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One of my favorite books growing up was "Tom Brown's Schooldays" written by Thomas Hughes in 1857 it is a fictional account of a boy going to Rugby, a boarding school in England, in the 1830's. It's a great entertaining read and has been in print since publication. I mention it primarily because it takes place when Thomas Arnold was the headmaster at the school and introduced a revolution in teaching that we feel today. Before Arnold elite schools taught mostly reading, Latin, rhetoric, and other lofty subjects of practical use to nobody. An academic education was a finishing cultural touch and had little to do with a profession or anything practical except the clergy. Arnold introduced practical subjects like modern history, math, and science and his influence began the shift to formal education in all subjects including teaching crafts and woodworking in schools.

Having children, especially boys, study woodworking in school - even if they were not planning to become joiners or cabinetmakers began in the 1860's, reached it's peak around 1900, and slowly disappeared from schools in the last 30 years or so. Probably the best implementation of this type of practical, craft teaching came with the Sloyd system of teaching which started in Finland in 1865 and spread worldwide to this day.

What is important from a woodworking standpoint is how learning woodworking switches from a few basic techniques that you could learn on the job to a myriad of complicated formula that needed to be emulated in a class. The goal of an apprenticeship as described in the Joiner and Cabinet Maker was to take a kid who demonstrated some aptitude or interest in working with his hands and make him a pro over the period of a few years. The goal of the academic approach was (and is) make it possible to train any kid (or adult) in the class no matter how ham-handed and at the end of a fairly short period of time have some benchmark for measuring progress. The benchmark might be a simple project or a test in various techniques.

I've been reading "Our Workshop: being a Practical Guide To The Amateur in The Art of Carpentry and Joinery." by Temple Thorold. Published in 1866 it's one of the first books about teaching woodworking using a typical classroom approach. I kind of stopped reading it by page 32 when he gave really erroneous information on how to use a marking gauge. "The point should not project more than one thirty-second part of an inch , or it will make a deep unsightly mark." (If you can't control the pressure on the gauge no matter how long a pin the gauge has you really don't know what you are doing and you shouldn't be writing about it - click here for the normal way of using a gauge. )

In any case what struck me about this book, and just about every succeeding book for schools or amateurs on the subject of woodworking is how removed the instruction is from actual shop practice.

"The Joiner and Cabinet Maker" (1839) tries to teach by describing what went on in a real joinery shop. While some have taken issues with some of the details here and there in the book it's pretty obvious that one skill builds on another, and there is no attempt to teach theory. There are no lessons in the book per-se, just joinery jobs of increasing complexity. Practice makes perfect. Tools are purchased carefully and only as needed. In "Our Workshop" we first get a huge list of tools one must have, followed by detailed examinations of operations from a theoretic standpoint. Dovetailing is described near the end of the book, and it's implied that instead of being a standard quick joint of the professional apprentice, it's something tricky and needs careful attention. In the J & C Thomas does his dovetailing pretty easily after learning to saw straight and lay out things accurately. Here we get a very modern approach that might be great for teaching a class, but pretty useless if you need to earn your living at a bench.

I hinted earlier on the reason for this change in attitude. Books written for amateurs or as teaching guides need to impress people with the breath of subjects covered - Giving exhaustive detail on a technique is a way of showing the writer's or instructors depth of knowledge. A teacher isn't supposed to just say - "it's easy, you just need to practice". The technique needs to be dissected. The second reason for the change is that unlike a joiner who needed to show they could earn a living the goal in the classroom was instruction that guaranteed success at the expense of fluency. The student went away happy if he could sharpen a chisel or cut a joint. It didn't really matter how long it took or even the cost of the tools, since there was no economic balance. I do think that now we get carried away with the minutiae of a process, not the practice that builds dexterity and memory into our muscles. There is an argument that older people don't have the time to spend learning by repetition, and modern techniques make it easier to achieve success. That is certainly true, but I also think we sell ourselves short. It may take years to be a master craftsman but most basic skills can be learn pretty fluently with just a modicum of practice.

Our Workshop: being a Practical Guide To The Amateur in The Art of Carpentry and Joinery." is currently being reprinted by the Toolemera Press. I cannot recommend it as a good course in woodworking but I can recommend it as an important window into how woodworking was taught to amateurs in the 19th century. The author was a well known woodworking writer. Of course if the style of writing appeals you can still learn from it and if I didn't already own a copy I would be ordering one now.

I've always wanted to build a Roubo workbench "by the book." Use a massive single plank for the top, tree trunks for legs and all the traditional joinery, such as the through-dovetail-and-tenon joint that marries the legs to the top.

Since the day I finished my Roubo in 2005 from Southern yellow pine I've been on the hunt for suitable stock to build an old-school version. Finding the wood has been a challenge. I've talked to custom sawyers, tried to source some salvaged Douglas fir beams and haunted the woodlot used by tree services near my house.

As of today I'm closer than I've ever gotten before. Housewright Ron Herman in Columbus, Ohio, has some heavy cherry planks that could allow me to build a benchtop with only one glue line down the middle. This is a compromise I'm willing to make.

What I'm not willing to compromise is the joinery.

Several astute readers have complained about my Roubo design during the last five years. While it's economical because it uses construction lumber, it is difficult to build for hand-tool purists because of all the laminations. Though I'm no hand-tool purist (despite what you might read) I do see the irony.

So this Roubo is going to be built entirely by hand from the moment it comes into the shop. Herman is going to saw the planks and leg stock to close size (just like an 18th-century lumber vendor would have), but I'll take it from there with my saws and planes.

If you'd like to read a translation of Roubo's section on workbenches, click here.

Assuming the wood doesn't explode on the sawmill, I should be getting the planks in the coming week. I'll be documenting the success or failure of the project using video, still photos and probably a few words.

The plan is to have it ready for our Woodworking in America conference Oct. 1-3 in Cincinnati.

— Christopher Schwarz

I gave some thought to making another till for my bench saws, or maybe some kind of cabinet, but in the end I decided to stick with the hanging panel idea. One thing I really like about tool holding panels is how easy it is to see and get at everything. Plus, I like how it looks; a kind of "shop art".

The new panel would hang from the French cleat system I use in my shop. Basically, this works by having two boards, each with 45° angles, that interlock. One board is attached to the wall, and the other is attached to the back of whatever you are hanging. In my shop, I have a continuous cleat running along the walls. This makes it very easy to hang and rearrange all sorts of things: panels, tills, shelving units, miter boxes, postdrills etc.

One thing that needs to be addressed is how to attach the corresponding cleat to the unit being hung. Most things hung in my shop simply have the cleat glued and screwed to the back of the frame at the top. This is long grain to long grain, and therefore wood movement is not an issue. Sometimes the cleat must be attached cross grain, and here wood movement could be a problem. On relatively narrow cross grain joints, such as the single 1x12 panel that holds my braces, I don't worry too much about it. I just screw it on and only glue it in the middle. Larger cross grain joints, such as the one on this new saw panel, are a different story.

To get the width I wanted for the new panel, it would be made from three 1x10 boards. If I used glued butt joints to join the boards into a single 27 inch wide slab, movement could become fairly significant. If I then just screwed the cleat across the back, the board would most likely split as it tried to move. I could have used slotted holes for the screws, but instead I decided to just use unglued T&G (tongue & groove) joints and attach each board to the cleat separately. This way, each board is free to expand and contract independently, while the T&G joints keep everything aligned and looking good - i.e. no wall visible through gaps between the boards.

The first step was to joint the edges so that they would be nice and straight. This picture might be a little confusing. I jointed the boards on edge, and then lay them flat to see how they fit. I wasn't using the #8 jointer to plane the faces (although I could have if I wanted to - "Breaking the law! Breaking the law!").


To make the T&G joints I used my Stanley #49. It has an eccentric swinging fence that allows it to cut both the tongue and the groove. Originally, it would have come with an extra wide iron for use on thicker boards. This would allow it to remove all the wood to the right of the tongue. I don't have that, so the extra "tongue" will have to be removed next. I wanted the tongue offset to the backside of the board thickness to allow room for forming a bead along the edge.


To remove the leftover wood, I used my small rabbet plane. I set it for a thicker shaving to speed things up.


Then it was time to make the side beads:


After that, I cleaned up the show faces with my #3 smoother. It's amazing how much better the wood looks after the scalloped machine planing marks are removed.


As a side note, it was while using those last four planes that I shot the images for the Planes and Shavings post.

This next sequence shows how I make my French cleats. It's funny, but I remember how much of a challenge this was the first time I had to do this after getting rid of all my power tools. I just didn't have my "hand tool brain" going strong yet. Really, it's quite simple and rather easy.

First, with a marking gauge set to the thickness of the board, I scribed a line down one face of the board. I also put pencil marks across the top to make it easier to see the bevel as it develops.


Then I remove the bulk of the waste with a drawknife. You could also do this with a scrub plane, or even a jack plane; but they would both be slower than the drawknife.


Finally, I cleaned things up with a jack plane. The secret is to keep the bevel developing evenly as you go. It's not hard once you get the knack, and you could do any bevel angle you want the same way.


After the bevel was complete, I attached the cleat to the top rear of the panel. I chose to use finish screws near the center of each board. I used a 1/4 inch forstner bit in my hand drill to create the counterbore (which I later plugged).


After boring pilot holes with another hand drill I drove the screws with a 6" swing brace. I love using these small braces for driving screws. They provide plenty of torque, are the original "variable speed" driver, and have a great sense of feedback that beats any cordless drill's clutch feature. The smaller size allows for quicker driving.

One problem I ran into was sinking the screws too deep for the driver bit to reach. I had to get creative. In the end, I filed off the tang on a triangular file until it matched the square driver hole in the screws, and then used a pair of Vise-Grips as a 90° handle. Worked great.


And here's the new panel in place; looking spiffy - but empty:


I spent the next few weeks making various holders for the saws. Nothing tricky, just a lot of finicky work getting the fit just right.


And here's the panel with the saws:



I quite like it - makes me happy every time I look at it. I'm also happy to be finished. It took a lot longer than I was planning.

Well, it's mostly finished anyway. I saved one spot next to the Lie-Nielsen dovetail saw for an old Disston dovetail saw I am going to finish fixing at some point. I started working on it over a year ago, but it turned into a disaster of saw plate flattening: "Just one more tap of the hammer... tap... hmm... maybe... tap... No!... Arrgh!" It's hopeless, and I'll need to completely replace the saw plate - later.

I got a nice note today, that I decided to post here…Maurice Pommier sent these words, and even better, this drawing:

“Peter,
Thank you for your blog,  BRAVO!!! It’s fine job!  I am french, my english is not good, so I drawn a little picture, it’s better way(perhaps!) to say.
Have a good day!”

Thank you, Maurice. Nice sketch. I have seen this sort of sawing in photographs before. there is no way to tell if the English did this in the seventeenth century. There are few depictions of English tradesmen from that time. There are documents making reference to “sawpits” – quite commonly. I would guess that sawing on trestles might be a part of shipbuilding in the 1600s…

 

The Popular Woodworking Magazine collection of 3D SketchUp models has grown to include 168 models. We've been using SketchUp to plan our work for a couple years now, and it has made us all better and more accurate woodworkers. Shop time is precious and it's nice to head to the shop with the wealth of information and problem solving tools available with SketchUp.

Because we have these models, and we haven't figured out how to put active three-dimensional images in the pages of the magazine (at least not yet) we populate the 3D Warehouse collection with projects from the magazine whenever a new issue is released. Our February issue featured some great projects, and if you'd like to explore them further, visit our collection and click on "sort by date".

That will bring up the latest models we have online. When the April issue arrives in a few weeks, we will add some more. Even if you never draw a line with SketchUp, it's a fabulous tool for taking an in depth look at a project before you decide to build. If you're interested in learning to use SketchUp, there are a lot of tutorials available online. Many of these are geared to larger scale architectural projects, but they can shorten the learning curve.  If you want to learn SketchUp from a woodworker's perspective, I will be teaching a week long class next summer at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking.

We're also working on a special project to teach SketchUp to woodworkers online. We're working out the details and will have an announcement to make soon.

And if you're accomplished at SketchUp, we are still looking for models of projects from back issues of Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine. If you submit a model of a project we've published, that isn't already a part of the collection, we'll give you a one-year back issue CD for your efforts. Send me an e-mail or leave a comment if you have any questions.

–Bob Lang

Click Here to visit the Popular Woodworking Magazine SketchUp Collection
Click Here to learn more about SketchUp on our web site
Click Here to download SketchUp for free and get started with 3D modelling

If I'd lived in the the early 18th century, odds are I'd be rotting by now. Life expectancy in England in 1700 was about 37, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. By 1820 it was 41, which is how old I am today.

So it should come as no surprise that though I adore my 18th-century workbench, there are times that it is more suited for a younger man. If I dovetail an entire chest of drawers, I pay for it in the back department – I'm stiff for a week. Planing and tenoning are not so bad.

I can minimize my suffering by stretching my limbs before joining my sticks, and by using a wider stance when sawing. Placing your feet farther apart lowers your torso, so you don't have to bend as much.

About seven or eight years ago I proposed on the WoodCentral forum a bench designed specifically for dovetailing. I even got so far as to draft it in CAD. But then I got distracted by that rotter Andre Roubo.

I'm not the first guy to think of this. Other people have built smaller benches that perch on your regular bench that are designed for dovetailing – check the archives at Fine Woodworking if you're interested. Still others have built dedicated benches that are small and tall – Drew Langsner at Country Workshops has a "chairmaker's bench" that fits this description and has a big twin-screw vise on the front.

Now Tim Williams, a professional cabinetmaker and instructor at the Asheville Woodworking School in Asheville, N.C., has gone all the way with his design.

After a serious case of the affliction he called dovetail igoritis (what hump?), Williams built the bench shown here. It's 38" tall, 34" wide and 24" deep, with a 6"-wide 4"-deep tool tray. In addition to a few dog holes, it also has a nifty slot for holding saws and chisels at the ready. The slot also doubles as a planing stop.

The legs are LVL in an offset "X" assembly, with an 8/4 stretcher that has a couple dog holes for storing holdfasts and such.

The top is 2-1/2" thick with a 4" apron in cherry and white ash. The main workholding is done with an all-wood twin-screw vise that has 15" between the screws (his regular bench has 33" between the screws). I have 24" in my Holtzapffel. No, I'm not jealous.

If this bench were mine, I'd put it underneath a north-facing window and against a wall. And then I'd saw like a fully erect and evolved man, instead of the Neaderthal I become after a few days straight of dovetailing.

Excellent idea, Mr. Williams.

— Christopher Schwarz

Last Wednesday, it felt like I was in a wholly different line of work (and one that I’ve heard can be far more lucrative than publishing – if illegal in 49 states). You see, I spent the day with a man’s hands on me as he assessed my various body parts…while my boss took pictures (I’m expecting Human Resources to come tearing through the shop door any moment now…).

We’re working with Ron Herman on a couple stories at the moment. Ron is a seventh-generation housewright (his family business is Antiquity Builders of Ohio, in Columbus, Ohio) who has amassed a huge number of tools both through his family’s business and by haunting flea markets, yard sales and the like.

If you were at last year’s Woodworking in America conference in Valley Forge, Pa., you met or at least saw Ron – you couldn’t have missed him. He’s the 6'4" fellow who was in the front of the Marketplace with at least 15 saw bucks, a few miter boxes and a saw vise. When he wasn’t teaching a formal session, he was teaching on the show floor, showing attendees how to saw and sharpen, and talking about why it’s important to have a number of saws at one’s disposal (each buck has a collection filed differently for various types of wood, classes of cut, etc).

So getting back to being manhandled whilst my boss clicked the shutter: One of the stories Ron is writing for Popular Woodworking Magazine is on fitting one’s tools and shop accessories to one’s body. In the picture atop this post, I’m sitting on a sawbench that’s typically used by one of his female co-workers. While she’s an inch or two shorter than me, apparently her legs are longer, and the points of her hipbones are farther apart (or she doesn’t straddle the bench). Her bench is an inch too high for me, and about 4" too wide.

How do I know this? Well, my thighs should be parallel to the floor, and when I straddle the bench, its edges should be in line with the points of my hipbones. If it’s either too high or too wide and I’m straddling the bench to, say, chop a mortise, the bench's long edges will cut into the back of my thighs (assuming I’m sitting properly for efficient work) and cut off circulation to my feet. And when sawing, if the bench is too short, I would drive the toe of the saw into the ground with a saw sized properly for my arm's length.

You’ll be reading more about why size matters in an upcoming issue – just as soon as we have the drawings done to illustrate the text. I simply won’t allow us to print most of the pictures we took. Taken in context, they’re just fine. But I’m pretty sure my mother would not appreciate seeing a photo of her daughter in some of those positions.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Popular Woodworking Books has two related books publishing later this year, and we thought it would be fun to share a little advance information with you. In the author’s own words, we’ve got a glimpse into what these books are about.

Greene & Greene: Poems of Wood & Light (Available September, 2010)

From author, David Mathias’ introduction to the book:

'On a beautiful Southern California evening a couple of years ago, I had one of the more surreal experiences of my life. At about sunset, I found myself standing at the front door of the Gamble house, the best-known of a series of significant and wonderful residences designed by Charles and Henry Greene in the first decade of the 20th century. Having rung the doorbell, I waited for someone to answer, to open the door to the most beautiful man-made place I had ever been…In subsequent years, I became increasingly enamored of the work of Greene & Greene. Their style began to dominate my woodworking designs and implementations. I continued to pore over books and magazine articles and I continued to daydream, this time of a second visit to Pasadena, the center of the Greene & Greene universe…“Does the world really need another Greene & Greene book?” The unspoken subtext of that question goes something like this: “There are already many excellent books on the topic. Do you have anything new to add?” I believe that the answer to that question is “yes.” I submit that there is something new in these pages. [I came to Greene & Greene through my woodworking] I was drawn to their spectacular designs: spare and graceful, with subtle details that define many pieces and, more generally, their style. Woodworkers, even hobbyists like me, develop an eye for details and a curiosity about how those details are implemented. It’s a blessing and a curse (go to a furniture store with a woodworker and you’ll see what I mean)...Think of this book as a guided tour through the Greene & Greene store. There are many photos here of exteriors or entire rooms. What makes this book different, however, is that there are also many photos that focus on details. While the best books on the topic are filled with photos of pieces of furniture, the reader is often left wanting to see more, to see close-ups of inlays, pegs and joinery, the beautiful details that help define what we know as the Greene & Greene vocabulary.'

Arts & Crafts Furniture Anyone Can Make (Available December, 2010)
Anyone? Really? The whole concept of this book traces its roots to one of my favorite woodworking projects. I fell in love with Morris chairs, and eventually ended up building a few. I find them very comfortable. A few years ago, as summer was just warming things up, I wanted to enjoy my deck, but I also wanted the comfort of my Morris chair. Creativity struck, and I spent $40 at the home center store buy one-by dimensional pine. About six-hours later I’d built a Morris chair that would survive (with a good coal of external paint) the outdoors.

If it works for outdoor furniture, I asked myself, can it work for other furniture? Yep. Popular Woodworking magazine (while I was still an editor there) even began running columns called, I Can Do That! The series espouses building worthwhile items for the home with wood from the home center, basic woodworking tools (portable powered tools, generally), and uncomplicated (often screws) joinery.  

Last year it occurred to me that one of my other fascinations crossed nicely with the idea of simplifying woodworking. Arts & Crafts furniture. The straight and simple designs used in this furniture style easily adapts to the dimensional lumber used in the simplified process. It sounded like a challenge, so I offered up the idea. I’ve come up with fifteen projects for the book ranging from mirrors to a dining table, all reflecting influences from existing Arts & Crafts furniture designs. My interpretation of a hall bench I found from one of the smaller furniture companies is shown in this preliminary photo for the book.

I’m enjoying the process, and I believe it will offer and easy entrance to woodworking for the beginner (or weekend woodworker), as well as the experienced woodworker who wants to be creative, without spending massive amounts of time on the project.

 

Most of my woodworking involves gymnosperms and occasionally angiosperms, both of which are dicots, but it is on rare occasion do I get to ‘work’ a monocot.   I have repaired bamboo, reed, rattan, cane, even Tonkin cane but this is my first time with this grass.  I own two artifacts made with palm wood, the large walking stick, a gift from a friend has a gilded brass knob, the tip is missing and the shaft is made of black palm.  The other is a letter opener/ink erasure and it has a red palm handle, the blade is marked MILLER BROS. CUT. CO. MERIDEN.  So the material was definitely used in the nineteenth century.

When  I saw this stuff on sale at Woodcraft, I went out and picked up a nice piece 1 ½” square by 18 inches long, they had stuff longer to 24 inches, but I didn’t like the ‘grain’.  Too bad they don’t offer it in 36 inch lengths for walking sticks.  They advertised it as black palm wood, made me snicker because it isn’t a wood but is technically a grass.  But it does work like any malicious wood.

Just handling the stuff is tricky; it tends to produce nasty slivers that catch on everything including skin.  It is very hard, contains high amounts of silica, dulls tools quickly but is very strong and flexible.  It has spots that are deadly hard next to spots that are not.  It can have interlocking grain with wild eyes that can predominate the wood.  Also the end grain has an unusual appearance in that it doesn’t have rings but bundles of ‘pores’ in uniform disbursement.

It does have a grain and it is possible to work against but it can cause some minor chipping, my limited experience is making the writing pen and I have roughed out some chopsticks after a recommendation from Mike Moore after he saw the pen.  I had first thought that it might be too rough for chopsticks, but after working the pen, I decided to give them a try.

Starting out with rough square blanks I did some creative ripping to get the pieces to the size I need.  After ripping down to near one end, I took the piece out of the vice, reversed the wood and saw and continued ripping up the piece until it was through.  For the writing pen, I then worried a hole in the end, drilling end grain of palm isn’t easy the drill will wonder, start with a smaller size to get close to the center then enlarge the hole to the size needed.

Once I smoothed it with a Moxon smoother, I easily scraped it smooth.  It was at that point that I knew the wood was tough as I could see chipping on the iron of the plane.  It also quickly removed the burr from steel scrapers, but finished up shiny.  I then burnished it with a bone burnisher, then finished with a couple of coats of linseed oil (waiting 24 hours between coats), then served the thread around the end.  This got a coat of spirit varnish followed by another coat of linseed oil.  I also stoved the pen to dry both the oil and spirit varnish.  It will get a couple more of coats of oil before I am done.

Before I applied any finish I decided to raise the grain as I do when I work all woods, being a small pen, I licked it, well that was a mistake, fortunately I could spit but it took me a couple of hours to get that horrible taste out of my mouth.  Very bitter, acrid and awful, don’t do this at home.  I also started washing my hands after touching the stuff.

I will find some more utilitarian uses for this material, small tool handles, etc.

Today is also the 2nd anniversary of the Full Chisel Blog.

Stephen

My first job after high school was as far away as I could get from where I grew up in Ohio. In June of 1975 I found myself on a cattle ranch in Western Montana. My older brother was my new boss. I thought I was going to be a cowboy but spent most of the first few weeks doing glamorous work like pulling a chain drag over an 800 acre hayfield breaking up chunks of dried manure. I remember the first day my brother telling me I should wear a hat. I know I must have given him one of those looks only an 18 year old can muster who has concrete for brains. I don’t need no stinking hat. Two days later my face and ears looked like an overcooked potato chip. He was right about the hat. Not being a hat guy, and not being from Montana, I bought a small pitiful straw hat only a rodeo clown could love. It was my brother’s turn to give me one of those looks. He was pretty good about it. Wasn’t mean or cruel, which he had every right to be. After all we are brothers. You just don’t let those opportunities to pick on a sibling slip through your fingers. Two weeks later on the next trip to town I bought this black hat. We went to a branding at the neighbors ranch and everyone got a charge out of seeing my new hat take a beating in the muck and dust of a hard day’s labor. I don’t wear it much back here in Ohio but it’s filled with memories of one great summer.

I’ve been putting together an upcoming article for my Design Matters column in Popular Woodworking Magazine. The article is about how moldings can emphasize a form and includes some tips about sizing a crown molding for a cabinet. I often think of a crown molding like a hat. Get it wrong and it’s one of those things that people notice immediately. A crown molding has it’s origins in a cornice found at the top of a classic order. In its original form it played a functional role. The overhang helped shield the building and occupants from the elements. On furniture the crown or cornice is purely esthetic. It terminates the form by providing a clear border at the top of the case or pediment. Since a crown is such a visible element even from a distance you can vary the visual strength of it to achieve a range of effects. On the bolder end of the spectrum you can use a crown to achieve a strong architectural feeling. Reducing the size of a crown is like lowering your voice. That is often appropriate in an interior setting and if you look at a sampling of period work you will often notice the crown molding is more subdued. I like to use the proportions in the orders as a starting point but often find myself backing the overall height of the moldings by a ¼, 1/3, or even ½. There are proportions associated with each order for sizing a crown molding all based on the overall height of the piece. A quick and dirty way to get a generic envelope to start with is to divide the overall height of the case into 6 parts, then divide the top unit into 3 parts. That top third is your crown. These divisions are giving you 1/18th of the overall height. That’s a place to begin. I usually work up some full sized profiles at that scale and once I’m happy with the molding combinations, I may reduce the scale down from there until it suits my eye.

George R. Walker

Acredited training systems in craft have a very long history having their golden age with the medieval guilds when it was impossible to practice without having been through a rigorous training and being a fully signed up member of the guild. William Morris was a huge fan of the medieval guilds and there were various attempts to resurrect some semblance of the system during the Arts and Crafts movement. Some feel that today we lack any marker of quality to differentiate between a highly skilled and trained craftsperson and someone who did a few weekend craft courses then set up in business and that the answer is proper national qualifications.

This entertaining video aims to highlight the importance of hand skills in all our daily lives and to show the poor state we would be in without them.



The video is produced by ZDH the German guild organisation. Fellow greenwoodworkers will know of the German system of apprentices, journeymen and masters, we often get visits from traveling journeymen in their traditional costume and they tend to be highly skilled and a good advert for the system. There are pros and cons to this sort of regulation however and pros and cons of our unregulated craft world. I would like to discuss these issues and would welcome others thoughts in the comments below or on the HCA facebook page.

First lets get an overview of the German system form a friend Michail Schutte who was an apprentice then journeyman and is one of the most skilled woodworkers I have met.

"ZDH stands in the tradition of the medieval guilds, not unbroken though. guilds had been abolished in germany in 1871 or so, and then reinvented by the nazis in the 1930 s - that s when the now ZDH will have it s roots...basically its a huge lobbying group, protected by special guildlaws. that has pros and cons, among the pros is the education and apprenticeship system it provides, which sets standards for for apprenticeship schemes, which are not bad, but could also be better. apprenticeships normally happen in a masterworkshop, the aprentice working for three years in a workshop, going to college one day a week, and then passing a central test called gesellenprüfung. after working for three years as a geselle, one can go to materschool for about a year, and then start setting up one s own business and taking on apprentices. while one gets a small pay doing the apprenticeship, and then earns a proper wage working as geselle, all fixed by the unions, one has to pay something like 10,000 euros to do the masterschool."

The cons are as that there is a huge bureaucracy involved in running the system. Those that have paid to be part of this expensive club are very keen to protect their interests. I for instance would not be allowed to work as a turner in Germany despite 15 years experience as I have not done the ZDH training. If I wanted to work there I would have to do the training involving years producing set designs working on electric lathes even if that was not my end goal. Twelve years ago I encountered the same system in Romania where craftspeople have to be registered with the government in order to be recognised businesses, first you have to go to art school and learn things utterly unrelated to your chosen craft. In Romania most traditional craftspeople were simply outside of the system. In Germany the guilds are much stronger and anyone setting up business that is not in the guild is liable to prosecution.

The question is does this system benefit the craftspeople and does it benefit the buyers of craft? Certainly wages are protected within the union though there is considerable expense starting with the nearly £10,000 to gain your master qualification, effectively buying into the club. Quality is presumably better under such a system though value for money may not be since the customer pays for this huge infrastructure.

Back in the UK the National Heritage Training Group have succeeded in getting qualifications through in the building crafts where soon it will be a requirement to have a card showing that you are suitably qualified before you are allowed to undertake repair work to a listed building. I talked this week to blacksmiths setting up a scheme here NHIG at the moment any metal bender and welder can undertake "restoration" work on complex old ironwork which really requires specialist skills. The idea of NHTG and NHIG is to make these trades like gas fitting where you can not do certain types of specialist work without being a fully signed up card carrying member.

So looking at pros and cons of the current system where anyone can set up in business we very much have the onus on the customer to ascertain the quality of the worker and I would argue that it is in part down to the worker to help the customer by clearly showing the quality of work we are capable of, there is always the danger that a poor craftsman but good salesman can pull the wool over customers eyes. There is certainly a wide range skill levels out there to choose from. I have seen many professional craftspeople producing embarrassingly poor quality work, some of it selling to seemingly happy customers who were as unaware of the lack of quality as the craftsperson that made it. There is also incredible quality work made by folk with 20 years dedicated experience which is a joy to find.

The benefit of the current UK system is that it is very, very good for small sole trader businesses to run with low start up costs, low overheads and compared to our friends abroad low regulation. Sole traders are the mainstay of craft business, the building crafts are an exception where larger companies are more common, but within the smaller crafts the vast majority are sole traders or less than 5 employees.

Accreditation can take two forms either like the German system or the NHTG system it can be backed by law and mandatory, or like the organic food system it can be optional and left to customer choice. The problem with the latter is it takes a huge input to advertise a scheme sufficiently before customers understand the difference and choose an accredited system over another. Looking at the food sector we have freedom foods, organic, LEAF and all manner of other more minor schemes all having overheads and no benefit to customer or producer until they are widely recognised and understood, 

I am not sure there is a good answer to this one. Would you like to see some sort of training and accreditation system or do your customers know the value of work without having someone else say it is OK?

This is another type of pitsaw; a narrow blade tensioned in a wooden frame. Not commonly found in English work. Here the sawyers have their stock up on trestles, as in the Bruegel drawing the other night. (I’ve lost track of where I got this drawing, so I apologize, I don’t know who the artist is)

This next engraving is from a Dutch emblem book called “Sinnepoppen” (1614) – it shows this form of saw quite clearly.

 Randle Holme commented on this type of pitsaw:  “a Pit Saw in a Frame: This kind of Pit-Saw with a Frame is not in use with us, but in the Up Countreys, it is altogether made use of, but for what Fancy I judge not, but think it much easier and better without it.”   Now – what he means by “Up Countreys” I don’t know – but it is used in Holland, Germany, Flanders, etc during the period. So maybe it’s northern Europe…

Now, for the questions. I do not profess to be an expert sawyer by any means. I did it regularly years ago, and thus I do know some of what has worked for us at the museum. When I get stuck, I will shout for the carpenters…

Chris Currie wrote from England and mentioned the angle of attack seen on pitsawn surfaces. He says:

“From memory, the period saw marks I can recall seeing over the years run at various angles through the board – from pretty ‘vertical’, i.e. 90 degrees, to quite shallow angles; sometimes inconsisently within the same board. So, I would imagine sawyers found what suited them best.”

I know we have worked the saw at an angle to start the kerf, gradually move it up to nearly vertical, then it goes back to an angle near the end of the log, this last in response to the top sawyer running out of a place to stand – he usually gets off the log and stands on a supporting timber.

“Do you also think the thickness of the material being cut might influence the angle of the blade to some degree?”

I will defer to the sawyers, and will ask them.

John Leyden asked “Is it part of the safety technique not to saw a board completely off the log, and thus to leave them all “attached” at the far end, for the top man’s footing?”

Yes, we don’t usually cut the boards off one-by-one until 90% of the sawing is done. Then it’s just a few strokes to sever the last bits of each kerf.

“Also wondering approximately how long it took your two colleagues to saw that white oak log into those 7 or 8 boards.”

Ahh, how long does it take? Many variables, and I will get back to this one.

And yes, it is great winter work. I almost never did it in warmest months…

NOW, some stuff from various period records pertaining to sawing. there’s a lot of it, so it ought to keep you busy.

In the 1670s in London the sawyers tried to incorporate, and the joiners, carpenters & ship carpenters petitioned the City to prevent it. The sawyers petition failed. The Carpenters’ Company records have some of the pertinent citations:

“The saweinge of Timber with the long Sawe (commonly called the whipp sawe) is sometimes performed by the Carpenters and other Tradesmen aforesaid in their owne persons and by their Servants and Apprentices (as occasion requires) and sometimes by Laborers (such as the pretenders to the incorporacon) who worke either by the day for wages or by the Load or hundred in Grosse.”

Then they go on about how over the last 25 years, prices have changed, particularly since the great fire of 1666.

“That these sort of Laborers have within these 25 years cut timber in grosse for 5s p load & not long before the fire for 6s and since the fire are risen to 8s and 9s p load …To the apparent prejudice of his maiestie and all his subjects.”  [the quotes from the Carpenters’ records are in E. B. Jupp, An Historical Account of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, (London, Pickering & Chatto, 1887)].

The joiners’ records also contain some complaints about the sawyers, complaining about prices, poor quality work, etc. These records date from the early 1630s:

“Report to the C of Aldermen…we caused to come before us as well divers of the C[ompan]y of Joyners as other freemen Boxmakers as also the Sawyers  we conferred also with the Wardens of the Carpenters Cy touching the matters complained. We find that some few men who were first freemen sawyers of the City were brought up as Weavers bakers clothworkers & the like & afterwards learned the skill of sawing from forreine Sawyers did about twenty years past begin to take apprentices whereby the number of freemen Sawyers are now increased to about twentie persons and that those freemen with their apprentices that work with them are as the free sawyers themselves do affirm number about fifty & eight persons and we find that all the free sawyers are not able to perform the eighth part of the labor and business of sawing within this City &c for the works of his Majesty & others. That within these twentie years the prices of sawing is so exceedingly increased by means that the foremen Sawyers have appropriated the performance of the work & that only forreyners have served under them as that there is now taken sometimes three pence and sometimes four pence for sawing a Curfe of Wainscott which was then done for three half pence and no more. And because when less rates were taken a pair of sawyers were able to get 21/ or 22/ a week.  We think that some course be taken that sawyers may take more moderate rates. We think the full aim of the freesawyers is only to get into their own hands the whole labor of all the Sawing works within this City & be enabled to keep up the high prices for their labor & only to use the labor of Forreners to the prejudice of this City. We find that the freemen do put the forrener on work as servants for them  We find most part of the freemen sawyers are not so skilful neither will they work on any heavy work as in heavy timber but only in boards &c  It was instanced that one Anthony Messenger a Carpenter was arrested for putting a forreyn sawyer on work   Was compelled to go to freemen sawyers to have the work done. This freemen sawyer & his three apprentices after they had taken the work in hand were glad for want of skill to leave the said work & Messenger was enforced to go to a forreyner to perform the same to his loss.  And the Joyners Carpenters Boxmakers complained to us that when they have been compelled to put some free sawyers on work they have so ill performed it for want of skill that the owners of the work have sustained much damage and yet never recompenced We find the Cy of Carpenters have orders for the correction of Sawyers but the free Sawyers themselves have no authority for government of Sawyers. And we find that the Sawyers have been heretofore laborers to the Carpenters & Joyners   We find that the Carpenters have been much hindered by the freemen sawyers by the excessive number of apprentices as also by the number of Carpenters yards which these freemen sawyers keep, some as many as four Carpenters Yards thus engrossing the timber & wainscot and the Carpenters are compelled to get their supply from these Sawyers. The Committees opinion is that the Freemen Sawyers should be limited to the number of Apprentices and to keeping so many Carpenters yards and that the foreiyn Sawyers be not sued for working in this City as they have been.”

[Henry Laverock Phillips, Annals of the Worshipful Company of Joiners of the City of London, (London: privately printed, 1915) p. 25, 26]

Oh, to know what is meant by a “curf of wainscot” – I know it means one pass of the saw down the length of a piece of wainscot. But what is the size of wainscot? There’s another blog post some night, the various uses of the term “wainscot”…

In New England, sawyers were employed regularly in the building trades. New Haven records contain information about wages:

Sawing by the hundred not above 4s6d for boards. 5s for plancks. 5s6d for slittworke and to be payd for no more than they cutt full and true measure. If by the dayes worke, the top man or he that guides the worke and phaps findes the tooles, not above 2s6d a day in somr, and the pitt ma, and he whose skill and charge is lesse, not above 2s, and a proportionable in winter as before. If they be equall in skill and charge,  then to agree or divide the 4s6d between them.  

[Charles J. Hoadly, editor, Records of the Colony and Plantation of New Haven, from 1638 to 1649 (Hartford: Case, Tiffany and Company, 1857)]

In the case of sawing by the “hundred” – I still am not clear on what the hundred is, whether it’s board feet, or just boards. I do know that in the seventeenth century, many things sold by quantity were measured by the “hundred” – which often contained 120, sometimes 110. Once in a while I have seen records in which a hundred really was 100…

From early 17th-century Newfoundland, there is a mention of sawing:

6 October 1610  John Guy to Sir Percival Willoughby:

“…we have digged a saw-pitt hard by the sea side, and put a timber house over it [co]vered with pine boardes; there are two paire of Sawyers workinge in it, the pyne trees make good and large bordes and is gentle to saw, they be better than the deale bordes of norway, there is now a pine tree at the saw-pitt, that is about tenne feete about at the butt, and thirtie feete longe is eight feete about…”  (from Gillian T. Cell, English Attempts at Colonization, 1610-1630 (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1982) pp. 61-2.  

These figures are circumference, not diameter. This ain’t redwood/sequoia country! Still, these pine logs are three feet in diameter at the butt, and not much less than that at the tip. That’s some sawing.

In Essex, England 1661, there were rates set for wages:

For a Master Sawyer, summer wages, with meat got 10d (pence) a day. Without meat, he got 16d. His winter wages were 8d with, and 14d without. His yearly wages were ₤4-10 shillings; with another 10s for “livery” i.e. food. His “labourer” got slightly less in most cases, but equal to the master in some cases. Makes no sense, I know.

These wages are about equal to a joyner, but for some reason the joiner got higher allotment for food. A master carpenter got a little more than either of these tradesmen.

There are also records for prices for sawing and riving:

Sawing
Planke, the hundred, viz. sixscore 2s.6d.
Board, the hundred 2s.6d.
Slitting worke, the Hundred 2s.6d.
Lath, the Hundred 4d.

Riving
Pale, the Hundred 12d.
Clapbord, the hundred 4s.
The felling, cleaveing & hewing of pales, shores and rayles, and setting up of every rodd of six foot long pale not exceeding seaven foote with single raile, after the rate of 16 foote & halfe to the Pole 2s. (see http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/result_details.asp?intOffSet=0&intThisRecordsOffSet=3 )

All out of ideas for a new project? Suffering from woodworker's block? Wishing your spouse would give you a honey-do list?

Snap out of it! You're a woodworker. So head to a place that features feats of woodworking.

Some favorite places that help spark my electrons are museums and antique stores.

And if you live in my area, you don't have run-of-the-mill antique stores, you have the Antique Capital of South Central PA: New Oxford, Pennsylvania.

There you will find lots of pieces to inspire and invigorate. And by the end of the day, you'll be itching to get into your shop.

I asked permission to take photos at three antique stores, and all said yes. So if you plan to go antiquing or to museums, be sure to take your camera. Many places will allow you to take photos.

The PA German painted dower chest top right was dated 1807. This one was unusual for the amount of remaining paint on top, the vibrancy of the paint, and the three lower drawers.

Rasps seem to be under-appreciated in the woodworking world. They have a somewhat medieval appearance, lacking the outward elegance of a fine spokeshave. Some of us have had unpleasant experiences with cheap rasps that may have lead to the erroneous conclusion that this genre of tool is good for nothing more than hacking at the corners of a home DIY plywood project.

Au contraire, the hand cut rasps made in France by Michel Auriou and his small group of highly skilled craftsmen are magnificent tools capable of bringing the finest sensitivity to shaping wood. They must, of course, be well cared for, and this includes cleaning. The cove-like teeth will naturally clog as have the #9 and #13 grain rasps (left and right, below) while shaping mahogany. There are two stages to cleaning them. 

The Tools for Working Wood catalog transmits Michel’s advice to clean the rasps with a natural bristle brush since any metal brush, even brass, will eventually dull the teeth. I use and like the small natural hog brush sold by TFWW. I angle the bristles of this little brush toward the coves of the teeth and use vigorous circular and side-to-side motions to get the rasps adequately clean during a work session, as seen below. However, this does not completely remove the embedded wood, especially in the finer rasps. I do not want to repeatedly store them in this condition since eventually more teeth will become clogged, reducing the effectiveness of the tool. 

 A close up view of the #13: 

Here’s my solution. I get several drops of CMT 2050 (widely available at woodworking suppliers) on the rasp, spread it with my finger, and half a minute later brush it with the hog bristle brush. Voila! The previously stubborn embedded wood easily disappears and, after patting them dry as necessary, the clean rasps (bottom photo) are ready to be put away and await their next duties in perfectly ready shape.

 

CMT 2050 is a non-toxic solution with a pH of 9.5-10.5 (MSDS) and rust preventive properties. No rinsing is required. After using this method on Auriou and Nicholson rasps for at least a year, I have not found any rusting or undue dulling. Since I would not want to suggest to my readers a method that might do any harm to these valuable tools, I checked with Michel Auriou to see if this method was safe for his rasps. He graciously answered my inquiry and stated “I think there is no risk to the use of that product.” Knowing the excellence of his tools and having had the awe-inspiring experience of watching Michel stitch (cut) the teeth on a rasp at a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event a few years ago, I will take the advice of this superb craftsman.

A6 Smoothing Plane At last I have managed to find a little bit more time  for another entry in my blog.  For this entry I have decided use some old pictures of an A6 in the making as I have come across some pictures which could be useful.  As usual there are a lot of gaps [...]

Courtesy of both Google and The Internet Archive, here is one of the lesser known books from their holdings: The Artificer's Complete Lexicon for Terms and Prices, &c., &c., by John Bennett, engineer. 1833 Nearly 500 pages of prices and values for every kind of product or service known to the practical artificer of the time period. There is so much to say about this book that I wouldn't even know where to start. So instead, I'll simply say that you can download this PDF (15mb) from either The Toolemera Blog: Download Artificerscomple00bennrich_bw or From the Internet Archive. Till next,...

January 2009 saw a bunch of press articles about "the last master cooper"I put links to some on them in my blog post here.  

There was clearly something about a craft which everyone had heard about being potentially endangered that struck a raw nerve and warranted a lot of news coverage, all good news for traditional crafts and shows the public interest in this part of our cultural heritage. The news stories last year were all about how Mr Simms felt the craft was dying and how he didn't have an apprentice. Well he is back in the Telegraph this weekend and the story is now that Wadworth are committed to taking on an apprentice and employing a cooper after Mr Simms retires. The Photo that accompanies this new article is my favourite cooper photo and is by Paul Felix who I wrote about last week.

"Rural England was once a hive of industrial activity as traditional craftsmen such as bodgers and coopers plied their trades. Then their craftsmanship fell out of favour with the modern world. With a little luck it might just make a comeback."

"Last year, Simms thought his trade was dying out. "I'm going to keep working as a master cooper until I'm dead," he said, "but I am keen to pass on my knowledge to another generation. I have loved my career and have no regrets except that no one will carry it on." Since then the brewery has announced that it hopes to appoint an apprentice as a long-term replacement for Simms. Head brewer Brian Yorston is upbeat about the future: "We are currently trying to get funding to take on an apprentice. Our long-term aim is to follow Alastair on with an apprentice.""

 The last HCA heard was that they were struggling to find a suitable funding scheme that would pay for the apprentice to learn from Mr Simms. This is often the case as craftspeople however skilled are not accredited training providers and so not eligible for funding. Here we have a case where the craftsman is willing to pass on the skill, the company are guaranteeing future employment, following last years press there were over 1000 people wrote asking to become apprentices so there is no shortage of demand.  All we need to find a way of getting funding to cover the instruction time that skilled craftspeople give to the next generation.

This weekends Telegraph article here 

Hier mal das Sägeergebnis eines nicht getunten Blattes 20 tpi - 5°-0° Neigung und 0° Schrägung.
Subtitles:

fresh from the sawvise: 20 tpi, 5°-0° rake, 0° fleam.

Bilder von
pictures by

Klaus!

Heute habe ich scans aus Amerika bekommen. Ein ungewöhnlicher Griff für einen Fuchsschwanz. Tief angebracht, was meiner Vorstellung besser entspricht, als die "modernen" Griffe. Also die, die nur hundert Jahre alt sind. Scans sind daher besser als Fotografien, weil sie nicht so sehr verzerrt sind.

Subtitles: Today I got scans of an really old handle from US. The generosity of woodworkers is overhelming. A scan ist better than a picture taken by a camera because there is not distorted.

I like these really old patterns with the deep tote piece.