn and taped for durability. We wrapped this one in high-density boards and picked a durable paper that improves on the original’s paper.
Like all our books, “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is printed in the United States.
You can read a complete index of the book’s contents here.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. I’m sorry there is no PDF of this book available. We were not able to acquire the electronic rights to the material.
Our retailers have been asking about the tools and books we have planned for 2021. If I have to write this explanation up for them, I might as well let y’all have a look, too.
If a book or tool is not on this list, that means I don’t have a timetable for it. So if you ask when Andrew Lunn’s sawmaking book will be released, my response will be: crickets. Please don’t be offended by this – I simply don’t have any information to give you.
These are roughly in order of when they will be released. Like many manufacturers, we are fighting supply-chain breakages from the paper mills all the way up to the cardboard box supplier we use to ship products.
“The Workbench Book” by Scott Landis We are still taking pre-publication orders for this book. We expect it to ship out in early February. We are also working on getting its companion book, “The Workshop Book,” to the printer by Feb. 1.
“Make a Chair From a Tree (Expanded and Revised Edition)” by Jennie Alexander with Larry Barrett and Peter Follansbee At long last, this should go to the printer in February. We still don’t have a retail price, but I suspect it will be less than $40. This book has been a group effort from people all over the country, and I hope you will be pleased. The layout is just about complete. We have a couple drawings and photos to add. And then some editing. Look for it this summer.
“The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” Edited by Charles H. Hayward This is a book I have wanted to reprint for many years, but we kept hitting obstacles. First printed in 1949, this small handbook (4” x 6-1/2”) is perfect for the hand-tool woodworker. It is filled with finish recipes, workshop geometry, details on tools, practical wood advice, moulding charts from different furniture periods – plus tons of information on using nails, screws and other fittings. I’ve owned a copy for many years and use it all the time. This book is at the printer and should be out in late March. The price will be $13, which is a steal as the book is built to take a beating. We also hope to offer a special slipcase (for an added charge) that screws to the inside of your tool chest or cabinet and keeps the book where it should be – by your tools.
“The Handmade Life of Dick Proenneke” By Monroe Robinson Kara just posted this update on the book last week. So I won’t repeat after her. Linda Watts is now designing the book (the proofs I’ve seen are gorgeous), and Elin Price is still making the illustrations. I don’t have a timetable for this title yet, but I suspect it will be released at the end of the summer.
“The Dutch Tool Chest Book” By Megan Fitzpatrick This is the working title. For all I know, the real title could be “Come Hither, Monkey Bride: A Guide to Dutch Tool Chests.” Megan is doing everything she can to get this book out this year. It will show you how to make two Dutch tool chests with a lot of different variations in the back, lid and how the interiors are arranged. The book will go into great detail on all the handwork, so if this chest is your first hand-tool project, this book will be a great guide.
Crucible Tool We are hard at work on three new tools and hope to release all of them this year. One is a cast planing stop that works like a blacksmith-made stop (with a super-sneaky improvement). The second is an adaptation of A.J. Roubo’s miter square. This square, which has almost disappeared, is insanely useful for hand-tool woodworkers, especially for edge-jointing. And the third tool (fingers crossed) is to bring back our Crucible dividers, redesigned so they are less expensive (and can be manufactured without my wanting to pluck out my own spleen with barbecue tongs).
There also are a couple other books that might make it across the finish line in 2021 (“Guerrilla Chairmaking” is a contender). So stay tuned.
And finally, thank you for all your support and patience in 2020. We shipped 50,502 books and tools directly to customers last year (and sold thousands more through our retailers all over the world). We are still a tiny company. John and I are the only “employees”; Megan, Meghan and Kara are all part-time (but absolutely essential) contractors. So we still feel like we are gulping for air at times. We make mistakes every day, but we try to do a good job and make things right.
I’m not 100-percent sure, but I think Jim sat in on George’s class, “Unlocking the Secrets of Traditional Design,” which covered how furniture is based on a lot of the same proportions as classical architecture (which is turn based on nature – but I don’t recall if he brought that up in the class, or if I’m interpolating from his columns in Popular Woodworking).
I feel a small personal connection with this one; I was there when Jim Tolpin and George Walker met for the first time, at Woodworking in America in 2009 in St. Charles, Ill.
But it might have been George who sat in on Jim’s class, “Measure Twice or Not at All,” which I believe was a talk on the difference between designing for machines and designing for hand work.
Traditional proportional drawing drafted by hand ignores dimensions. It instead relies on simple geometry and dividers to compose an image that conveys the proportional scheme. It employs a vocabulary of proportional notes that we can visualize internally. Because this type of drawing relies on proportions rather than specifications, it moves another step closer to a pure image in the mind. Proportional drawings can provide enough information to execute a build with simple tools; the drawings are organized in a way that meshes with traditional bench techniques. Even if you are adept with digital or industrial drawing, this type of drawing is not a step backward. Instead, it’s a concrete method to begin making that connection with your inner eye.
Our goal ultimately is the drawing that takes place in your head. This is speaking the language of design from the artisan age in its purest sense. It’s what Vitruvius wrote about when he said an architect could see clearly from the instant he conceives it in his mind. It uses a simple language of visual notes to create spatial music to help you acquire the ability to conceptualize internally. This is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the industrial approach – using that ability to spur creativity and provide a practical means of expression. You may still choose to employ modern drawing techniques and (egads) SketchUp, but the goal is to always encourage the flow of clear images from the drafting board in your head.
Make Your Designs Sing This concept of clearly seeing a design in the mind’s eye is a learned skill. Let’s do a little experiment. Take a moment, close your eyes and sing the “Happy Birthday” song silently to yourself. You weren’t singing out loud were you? (If you did, start again and sing it just in your head.) Could you hear it? Think about this for a moment. No audible sound, but you could clearly hear it in your mind. Try this: Sing it silently to yourself again but at a slower tempo. Can you still hear it, only slower? Can you imagine it sung in another voice? How about a deep, clear Nat King Cole version? How about a sultry Marilyn Monroe singing to John F. Kennedy? Can you hear the song played on an instrument? A piano? Try a trumpet. How about bagpipes? Stop! Cruelty alert: Step away from the bagpipes. The point is, you have the amazing ability to visualize already.
fig. 1.2.8. Our task begins by learning to visualize a small set of simple visual notes.
You not only could hear the song, but you could manipulate it, express it with different voices and instruments. I’d venture a guess that if you thought about it, you have hundreds of songs tucked away in that stereo in your head. Chances are, few of you have ever formally studied music. In fact, most of us could not write down the musical score for the song. It’s not about notes you can write on paper, but notes you can hear in your mind.
fig. 1.2.9. The single square (left) is at one end of the scale and the double square (right) is at the other.
Music at its simplest is made up of a handful of simple building blocks we call notes. Musical styles and genres can span a huge range from Bach to John Lee Hooker to ZZ Top. Underneath it all is the same handful of simple notes. Accomplished musicians, including the likes of Yo Yo Ma, practice the musical scales daily. The scales are nothing more than a note sequence arranged to keep a sparkling clear image freshly imprinted in the mind. Do you doubt that a musician develops a heightened ability to imagine music? The reason we struggle to see spatially is that we never learned a set of visual notes.
Close your eyes again and visualize a square. Can you see it clearly? If not, take a moment and draw a square with pencil then try again. Now close your eyes and imagine two squares side by side, one next to the other. Now imagine two squares arranged one on top of the other. Can you see the squares clearly? It doesn’t matter how big the squares are, or whether they float in space. They can be solid or simple line drawings. The important part is that you can see them. Now do the same visual exercises again, only this time imagine a circle. Then visualize two circles, a pair side by side, and a pair one on top of the other. Consider the circle and square to be interchangeable. There’s lots more to say about the circle later, but for now all you need to realize is that they are both easy to visualize. Congratulations. You have just taken baby steps in learning to see. You have just imagined the visual notes that bookend the range of our visual scale. The single square or circle begins the sequence, and the double square or circle completes it. In between are a handful of intermediate notes. The circle and square are the basic building blocks, and though it might seem like a small step to you now, in reality you’ve taken a giant leap toward unlocking your inner vision, and toward making your designs sing.
I don’t do many fake finishes. I prefer to let a piece age naturally rather than beat it, burn it, and make it write bad checks. But some pieces look wrong with a perfect coat of paint or shellac. The following finish is not designed to fool anyone. It is designed to nudge a vernacular piece in the right direction.
If you read “Chair Chat” (doesn’t everyone?), then you know we have a joke about faked chairs and finishes. We say they are from “Far East Wales.” We are told there is a robust trade in importing fake antiques from the Far East.
I learned to execute this finish from Troy Sexton in 2007. I have modified it to make the finish look grimier (and make the finish easier to do). This blog entry offers the basics. I’ll have a full writeup in “Guerrilla Chairmaking.”
This finish works with latex and acrylic paints (regular house paint). I haven’t tried it with milk paint, oil paints or artist paints, so I don’t have anything more to add here. Here’s how it works:
Paint your base coat on. I use two coats. Sand between finishes, just like you would normally.
When dry, coat the project in lacquer – brush it or spray it. Use a fairly heavy coat. Light coats of lacquer won’t do much. (Note: in “Guerrilla Chairmaking” I’ll detail other film finishes that will work besides lacquer – I’m not done experimenting yet.)
As soon as the lacquer is dry to the touch (15 minutes or so) add the topcoat color.
As soon as the topcoat of paint is dry to the touch (but not fully cured), use a heat gun (mine goes to 1,000° (F)) to blister the topcoat. Hold the gun about 1” from the surface and use one of the attachments that consolidates the blast of heat. (I have tried using propane torches instead of a heat gun and am not wild about them.)
Scrape off the blisters. Then smooth all surfaces with a woven pad (like a 3M grey or green pad). Steel wool works, too.
Rub on a coat of black wax. Buff it when it flashes.
That’s all there is to it. You can add as many layers of color as you like, burning between each layer of paint and lacquer. If you do this, always apply the wax only on the last coat.
If you are eager to try this, I suggest doing a test board with leftover paint to get comfortable with the process. This also will answer a lot of your questions about how fast to move the heat gun, how to get big blisters, etc.
As always, wear breathing and hand protection when working with solvents and VOCs. And take care with the heat gun. I do all the burning outdoors.
— Christopher Schwarz
Blistering the red topcoat with a heat gun.Scraping the blisters off when the paint has cooled.Removing the errant gunk with a woven pad.
