Barley, our temporary shop dog (he and his person are visiting this week).
Chris and I will be eagerly awaiting your woodworking questions this Saturday (April 19) from about 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
On Saturday morning, an “Open Wire” post will go live. If you have a question, all you have to do is type it into the comments and we’ll – eventually – answer (we fit in weekend computer time around bench time).
Readers with relevant info are also welcome to chime in. For example – we sometimes get asked things like, “Where near Flagstaff can I buy purpleheart?” We have no idea – so if you do, please do let the poor misguided* soul who wants to use purpleheart know where they can get it.
Get those questions ready. (And check out the “Open Wire” category in the meantime – there are lots of good questions and answers there already!)
The remaining Open Wire dates for 2025 are: April 19 June 14 August 9 October 25 December 13
– Fitz
*In all fairness, purpleheart is an excellent choice for a deck and will quickly turn gray/brown, thereby making it tolerable.
A simple ogee (aka cyma recta or cyma reversa) on the ends of a six-board chest.
Both Chris and I have made and taught a lot of six-board chests over the years, and typically we lay out and cut a “boot-jack,” (inverted V”), simple arc or ogee on the ends. Those are easy to lay out and all three are relatively easy to cut…and and don’t hurt our brains or the brains of students too much.
So when working on “Good Eye” the latest artisan geometry book from Jim Tolpin and George Walker, we were both rather dumbstruck with the clever way the authors reverse-engineered the layout of a fancy-looking but simple-to-cut six-board end panel – a layout I have never produced, but have now added to my mental design library. It’s not that I couldn’t have made this shape through measuring – it just wouldn’t have occurred to me to do so; I try to always teach a layout that is scalable without numbers and requires just a few tools, such as a straightedge and compass. That way, you’re teaching the process not the result.
That’s the approach of this entire book – looking at a piece of furniture and showing how the relationships between and among its proportions, and how you can use this knowledge in the real world as you design your own pieces. (Or how to better understand what makes an exiting piece “good.”)
I’ve excerpted this section of “Good Eye” for you below.
– Fitz
Next, let’s turn our attention to the end panels. In addition to the decorative pattern covering the entire surface, the end panels have a triangle cutout (Fig. 3.23). This is not just decorative; it gives the piece four feet to improve stability.
If you look closer, you’ll notice it’s not one, but two triangles, one nested inside the other. The smaller triangle provides that space to carve some relief at the bottom of the decoration. Notice also that this smaller triangle is notched with a right-angle cutout near the floor. It’s likely that the bulk of the decorative linenfold on both end panels was executed on a single board. It was then cut in half, one for each end. So we’ll lay out a mirror-image pattern on the backside of the board and then saw them out after the linenfold is complete.
Because we are making the end panels from a single board we begin with a board that’s two units wide. Instead of three units high, we double it to six units high to have enough length for both ends (Fig. 3.24).
It’s two mirror-image triangles with a pair of smaller triangles nested inside them (Fig. 3.25). The lines and circles that create this pattern look complicated at first glance (Fig. 3.26). Yet, if we walk through it step by step, you can see the logic unfold and the genius of this deceptively simple design.
Begin by drawing a pair of diagonals across the corners (Fig. 3.27). This provides our centerline for the decorative linenfold pattern as well as the apex for our large triangle cutout. It also marks the halfway spot to mark a saw line to separate the two pieces later on.
The first large decorative triangle is centered on the board. The bottom corner of the triangle is inset one-fourth the overall width of the board. We can find that one-fourth width with another pair of diagonals (Fig. 3.28).
Note that we used diagonals just like we did before when locating one-third of a rectangle. Again, these intersections locate one-fourth of our rectangle on both the vertical and the horizontal.
The larger decorative triangles are equilateral. To locate the apex, set a pair of dividers to span the width of the base of the triangle and scribe a pair of overlapping circles (Fig. 3.29).
These two circles define our two mirror-image triangles. A line that runs from the center of one circle to the other establishes the base of our triangles. The intersections, top and bottom, where our circles overlap, locate the apex of both triangles. Strike lines to connect the width of the base with the apex on both top and bottom. These two back-to-back triangles create a diamond shape.
To define the smaller triangles that are nested inside, draw a line from the corner of the board that passes through the apex of our triangle until it crosses the saw line (Fig. 3.30).
Draw three more diagonals, one from each corner to complete the two smaller triangles. Finally, the small notch at the base of the smaller triangle. It’s simply two side-by-side squares, or you could picture it as a rectangle that’s one unit high by two units wide (Fig. 3.31).
The layout for the decorative linenfold carving is similar to the front panel. The width of the tools themselves step off the repetitions across the board using the centerline as the starting point.
One final note on these geometric layouts. For the sake of clarity, we show all lines and circles in their entirety. When you see these layouts in historic books or even remnants left on old work, the actual layout lines are abbreviated. You might see only a few intersections and tick marks. If I were laying this out, being familiar with lines, it would look something like Fig. 3.32. It’s abbreviated, but still has the information needed.
Plate 314. Machine Appropriate for Making Flat Wavy Mouldings
The following is an excerpt from “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.” This book is the result of more than a decade of work by an international team that produced the first English translation of the 18th-century woodworking masterpiece: “l’art du Menuisier” by André-Jacob Roubo. This translation covers Roubo’s writing on woodworking tools, the workshop, joinery and building furniture.
In addition to the translated text and color images from the original, “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” also includes five contemporary essays on Roubo’s writing by craftsmen Christopher Schwarz, Don Williams, Michael Mascelli, Philippe Lafargue and Jonathan Thornton.
The excerpt below details a machine that had gone out general use even before Roubo wrote the original text. However, there is no denying that the illustrations and explanation of the device are captivating. The details on it inspired Jonathan Thornton to recreate one of these machines and write an essay on it for “With All the Precision Possible.” A portion of the essay will be the excerpt for next week.
Description of the Machine commonly called the tool for waves, and the way of making use of it in different ways The machine that I am going to describe is the largest and the most complicated of all the cabinetry tools, which once were much used. Now they are not used much, since they are only used for works of applied wood [moldings] and they have, so to speak, combined all their science to veneer the wood properly. However, since this tool is ingenious, and you cannot find it anywhere, I thought I must include it here, in order to save it for posterity, supposing that this work succeeds.3
The use of the wave-cutting Tool represented in Fig. 1 is for cutting onto the wood wave-mouldings, or patterns, precise intricate repetitive designs, whether flat, on the face or even in both directions at the same time.
It is composed of a box from 7 to 8 feet in length, by one foot wide and 9 to 10 thumbs in height, exterior outside measurements. This box is open on top and at the ends, such that the distance between the two sides is retained only by cross-pieces A and B, Figs. 1 & 2, placed at two ends of the box, where they are assembled by mortise and tenon. At about the middle of the height of the box is placed a plank C–D, Fig. 2, about 2–thumbs thick, called a sommier [or platform, mattress; in similar machines for printing lithographs this is called the couch or the cooch]. This, for more strength, should be fit together at the ends and braced from below. This plank, or sommier [platform], is held in a groove in the two sides of the box (which should not be less than one–and-a-half thumb in thickness) and serves to hold the mouldings to be wave-cut, as I will explain later, and which you can see in Fig. 2, which represents the machine viewed from above.
In the middle of the box is placed a square frame of about a foot in width, viewed from the side, and which extends from 9 to 10 thumbs above the box, to the sides of which it is attached with some screws, and in which it enters by tenon and a notch, as you can see in the evolution of this machine, represented in the following Plate [315] Figs. 5 & 6.
The width of this frame is determined by the width of the box, the sides of which the uprights of the latter are flush on the interior. It is in this frame that is placed a spring which presses on the toolholder [the cutterhead] E, Fig. 1. This spring is raised and lowered by means of the screw F, Figs. 1 & 2.
The whole machine is held on a base of a solid construction and widened [splayed] in the form of a trestle to give it a better footing. The height of this base should be from 2 feet 8 to 10 thumbs, so that is has about 3 feet in height from the axis of the crank handle G to the ground. This is the most comfortable height for the person who turns this crank handle to have all his strength, whether raising or lowering it.
There are in this machine two movements: one is horizontal, which is done by means of the handle G, Fig. 1, which by making the pinion turn placed in the interior of the box, moves the sommier A–B, Fig. 2, and consequently the work which is held above.
The other movement is vertical, downwards, and depends on the first. The rod, or wave guide/ channel H–H, Figs. 1 & 2 [Plate 315], which is held on the sommier, moves therefore with the latter, is raising the tool-holder F, Fig. 1, left, which then lowers immediately by itself, both by its own weight and by the pressure of the spring placed above. See Fig. 4, which represents a wave channel the size of the execution [ full-size/scale] Fig. 5, [which] represents a moulding completely wave-formed, according to the sinuosity of the wave channel in Fig. 4. Also see Fig. 3, which represents the cross-section of the tool-holder, which I will describe here later.
Fig. 6 represents a cutting blade viewed with different profiles, as large as the execution [ full-size/scale].
Figures 1 & 2 of this plate represent one of the transverse cross-sections of the machine, taken at the location of the pinions and the other the longitudinal cross-section of the same machine, so as to better understand the details of its construction and the mechanism of its operations.
Axis A–B, should be placed in the copper collars, a, b, so that they turn more easily. One should note at one of the sides of the box [is] a squared opening capable of letting pass pinions C–D, supposing that it is necessary to remove the axis outside. Pinions C–D, engaged in the toothed rack c, d, Fig. 1, and E, F, Fig. 2, which are embedded on the underside of the carriage [platform] G–G, same Figure, about 9–lines deep, and are held there by pegs, placed together in the sides of the latter, observing that the toothed racks are well positioned vis-a-vis the other, so that the two pinions C–D, Fig. 1, are contacted equally by the racks [platform] above. However, as it can happen that the teeth of the pinions are not well positioned vis-a-vis the other, one would do well, after having stopped/blocked one of the toothed racks, not to attach [secure] the other until after verifying that it fits well with its pinions, so as to be able to set it back or advance it as necessary.
Plate 315. The Development of the Machine Represented in the Preceding Plate
These racks can be made of iron or copper, which makes no difference for the machine, however it would be good that they be made of copper, given that the rubbing of two different metals is smoother and wears less than if the two pieces, that is to say, the rack and pinions, be of the same metal. [See Plate 314.]
The rods or wave conduits [channels or guide rails for the work piece] e, f, Fig. 1, and H, H, Figs. 2 & 6, should be also made of copper, and they should be bent at a right angle to have the ability of attaching them with screws on the carriage [platform] in which they are notched in all their thickness, as one can see in Figs. 1 & 6.
When you put these [wave] channels on the platform, you must pay the greatest attention that the guilloche [pattern] be not only fit well together, but also that they match at the same point of their contour with the contact of the tool-stand which bears on top of it, as you can see in Fig. 4. This represents the machine viewed from the end, and even better in Fig. 7, which shows the toolstand [tracing and cutting head] where you have removed the cheek [ fence] which holds the iron in place, as I will explain later.
The tool-stand is a frame I–L, M–N, Figs. 2 & 5, of about 2 feet in length, by a width equal to the interior of the box, less the necessary play to prevent any rubbing, which you avoid by diminishing the thickness of the uprights in the entire length, and reserving there some heels at the ends, so that the frame is held against the sides of the box, and cannot get out of place when you move it.
The frame of the tool-stand is attached at the sides of the box by means of two threaded bolts, represented in Fig. 3, half as large as executed here, where the extremity o ends in a cone, and bears on a copper collar embedded in the side of the box.
This screw is held in place in the frame by a nut placed in the middle of its thickness, normally. To prevent the movement of the frame so that it does not turn the screw, you put a counter-screw P outside, which you tighten against the frame, which prevents the screw from making any movement. See Figs. 3 & 5.
As it is sometimes found where it is necessary to lift the point of the movement of the toolstand, you pierce many holes in the copper collar attached to the side of the box, as I did in Fig. 2.
At the other end of the tool-stand, that is to say, where the cutting iron is secured/fitted, the cross-piece I, Fig. 2, should be very strong and assembled with a cover from above so as to present a uniform surface all along the length, which is the width of the tool-stand. Then you apply from above a piece of iron attached with some screws with countersunk heads, of a length equal to the width of the latter. And you make it overlap by about 5 or 6 lines at both ends, to make two frets that bear on the wave pattern [channels], and you make a notch in the middle of this piece of the size of the iron for positioning the cutting iron of the tool, as you can see in Fig. 7.
This iron is held in place by a cheek [ fence] (whether of iron or copper, either is equal), that you hold in place by means of two square-headed screws, g–g, Figs. 2, 4 & 5, where the nut is placed in the thickness of the cross-piece of the frame. See Fig. 3 of Plate 314, where I showed the cross-section of the tool-stand, with the contact I, the iron L, and the exterior cheek [ fence] M, which comes down as low as possible, that is to say, just to the bottom of the part the most hollowed of the latter.
The bottom of contact I [Plate 314] should be the thinnest possible (without however being a sharp edge), so that it follows well all the contours of the wavy pattern N–O. You must take great care that the point of contact for the fret be in the same direction as the iron cutting edge [both bevels are in the same direction], as I noted in this figure, so that the movement of the tool (which is made in describing an arc, where the center is found at the end of the frame) be less noticeable. I have partially remedied this by lengthening the point of the center of movement as much as has been possible.
The weight of the tool-stand should be almost sufficient to make the cutting iron bite into the surface of the wood workpiece. However, one must always put a spring there, both for augmenting the weight of the tool, supposing that it be necessary, and preventing it [ from] jumping around.
This spring h–i, Fig. 2, does not bear immediately on the tool-stand, but on a lever where its arms are loosely attached to the uprights of the movable frame of the box at m, Figs. 2 & 5.
The other end bears on the cross-piece of the tool-stand at n, which augments at the same time the strength and the elasticity of the spring, where the upper part is held below the small shelf O, Fig. 2, with screw P, where the nut is placed in the top of the frame Q. This screw serves, as I already said, to increase or diminish the pressure of the spring. The small shelf O through which passes the lower end of the screw, serves nothing but to hold it in place, and to press the heel o of the spring. As this small shelf is movable, you hold it from the opposite side of the screw with two pins, which you place across the uprights of the frame, as indicated by points p–p.
I made the head of the screw P in the form of a screw-eye, so that one cannot tighten it or loosen it by simply touching it, and so that you have need for a little pry bar or crank handle to do it. Those who approach the machine while it is adjusted cannot disturb anything there by simply touching it.
It is for this same reason that I prefer the screws with squared heads for closing the cheek [ fence] of the tool-stand, because a wrench is necessary to move these sorts of screws. You can eliminate their access from everyone’s hands, and consequently prevent anyone from changing anything on the tool.
As to the manner of using this machine, it is very simple. You begin by planing some wooden strips to the thickness of the profile that you have chosen, and the projection of the waves. This being done, you put in the tool-stand a smooth iron, which you adjust to the height equal to the projection of the moulding. You hold the strip on the platform, by means of little iron points placed [on the latter by equal distances from each other], and you make the machine move by turning the crank handle, which advances the platform forward. Consequently, the strip that is attached to the platform, after having passed many times under the smooth iron, is found to be wavy on its surface.
When the strip is thus finished, you remove the smooth iron, and you substitute the one that is shaped with a profile, and you begin the operation again, just until the iron is not cutting the wood any more, and consequently the moulding is perfectly finished.
You must take great care before running the moulding to verify that the wooden strip is placed truly parallel, which you know by making it pass the entire length under the blade that you hold elevated above. You should secure the strip on the platform only after having taken this precaution. You must also note that the pins that you place in the platform to hold the mouldings are positioned in the middle of their width [thickness of the moulding stock], and that they do not project enough to be able to meet the blade and cause any breakage, which you must take great care to avoid.
The blade of the waving tool is always placed perpendicular to the workpiece, which makes it scrape enough to cut, which cannot be otherwise, given that if you slant it in the normal way with moulding planes, it would scratch/drag on the wood as it comes against the grain, which happens at each undulation. What’s more, the blade thus slanted will no more be found in the same direction in all parts, which you must avoid as much as possible.
Since you can make many different blades, you must pay attention that they be all the same width, so that they completely fill the notch made in the piece which makes the cuts. You must also pay attention that they are all the same thickness, and that this thickness be considerable, to better resist the force of the wood in passing below.
The handle with which you move the waving tool can be placed to the right of the machine, as in Fig. 6, or to the left, as in Figs. 1 & 4, which makes no difference.
Each of these ways placing the handle has its advantages and disadvantages. If you place it to the right, which is the most natural way (since you made some effort pushing it), you cannot see the work well, behind which you position yourself. If on the contrary you place it to the left, you see the work clearly, but you are required to turn the handle in reverse. That is why, in order to eliminate these two inconveniences, I believe it would be better to position the two ends of the axis so that each one can receive a handle, like in Fig. 5, such that you can use it as you judge appropriate, whether on the right or on the left, or even from both sides at the same time.
3 It has not been possible to find a surviving wave-cutting Tool to make a good description of it. I have had only two iron blades, sold with other scrap metal which have nevertheless been very useful for fixing certain sizes, that I could not have known except for the description that Mr. Felibien made of this tool, which is otherwise very succinct, but imprecise, such that it could serve only to give me an idea of this machine, which I have then arranged in such a manner that it appeared to me the most likely. It has been greatly wished that those who have described this Machine in the Encyclopedia [of Diderot] had done something other than copy Mr. Felibien, instead of adding to the obscurity and inexactitude, as they have done. It would have been very useful to the public, and in particular to cabinetmakers, for whom they would have saved, or better said, presented one of their principal tools.
Nearby Maryland offers amusements just a streetcar ride away! Glen Echo Park provides thrills on the coaster dips — and on the dance floor of the beautiful Spanish ballroom!
Across the studio, behind a grove of microphones on stands, the piano sat silent under a quilted cover like a sleeping racehorse. Calvin leaned forward in his chair staring at it, trying to strike an intense, artistic pose as Bubby read over his script. A figure in the hallway passed the small window in the studio door and Calvin whipped his head up painfully quick. He glanced at the clock. Bubby said they would have the studio to themselves until four. The chair creaked as he leaned back, shifting his pose to one of relaxed confidence — which would do just as well if Kathryn Dale Harper should happen by. But this pose quickly grew tiresome as well, and he leaned forward again to poke quietly at the saws, augers and gouges in his pasteboard box. Bubby finally handed the script back to Calvin. “Okay. You need to write an introduction. You need to say who you are, what you’re doing, and who it’s for. You need say the title and set the stage. And you have to state that it’s a transcribed show at the beginning and at the end. That’s a federal regulation.”
“Do you want me to write all that now?”
“Nah, its just boilerplate to me. Same on every show, time-wise. Like the ending, it’ll be something like—
If you would like a measured drawing to make your own folding ladder of liberty, handy around the farm and home, just write to Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air, care of the National Farm and Home Hour, US Department of Agriculture, Washington 25, D.C. Be sure to include a three-cent stamp to cover the cost of duplication. This has been Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air, transcribed from Washington, D.C.
“So ‘Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air,’ that’s the title?”
Bubby pinched at a weeping blister on his left hand. “Hattersley’s suggestion, so I’d go with it, if I were you.”
“I thought it had a certain buoyancy about it!”
“Thought you’d like it.” He grinned at his friend. “Okay, after the close, you need a signature sign-off. Something that will stick with ’em.”
Calvin leaned over toward the sound effects table in the center of the studio as he thought. “How about:
This is Calvin Cobb wishing that, as you slide down that banister of life, all the splinters go in your direction!”
Bubby nodded enthusiastically. “Believe me, that’s not too corny.” Calvin rubbed the canvas cover of the wind machine. “Nah! You know we can’t end each show with a confucius-say joke about splinters in the ass.”
“Well, it’s borderline. So, got any theme music?”
“Not yet.”
“This is very psychological, now. You need some old music that’s gone out of fashion, but that still has positive associations. Gotta pluck the right strings.”
Calvin stared at the piano and flipped through mental images of tattered sheet music. Willow Weep for Me?
Bubby shook his head. “It doesn’t have to have a wood reference.”
“Something by Bela-Bale, maybe, then. ”He waved away his comment. “Sorry, uh, how bout Nola?”
Bubby hummed the tune to himself for a second. “It’s bouncy.”
“Yes, but is it buoyant?”
“Buoyant enough for government work. Okay, Nola for now, and your first sound effect is what?”
Calvin looked at the script. “The auger, I guess.”
Bubby wrote the cue on a notepad. “Right, okay, I’ll do peanut shells in a meat grinder for that.”
“I brought over an auger and a brace,” said Calvin, rummaging in his box of tools.
“Wouldn’t sound right. Okay, you got sawing here too. Let me hear you saw.”
“Rip or crosscut?”
“Both. And I’ll do Washington’s snoring since you’ll be doing the character voices over it.”
Calvin pulled his five-and-a-half point Disston No. 9 from the box and rip-sawed down the length of a pine plank spanning two sawhorses. Bubby made snoring sounds, striving for a comic asynchrony. He signaled Calvin to stop. “You know, if this was a union job they’d have to give me actor’s pay for the snoring. Alright, lets hear the crosscut.”
Calvin changed saws and began cutting across the grain.
Bubby snored while studying the bouncing needle on a meter. He shook his head. “Get a thinner board so it’s a little crisper, and I’d better do the sawing too. I can make it funnier.”
“Right! Tell me how you can saw funnier than me.” Calvin plunked the saw blade with his thumb, making it ring with a “boing” sound.
“It’s all in the timing. And that ‘boing’ you just did is a perfect rimshot for the punchline.” Bubby reached with his toe to level the gravel in a big shallow box on the floor. “So, here’s your hessian on guard duty.” He stepped in the box, marched in place for a few steps, then swiveled and marched in place again. “We’re going to be making history, you know that.”
“Well, it’s not very good history.”
Bubby frowned at him for a second, then grinned and slapped at Calvin’s script. “No, not your story itself! Just that it’s going to be the first recorded program ever on the networks.”
“You mean the second. You did the first. And what’s the big deal, anyway?” said Calvin, trying to shift the subject. “Unless there’s a scratch or a skip on the record, you can’t tell if it’s recorded or live — or is that the problem?”
“Oh, that’s what they say, but it’s just money.” Bubby leveled the sound effects gravel with his toe. “It’s like Rockefeller oil. Once you control the pipeline, you can strangle the little guys. NBC and CBS put all this dough into their wire networks. But if anyone bypasses them by mailing out shows on disks, there goes the hegemonic power of the dastardly duopoly.” He laughed. “I sound like Kathryn Harper.”
Calvin glanced at the window and stretched his arms over his head in an exaggerated show of nonchalance. “Are you suggesting that the voice of the American homemaker is a red?”
“Oh, she’s very in with that popular front jazz.” He tossed his head back, regarding Calvin through narrowed eyes. “Are you surprised?”
“Well, it is kind of an odd fit — slip covers and surplus value.”
Bubby shrugged. “Lots o’ radishes out there still — all stylishly red on the outside but white underneath. But me? I’ve got you some surplus value right here.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed Calvin two blue tickets.
“Holy cow! Tommy Dorsey! How’d you get these?”
Making a show of adjusting his collar, Bubby affected a hoity-toity voice. “I’m a celebrity now, don’t you know? Such things come my way.”
“But don’t you want go?”
Bubby shook his head slowly. “The dance is out at Glen Echo, right next to the roller coaster. I’ve heard all the screaming I need to hear for a while. ”He blew out a breath and sat on one of the sawhorses. “I just burn my hands trying to pull some stupid girder and the next thing you know my name is in the paper and everybody’s being nice to me!” He stood, taking control of his breathing before reaching into a bag beneath his table and pulling out a head of cabbage. “So here’s when your Kraut gets clubbed.” He whacked the cabbage with a short billy club, let a half second of silence pass and grunted “Unhh!” A sequential flopping of his elbow, forearm and fist onto the tabletop made the sound of a body hitting the ground. “Trust me, it’s perfect when you can’t see it.” Bubby nodded slowly as he looked in his little spiral-bound notebook. “Okay, we got the prison door.” He leaned over and patted the chain-festooned iron fire-box door standing on a short wooden frame. “Got the tunnel.” He patted the empty trash drum beside him. “Got your wood gouges, creaking gridiron and unfolding ladder.”
Calvin took up the challenge and pointed to a yellow balloon on the cart. “All right. Thumb dragged across the balloon for the creaking gridiron. Where’s the folding ladder?”
Bubby picked up a short cedar box with a paddle-shaped cedar lid. He held the lid handle and rubbed it down the edge of the box to make a squeaky opening and closing sound. “It’s a turkey call.”
Calvin nodded appreciatively. “And the gouges?”
Bubby took up a serving spoon and swept it repeatedly across the tabletop, slowly rolling its point of contact from the bowl of the spoon to finish the sweep with its edge. He bounced his eyebrows in happy triumph and popped Calvin on the shoulder with the spoon. “We’re going to be on a tight schedule, so I’m going to give you a production calendar for the whole summer. Enjoy the dance, ’cause you sure won’t have much time for a social life once we get going.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “Ah! Let’s get this place cleaned up.”
Editor’s Note: Michele Pietryka-Pagán is the French-to-English translator on the three-person team dedicated to bringing André-Jacob Roubo’s work to life. We have Michele, along with Don Williams and Philippe LaFargue, to thank for “With All Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” and “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.”
These volumes are no longer in stock as we’re making room for new deluxe editions of each. The deluxe edition of “With All Precision Possible” will be for sale later this month and we plan to offer a deluxe edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” soon.
Michele and Philippe have also completed the translations of more volumes of Roubo focusing on interior carpentry, garden carpentry and carriages. (You can read more about that on Don’s blog, here.)
Michele Pietryka-Pagán grew up in Vermont, the eldest of six children, born to native Vermonters.
“My parents were children of the depression, and so we grew up with a heavy dose of ‘Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without,’” Michele says. “That’s a common Vermont philosophy. My parents were also educated, and they wanted all of us to be educated, too. There was always a subtext of do-it-yourself, and that included putting yourself through college, so we did.”
Michele’s dad was a mechanical engineer who liked to, and knew how to, fix most anything. In the early 1960s, Michele’s parents bought a 19th-century house in Bennington, Vermont. It had no kitchen cabinets, so Michele’s dad drove to the lumberyard, bought lumber and taught himself how to make the base and upper cabinets. It was her first exposure to home renovation, helping her mom to wallpaper the old, horsehair plaster walls.
Michele’s mom was a teacher who stayed home to care for the family until Michele’s senior year of high school. When Michele was young, her mom taught her hand skills – sewing, embroidery and knitting.
“She taught me everything she could so maybe I would survive the next depression,” she says. “One of my earliest memories is getting a set of seven tea towels for Christmas one year, one for every day of the week, with a different motif to embroider on each one.”
As she grew up, Michele bought more and more complex patterns. By high school, she was able to make her own prom dress, and by the time she graduated from college, she made a friend’s wedding dress.
While Michele was growing up, her dad changed careers and became a high school industrial arts teacher and, later, a mechanical engineering professor at Vermont Technical College. Because of her dad’s position, Michele’s tuition at the University of Vermont was free. There she learned most of what she knows about textile science, in addition to perfecting her hand skills with fabric – turning 2D pieces of fabric into 3D garments.
“I had a real classical training in dressmaking and design,” she says.
Some of it she already knew – how to sew a straight seam and put in a zipper. She had whole semesters where she just studied tailoring or fabric draping. She spent two semesters studying textile science. She also learned how to make her own mannequin, which later came in handy when making mannequins for garments and costumes in museum exhibits. She graduated in 1973.
“Then, of course, the Bicentennial happened in 1976,” she says. “If you talk to a lot of museum folks of my generation today, we all got bitten really hard by the historic preservation movements that came about when the bicentennial celebration happened.”
Michele, John and Gracie, their terrier mix, today
In the mid-1980s, Michele earned her master’s degree in textile studies at the University of Connecticut. It was during this time that she met her husband, John Pagán, who was in the U.S. Naval Submarine Force. They married in 1984. Together they traveled up and down the East Coast, following John’s assignments both at sea, and at the Pentagon. In 1987 they moved to Washington, D.C., where they lived on and off for nearly 30 years.
Conservation & translation
While living in Washington, Michele and her husband hosted international students, researchers and writers. They had a particularly good experience with a young man from France, who stayed for a couple of summers. In part because of this, Michele began studying French in the evenings through a program with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Michele also studied textile conservation at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, and became one of their Research Associates. While there she helped a senior textile conservator with a small French translation project.
Don Williams, who was the senior furniture conservator at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, heard about her translation work. He had a couple of books about French carpentry written by an 18th-century woodworker named André Roubo that he wanted translated. He asked Michele if she’d be interested in volunteering.
“I naively said, ‘Sure! Why not?’,” she says. “For the next seven years, while most people were watching some sitcom on TV at night, I was sitting at my big dining room table surrounded by six or seven French-English dictionaries, a couple of them dating back to the 18th century,” she says.
Language changes over time. When Michele would get stuck trying to find an appropriate word in a 20th-century dictionary, she moved on to her 19th-century dictionaries, and then to her 18th-century dictionaries. She worked one sentence at a time: one paragraph, no matter how long it was, was always one sentence.
First, Michele would read the paragraph-long sentence and circle all the words she didn’t know. In the beginning, this ended up being about every third word because she’s not a woodworker nor a native French speaker.
“… So then I had to translate word by word, each word that I didn’t know,” she says. “I had to find the word in one of those dictionaries and then break up the paragraph into smaller sentences. That alone was a challenge because if I chopped up a paragraph into, say, three sentences, then I had to go back, after the translation, and see if the whole thing made any sense.”
Michele and Don, 2018.
With time, the work became much faster. Today, Michele can look at one of Roubo’s French paragraphs and typically type it into English, having to look up hardly anything.
“That’s how much I have improved over 18 years of doing this,” she says. “And now, of course, if there is a word that I don’t know, I just use Reverso. And the beauty of it is that it not only tells you what the word is, but it also puts it into context for you. So that’s really been lovely. But my French conversation still stinks!”
Michele and Philippe LaFargue, a native French speaker, work on the translations.
“My translated text then goes to Don, who adds contemporary information for today’s woodworkers,” she says. “Roubo was a master woodworker at the end of the 18th century in France. Some of that information translates to today, but not all of it. Don’s image of the project from the very beginning was to make this information as tangible and accessible as possible. Then the work goes to Philippe, who makes sure that my translation works with what Don is trying to say, for American woodworkers.”
Still learning – & teaching
Michel and John’s house in Dorset, Vermont.
John, Michele’s husband, retired in 2015. In May 2016, they bought and began restoring an 1825 farmhouse in Dorset, Vermont. It’s something Michele and John are well-accustomed to, having bought and restored four old townhouses while living on Capitol Hill. “All the homes on Capitol Hill are old, and they ALL needed a new furnace!”
Michele and a neighbor recently spent about five years researching 42 homes in their little village of East Dorset. In July 2025, the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation met and reviewed their application, calling for East Dorset to be named a historic district. It was approved.
“It was a long haul but definitely worth it,” she says.
“It’s a national search for 19th-century schoolgirl needlework samplers,” she says. “We’re trying to find them, document them, photograph them, analyze them and research the genealogy of all the girls who made these samplers and put them online. It gives me goosebumps. Nobody has ever done this before! Here we are, in the 21st century, and nobody has ever looked at a schoolgirl sampler, read her name, her birthdate, maybe her town all stitched there, and asked questions. Who were her parents? What kind of people were they? Did they have any role in making this country that we call the USA?”
Since November 2022, Michele and her team have found and documented more than 770 Vermont samplers. In 2025, in cooperation with the Vermont 250th Commemoration of the start of the American Revolution, Michele is coordinating a driving tour of 20 locations all over Vermont where visitors can stop and see exhibits of 19th-century schoolgirl samplers that all tie back to the American Revolution in some way.
In addition to research, for the past five summers Michele also served as a presenter at the Bennington Museum’s Summer Teachers Institute. There she teaches teachers seeking additional accreditation about how to use museum artifacts in their lesson plans.
“There’s nothing more gratifying than having an audience full of teachers, because when you’re teaching teachers, they are absorbing every single word you say,” she says.
Whether it’s translating, researching or teaching, Michele is all in. Case in point: She tore up part of her own meadow and planted flax, wanting to know more about how our ancestors planted, harvested, spun and wove it into linen. She brought the flax into her classes, along with different kinds of fiber for the teachers to observe under a microscope.
“This gives my life new meaning,” she says. “It’s a new chapter. I’m still really happy to be associated with Don and the Roubo project. What’s really special about working with Don is that he has so much respect for women: His wife and two daughters have raised him right! Occasionally, Philippe will call from France – we have never actually met – but I can tell he’s a really great guy, too. So, this has been a truly wonderful project to be part of.”
The Roubo project is also giving back.
“My husband and I decided to use some of the royalty monies from the sales of the Roubo books to start an endowment at the Bennington Museum,” Michele says. “The endowment pays for one high school student per year to spend the summer working with the staff at the museum, for about eight weeks. We are into the fifth year of summer interns whom we have funded, and all we ask is that the student write us a little synopsis of what they did at the museum all summer. Since we don’t have children, this is our part of ‘touching the future,’ as Sally Ride, the astronaut, said.”
Despite living different lives, there’s commonality in Michele and Don’s work. In working on the translations, Michele says she was able to help Don better convey the antique processes and mindset for creating wooden furniture.
“Don and I are both conservators,” she says. “We both believe in historic preservation. We both believe in transmitting our cultural heritage from the past and making it accessible to today’s students. That’s why I enjoy making textile history from the past accessible to today’s teachers and their students. Don and I did the same thing in just two different specialties. We’re both educators. We’re both passing on information from the past to today’s and tomorrow’s students, teachers and historic preservationists.”
