Editor’s note: Today we are launching pre-publication sales of “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints” by Brendan Gaffney. The book will ship in late November. If you order before the book ships, you will receive a free pdf download of the book at checkout. The book is $44.
I’d never heard of James Krenov until I started work for Popular Woodworking magazine in 1996. Growing up, the woodworking books in our house were practical. My dad needed them to build the houses (mostly by hand) on our farm.
One day I asked my boss at the magazine, Steve Shanesy, how he became a woodworker. His reply was a story that I have now heard repeated hundreds (maybe thousands) of times.
“I read ‘A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook’ by James Krenov and ‘The Soul of a Tree’ by George Nakashima,” Steve explained. “I left my job in public relations and went to a furniture school to learn the craft.”
I was astonished that a woodworking book could change the course of someone’s life. All the woodworking books I’d read were dry as a dead deerfly. So I bought “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook” (the 1991 Sterling edition) at a used book store and read it in one day.
Krenov’s writing was intoxicating and friendly. He talked about ideas that had never crossed my mind. He eschewed originality in design. He tried to make furniture that was perfect but did not insist upon itself. He composed grain the way a painter works with a brush.
Who was this guy? There were scant details of his life in the book. But what he revealed made him seem exotic. Born in Russia, lived in Alaska and Sweden. And now he teaches at a remote school in California.
But how did Krenov become this person? And how did he become such an incredible woodworker and writer?
More than 20 years later, I asked Brendan Gaffney those two exact questions while we were sitting in a bar in Covington, Ky. Brendan had attended the fine woodworking program at the College of the Redwoods (now the Krenov School) and had ended up in Covington (a bit ironically) for a stint at Popular Woodworking Magazine.
This conversation with Brendan launched the exhaustive research that would become “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints.” For the last few years, Brendan has interviewed more than 150 people attached to Krenov’s life. He has pored over thousands of photos, documents and press clippings to piece together the story of Krenov’s long and interesting life.
I try not to describe our books with over-used and gaudy language. But Krenov’s story qualifies as a bonafide epic.
Thanks to Brendan’s dogged determination, “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints” is a fully realized portrait of Krenov. It answers every question I ever had about the man, and helped me understand why he was such a man of huge contradictions. On the one hand, Krenov’s writing was warm and friendly. But he had a personal reputation of being difficult. While some students adored him, others found him critical and sharp-tongued.
Brendan’s biography does not shy away from this contradiction. In fact, after learning how Krenov struggled to find his place in the world, his writing, teaching and work makes much more sense now. After editing Brendan’s manuscript, I re-read “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook,” and the book was even more compelling and interesting as a result of knowing Krenov’s full life story.
We are thrilled to bring you “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints,” and we have tried to make a book that befits its subject matter. The book is printed on heavy 80# coated matte paper for crisp image reproduction. The pages are sewn and taped together to create a permanent binding. And the whole thing is wrapped in cotton-covered board and a 100# matte dust jacket. We think this book will be a joy to hold and to read.
A detail of the drawers for James Krenov’s 1977 “A Playful Thing.” Photo by David Welter.
I’m a furniture maker first and a writer second, or maybe third (after, perhaps, being a master of tangential side projects). So, when I approached writing “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints,” my biography of the cabinetmaker who was the founder of the woodworking school I attended, it seemed appropriate to take part in retracing some of his steps as a craftsperson.
In Krenov’s body of work, there is one piece that always stood out to me for its graceful presence and idiosyncratic form: 1977’s “A Playful Thing,” detailed extensively in Krenov’s third book on cabinetmaking, “The Impractical Cabinetmaker.” The piece is a pivotal demarcation in Krenov’s output – both a reprisal of his 1962 “No-Glass Showcase of Lemon Wood” from the earliest stage of his career and a harbinger of his future output of leggy cabinets on stands. I also had the pleasure of seeing the piece in person; Krenov kept it and it is still in the family. Seeing it in person confirmed its appeal to me.
A full view of Krenov’s 1977 “A Playful Thing.” Photo by David Welter.
So, in February of 2019, I started my own version of the piece. I was happy to have both Krenov’s original drawings for the piece (published in “The Impractical Cabinetmaker”) as well as the insight I’d gained from examining much of his work. I had a pretty good footing to start on. But the understated form of this cabinet hides the complexity of its execution. Between the veneer work, the drawers that pass through both ends of the carcase, the carefully carved and chamfered legs and rails, and the drive to make every inch just right, even from unlikely views below or above, it is a real skill test. By the time I started this piece, I was five years out of the College of the Redwoods (now The Krenov School), and while I like to think my skills are always improving, the truth is that this kind of work requires constant practice and refinement of execution to be done properly and gracefully. I had some uphill battles.
Some progress shots along the way: sawing veneers, making drawers, carving stepped legs and little blackwood pulls.
Krenov’s original was made with East Indian rosewood and Andaman padauk, woods I wasn’t going to hold my breath looking for these days, but after trips up to Keim Lumber in Millersburg, Ohio, and C.R. Muterspaw in Xenia, Ohio, I came home with some stunning gonçalo alves for the stand/drawer fronts and densely figured soft maple for the veneered surfaces. I rounded those out with aromatic cedar for the drawer bottoms, hard maple for the drawer sides and African blackwood for the pulls, and I’m pleased with my choices.
The result, which I’m happy to still have in our bedroom a year and a half later (and 750 miles from Covington, Ky., where I built it), came out in the way as do many reprisals or reiterations of another maker’s design: different and telling of my process, but in the spirit of Krenov’s original, I think.
My gonçalo alves and figured maple iteration of Krenov’s “A Playful Thing.”
Are the proportions exact to Krenov’s original? No. Is the shaping identical? Definitely not. Am I James Krenov? Well, come on, of course not. But in making this piece, and walking a few months in Krenov’s shop slippers, I learned quite a bit. I noticed certain aspects of the piece’s construction that betray Krenov’s history: the dexterous use of a knife in carving the legs and the pulls recall his early life spent carving with a jackknife in Alaska; the aesthetic touch of stepped chamfers and an almost architectural composition echo his teacher, Carl Malmsten, whose roots were firmly planted in the English Arts & Crafts movement.
There is a second stream of influence the piece has exerted over the year and half since I finished building it. With an open and inviting showcase area, what Krenov referred to as a “stage,” it is too hard to resist constantly rotating and replacing small objects to showcase. I find myself picking up the objects in residence and looking them over, something I wouldn’t necessarily do if they were tucked away on a shelf or in a glass cabinet.
The cabinet in our home in Athens, New York.
And this action, the constant consideration and handling of small, fine objects, might be the most impactful effect this piece had on my consideration of Krenov’s work. Krenov often insisted that his showcase cabinets “complemented” the pieces they displayed, and while the cabinet itself might be artfully done or worthy of examination, it wasn’t doing its job well if it couldn’t elevate or showcase its contents. While I’d read Krenov’s words regarding this, actually living with something that encouraged this interaction made it clear. Throughout his lectures, personal papers and his books, Krenov mentions craftspeople from other mediums, like the potters Bernard Leach or Eva Zeisel, in that light, showcase cabinets like “A Playful Thing” make perfect sense of his role as a cabinetmaker. It may be a “chicken-and-egg” problem – whether his appreciation for small crafts came before his penchant for making showcase cabinets or vice versa, but either way, living with this piece has made it clear how Krenov saw that role.
You can’t write a book by building cabinets. Nor can you build a cabinet just by digging through lumberyards and antique stores. But if you can balance these experiences in just the right way, they might just culminate in work that is more than the sum of its parts. I can’t say I’m sure I got there with my cabinet, but the cabinet helped me consider Krenov’s life and work.
“Ingenious Mechanicks” is my least successful book – commercially – but it probably the one I’m most proud of. The research the Suzanne Ellison and I performed for the book involved sorting through thousands of fine art paintings. I had to travel to Germany and Italy to see examples of low workbenches first-hand. And the reconstructive archaeology was challenging. Writing the book forced me to appreciate what can be done with few tools and no vises – just stops, gravity and wedges. This approach infiltrated my everyday work at the bench, and I am faster and better for it.
— Christopher Schwarz
It’s not fair to our early ancestors to put words in their mouths. We don’t know how dry their wood was when they started to build their workbenches. Was it fresh from the tree? Dried for 20 years? Something in between?
We can guess, which is what most people do. Or we can build a bunch of workbenches from woods in varying degrees of wetness and observe the results through several years. This second path is much more difficult than sitting naked in the dark at your computer keyboard – fingers covered in the dust of Cheetos – and pontificating online. But it’s the path I took.
Here’s what I’ve found: Dry wood is the best. But because you are unlikely to find big slabs of wood that are totally dry, then dry-ish wood is great, too. What I mean by dry-ish is somewhere about 20 percent moisture content (MC) or less. When you use dry-ish wood there are rarely any unhappy endings that involve splitting or warping. The wood will settle down quickly – within a year or so – and the benchtop won’t require more than a couple flattenings.
My next choice is wood that I call “moist.” This is stock that is somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent MC. This sort of stock is what I usually look for when building massive oak workbenches for customers. It’s stuff that is about 6″ thick and has been drying for a decade.
This wood has some drying to do after you turn it into a workbench. Expect some shrinkage and checking on the end grain. It will calm down after a few years and four or five flattenings of the benchtop. My only other caution with moist stock is to not rely on glue for the joinery. Because of the wetness of the wood, water-based glues (yellow, white and hide) won’t be effective. I recommend you rely on drawboring and wedging.
Finally, there is fresh wood, stuff that was a living tree less than a year prior. This stock is fairly easy to find and fairly cheap, but it can be tricky. Water-based glues aren’t a good idea. And you can experience significant warping and checking as the wood dries. My first precaution is to use a species that is easy to dry, such as red oak. Look for a slab where the grain runs fairly straight through the face and the edges. Orient the slab so the heart side is your benchtop (with the bark side facing the floor). And paint the end grain of your completed benchtop with a latex paint to slow the drying, especially if your bench will be in a climate-controlled shop.
All these precautions will reduce the risk that your benchtop will warp horribly. But there is no guarantee.
James Krenov during a cello performance by Bernard Henderson and Marcia Sloane at the music stand he made in 1987. Photo by Paul Arnold.
We are taught from a young age that compromise and flexibility are golden attributes. I have seen their reward; I won’t go too far into my own sinuous background, but putting myself into different settings with good people, following their lead or being willing to bend my own path, has brought wonderful experiences and opportunities. In woodworking, it’s been ventures into chairmaking, Krenovian cabinetmaking, historic techniques, slapdash construction and basketweaving. In life, it means having a Master’s in computer music, working at a large media/publishing company, working with CNCs to produce violin parts, writing a book, living in five states in less than a decade and being an underemployed but happy craftsperson.
In my three years of researching, interviewing and writing “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints,” a second lesson in compromise has emerged. There is a lot in Krenov’s story that points to the other side of the coin – the side that makes itself apparent when someone refuses to compromise their worldview or creative practice, even at the cost of their own well-being or success. To me, both the reward and punishment of that second approach is no more apparent than in Krenov’s trajectory from an obscure travelogue writer to a widely celebrated cabinetmaker.
As I interviewed people about Krenov – his students, colleagues, friends, supporters and detractors – the downside of his attitude became apparent. Krenov’s frequent lack of diplomacy in expressing his approach to craft closed doors and alienated many. It took him several tries at educational institutions to find a situation that met his demands or could handle his irascibility concerning the validity of other approaches. His articles in Sweden’s FORM magazine express his disenfranchisement from Scandinavian contemporaries and consumers, often because he thought they would not appreciate or adopt his idiosyncratic approach (though it was there that he reached a level of renown few could hope for). His outlook often made Krenov hard to please, and kept him looking on the other side of the fence (or ocean) for greener grass. It made it difficult (for many years, impossible) to make a living at his craft.
But in this lack of compromise, we can see the seeds of Krenov’s success. At the beginning of his career, a time when Scandinavia was moving toward functionalism and practicality, Krenov declared himself and his work to be outside of those considerations. He called for craftspeople, amateur and professional, to enjoy their work, whatever the wider public insisted about its efficacy or profitability. He was the strongest advocate for the inherent worth of work done well.
Krenov talking to a student at Anderson Ranch in 1989, during a teaching stint that summer. He’s wearing a “samue,” a work jacket worn by Buddhist monks that he was given during his time in Takayama, Japan, in 1988.
So many of us who insist on making furniture or practicing a craft at the highest standards we can muster, rationalize our position and damn the time or impracticality of its execution. We insist that our work is more durable and a better investment, or more timeless and not subject to trendiness or fads.
At several point in his career, Krenov relays these considerations – but he was working to different criteria, not obviously connected to financial or aesthetic concerns. Looking over his work and the lessons he taught, it’s clear that these were secondary (or even tertiary) concerns. He encouraged impracticality and insisted that his way was too difficult to be of use to a professional woodworker. He wanted to be remembered as a “stubborn, old enthusiast.”
I don’t mean to imply a lack of subtlety to his position; in fact, many of his favored students eschewed his path in aesthetics, technique and financial success. I offer up the idea that the “middle path” Krenov described between handwork and machine work – a compromise from many perspectives – was part of what made it so successful and appealing to his hundreds of thousands of readers. And there were students who disagreed with his advice that he came to support or enable – in spite of their resistance. He butted heads with students who, like him, insisted on the value of their own ideas, but in the end many of them won his respect. He could be an inspiring teacher and a friendly mentor, whimsical and enthusiastic.
Krenov’s 1962 “No-Glass Showcase of Lemon Wood,” made just three years after his graduation from Malmsten’s school in Stockholm. The early appearance of some of Krenov’s signature techniques and aesthetics points to his early talents in the craft and is evidence of a lifelong refinement of their execution. Photo by Bengt Carlén.
Krenov’s ability to resist outside influence, especially in terms of income, was enabled by the support of Britta, his wife, who was a high school teacher with a degree in economics and finance. He was also supported by the socialist infrastructure of Sweden, which awarded him stipends and gave Britta a steady pension after her retirement in the late 1970s.
But there is a lesson that can be distilled from Krenov’s path. It isn’t exactly “stick to your guns” or “ignore the haters.” But, after years of my own consideration of Krenov’s story and the memories of those who crossed his path, I think one part of the whole reads something like this: Take in what you can from those around you when you set off, work hard to examine what you value and/or enjoy in your chosen pursuit and be determined enough to pursue it at whatever cost.
A photo of Krenov on his last day at the College of the Redwoods in 2002. Photo by Leonard Bechler.
It may not lead to success in any traditional sense. Krenov’s career might be measured in book sales or influence, but I think it’s best measured by the memories that were shared with me. His students remember Krenov’s satisfaction in shaping the leg of a stand late into the evenings, or the time he spent happily arranging and composing a freshly sawn batch of veneers. Pursue fulfillment; if you’re lucky or dogged or particularly talented, other measures of success might come to pass. If you’re not, at least you can say it wasn’t a waste of time.
There are many ways to poke holes in this idea as it applies to your own world; I’m not one to promote orthodoxy or dogma. You might be able to follow Krenov’s path with a more polite or amenable attitude. You could pick fulfillment as a guide, and still frequently change the tack of your pursuit. But if you read Krenov’s story (and I hope you will) I think the case study in rigidity and conviction that he lived is worthy of consideration. It is not a prescription, but it might be a part of finding your own path.
The first time I met Chris(topher) Williams was in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport (CVG). I can’t remember why I was dispatched to pick him up on his introductory visit to the States (maybe there was an author reading going on?), but I was, and I had no idea what he looked like. Arrivals at CVG come up a long escalator, so I hung out at the top, peering down for someone who looked Welsh. I don’t, however, have any preconceived notion of what a Welshman looks like – maybe a strong bow arm? But I spotted a tall man with curly hair in a polo shirt, pulling a large bag (he’d packed a chair in pieces, along with his tools), who looked slightly bewildered and awfully tired of traveling. “Chris?,” I asked, as he stepped off the escalator. Yep. (Must have been the adze arm, not the bow arm.)
On the drive back to the shop, he was fairly quiet. I chalk that up to exhaustion; that was the last quiet moment in his delightful company. Most of the time when I’m with him, he’s making me laugh…or I’m making fun of his penchant for claiming “the Welsh invented that” (the Welsh apparently invented everything).
And after three two-week (or so) long visits, I’ve now spent a fair amount of time in his company either shopping, drinking, driving to a “must-see” site or listening in on his Welsh stick chair classes. Chris is a great deal taller than the average man in Wales, so every time he’s here, I take him shopping at Carhartt’s so he can stock up on his favorite pants with 34″ inseams (apparently he can’t get his beloved long-length Carhartt’s overseas). And Chris loves his red wine; he decimated the supply of Revolution Red at Crafts & Vines, a delightful family owned wine bar that’s around the corner from our shop (I think we’ve ended up there every day it was open during his visits). The owners – and Philip – miss you, Chris!
And I miss Chris, too. He was scheduled to be here in early September to teach a Welsh stick chair class before we all drove out to Amana, Iowa, together for Handworks. I was looking forward to hearing “the Welsh invented basketball” as we rolled through Indiana. Here’s hoping we’ll be able to hang out together again soon.
John Brown had a vast tool collection – a whole chapter could be written about the tools that he amassed over the years, but I will concentrate on his core chairmaking tools. The majority of these tools were of a good vintage but, interestingly, several of his favourites were new. If a particular tool has an intriguing story, I’ll tell you about it.
No. 8 Jointer Plane For jointing boards for chair seats, his favourite was a Stanley No. 8, which had been “stuffed” like an infill plane. Not dissimilar to a Norris or Mathieson plane in appearance to the layman. In truth, he had two of these, one stuffed in mahogany, the other in yew. The one in yew was his favourite as it had been “stuffed” by his son Henry. John loved its huge mass for shooting “the perfect edge” whilst thinking “flat.”
Jack Plane This was used for roughing out chair parts and, in particular, for making chair sticks and legs into octagons.
Two Block Planes JB had a real affection for his Stanley No. 6-1/2 low-angle block plane – this was a vintage one fitted with a Hock blade. He’d use this plane for shaping sticks and in particular for creating the 5/8″ and 1/2″ tenons on the stick ends. I believe whilst teaching at Drew Langsner’s Country Workshops in North Carolina in 1995, the students pooled their money together and bought him a small bronze Lie-Nielsen block plane as a thank you. A few years later he was gifted a Lie-Nielsen No. 60-1/2 low-angle block plane by a friend. During my own time with JB it was these two planes that were never away on his bench. He particularly liked the weight of them in his hand, which he felt was always an advantage in a one-handed tool. Although the plane is typically one for use on end grain, that didn’t bother him, he used it without too much thought. Other makers now wax lyrical about having a spare blade honed at various degrees to eliminate tear-out on long grain. The minutiae of this subject would have no doubt infuriated JB. The tools’ function was to make beautiful chairs not to beautify the grain of the wood. His dumbscrape (more on that later) would sort any tear-out later.
John Brown shaping a tenon with a 60-1/2 block plane. Photo courtesy of Drew Langsner.
Stanley No. 53 Spokeshave The No. 53 spokeshave was a definite favourite. JB couldn’t understand why modern tool manufacturers didn’t copy its simple design. He felt that the adjustable throat was a huge asset. You can close its throat up tight to take the slightest of shavings. Its raised handles were always a huge positive to him as the No. 53 was used after the scorp (aka inshave) as a surrogate travisher. I’ve talked elsewhere in the book about its use in seat stock preparation. John Brown had several of these and his favourite had been fettled for a Hock blade to fit. Travishers are now de rigueur and although he had a homemade one, I personally can’t recall him particularly using them as a matter of course. The No. 53 was the important tool here.
Braces His brace and bit collection was one of the first things that I noticed when I met him at his workshop. There were several hanging on a rack, each with a different auger bit. The reasons were tenfold, he would often glue up chair seats from two or three boards. The jointed edges required a dowel to strengthen the joint (in his opinion) this needed a 1/2″ dowel, so a brace was allocated for this, which included a Stanley depth stop permanently fitted to the 1/2″ Jennings bit.
Next was an oversized sweep Millers Falls (I believe) brace fitted with a 1″ auger for drilling the leg mortises. He liked the extra size of the sweep whilst drilling the leg mortises
Then a brace fitted with a 5/8″ bit for drilling both the mortises for the sticks that entered the seat and for the mortises in the doubler on the arm, this also included the mortises for the short sticks to enter the arm, and finally the mortises in the legs for the stretchers.
Next, a brace with another 1/2″ Jennings bit for drilling the mortises into the comb and medial stretcher.
Finally, an electrician’s brace with a small sweep. This was important because it allowed him to drill out the mortises for the short stick that is closest to the long sticks in the arm without the brace hitting the back sticks. You must bear in mind that the arm was at this point already fitted over the rear long sticks. The electrician’s brace was fitted with a large 5/8″ auger, which had been extended to reach down through the arm mortise, thus being able to drill the mortises for the short sticks.
This being JB, something had to be different, the bit being 5/8″ was in his words “a smidgen smaller,” which allowed it to penetrate the already-drilled mortises in the arm for the short sticks without enlarging the already-drilled mortises in the arm. There was method in his eccentricities…. I personally did the same for years, but as you can see in the chapter on building the chair, I now use an extended bit in a battery-powered drill. The augers he used were both Irwin and Jennings pattern.
John Brown drilling a leg mortise with a brace and an auger bit. Photo courtesy of Drew Langsner.
Saws Saws were a subject close to JB’s heart. He realised early on his journey that a good saw was essential to master both in use and maintenance. He owned boxes of them, too many to discuss here, so I’ll tell you just about the relevant ones.
Gent’s Saw A 12″ gent’s saw was used for general workshop use. The tasks included crosscutting sticks to length, cutting the V-groove on the swan neck detail on an arm bow, but probably more importantly it was used to cut the kerfs in the legs’ tenons. The saw bottomed out on the brass back at approximately 1-3/4″, which is an ideal measurement for the length of the kerf.
Bowsaw or Turning Saw These he made himself from oak. Its blade was cut to length from a huge roll of band saw blade that was coiled up. Its use was to cut out arm bow stock. I witnessed this personally, which was a joy to watch. Later on he used the band saw for this grunt work so the bowsaw was used mostly to cut coves on the swan neck detail of his arm bows.
Crosscut and Rip Saws I’ll discuss JB’s favourite crosscut saw here for a few reasons of interest; he wrote an extensive article in Good Woodworking magazine about this saw. It was 26″ long with six teeth per inch. I watched him once crosscut an elm board. Firstly he placed his pocket watch on the board and started sawing. He had previously worked out that if he had correctly set and sharpened the saw and worked to 66 strokes per minute, it took 140 downward strokes to cut through the board. On several occasions I had to study the end grain of a board to witness the marvel of correct sawing.
Etched on its blade is Harley, Old Maymarket, Liverpool. Its fruitwood handle has a medallion which reads J. Tyzack and Son, Sheffield. It was a conundrum to John why the medallion and saw plate had different names. When JB retired he asked if I’d like to choose a saw from his box as a gift – I did and I’m now the custodian of this fine saw for another generation, my name along side J.H. Buchanan, M. Leigh and John Brown on the handle.
The saw intrigued me for some time, so I put a photo of it onto social media and asked for information. Shane Skelton of Skelton Saws contacted me to say it was made by John Harley of Liverpool between 1882 and 1902. John Harley would apparently later become a mechanic. Another person contacted me to ask if I realised what another mark on the saw demarked? I didn’t. It transpired that it was a “Daisy Wheel,” an apotropaic mark that comes from the Greek word for averting evil. The marks were meant to protect from witches and evil spirits. If only a saw could speak.
Adze, Scorp & Drawknife I’ve grouped these three tools together as they were made for JB by his son Matty Sears. John spoke highly of these tools and was proud to own them. Matty is a great craftsman and understands wood and metal in equal proportion. This benefited JB as these tools were immediately user friendly – so many tools are not.
I have seen lots of beautiful adzes that couldn’t chop a chair seat. An adze needs to be made intuitively and become intuitive to the user. This is where the maker’s skill and experience comes into play. The ergonomics of an adze are difficult to describe – the haft has to be the correct shape as does the head. Matty mastered this and he’s developed a technique of forging the head so it can be removed from the haft on a sliding dovetail. This makes maintenance easy, yet the clever part is that whilst being struck, the haft and head tighten. I coveted JB’s adze for years. Now, more than two decades later, I own one. Sentimental? Maybe, but it’s without doubt the best I’ll ever use. And its provenance? I couldn’t ask for more!
The drawknife and scorp I believe were also made by Matty from a leaf spring from an old Land Rover (an iconic British 4×4 vehicle, in case you’re not familiar). Again, both tools were an important part of JB’s arsenal.
The adze made by Matty Sears. He refined an African form for chopping out seats.
Dumbscrape I never asked JB why he called his curved card scraper a dumbscrape. I’ll let John Brown explain it as he did in “Welsh Stick Chairs.”
“God forbid that I should ever have a fire in the workshop, but if I did, and had to get out in a hurry, I’d make sure my dumbscrape was in my pocket. This is a magical tool. Called a cabinet scraper in the tool catalogues, it is sharpened to have a wire edge with a burnisher of hard steel. It cuts like a plane – see the curly shavings on the seat. When they come from the shop they are oblong, four-sided. For this kind of work the edges need grinding to a gentle curve. It is a most pleasing business using a scraper.”
I can remember making one after reading this quote. Back in 1990s I bought a new Sandvik cabinet scraper from my ironmonger and fettled it to shape. There wasn’t a photo of it in WSC so I just made what JB describes. It is without any shadow of doubt a must-have tool for chairmaking and woodworking in general. Its uses are endless. I’m not suggesting that I’ve ever opened a tin of wax polish with one, mind you…woe betide anyone who was reckless with JB’s.
Hammer In “Welsh Stick Chairs” there’s an iconic photo of JB hammering a leg home into the seat. It’s a piece of real theatre, and although I wasn’t present to say for sure how hard he was hitting the leg with the mallet, I can honestly say that I never personally witnessed anything like that. In my experience he used a 16 oz. ball peen hammer to drive legs into seats and sticks into their mortises. Well, at least in retrospect it looked approximately 16 oz. to me. In my own personal experience with JB, the seat stock was thinner. So more of a close fit was needed whilst making tenons fit into their mortises. Particularly if anything other than elm was being used for seat stock.
Driving in wedges with a ball peen hammer.
Mechanic’s Vice The mechanic’s vice was instrumental to John Brown and in particular with how he developed its use for chairmaking. Its use was twofold. One, its being at a suitable work height for sculpting an arm bow (for example). And two, in holding stretcher stock up and away from the bench. Its metal jaws were lined with oak so as not to mar the work. I have described its use in the build section.
Folding Rule A boxwood folding rule was always used instead of a tape measure. It is large enough for the dimensions involved in chairmaking. I’ve discussed how JB disliked measuring things too much; the eye was the important tool for making chairs the John Brown way.
Workbenches John used a few varieties of benches through the years. He wrote some wonderful articles for Good Woodworking on the subject with detailed plans. I’ll briefly discuss two benches.
Workbench No. 1 John made the bench from pine which was readily available PAR (planed all round) from the local builders merchants. He’d dress the edges and laminate the leg stock to roughly 4″ x 4″. The top was glued up from three 9″ x 3″ boards. These were dowelled on the edges – the same way he joined chair seats. Tenons were worked on the ends of the legs, and these were mortised and pierced through the benchtop and wedged.
Stretchers were put around the circumference of the bench low down. He made several benches of this style, and my personal bench is exactly the same. I guess you could say it was more French than British in appearance, particularly in that it didn’t have the typical deep apron that appears on a British Nicholson-style bench.
John always used to make a tool rack that sat to the rear of the bench and ran its full length. This worked fine but it’s one thing I personally dislike; when chopping a chair seat the cacophony created by clanging tools infuriated me. Making chairs should be a peaceful pursuit.
For the purists, the bench measured approximately 6′ in length by 26-1/2″ wide. Lots of benches measure 24″ in width, which is fine for cabinet work but is slightly narrow for a full-blown Welsh chair with its eccentric leg splay. A quick-release vise was used as an end vise.
Workbench No. 2 JB also wrote a great article on his designated chairmaker’s bench. This measured approximately 4′ 6″ long by 27″ wide. It was made from various materials. The top was laminated from plywood, which was then sheathed with oak. Narrow dovetailed aprons then sheathed all of the edges of the ply and oak benchtop.
He made the undercarriage much the same way as mentioned on the first bench, but with much deeper stretchers – 8″ x 1-1/4″ wide rather than 4″ x 2″. This added mass and eliminated racking. The top sat on the legs with only stub tenons instead of the through-tenons of the previous bench. The aprons on the benchtop sat proud of the legs all the way around. A dowel located both through the apron and leg tenon secured the top to its undercarriage.
Three vices were built into this particular bench. One was a standard big Record quick-release. The second was a homemade leg vice, and the third a Veritas twin-screw vice, which ran on a chain. I believe that the bench was inspired after JB saw Drew Langsner’s chairmaker’s bench when he taught at Country Workshop back in the 1990s. And for the bench nerds, it measured 34-1/2″ in height. I used this bench extensively for a number of years and it worked incredibly well – yet with me being 6′ 4″ tall, it was too low. I raised it on 4″ x 4″ timbers to suit me. (Heaven forbid this book should start a debate on the subject of bench height; I mention it purely for posterity.)
Lastly, both of the workbenches’ undercarriages were decorated with paint in JB’s favourite drab green. There was no “Welsh Miserable” involved whatsoever.
John Brown’s mechanic’s vise was the centerpiece of his chairmaking operations.
Hand Grinder JB was a proponent of the hollow grind and honed his freshly ground edges with oilstones. He wrote quite a lot about its use and was even instrumental in helping to promote a grinder made in Eastern Europe. It was simply attached to what I would loosely describe in appearance as a bench hook. This was held in the mechanic’s vice and by being well up and away from the bench, the hand-cranked handle could be turned without encountering any part of the bench. JB made a simple oak tool rest, which was adjusted with a wedge to attain his 30° degree preferred grinding and honing angle.
A Favorite Chisel I’ll finish up with one chisel in particular – a 1-1/4″ bevel-edged paring chisel. This was never far from him. It was used broadly – and yes, it was struck at times. What more can I say? It’s just a chisel. As I said earlier I could have written a book on JB’s tools. He loved tools. We all must not forget: Tools are necessary to the making of something tangible, to get to the glory of the form, and to one of beauty that John Brown deemed to be “A Chair.”
