And so, in my never-ending efforts to annoy, here is some more on apron hooks.
Data digger Jeff Burks started searching for the things. In all his travels, Jeff says he’s never seen any in New England, and I’ve never seen any for sale at Midwest auctions. However, Jeff turned up tons of them in France.
Called “crochets de tablier,” they are many times trade-specific. Check out the one above for woodworkers.
“I’ve found a lot of images of French metal detectorists who have unearthed these things in a field,” Jeff writes. “The designs seem to be mostly trade specific, with the pile of joiners tools and the workbench being unusually common. There are many variations on the same theme, which suggest that they were made over a long period of time by many foundries. I’m having a difficult time understanding why the heart shaped ones are associated with tanners. Have not seen any three- or four-leaf clovers.”
Despite R.A. Salaman’s drawings, which shows two hooks on the apron, these things show up mostly as one piece. The implication is that the hook goes into a reinforced button-hole-like opening in the apron.
If I get to France this summer, I’ll have to look for some.
Editor’s note: The below entry is part of a series of articles we have commissioned Brian Anderson to write about André Roubo in preparationd for the publication of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.” Brian, the translator for “Grandpa’s Workshop,” also wrote this entry on Roubo’s famous dome.
It must have been a popular topic for the local gossips – the apprentice joiner André Roubo begging, here and there, a cup of lard or tallow from the taverns and housewives in the Paris neighborhood.
A boy from a poor family begging a cup of lard for his mother to cook, would have been one thing. But the young André did not want it to cook with, but to fuel a simple oil lamp for light to study by. At the time, in the 1750s, it would have been rare enough for an ordinary worker to even know how to read. Spending money on learned books on geometry, mathematics, perspective and design and then plowing through them would have been a scandal in itself.
Roubo had been born in 1739 into a working class family. His father was a joiner, but according to the noted French architect, Louis-Auguste Boileau, who wrote a short biography of Roubo in 1834, the father was a worker of the crudest sort. The young man, apprenticed to his father at 12 or so, soon realized both that he loved the theory and practice of joinery, and that if he did not want to spend his life doing the lowest sorts of work for pennies a day, he would have to figure a way up and out himself.
Boileau wrote that he threw himself into his studies, going hungry sometimes to purchase his first books out of the pittance his father allowed him for his work. The young joiner attracted the notice of others with his enthusiasm, talent and thirst for learning as he worked for his father, eventually becoming a joiner in his own right.
But his big break came when a noted architect, Jean-Francois Blondel, took Roubo under his tutelage and gave him free tuition to his well-regarded school of architecture in Paris.
AMAND Jacques-François (1730-1769) : L’atelier du Sieur Jadot
For five years, Roubo worked in his trade during the day; and then evenings, weekends, every free moment available, he spent pouring over the lessons Blondel set out for him. Mathematics, mechanics, perspective, design, different types of drawing. Plus, the building blocks of architecture, which also gave him enormous insight into his own trade.
Roubo proved as apt at these studies as he had at the practice of joinery, but Boileau notes that unlike some presented with a similar opportunity, Roubo apparently loved his craft. He loved to work wood, and was not tempted to move “up” into architecture.
Blondel was also a practicing architect, and a member of the French Academy of the Fine Arts, and his young protégé also proved adept at extending his circle of acquaintances from the people he met through the school and among the architect’s circles of friends and colleagues.
These connections would later prove invaluable, as Roubo’s thoughts turned from his studies to writing his own books.
— Brian Anderson
Not much to do with Roubo, of course, but too cool not to include.
I wear a shop apron almost every day, and so I’ve always wondered about “apron hooks,” which are shown in R.A. Salaman’s “Dictionary of Woodworking Tools.”
Here’s his entry on aprons that mentions these devices:
Carpenters and other woodworkers traditionally wear a white twill or canvas apron with a large pocket in front. It is fastened around the waist with long tapes tied in front, or with hooks that have decorative ends.
Yup. You read that right: Fancy stuff that is hooked above your buttocks. And yes, one of the hooks shown is a four-leaf clover, indicating you have a lucky butt.
I don’t think I want to know what the heart-shaped hook means.
But I am intrigued by the hooks because some days I can’t tie a bow behind my back.
After writing about the parallel-tip screwdrivers from Grace USA and Lee Valley, I received lots of suggestions about other makers I should check out.
However, in my wanderings through the netherworlds of screwing and unscrewing, I stumbled upon this English-made driver on my own. After getting my hands on it, I can say it’s like the makers were reading my mind. It’s called the Elemen’tary No. 1 Screwdriver, and here is why it makes most screwdrivers look as intoxicating as a Shirley Temple.
1. It has a wooden handle that is turned in the shape of a vintage turnscrew. So it won’t roll off your bench thanks to the flats. And it fits my hand like a baseball glove.
2. The finish on the beech handle is oil. It’s tactile, like the finish on the Grace drivers. Not slippery like a plastic screwdriver.
3. The screwdriver chuck has an O-ring that grips your standard bits, even snapping them in place. Many of these bits have a small groove that receive the O-ring. That’s nice. However….
4. The Elemen’tary driver also has a screw chuck that locks the bits in better than any other magnet or O-ring. This small knurled knob allows you to secure your bit so it won’t pull out of the tool. If you own any four-way screwdriver, you know how this is one of their major downsides.
The Elemen’tary driver includes six bits, though it will use almost any standard bit. This driver is going on the road with me this year and will replace five screwdrivers I carry to adjust tools and drive slot-head and Phillips screws.
While the bits that come with this driver are good, I upgraded mine by substituting ground gunsmith bits from Brownell’s. More on that in a future post.
I have only one quibble with this tool. (Don’t I always have quibbles?) Like all drivers, I think this one doesn’t need to be so long. This driver could easily lose 1” or 1-1/2” and be ideal. With woodworking, we almost never say: This screwdriver is too short. Usually the lament is: This driver is too long to get inside the cabinet.
Yes, I know that there is a stubby version of this tool.
You can purchase this tool from several sources. I bought mine from Hand-Eye Supply for $35.
With the stool’s hardware mechanism working fine, this morning I made a set of three stool legs from mahogany left over from a run of Roorkhee chairs in 2012.
My design for the legs was inspired by the foot of an original 1898 Roorkhee, which is essentially a slightly flattened bead. I also added four grooves that straddle the holes through the legs and turned a gradual taper from these holes down to the ankle.
The fun part of the job was finishing the legs on the lathe. With the lathe spinning, I rubbed on some beeswax from farmer beekeeper and woodworker Will Myers (thanks Will!). Then, with the lathe still spinning, I used Roubo’s polissoir to burnish the mahogany and drive the wax into the wood’s pores. A final polish with some rough cotton cloth (an empty bag of grits) produced the final sheen.
I don’t know if it’s a non-non to use a polissoir on a spinning lathe, but it sure made short work of the finishing process.
For the seat, Ty Black is cutting out some of my “oiled latigo” leather I bought for a Roorkhee chair for a customer. That leather is from Wicket & Craig and has the shop nickname of the “sex machine leather.” It’s impossibly buttery and beautiful.
On Friday, I hope we’ll get the second prototype assembled – after I age the hardware.
— Christopher Schwarz
Oh, One More Thing…
During the last 10 years, the most common question I’m asked (aside from, “What wood should I use for my workbench?” Answer here.) is, “How do you manage to write, edit, build and teach as much as you do?”
I know that most people are paying me a compliment with the question. With others, the implication is that I don’t build all the projects I show here. Or that I sub-contract out the construction or finishing. Or that I am just really skilled in making photo-realistic images.
Here’s the deal: I went to journalism school and cut my teeth at a newspaper where we wrote 400 to 500 original pieces a year. I can write a blog entry, such as this one, in about 15 to 30 minutes without much forethought. It just comes out – like water from a well or crap from a porta-potty, depending on how you like my work.
Also important: I don’t watch TV, don’t like sports, don’t have a lot of friends and don’t have any other hobbies besides woodworking and listening to music while woodworking. Considering how much time I devote to the craft, I actually should be a lot better and a lot faster.
