Apologies for the following statement, but “The Woodworker: The Charles Hayward Years” is a gold mine of craft knowledge. Even though we were mired in the project for more than seven years (and I should despise it), the finished books are incredibly useful in my everyday work.
Yesterday proved that point. You might remember this blog entry where I reprinted a 1964 article on making a staked stool that was one of the thousands of articles we sorted through for our two-volume set.
In that article, S.H. Glenister recommended boring mortises for a staked stool before shaping the legs. This is exactly how I work with square mortise-and-tenon projects, but is the opposite of how I work when building post-and-rung assemblies with round tenons and mortises.
I can’t say why it never occurred to me to bore the round mortises first when the stock was square. Just a brain defect, I guess.
So when making the post-and-rung base for a new design for a chest of drawers, I followed Mr. Glenister’s advice. It worked brilliantly and everything turned out perfectly square and centered with little fuss.
The only hiccup was when turning the mortised bits. You need to lighten up your pressure on the tool as you pass the tool by the mortises. I didn’t have any of them catch, but if you use consistent pressure the areas around your mortises will end up a little skinnier.
Give it a try next time.
By the way, we are hard at work at designing the next two volumes of “The Woodworker.” Vol. III on joinery is now completely designed and needs only a final edit. Meghan, the designer, is now laying out Vol. IV, which is on the workshop and furniture. There is still a lot of work ahead, but we are plowing forward.
Plate 286. Different Sorts of Sections Appropriate for Infilling Panels
This is an excerpt from “Roubo on Marquetry” by André-Jacob Roubo. Translation by Donald C. Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán & Philippe Lafargue. The translators’ additions to the text are in brackets. Roubo’s asides are in parentheses.
Figure 4 represents a composition with dice or cubes, placed on a background of whatever color; these dice or cubes are hexagons, placed side by side, in a manner such that their points touch each other, as you can see in this figure.
Each of these hexagons, or figures with six sides, is composed of three lozenges of any colors assembled together to make the dice or cubes appear in relief. Lozenge C (which is the daylight side) is an example of the shape in question and is made in rosewood. Lozenge D, which is the top of the cube, is of grey or yellow wood. Lozenge E, which is the shade side, is of violet wood. The remaining space [unmarked but primarily horizontal] is of some other wood that one judges appropriate, provided that it differs in the color of wood that forms the cubes. The cubes should not only differ in color from that of the bottom, but also each lozenge comprising the cube should all be different from each other. One accomplishes this by choosing pieces darker in color from one side to the other, or even by passing them over hot sand, as I will teach later.
Figure 5 represents another section, which does not differ from that of which I just spoke, except that it does not have any remaining space or background like the last one. To the contrary, all the dice or cubes fit one inside the other without leaving any void space, which works quite well. However, it is good to observe when making this last type of section, to make a space or background between the cubes on top and on the bottom, as I have shown in this figure, which works much better than to see the ends of cubes cut up, as one does ordinarily, and which I have indicated by line F–G.
In general, whether the sections of which I am speaking are with a background as in Fig. 4, or without a background, as in Fig. 5, it is necessary to take great care when making the section that a whole number of cubes is found on the length, and that the uppermost end of these same cubes reach the banding or stringwork that surrounds them, as I have shown here. This is very easy to do since it is only necessary to adjust the proportions of the cubes according to the need, it not being absolutely necessary that the hexagon of the cubes be perfectly regular. Whatever way it can be done is the better way, and is so much easier to do when the three lozenges that compose the hexagon are of a similar shape, which does not ordinarily happen when the hexagon is of an irregular shape.
If one does not wish to make dice or projecting cubes, as in Fig. 5, one could make sections of cubes to fill the lozenges in a unified wood, which does not work badly when the joints are well made, as one can see in this figure. [This is in fact my favorite manner of preparing a composition such as this. I find the subtlety much more to my taste, especially when using a wood with a fine grain pattern with a noticeable difference from early wood to late wood, such as bald cypress on the radial plane.]
Figure 6 represents a section with mixed stars, which is a section that is very complex in appearance; however, it is only hexagons, as that of H, I, L, M, N, O, which approach and penetrate each other, so that the point of whichever star, becomes the center of another. It is necessary to observe in making these sorts of sections that one finds, as much as possible, a number of hexagons complete in height as is found in this figure, so that the bottom or void remaining at the points of the stars be similar at the bottom as at the top, which could not be if the section bordered by the line P–Q , of which the distance to the top-most stringwork of the section, contains only one-and-a-half hexagons in height. As for the length of this type of section, taken in the direction that is represented in Fig. 6, it is not important only that the number of hexagons be complete. It suffices that no points of the stars be cut along the same line, so that this section be as perfect as is possible to be.
These sorts of sections can be made with a projecting appearance, or be filled with segments of the same wood, which is equal for the form and disposition of the joinery, which is always given by the parallel lines, horizontal and perpendicular, and [rather than being comprised of lozenges] by equilateral triangles, of which the tops are opposite one another. Inspecting this illustration alone is by itself better than all the explanations that one can give.
Figure 7 represents another section, composed of octagons or figures with eight sides, placed in stars with eight sides, which all come to a point in the center. The stars that compose these sections touch each other on their perpendicular and horizontal faces at two points, which produces between them a squared space. This space is filled with the point of a diamond, as in the height of this figure, made from the background veneer. The other squared voids, which produce the return of the points of these same stars, being larger than those of which I just spoke above, are filled in by other stars with four points or some other element placed on the base, which distinguishes them from the rest of the work, as I have shown in the upper part of this figure, of which the stars as much as the points of the diamonds have an obvious [apparent] relief.
When I was a beginning woodworker, I tended to buy sets of tools – sets of carving tools, router bits, clamps, you name it. If you bought a set I usually got a bit of a discount and I got the false impression that I was “done” with carving tools once I bought the “set.”
You know where this is going. Sets (except for sets of drill bits) are for suckers.
My first set of chisels were the Marples Blue Chip chisels. I bought the starter set and saved my money to buy every single size the company offered. After a few years of daily use, I realized that I used only three chisels frequently (1/4″, 1/2″ and 3/4″) and one chisel (1-1/4″) infrequently. All the others collected dust instead of making it. But all that dang blue plastic made me feel like I knew what I was doing.
Bench Chisels I am certain that some people need lots and lots of chisels – bevel-edge, firmer and etc.. I am not that person. I would rather have a few perfectly tuned tools than 24 in various stages of dull.
So the three bench chisels I have are Lie-Nielsen A2 socket chisels. They fit my hands perfectly. They have wooden handles. They are lightweight. They are balanced. Everything else is fairly irrelevant in my book. My wide chisel is a Blue Spruce Toolworks 1-1/4″ chisel. Before I had the Blue Spruce I had a Buck Bros. chisel that was too soft for woodworking, which was why it probably was a survivor. Most Buck chisels are outstanding and get used to nothingness.
Other Chisels For mortise chisels, I still have my Ray Iles mortisers. But I have only the 1/4″ and the 5/16″ sizes.The rest I’ve given away to other woodworkers. Those two sizes handle about 100 percent of my hand mortising needs. (Side note: I had a dalliance with the Narex mortisers that did not end well. They were astonishingly soft.) I have a fishtail chisel for half-blind dovetails from Blue Spruce Toolworks. It’s a luxury, but one that I appreciate when making drawers and rabbeted full-blind dovetails for casework.
I thought this blog entry would be longer. After all, we’re talking about chisels. Shouldn’t I have a long list? Apparently not. Let’s talk about striking tools.
Mallets & Hammers I still have my same Blue Spruce 16-ounce resin-impregnated round mallet I’ve had for years. Its head still has only minor marking on it, which is unbelievable. That mallet is an extension of my hand and I cannot imagine replacing it.
I also have a 2-1/4 lb. lump hammer (also called an engineer’s hammer) that I use for mortising, assembly, disassembly, feline discipline and setting holdfasts. You can buy these on eBay or at hardware stores for a pittance. Old ones seem to bounce around a lot less than the new ones. After saying my vows to the lump hammer I got rid of my square-headed wooden mallets, which freed up a lot of space in the chest.
For driving nails, I have two claw hammers: a vintage 16 oz. hammer with an octagonal handle and an 8 oz. hammer with a roundish handle. The big hammer drives nails. The little one drives brads and pins, and it adjusts my plane irons (sometimes in tandem with my round wooden mallet).
Hammers are as personal as knives or things you put in your nether regions. So brand names aren’t going to help you. I say you should handle a lot of hammers; unlike when choosing a mate you are unlikely to catch any diseases. Once you settle on a hammer, switching to another one will result in serious consequences, especially when it comes to your hammerschlager skills.
Other striking tools in my chest include some nail sets (also called “nail punches”), a dowel plate for skinning dowels and drawbore pegs and my shopmark from Infinity Stamps.
— Christopher Schwarz
Part 1 of this series on handplanes can be found here.
Part 2 on saws is here.
Part 2-1/2 on frame saws is here.
Part 3 on marking and measuring is here.
Jan Joris Van Vliet’s etching depicts a typical turner’s shop in 1630s Holland. Shown are a simple lathe, a few tools and various products of the craft – the turned chair and spinning wheel being the turner’s work. Based on records from London and Boston, turners often sold products made by others, which accounts for the yoke, foot warmers and bentwood boxes. Courtesy of the Early American Industries Association
Most joined stools have a bit of turned decoration between the squared blocks containing the joinery. This turned work is simple enough, but entire books and courses are dedicated to learning the turner’s art. Refer to the bibliography for full details on turning. Here we will only touch on the techniques required to get the stool done.
We use two different lathes. (Jennie) Alexander uses a modern electric lathe; (Peter) Follansbee uses a shop-made pole lathe. The techniques of organizing and cutting the decoration remain essentially the same. If you use an electric lathe, work at the slowest speed available. The following description refers to Follansbee’s pole lathe.
This simple lathe is made of large oak timbers fastened together and is quite stable. The pole lathe’s slow speed allows you to see how the tools are cutting as you learn to maneuver them. Keep the number of tools to a minimum, and keep them sharp.
Introduction to the Pole Lathe The pole lathe is often depicted in period artwork; its basic notion is always the same while the details vary. The 1635 engraving by Jan van Vliet shows a simple lathe with the horizontal members fixed to uprights, and between them a movable puppet to secure the workpiece upon the iron points, called the screw and pike. A pole in the ceiling connected by a cord to a foot treadle completes the arrangement. The turner steps on the treadle to begin the action. The workpiece, having the cord wound around it, spins toward the turner on the downward stroke. This is when the cutting action takes place. At the bottom of the stroke, the turner releases the pressure and the pole springs back, spinning the workpiece backwards. This reciprocating motion is often misunderstood. Many think that you should withdraw the tool on the return stroke. In fact, the workpiece just rubs against the cutting edge as it travels back. Keep the tool in place so you can resume cutting as it comes around again.
From the story stick, your stiles should have scribed marks defining the limits of the turned portions: a central section about 9-1⁄2″ long between the blocks and the foot below the bottom block. It’s best to carry these lines all around the stock.
Mark and Mount
Mark the centers of your stiles. One method uses a miter square to strike diagonal lines across the end grain. Keep in mind that the cross-section might not be a fully squared piece, so you will need to line up the diagonals from two outer corners. Another method is to use a compass set to nearly 2″ to scribe the circle defined by the square. A little trial and error with this method will find your centers.
Once you locate the centers, emphasize them with a centerpunch and apply a bit of beeswax. Then mount the workpiece on the pole lathe for turning. Wrap the cord twice around the midst of the stock, then line the stile up with the centers and tighten the wedge that secures the moveable puppet. Get in the habit of placing each stile on the lathe in the same orientation. In this case we usually work with the foot of the stile to our right. Where the foot goes doesn’t matter as much as consistency does; the cuts are easiest when you make them in the same order on each stile.
Once you’re satisfied that the turning is mounted properly, then check the tool rest. Adjust it so it is as close to the turning as possible, and that it is made tight. That can require some fumbling around with wedges and such, but it takes only a minute.
You shouldn’t need to grip the tool tightly. While the left hand is guiding the gouge it also is keeping it registered against the tool rest. Watch out you don’t hit the cord!
Roughing Start with the largest gouge and lightly remove the corners off the stock between the blocks and at the stile’s foot. At first cut well inside the scribed lines. The idea is to get the stock roughed out as quickly as possible. Once it’s round enough, it spins faster and easier on the lathe. You’ll need to move the cord sideways when it’s in the way. For a right-handed turner, the left hand moves the gouge laterally and the right hand rolls the gouge left and right to use the whole cutting edge in turn. Create the cylinder right up to the scribed lines, making a bevel up to these lines.
This is a cut to practice on scrap stock before working your stool’s parts. Angle the skew’s handle to orient the bevel so that it’s perpendicular to the turning’s axis.
Now comes the hard part: cutting the transition from the square mortised blocks to the turned cylinder. Use a sharp skew chisel, and with some practice it will come. First, cut into the turned portion right up to the line of transition with the skew. Then define the corners. Use the “long” point of the skew and aim the tool just about directly in line with the mark where you want to cut. At the beginning of this cut, your right hand is low, and the tool is aimed high at the stock. As it enters the wood, the right hand comes up, bringing the point of the tool down into the wood. Light cuts are key.
Back in April of this year, my friend Chris Schwarz wrote a post about a staked table he built. I’ll confess – my first reaction to the photo was “WTF?” – but there was something about the table’s aesthetics that intrigued me and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was as if the photo of the table begged me to stare at it longer, goading my brain to make sense of it. I should have responded with an anyeurism emoji.
I know from personal experience with some of the staked pieces in The Anarchist’s Design Book (and other similar forms) that photographs don’t express the (potential) spatial elegance of these forms very well, so I was willing to look past the picture. And as I did (I studied that photo three or four times the day I received it), the more I wanted to “riff” on Chris’ table. So I started sketching.
It became clear that I had to build the thing I kind of-sort of had in my head in order to move on with life. But even after sketching, it was more of a conceptual puzzle that needed working out rather than a design. Whatever it ended up being, it apparently had the following criteria:
Three legs. I thought four would resolve “too well” or too easily.
Round. I wanted something to place next to my “big chair” which has a Scandinavian aesthetic that lends itself to curves. Also I thought that the roundness would help alleviate some of the M. C. Escher problems that occur when your brain has corners against which it can “register” what it’s perceiving.
Funky geometry – square or round, everyone knows what an end table with equally ordered legs looks like. I wanted the legs to look like they were wrapping around a column that wasn’t there.
I would normally spend a few hours in Sketchup trying to work this out into something that would then come together in the shop. But I’ve spent the last year doing home improvement projects in plywood, particleboard and veneer and wanted to get to work immediately. So after taking some measurements of the chair mentioned above, I decided to make good on my commitment to clear out my lumber rack and go straight to prototyping, knowing that the best outcome would be a failure to learn from (followed by a funeral pyre for the prototype).
As suggested in The Anarchist’s Design Book, I first made a quick model by turning a small disc and using coat hanger segments to play with angles. My goal was to get a very rough idea of the issues at play, not to faithfully represent the piece (because I had no real clue on where it was going yet). The model proved to me that the concept wasn’t completely bonkers, but also that it needed more careful consideration than banging a bunch of sticks into the bottom of a circle and calling it a day. It was clear that much of the overall design would be “derived” from a number of elements:
The radius between each leg and the center of the tabletop (I’ll call this the leg radius)
The angle between the legs and the bottom of the tabletop (I’ll call this the splay)
The angle of the legs from the center (I’ll call this the rotational angle)
The length of the legs, which would determine the proportional distance at which the legs would appear to intersect (I’ll call this the fleemkoopen stropfheimer)
Though I love incorporating curves into the things I build, I don’t work on round furniture very often, so while many of these design considerations are also present in rectangular furniture, it took my brain some time to reorient itself to working on radii off a circle’s center rather than more Cartesianally-oriented distances from edges.
I had 11” wide stock in the lumber rack so the table was going to be some multiple of that–I decided 22″. I decided to work first on a small square piece of 8/4 poplar. This would allow me several attempts at finding a good set of angles for the mortises and experiment with different ways of marking them out and drilling them. My plan was to drill the mortises and use dowels to evaluate the angles–basically a larger version of the disc-and-coat hanger model.
I failed over and over, each failure more exciting than the last. Some failures were cognitive failures (e.g. forgetting which layout line was the rotational angle) and some were construction failures (sloppy brace-and-bit handling). But after a few attempts on a couple of boards I landed at something that was close enough from a design perspective. I had also streamlined techniques for markup and drilling with a brace and auger bit.
In the end, on an 11“ square piece of poplar, I landed on:
A leg radius of 3–7/8”
A splay of 124° or 56° depending on which way you splay. (I think in conventional terms this would be 34°, measured as the acute angle between the leg and a line perpendicular to the bottom of the tabletop, but my brain won’t accept that. In this case, I want to capture the angle to which I set my bevel gauge and to also reflect that the legs point into the table, not out)
A rotational angle of 17°
A fleemkoopen stropfheimer of 18–19“ for a total table height of 21–22”
Knowing that it was going to be way easier to work on an 11“ square piece than a large round piece, I drilled the holes with a brace and auger bit (leaving the tapered mortise for later), laminated the block to the bottom of a 22” wide, 8/4 poplar panel. I marked and cut out a rough circle, affixed a face plate and went to the lathe. While at the lathe I realized that the curve I was shooting for needed more wood than I had laminated onto the bottom of the tabletop, so I made some design compromises. Turning the top was otherwise pretty straightforward (and lots of fun!), though by the time it was all said and done I would end up taking the tabletop back to the lathe three times to refine the shape.
As for the legs, I wanted something round-ish. I’ve had an 8′ long piece of oak stair rail sitting on my back porch for over a year, and by using my Jedi powers to check off the “mount new stair rail” item in my household to do list (i.e. I convinced myself I didn’t want a new stair rail), I decided to use that for prototyping.
It was convenient in that it was mostly round and made from wood, but was a piece of crap in all other respects (namely that it was laminated in both thickness and in length). But it got used and is no longer sitting on my back porch. In any case, I started with a pretty chunky ovular design by using offset turning, but unhappy with that I put them back on the lathe and turned them to be more svelte. I then planed two sides into each leg and did some rough shaping with some spokeshaves to get them to communicate “not round, not flat”, which is what I was going for.
I dry-fit the legs into the table and decided that the crappy grain from the stair rail was drawing too much attention to the legs, making it hard to evaluate the overall form. So I charred them and that helped immensely, as did reducing the contrast of the top by giving it a quick coat of stain.
After staining the top and leveling the legs, I called this first prototype done. I almost tossed it right after inserting the legs, but I’m glad I took it through a rough “coloring” process because that changed my impression of the piece significantly.
It’s very much built as a prototype–I concentrated on stuff that I wanted to resolve in the design rather than fit-and-finish or engineering. I will probably give this to a friend or burn it, but I’ll keep it around a bit and ponder my next moves.
I’ll leave my more specific opinions on the piece itself this out of this post except to say that as a prototype, it was successful. It came together quickly (maybe 5–6 hours actual build time across a few days) and allowed me to experiment and refine both form and process. Most importantly: through the process of repeatedly failing, it’s very clear to me what I want to change as I go forward.
Figure 7 represents another section, composed of octagons or figures with eight sides, placed in stars with eight sides, which all come to a point in the center. The stars that compose these sections touch each other on their perpendicular and horizontal faces at two points, which produces between them a squared space. This space is filled with the point of a diamond, as in the height of this figure, made from the background veneer. The other squared voids, which produce the return of the points of these same stars, being larger than those of which I just spoke above, are filled in by other stars with four points or some other element placed on the base, which distinguishes them from the rest of the work, as I have shown in the upper part of this figure, of which the stars as much as the points of the diamonds have an obvious [apparent] relief.
