’A peep into the ancient carpenter shop in back of house’ glass negative, photo by Alfred Hand, 24 October 1921. Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
In 1744 John Wister built a summer house in Germantown, a rural area northwest of Philadelphia. The house later became the primary residence of the family and was known for its gardens, orchards and farm. When Charles Jones Wister (1782-1865), grandson of John, inherited the property he named it Grumblethorpe. He took the name from ‘Think-I-To-Myself’ a comedy by Edward Nares.
The Historic American Building Survey of 1934 notes, “Charles J. Wister had a taste for mechanics and in 1819, added a frame workshop.”
Composite from Sheets 1 and 2 of the Historic American Buildins Survey, February & March, 1934. Collection of the Library of Congress.
Wister’s workshop was on the second floor of the extension with a loft above. In the photo of the shop you can see the steps in the back left corner leading to the loft.
Portion of Sheet 3, Historic American Building Survey, February 1934. Collection of the Library of Congress.
In the survey drawing of the second floor the workshop addition is at the very top, on the right is an enlargement of the shop. His shop was a generous 26’ by 10’-10’’ with a forge (F) connected to the chimney and a bellows (G) that was positioned below a cupboard.
The lathes (see photo) are under the windows in the back right corner. The cabinetmaker’s bench was likely on the left hand wall (under window #213?).
Exterior of the shop, 1921, photo by Alfred Hand. Library company, Philadelphia.
In 1920, a year before the workshop photo was taken, Jones Wister, great-nephew of Charles, published ‘Jones Wister’s Reminiscences’ with a chapter on his great-uncle. Here are excerpts with a brief description of the workshop:
”…The youngest of his family, born 1782, he early showed desire for learning and excelled at school and in college. He was celebrated as an astronomer, poet, lecturer and skilled mechanic.
Much time was given to his books and philosophical studies. His recreation was found in his workshop, where he had a forge, two turning lathes, and a cabinet-maker’s workbench, together with numerous mechanical tools.
At the last visit I paid my cousin at Grumblethorpe, I asked permission to revisit his father’s workshop, and found it just as I remembered and my great-uncle had left it, everything covered with dust, but intact, as it was sixty or seventh years ago. Nothing had been disturbed. He was to Germantown what the Weather Bureau is to the country. Three times daily he took the temperature, read his barometer, making careful notes, which were regularly published in the GermantownTelegraph, then owned and edited by Philip R. Freas.
He had an observatory, equipped with a telescope, through which he watched the heavens, and upon every clear day, observed the sun crossing the zenith. He issued bulletins of the time, and every clock in Germantown was set by his standard.
…He was a remarkedly versatile genius, for besides all his other accomplishments, he could repair clocks, and many which needed repairs were put into working order by his hands…
I should have taken more interest in my great-uncle’s educational researches, had not his shop possessed greater attractions. The long and short foot lathe, beautiful cabinet-maker’s bench, not to mention the blacksmith’s forge, won my enchanted admiration, and were much more to my taste. For here it was he turned the Wister tops, celebrated among all Germantown boys. These tops were made from dogwood, could not be split, but could split the tops of any playmate opponent, whose top was unlucky enough to be hit.
There are a few men still living today for whom my great-uncle turned a spinning top…He was a merry and humorous old gentleman, and when a new boy would be presented to him would astonish him by asking, “Why is a cranberry tart like a pump handle?” After the boy had puzzled awhile, he would quietly say, “There is no resemblance.”
The Bucks County Historical Society in Doylestown, Pennsylvaia has some of the tops make by Wister, other small items and some of his tools.
In 1820 Wister started a notebook to record his workshop activites and titled it, ‘Various Recipes & Formulae Used in the Shop.’ I believe the notebook is in the Eastwick Collection of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia with no digital copy available. However, in early 2010 an enterprising young intern at the APS posted several photos of items from the Eastwick Collection including this recipe from one of Wister’s notebooks:
Charles Wister was one of the early users of photography in Philadelphia and, according to notations in the APS archive, he took photos of Grumblethorpe. Did he take photos of his workshop? If so, and if they survived, the APS may have them.
Another item from the enterprising intern. A photo by Charles Wister with himself at the front door of the house dated 1860. Collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.Charles J. Wister
What mysteries are waiting in the the various archives holding Charles Jones Wister Sr.’s notebooks and photographs? For now, we have one photograph taken 56 years after Wister died and a sparse account of the workshop that is dated around the same time. I will be sending a note to the Operations Manager for Grumblethorpe to find out what remains in the workshop and possibly get some photos.
1912 ad for the Pike Manufacturing Co., Haverhill, New Hampshire.
That’s a pretty good incentive don’t you think? Sharpen your tools and stop swearing.
EverybodyDoesIt – A Sharpening World Tour
“The Polisher”
Neolithic polissoirs, characterized by straight grooves and a shallow basin, were used to sharpen axes, arrows and blades. If you encounter one you will see, and feel, that the grooves and basin remain smooth compared to the rough surface of the rest of the boulder. The Polisher in the photo above is on the Malborough Downs, Wiltshire, England. Polissoirs are also found in France.
Whakarewa.
Whakarewa is a grindstone used by generations of Maori. It sat in Mimiha stream until it was moved in the 1920s to make room for roads and other development.
The Romans mined whetstones in North Gaul (present day Northern France and Belgium), Crete and in other areas they conquered. The whetstones from North Gaul have been found in settlements dating to the 1st century C.E.
Some of the whetstones from North Gaul, such as the one above, have been found buried beneath the main support posts of buildings. It is not known what symbolic meaning the stones had for the builders or occupants of the buildings. Did a stone taken from the earth then used to sharpen tools or weapons become a powerful protector once placed back in the earth?
Louis-Charles Bombled, late 19th/early 20th century, Musee Jurassien des Art Moutier, Switzerland.
Roubo mentions sharpening stones as one of the necessary tools to be provided in a workshop. In Blombled’s crowded workshop, a sharpening station is right where it should be – close to the benches.
Top: collotype with hand coloring, MFA, Boston. Bottom: unattributed photo. Both are late 19th/early 20th century.
The Japanese workshops/work areas may be different from the European model, however, an area for sharpening was set up. At top, a chisel is being sharpened; in the bottom photo, (left foreground) sharpening stones and a water basin are at the ready.
A convenient placement for a sharpening stone, 1920s from “China at Work” by Rudolf Hommel.
A sharpening stone was placed near an entrance. Whether you are coming or going, it’s a good reminder to sharpen your tools.
There is some evidence of pillars or other stone supports that were designated “sharpening spots” on large construction sites, especially when the constructions lasted decades or longer. The Cathedral of Valencia has such a spot near an entrance that is marked with deep vertical grooves.
Detail from Plate 12, “To Make as Perfectly as Possible.”
In Plate 12, Roubo illustrates the tools needed to sharpen saws. He includes a saw set, triangular file and a saw-holding vise to be secured on the workbench.
Top: detail from “Preparatory Drawing in the Style of Hokusai,” 1811, British Museum. Bottom: “Totomi Sanchu,” 1830-31, by Hokusai, MFA, Boston.
Positioned close to sawyers cutting massive pieces of lumber we find the saw sharpeners. One uses a vise made of blocks, while another has adapted a tree stump to serve as a vise. (The full-size images of the drawing and woodblock print are in the gallery at the end of this post.)
In this shop setting we see another saw vise option and it includes a stabilizing foot.
One more set-up for sharpening saws in the field (or forest). Using a low staked bench and shaped wooden “grippers” (and maybe some wedges) the pit saw is secured for sharpening. Side note: the photo is unattributed but is possibly Russian as the lower word in the logo (bottom right) is Russian for joiner or carpenter.
Women’s Land Army/Women’s Forestry Corps, Britain, WWI, Imperial War Museum.
Is that a woman sharpening a two-woman saw in a lumber camp? Why yes, yes it is.
Left: Ichikawa Danjuro in the Role of Soga Goro from the play “Yanone,” ca. 1790, MFA, Boston. Top right: unattributed photo, late 19th/early 20th century. Bottom right: detail from “A Book Mirror of Various Occupations,” 1685, MFA, Boston.
This composite is a reminder of how little has changed in using sharpening stones on metal edges. A domed stone in a water basin (or a nearby basin) is used by sword makers 200 or more years apart. In a kabuki play, Yanone (Arrowhead) Goro sharpens a double-headed arrow as he prepares to avenge his father’s murder.
Whetstones
From a 1650 version of “Cries of London.”
One of the great values of whetstones is their portability. Take them into the field or forest. Pack them in your tool box for the trip to the next job site. Whetstone quarries abound with some in operation for centuries.
Eidsborg Whetstone Quarry, Norway.
The Eidsborg quarry in Tokke, Telemark, Norway, was in operation from at least the 8th century until 1970.
Initial trimming of a whetstone. Watercolor from the diaries of Peter Orlando Hutchinson, 1854.
In the Blackdown Hills near the Somerset-Devon border in southwest England whetstones were mined from the 17th century to the early 20th century. Miners had small individual stakes on the side of a hill. The men of the family (father and older boys) dug the mine shaft, hewed out the stone and did the initial shaping with a basing axe. The wife and small children of the family did the final shaping. It was a hard way to make a living and exposure to fine stone particles and dust affected the health of the entire family.
Blackdown Hills whetstone “batts.”
Whetstone batts from the Blackdown Hills were used to sharpen scythes and other farm implements and tools.
Roy Underhill at a played-out whetstone quarry.
One of the many explorations undertaken by Roy Underhill was to locate an old whetstone quarry near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His trip, and what he found, is in a chapter of his book “The Woodwright’s Companion.”
RotatingGrindstones
Psalm 63, “Utrecht Psalter,” Universiteitsbibliotheek, Utrecht. Digital image from the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database.
The earliest (so far) illustration of a rotary grindstone is from the 9th century “Utrecht Psalter.” It is supposedly a metaphor for “They sharpen their tongues like swords…” The grinder (grinding master?) sits high above the grindstone and to the side his minion turns a crank. Later manuscripts give us a better idea of the arrangement of this type of grindstone.
Top: “Luttrell Psalter,” 1340, British Museum. Bottom: fresco, 1425-40, Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, photo by Renzo Dionigi.
The top image provides a variation on a bird’s-eye view of this stationary grinder. The fresco below provides a much better view of how the grinder sat above the rotating stone. The lower half of the stone sits in a well of water and the minion turns the crank. This type of set-up could be found where large amounts of metal might be wrought, such as a large farming estate and shops making armor and weapons. The hand crank gave control over the speed of the grinding wheel.
Top left: “Cris de Paris,” 1500, BnF, Arsenal. Bottom left: “Cries of London” (source unknown), 1655. Right: “Cries of London” (source unknown), 1688.
If you lived in a city and had knives and scissors (or sciffars, or cifers) that needed sharpening a street vendor with a grinding wheel was readily available. The grinding wheel was propelled by a foot pedal and the vendor could use both hands. The vendor on the right has a cup (behind the larger wheel) to hold water or oil and on the frame there is a rag to wipe the blade clean (Chris has christened these rags, woobies).
Mr. Bert Smith, Bethnal Green in East London, c. 1949-1956, photo by Nigel Henderson, collection of the Tate.
The bicycle, both to turn the grindstone and to propel the cart, was another iteration of the portable grinder. Street vendors using foot or bicycle power can still be found in some large cities, but it is more common to visit a small shop or farmers’ market to have knives or scissors sharpened. That is why having a woodworker as a friend is a bonus.
Smaller versions of the stationary grinder became an asset to both large and small woodworking shops.
From “Lewis Miller: Sketches and Chronicles; Reflections of a Nineteenth Century Pennsylvania German Folk Artist,” 1810.
In 1810, Lewis Miller, carpenter and chronicler of York, Pennsylvania, has a small hand-cranked grinder in his shop.
Women’s Land Army/Women’s Forestry Corps, Britain, WWI, Imperial War Museum.
And just over 100 years later hand-cranked grinders were still in use. Electric bench grinders are most often in use today and remain an important tool in a woodworker’s shop.
There is one more pre-electric “bench” grinder to examine and that requires a short trip to Switzerland in 1367.
The “Spiezer Chronik” was commissioned to document the history of Bern, from its founding to the mid-15th century. It was written by Diebold Schilling, the Elder of Bern. The chronicle includes a lot of action from the very-long Burgundian Wars and wonderful color illustrations.
On page 367 there is a scene at a river. On one side stands an army and on the other a forest. The explanation of the scene is: “The Bishop of Basel wants to cut down the Bremgarten forest, for which the Berners provide him with the grindstone, 1367.”
The accommodating people of Bern provided benches with hand-cranked grindstones, water buckets and whetstones. Extra grindstones are arranged on the trees. The Bishop brought the axes. Sit astride a low bench and hand-crank the grindstone, what an idea.
PickOne
If you listen to most of the experienced woodworkers out there they will tell you it doesn’t matter what system of sharpening you use.
The Arrotino (with woobie over his shoulder), 1st century B.C.E, Roman copy of an Hellenistic original, Uffizi, Florence.
Use sharpening stones, water or oil. Don’t forget the woobie.
“Axe Sharpener” by Chicago-area artist and rock musician Jay Ryan. From Sebastian Foster online.
Use a file to get those burrs. And yes, bears do sharpen in the woods.
From delcampe.net.
Go old school and use the classic “head-over-grindstone”method. If need be, your dog can be a counterweight.
The point is: chose a method, learn it and use it to sharpen your tools.
Resources
On this blog go to the Categories drop down menu (on the right) and look for “Sharpen This.” There you will find Chris Schwarz’s full series on sharpening.
Many books published by Lost Art Press include discussions on sharpening. One place to start is Chapter 10 “Essential Sharpening Kit” in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
You can read about the woobie, ahem, “The SuperWoobie” here.
We’ve a plethora of woodworking classes on offer for the second half of 2019 – most of them from visiting instructors (some from far, far away).
In most cases, classes are limited to six students (the number of benches we have available, plus one for the instructor) – so the instructor has plenty of time to pay attention to you…whether you want that or not!
The storefront (837 Willard St., Covington, Ky., 41011) is located just south of the Covington, Ky., MainStrasse entertainment district, in a safe neighborhood with lots of food and drink options, as well as accommodations at various price points, from inexpensive Air BnBs to an awfully nice hotel (that honestly isn’t pricey by most big-city standards), all within walking distance.
Registration opens at 10 a.m. Eastern on January 21 for the classes below (click through to each for a description). Registration is free on Eventbrite (and I strongly recommend signing up for the waitlist if you don’t get into the class you want – cancellations do happen). About three weeks after registration opens, I send each instructor his or her class list, and you are billed by the instructor (not by Lost Art Press or me – unless it’s my class, of course).
And as I’ve written before, this is not a woodworking school; it’s a woodworking shop in which some classes are taught. Christopher Schwarz runs not only the editorial side of Lost Art Press out of the space, but also his own furniture business, and he kindly allows both Brendan Gaffney and me to use the space for furniture work as well. The classes are a lot of fun…but they are also a lot of work – amidst the other work – which is to say that while we’ll still have some in 2020, we will not be able to have as many. So if there’s one you’re eyeing below, be ready at your computer on Jan. 21 at 10 a.m., and type quickly (they do tend to fill quickly).
If you’ve any questions, shoot me an email at covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com (please do not send questions about classes to the LAP help desk).
The contents of our trash receptacles say a lot about us. I drink Twining’s English breakfast tea, have a AAA membership, and eat the occasional Boca Burger.
No matter how many years of experience you have at your craft, you can’t afford to stop learning.
Kitchen cabinet making is viewed as an inferior form of woodworking by many of those who reproduce 18th-century Philadelphia highboys. Well, let them feel superior. The fact is, building kitchen cabinets requires endless learning–not least because hardware manufacturers are constantly inventing new products to make life “better.”
Sometimes I feel like cabinetmakers have become the doctors of the cutting-edge hardware world. We’re visited by hardware company salespersons and bombarded with literature about new products that will open doors, close drawers, lift lids, hide appliances, and make exhaust vents invisible. Our clients see these wonders in their neighbors’ kitchens or advertised in magazines and want them (just as yours truly asked her doctor about Cologuard as an alternative to colonoscopy, thanks to the manufacturer’s underwriting announcements on NPR).*
My basic attitude toward such gizmos is the equivalent of the sign on my doctor’s office door: Pharmaceutical Representatives Not Welcome. In my kitchen, the cabinet doors hang on surface-mounted butterfly hinges and we toss our trash into a freestanding can beneath the sink. I like simple.
Things are different when I’m discussing hardware with clients. It is, after all, their kitchen. Consider trash. There’s a spectrum of ways to store it until you’re ready to take it outside. As with most cabinet detail decisions, I go through all the relevant options. We start with a fork in the road: Would you like a freestanding trash can (or unassuming bin beneath the sink), or would you prefer a dedicated trash cabinet?
Quite a bit less dreamy: a plain bin stashed under the sink. (This one’s ours.)
If the former, congratulations! You’re done. Just put the thing in your kitchen and get cooking. Choose the latter and you’ve launched the cabinetmaker’s equivalent of an automated answering system—Enter your account number followed by the pound sign. Press 1 for customer service. Now press 2 for residential or 3 for commercial. Etc.
How will the cabinet open? Will it have a door on hinges or be made like a drawer? Will tossing that tea bag wrapper mean reaching into the cabinet, or will the trash receptacle slide out to meet you?
Made that decision? Good. However, you’re still not done.
You can either buy a pull-out unit or make one. If you’re going to make it, will the design allow for bottom-mounted runners (such as Blum Tandem slides) or will it need to be side-mounted higher up to counteract the stress on the door if the pull is at the top?
Are you willing to use a knob or drawer pull, or do you want the unit to open hands-free? If the former, great; just install it. If the latter, there are several further options, from a foot-operated pedal that pushes the unit open to an electric servo drive.
(Servo drives? Are we still talking about trash?)
***
My most recent kitchen job called for a cabinet dedicated to trash and recyclables that would open hands-free. At first I planned to fabricate a pedal—not just any pedal, but one with sufficient oomph to break the grip of the little man who hides at the back of every Blum Tandem with Blumotion drawer slide (or the Blum Movento slides that came with the Rev-A-Shelf waste and recyclables unit I had purchased). I wasn’t thrilled about installing a pedal, because the sink area is the first thing you see on entering the dining room; a pedal dangling beneath such an exposed cabinet just seemed too reminiscent of a tampon string. The kinds of objects that might logically be hanging down from a trash cabinet (a nicely printed sardine or spice can could be epoxied to the bare metal bar I imagined using in place of a pedal; my second suggestion was to carve a cute wooden mouse and stick it to the metal bar) are not likely to appeal to most people commissioning cabinetry. Trash falling out of the waste receptacle? A mouse trying to climb in? These were bound to reflect badly on the cabinetmaker or the clients, respectively.
Fully exposed. The trash cabinet in my most recent kitchen is prominently in view from the dining room.
I called my hardware company and asked about the trash container equivalent of a touch latch. Of course such hardware exists; in my supplier’s case, it’s the Blum Tip-On with Blumotion unit, a nice middle ground between the pedal and the servo drive. With a bit of help from Sarah Gates of Blum’s customer service team, I got the thing installed. It works like a charm.
*Note: The clients in this example did not suggest the hardware I used for their trash pullout. I did.
This door in my most recent kitchen build conceals a Rev-a-Shelf waste and recyclables unit on Blum Movento slides with hands-free action. See it in action here. For some hard-won tips on retrofitting this unit with the Tip-On system, see my post at Popular Woodworking.
This is an excerpt from “Slöjd in Wood” by Jögge Sundqvist.
The snob stick is a long sallow (willow) stick with a knob on the end, on which the bark has been peeled off in a spiral shape. The snob holds the stick by the knob while he haughtily struts around in town. The idea comes from the woodworker Bengt Lidström in Kassjö. As a child, he would pretend he was a snob after he saw haberdashery ads in Västerbottens-Kuriren, the local newspaper. The snob stick makes a nice feature and a support for the flowers in your garden border, in the flower box or the flower pot. If you don’t have a need for snob stick, you can use it as a walking stick instead.
The curtain rod is made from a young, straight-grown birch. The knobs have holes in which are attached rod tenons. The curtain rod can be hung from brackets made from birch crooks.
Material: Dry birch blank for knobs. Dry, straight birch, 25mm to 35mm (1″ to 1-1/2″) for rods. Thin sapling or withy from birch, sallow or hazel about 15mm (9/16″) in diameter for the stick..
SNOB Start with the stick. Select the blank in the early summer, when the bark comes off the wood. Cut a spiral in the bark with the knife using your knee as a support. Hold the knife edge at an angle and rotate until you have scored the entire stick (see illustration below). Leave a space of around 25mm (1″) between the score lines for the next spiral cut. Score the stick again parallel to the first scoring line. Carefully peel off the bark between the cuts, leaving a spiral pattern of bark. After the withy has dried for a couple of days, carve a 20mm (13/16″) tenon on top with a smaller dimension than the stick. A diameter of 12mm (1/2″) is good.
Sawing and splitting of the blank for two knobs has begun.
Snob stick made of birch, detail on the knob.
KNOB Split out a square blank with the same diameter as the finished knob. Cut the blank so it is twice as long as the length of the knob. A total length of 15cm (5-15/16″) is about right. Now you have supporting material at one end that makes it easier to hold, either in your hand or clamped in the shaving horse. At this point, making two knobs is an option, matching the dimensions and design.
Shape the blank smooth and square in the shaving horse or with a small axe and knife. Lay out centerlines on all sides, checking that all angles are 90. including the end faces.
When making two knobs, drill a round mortise in each end with an auger bit with the same diameter as the tenon on the stick. The centerlines act as sightlines so you can align your eye with the drill as you are drilling. Lay out the form on all four sides:
Start by drawing lines that indicate depth, then saw kerfs on the four long sides. Plan the order of work to systematically split off excess material with a knife and hammer to facilitate the carving phase. For example, after the first rough split, you can saw more grooves and split closer to the final form.
Curtain rod finials made from birch. Snob sticks or flower sticks of birch and sallow. Curtain rod bracket of birch trunk with branch.
Bracket for the curtain rod. Choose a branch that has grown in a 90° angle before it turns upward.
When you have finished the initial square shaping, continue shaping into octagonal facets. Finally, carve the shape of the knob smooth with the knife. Go for octagonal or round shapes. For knife grips, see Knobs and Latches on pages 34 and 35.
CURTAIN ROD WITH BRACKET Make curtain rod finials the same way as the knob of the snob stick. Use straight-grained birch, rowan or hazel for the rod. Carve it octagonal or round. For strength, it is a good idea to make the middle part of the rod a little bit thicker. Look for nice bracket blanks when you are out in the woods. Carve the brackets for the curtain rod in the same way as the coat hook. Decorate and go all in with colors and patterns!
Charles Wister was one of the early users of photography in Philadelphia and, according to notations in the APS archive, he took photos of Grumblethorpe. Did he take photos of his workshop? If so, and if they survived, the APS may have them.
