Lost Art Press: Chris Schwarz

I’m traveling for the next 10 days to a wide variety of Southern destinations to do research for a couple books, interview some woodworkers for articles in Popular Woodworking Magazine, record an audio book and eat my entire weight in grits.

So if you send me an e-mail, it’s unlikely that I’m going to get it immediately and even less likely that that I’ll be able to answer it until I return on May 28 (or so). So if you have a workbench emergency, you’ll have to contact Scott Landis. For handplane emergencies, contact Garrett Hack. Toolbox emergencies, Jim Tolpin.

If you miss me, then click on over to Rob Campbell’s blog “The Joiner’s Apprentice,” where he just posted an interview with me. The direct link is… here.

— Christopher Schwarz

Most of the historical sources I have in my library say that joiners should dovetail the corners of their tool chests. In my heart, I agree. But in reality, the archaeological record paints a different picture.

There are lots of dovetailed tool chests out there – I see them all the time. But I also see lots of chests that violate all the joinery rules of traditional tool chests, and yet they are still together after decades of abuse.

Many tool chests are simply nailed together – I own a few of these myself. They don’t look as tidy as a dovetailed chest, but they can last a long time – especially if the joints are tight and the skirts around the chest are made well and tightly nailed.

If you are unsure about your dovetailing skills, my first reaction is to tell you to get over it and give dovetails a try – the joint’s difficulty is usually all in your head. But if you aren’t willing to cut dovetails, then consider joining your chest using rabbets and cut nails. Or dowels, screws, Dominoes or biscuits.

What about the materials for your tool chest? I recommend lightweight pine. But what if you don’t have access to clear pine? Or you don’t have the tools (or skills) to glue up the panels required for your tool chest? You know what else is lightweight and strong? Plywood. Don’t like plywood? Buy ready-made pine panels from the home center. These are as ugly as snot because of all the little bits of finger-jointed boards, but a couple coats of paint will make the panels look world-class. They usually come in 24” widths, so you will have a head start on the construction process.

Can’t make a bottom of shiplapped boards? Consider a nailed-on plywood bottom.

Don’t want to dovetail the skirts and dust seal around the carcase? Use simple miters instead – just make sure to spline or nail them to give them extra strength.

How about the chest’s top? What if you don’t have the tools or skills to make a frame-and-panel top? Again, plywood can be your friend – or use one of the ready-made pine panels and apply a smaller panel on the top to make it look like a frame-and-panel top. This applied “raised panel” is not just decoration – it adds thickness and strength.

How about those sliding trays inside? Nail them together if you cannot use dovetails. Just be smart about it – angle the nails like the slope of dovetail joints and nail through the ends of the trays and into the fronts to add strength.

There are lots of other shortcuts you can take. Use strap hinges or a piano hinge, which are easier to install. Use an external hasp instead of a half-mortise lock. Reinforce the corners of your chest with iron or steel plates – I see those all the time on old chests. These can look very cool.

In other words, disobey me.

In “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” I made a case for using the best joinery, materials and hardware available to build your chest. For some woodworkers, that might not be dovetails, clear Eastern white pine and Horton brasses. It might be nails, plywood and Hillman fasteners. So be it. Do the best job that you can with the skills that you have, and you’ll do fine.

You might want to upgrade your tool chest in 10 years once you have the skills to dovetail Jell-O. Or perhaps your chest will be sturdy and meet all your needs. Either way, you win.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The photos in this post are of a chest made by Mike Russo, who had to put one together in a weekend for an upcoming move. Thanks Mike for the inspiring work.

I just posted some details about Roorkhee Chair No. 1 here. Four or five more to follow.

Not all pieces of Campaign-style furniture require hours of insetting 30 pieces of flush hardware. In fact, with some pieces you can install all the hardware in about 10 minutes.

I call this stuff “strap-on” furniture. The brasses are applied to the surface of the piece. No wacky mortise in three axes. Just nail in four pins and you are done.

I’ve seen a number of old pieces that feature this proud hardware, though I have no idea if the brasses were original to the piece. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think that some antique dealers could have applied the straps and corners to dress up the piece.

I recently finished this traveling bookcase, which carries Lost Art Press books to shows, and I decided to give it the strap-on treatment. I purchased eight smallish corner guards from Ansaldi & Sons (corner ornament, item #5293, price $2.50 each) and applied them on Monday using a hammer.

Confession: After spending a week inlaying more than 30 pieces of shaped hardware into a recent campaign chest, nailing some straps onto this bookcase was fun. And the results aren’t bad.

— Christopher Schwarz

Smythe disclaimer: I paid full retail for the $20 worth of hardware on the corners.

Finish details: The finish on the piece is one coat of garnet shellac, then a glaze of brown Minwax stain to fill the pores and then two more coats of shellac.

It has been far too long since we held a puerile contest here on the Lost Art Press blog. And while driving home from our extended-family Mother’s Day celebration, my thoughts turned to (of course) hide glue.

I love hide glue in all its forms. I love it hot. I love it cold. I love it fresh. I hate it old.

The one thing I don’t like about hide glue is that I want more choices. There are only two brands of liquid hide glue out there: Titebond and Old Brown Glue. Both are fine glues with excellent qualities. But I think woodworkers deserve a third hide glue.

The contest: Name that hide glue.

While driving home I came up with what I thought was the most brilliant name ever for a glue made from a boiled animal. Are you sitting down? Good.

Deathgrip Hide Glue.

Aaaaaand, thank you. In the throes of personal glee I sent that idea to a few friends via SMS (aka, a text). One of them shot back with a name for hide glue that clearly eclipsed mine. I cannot, however, share it with you because it is so offensive that I just don’t have the stomach to endure the pile of hate mail that would follow.

He came up with a second one that I can print: Sticky McDeadhorse.

While not as funny, it is funny.

So here’s the contest: Give us the name of the next best hide glue by midnight May 16, 2012. The one that makes me laugh out loud the most wins one item from the Lost Art Press store. It can be anything that we currently have in stock.

All you have to do is post the proposed name of the glue and your e-mail. If you don’t send me your e-mail, I cannot contact you if you are the winner.

Bring it.

— Christopher Schwarz

While the raw leather adds a nice Conan-like smell to my shop, I’ve got to finish the legs, stretchers and backrests for the Roorkhee chairs.

My finish of choice: garnet shellac – Tiger Flakes from Tools for Working Wood, to be specific. I love the stuff. It mixes like a martini, is easy to spray and gives me just the right color for vintage stuff.

Of course, spraying shellac always attracts the attention of the new neighbors behind us.

“It’s OK,” I’ll yell. “You can eat this stuff. They put it on strawberries and apples and pills and…”

The neighbors go inside and start closing their windows.

I guess that’s what you get for building a new house in the drainage swamp behind our house.

When I spray lots of pieces like this, I string up a clothesline between a tree and basketball goal; then I hang the parts on some wire hangers. This is how I learned to spray doors while working at the ThermaTru door company. Of course, I don’t have an oven to bake on the finish like I did at ThermaTru (that’s OK, shellac dries fast.)

And there was one more big advantage to spraying at ThermaTru – birds wouldn’t crap upon your work. The inside of my campaign chest still has some poo shadows.

— Christopher Schwarz

Yesterday I went to our local Tandy Leather store and got a crash course in leatherwork from one of the guys at the store who makes gear and armor for re-enactors. Yup, I’ve decided to make the leather seats for the Roorkhee chairs from scratch.

Well, almost scratch, I didn’t raise the cows or murder them.

There is a surprising amount of overlap between the crafts of leather and wood. Sharp tools. Shaping curves using moisture. Dyes. Finishes. Metal hardware. After all, in both crafts we’re dealing with a fibrous, natural material. One just happens to have roots. The other one moos.

I’ve done some basic leatherwork before – covering an ottoman with pigskin, recovering spring seats for side chairs etc. But nothing this involved. But it looks like fun and these sling seats are a good beginner project.

I bought three unfinished skins, which should be more than enough for two chairs. I wanted to have enough to make a few mistakes. And I want to make some Anarchist underwear – whipstitching and rivets all around.

— Christopher Schwarz

With a mighty (OK, a wussy) whuppin’, I assembled two frames for these Roorkhee chairs. All in all, they aren’t bad. Only one joint out of the two chairs keeps popping out. I’ll fix its wagon in the morning.

Tomorrow I’ll clean them up and finish them with shellac. Then it’s off to the upholstery person, whoever that is. I still haven’t been able to get a shop to return my phone calls. Perhaps I need a sexier voice.

After I got the first chair frame assembled, I put down my dead-blow mallet for a minute because I was stunned by something I hadn’t seen before. The frame is the spitting image of an Egyptian bed from one of Geoffrey Killen’s books on Egyptian furniture and woodworking tools. I cannot put my finger on the book this evening. (Note to self: Cane the librarian yet again.)

In the meantime, I was amused to receive a poem about Roorkhee chairs and the J Lo “too much junk in the trunk” problem that some of us suffer from. I will warn you, there are a couple adult words in this ode, so don’t read it aloud in Sunday School, OK?

— Christopher Schwarz

Madam, over here is a chair called a Roorkhee,
not hard to pronounce, rhymes with dorky.
Roam the world and sit unflappable,
‘cuz the damn thing is quite collapsible.

This chair is not for me it would seem,
I am much too broad ‘cross the beam.

Yes, madam, he said with a sigh,
I can see you are really quite wide.

These curves I have are my problem,
Too much here, there, and a big bottom.

But, madam you must not despair!
The Roorkhee is your kind of chair.
For you it is eminently suitable
it has the quality of being scootchable!
Take a seat and alack and alas,
the Roorkhee can handle your ass !

—  Etendu du Fesse

One of the things I most like about making furniture is something that’s rarely talked about: It is a lot like being a 15th-century explorer.

You sometimes venture into places that you think are new and untouched, but like the Genoese, you find that people have already been there and built great things. What you do next could make or break your piece’s design.

As I’m building these Roorkhee chairs I’m using an original as a pattern and trying to stay as close as possible to the vintage lines, materials and measurements. As I turned the legs, I found that the cylinder shape near the top of the legs is not just decorative and it’s not just intended to reduce the weight of the piece.

It is, instead, a perfect grip for the human hand. The cylinder on the original is 1-1/4” in diameter and 3” long, with a wide bevel at the top and bottom (which is no fun to turn, by the way). When complete, this grip makes it easy to pick up the assembled chair and move it. Brilliant.

Modern interpretations of the Roorkhee have stunted this cylinder or turned it into a vase-like turning that isn’t easy to grab or hold. Stupid moderns.

Another good detail: The original chairs are exactly as deep as they are wide. This allows all the rails to be interchangeable. So when you assemble your Roorkhee in camp you don’t have to label your parts – tab A into slot B. No matter how you assemble it, it always comes out the same. Newer commercial versions of the chair add width but not depth. This requires the user to pay more attention when assembling the chair.

And this is the point in the project at which I think I must depart from the original. The original chair has 16-1/2” of space between the legs. Stop reading for a minute, pick up your tape measure and determine how wide you are at the hips. I’m 15” wide. That would give me 3/4” of space on either side of a traditional Roorkhee.

When I build stick chairs, I have always used about 18” between the spindles or legs of the chair. When I build Morris chairs, it’s usually about 23” of space. My gut says I should make these chairs have 18” to 19” space between the legs. It is, after all, designed for lounging.

But my gut can be wrong, like when I thought it would be a good idea to eat one more seafood sausage. So I’m going to make a version with 16-1/2” between the legs – but I’m going to use cheap poplar dowels for the rails.

Then we’ll see if my gut fits. Literally.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. As I wrote this blog entry I kept thinking how furniture could be an “undiscovered country.” To impress Megan Fitzpatrick, I thought I’d trot out the Bill Shakespeare quote about that from Hamlet:

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

But that’s not me. I have less culture than a petri dish at the CDC. This is more my (lack of) style.

This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man – where no one – has gone before.

– James T. Kirk

I get this sort of flack below almost every day. I usually ignore it. But in this case I want to be perfectly clear about how I work and how I have always worked.

Comment from Gary Smythe on the PW blog: I’ve been following this project from your first announcement. With all respect, your comments about not letting the price of hardware/wood be of concern are not fair. You are doing an article for a national magazine and the advantage of getting it published is that it is an expense that costs you nothing either by expense account or a tax write off. Secondly, how many donations were involved? Honestly, I wish you the best, and I’m looking forward to the article, but I bet you didn’t pay $15 for the Londonderry Catalog. I know that the $300 book on Campaign Furniture was donated to you. You are a skilled craftsman/author. I just feel for the audience you are writing for, true costs ought to be revealed. $700 is the tip of the iceberg. I’m guessing this item for the article on the campaign piece is worth $6000 by the time we figure your material costs and at least part of your time in the design and build. I’ll have to read the article to finnd out if any new tools were involved. Writing/photography is in addition to that. Bring it on, I want to see what you made, but please don’t tell us about the vastly inferior underweight hardware as an alternative – It’s embarrassing. If considering using most of that stuff, it might as well not be used at all. Keep this up and the next thing will be an article about a reproduction Tansu chest, but don’t worry about the Paulownia and hardware cost.

OK, let’s break down the letter, point by point.

“You are doing an article for a national magazine and the advantage of getting it published is that it is an expense that costs you nothing either by expense account or a tax write off.”

I have no expense account. I personally paid for the wood, the hardware and the finish. The piece was not built for a customer. It’s mine. It’s not a tax write-off. So I built a piece of furniture for myself and paid for all the materials myself. The article earned me some money, of course, but not even close to what the materials and hardware cost.

“Secondly, how many donations were involved?”

None. I paid full retail for every scrap of wood, hardware and finish. I always have and I always will. Call Steve Wall Lumber, where I bought the wood. Call Horton Brasses, where I bought the hardware. Call Oakley Paint & Glass, where I bought the finish.

“I bet you didn’t pay $15 for the Londonderry Catalog.”

You are right. I don’t have a Londonderry Catalog in my house. I’ve never even seen one. I looked on the company’s web site, which is free. Call Nancy at Londonderry for confirmation.

“I know that the $300 book on Campaign Furniture was donated to you.”

Not true. I paid $100 for the book plus a couple T-shirts from a local woodworker who knew I was interested in the style. Want to see the cancelled check?

“I’ll have to read the article to finnd out if any new tools were involved.”

Huh? None.

“I’m guessing this item for the article on the campaign piece is worth $6000 by the time we figure your material costs and at least part of your time in the design and build.”

Are you saying I was paid $6,000? Wish that were true. Not even close Way, way lower.

“Writing/photography is in addition to that.”

I do my own writing and photography. So I didn’t pay anyone for that. Perhaps I am not following you.

“Bring it on, I want to see what you made.”

Come on over. My home address is on our web site. I’ll show you every receipt.

— Christopher Schwarz

English Roorkhee chairs are one of the missing links of modern chair design.

The form has its roots in the 19th-century late-Victorian era of the British Empire. It was the symbol of the changing nature of war (it’s lightweight and quick to pack). And its simple lines influenced generations of chair designers, from Marcel Breuer to the person who developed the ubiquitous camping chair.

I started building a run of these chairs on Tuesday for an upcoming article in Popular Woodworking Magazine and a forthcoming book on campaign furniture. My version is based closely on an historical example – many modern versions are skimpier and have joinery that is unnecessarily complex or just silly (more on that later).

This Roorkhee (rhymes with “dorky”) chair has conical tenons and mortises. And all the stretchers are the same length so they are interchangeable. Also a plus: The seat slopes down from the front of the chair to the back. That makes it nice for lounging. Some of the historical examples I studied had horizontal seats or even seats that sloped forward – perhaps to help keep you awake or to allow you spring from the chair for battle.

As I have no battles planned for 2013, I chose the version that is best for a beer or cigar after safari.

My joinery design is indebted to Greg Miller, a woodworker in Australia who built many of these chairs commercially. He shared his tricks for the joinery and his leg layouts with me.

I should have the chairs all framed up by Friday and finished by Saturday. So here is the plea for help: If there are any leather workers out there who could do the seat and back (for pay, of course), drop me a line this week at chris@lostartpress.com. Otherwise, I’ll head up to our local leather store – they have kindly offered to help me out.

And now down to the shop. I have mortises to bore.

— Christopher Schwarz

By request, here is my teaching schedule for the remainder of 2012. If a class is sold out, it is always worth getting on the waiting list. Life has its crises, and so spots always open up – usually in the week before the class begins.

June 11-17: Dictum Workshops, Metten, Germany
I’ll be making my third trip to Germany to teach handwork at the Dictum workshop, which is located in an uber-cool pig barn in a monastery (no sarcasm — it’s awesome). I’m teaching three classes — one on planes and saws, a second on building wooden layout tools and a third on building a French-style workbench.

Here are details.
Precision Layout Tools, June 11.
Metal Handplanes and Western Saws, June 12.
Build an 18th-century Workbench, June 13-17.

July 7-8: Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, Warren, Maine
Shaker Wall Cabinet. This is a fun two-day class in hand joinery. Learn to surface boards by hand, cut rabbets and dados and learn the joys of cut nails. The new Lie-Nielsen classroom is outstanding.

July 16-20: The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Rockport, Maine
By Hammer & Hand: The Dovetailed Schoolbox. This class is based on the 1839 book “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” – a fascinating look into the life of an apprentice in an English joinery shop. In this class, we build a Moxon double-screw, a shooting board and the Schoolbox from the book. This is an intense class in dovetailing and hand casework. This is the first time I’ve been asked to teach at this school. Hope it goes OK.

July 30-Aug. 3: Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking, Berea, Ky.
The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Build the Anarchist’s Tool Chest in five days in the hills of Berea, Ky. Kelly runs an excellent school with a great vibe and tremendous workbenches. I’ve been looking forward to this class all year.

Sept. 4-8: Marc Adams School of Woodworking, Franklin, In.
By Hammer and Hand: The Dovetailed Schoolbox. I bring the Schoolbox class to Marc Adams’s excellent school. There’s a reason this is the largest school in North America. Everything is top-shelf, from the workbenches, the new engineered floor to the ice cream machine (yes, it makes swirls).

Sept. 17-21: The Woodwright’s School, Pittsboro, N.C.
The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Yes, you can build this tool chest entirely by hand. And eat ice cream for lunch. And be 10 steps from an awesome tool store and bar. It’s Roy Underhill’s school for gosh sakes. This is a fun class with lots of crazy hand- and foot-powered tools – including a Barnes mortiser.

And that’s it for 2012, except for speaking at both Woodworking in America conferences. For 2013, I’ll be traveling to a lot of new places to teach: Rosewood in Canada, Alaska and Australia. Plus, I hope to be teaching the following two classes, which I am pitching to some of the schools I frequent.

Design & Build a Campaign Chest
Campaign chests are one of the most rugged and masculine pieces of furniture ever made – and their simple lines fit in with almost any decor. In this class, you will learn to design your ideal campaign chest using guidelines culled from old military records and the archaeological records. After spending a day designing your chest with the help of SketchUp and the instructor, you’ll spend the next four days building the upper unit of your chest using a variety of hand- and power-tool techniques. In this class you’ll learn:

1. How to speak the language of campaign chests so you can execute your design and it will look as good as an original.
2. How to design the joinery for these cases, which were designed to survive war.
3. How to surface very wide boards with ease using hand tools and home shop equipment.
4. How to cut full-blind and half-blind dovetails.
5. How to cut rabbets, dados and grooves by hand and by power.
6. How to make the special tight-fitting recesses for the brass hardware that is typical size – both by hand and power.
7. How to age brass and steel hardware to make it look ancient.
8. How to fit drawers toa  piston fit.
9. How to use high-angle planes and scrapers to deal with the exotic woods common to campaign chests.

Design & Build a Traditional Trestle Table
Trestle tables are one of the most ancient forms of furniture and appear in Medieval dining halls, Shaker dwellings and in the portfolio of George Nakashima. In short, they are one of the most elemental and enduring forms of furniture in human history. They use a minimum of material and excellent joinery to produce a table that is lightweight and incredibly strong. In this class, you’ll take a historical trip into the furniture record to understand the trestle table, from its beginnings in castle life to the present day. Using this knowledge, you’ll design your own trestle table using SketchUp and the assistance of the instructor. You’ll be able to design your trestle table in any style and in any size. Then you’ll spend the next four days executing your design under the eye of the teacher. In this class you’ll learn:

1. How to make beautiful tabletops that stay flat and are easy to assemble.
2. How to make the wedged through-tenon – the joint at the heart of a trestle table.
3. How to make your table knock down for travel using bed hardware.
4. How to surface large tabletops using power tools, hand tools or scrapers.
5. How to cut and assemble breadboard ends by both hand and power.
6. How to surface all your parts using handplanes.
7. How to make large-scale bridle joints to affix the top braces and ribs of the table.
8. How to use a fore plane or scrub plane to remove material quickly and provide authentic texture.

— Christopher Schwarz

During the last eight years I’ve tried to refine how I explain how to use a handplane to students. The biggest problem the students have isn’t ignorance. I wish that were the case. Instead, their biggest problem is they have been flooded with so much contradictory information that they are paralyzed.

So I’ve been trying to increase the signal and decrease the noise so they can focus on what is important. To help cement these ideas, I’ve created a list of principles relating to handplanes. Here are the ones for the tool’s cutting edge. The most important one is No. 10.

1. A sharp edge is two surfaces that intersect at the smallest point possible. This is called a “zero-radius intersection.”

2. A dull edge is where damage has occurred (hitting a nail) or the zero-radius intersection has worn away to create a third surface at the intersection.

3. A zero-radius intersection will not reflect light. The third surface created from wear will reflect light. So you can see a dull edge as a bright line. You cannot see a zero-radius intersection.

4. In general, a tool can be made sharp (a zero-radius intersection) by ANY medium – from a grinder to a waterstone. Polishing the edge only makes it more durable. The more polish, the longer the edge will go between sharpenings.

5. A sharp edge is TWO surfaces. Both must be polished for the edge to be durable. But only a small portion of the edge cuts wood (about .010” on each surface). So do not waste your time polishing steel that does not cut wood.

6. There are only three grits in sharpening: grinding, honing and polishing. Grinding removes damage or an edge that has been oversharpened. Honing removes a dull edge and restores the zero-radius intersection. Polishing makes the edge more durable. All other claims are marketing.

7. The larger the angle between your two surfaces, the more durable the edge. However, large angles can make tools unusable. If you sharpen an edge above 35°, you have to educate yourself about cutting geometry and clearance angles to stay out of trouble. If you sharpen at 35° or lower, you’ll stay out of trouble.

8. The smaller the angle between the two surfaces, the less durable the edge will be. Edges that are sharpened at 20° or lower do not work well in planes.

9. Plane edges can have a curve or be straight. Both perspectives work.

10. There is no such thing as “cheating” when it comes to sharpening. Use jigs and fixtures – or don’t. There is only sharp and dull.

— Christopher Schwarz

You do not have to spend $20 on a corner brace for your next piece of Campaign-style furniture. You can, in fact, spend less than 98 cents per brace and pick them up at your corner hardware store.

While finishing up work on the folding bookcase I’ve been working on the last couple weeks, I walked down to our local hardware store to pick up some cork feet for the bookcase so it wouldn’t scratch the living snot out of the furniture below it.

At the hardware store, I spied some brass mending plates and corner braces that look darn near like the hardware shown on many old piece of Campaign furniture I’ve been researching. A pack of four plates was $3.89. I snatched several sizes and shapes to mess around with in my shop.

The good news: These are available everywhere. You can find them at home centers and hardware stores in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and finishes. You aren’t going to find a corner brace with an ogee ornament, but that’s the price of frugality.

More good news: They don’t totally suck a lemon turd. From a distance, they look pretty good. With some careful insetting and some new screws, them might pass – like bringing home a top-notch cross-dresser to meet maw and pa.

The bad news. The “brass” is one molecule thick on these babies. If you rub them the wrong way with your thumb, the brass will disappear.

Other bad news: On some corner braces the countersink for the screws is on the wrong side of the hardware. These braces are supposed to be used on inside corners. If you have a countersink bit, this problem is easy to remedy.

The bottom line: Don’t buy the “brass” ones. Buy the steel ones and make them gunky with a combination of gun blue, flame and urine. That will give them the grunge they need to look sweet.

I plan to make a lap desk or small chest using these braces – after they have been given a golden shower and the torch (just kidding about the pee-pee). They really are not as bad as I thought they would be. And at less than $1 each, it’s hard to complain.

— Christopher Schwarz

One of the workbench problems I’ve yet to solve is what you should do if you don’t have a dedicated place to work.

I’ve seen lots of portable, fold-up benches, but none that I thought were worth building. I’ve seen many vintage plans for workbench tops that are supposed to go on top of your kitchen table. But again, none inspired me enough to take up a saw.

Yesterday a reader sent me a link to the photo above. Damn. I don’t have time for this, but I just might have to build that thing and see how it works. It’s just too ingenious (and crazy) not to build.

If you are still a bit confused, the photo is showing the underside of the portable benchtop. The two clamps at the top of the photo attach the rig to a worktable. The whole thing is 1-5/8” thick, 9-5/8” wide and 31” long – smaller than I assumed when I first saw the photo.

Here is why this is clever/crazy enough to build.

1. The face vise. You have two screws and four holes. You can move the screws around to clamp whatever you have at hand. It’s a double-screw, it’s a shoulder vise. It mows the yard.

2. The dog holes. Despite the fact that the holes are deep into the assembly, they are still near an edge. So you could still use fenced planes with this benchtop – a big plus in my book.

3. The wooden wagon vise. That’s just cool.

What are the downsides? My biggest concern is the weight combined with the cantilever. I imagine that you have to clamp this to a pretty stout table or a fixed countertop. Even so, I wouldn’t want to mortise over a portion of this bench that was unsupported.

The example is for sale at this Australian tool auction site. So if you live in Australia and buy it, drop me a note about how it works. The auctioneer’s description says it’s of “Scandinavian origin,” so if you’ve seen one in Europe, drop me a line. I’d love to learn more about this gizmo.

— Christopher Schwarz

Despite the photo above, you do not need two benches in your workshop. I have two benches for the following reasons:

1. The cherry workbench belongs to Katy, my 11-year-old.
2. I have to take lots of photos and video during a typical day, and being able to shoot from both sides of the bench makes my life much easier.
3. Taking photos while using my daughter’s bench protects you (the sensitive reader) from having to see lots and lots of photos of my rumored buttocks.

Several readers have asked about my favorite specifications for a second bench, so here they are: Don’t make one. But, you might ask, won’t a second bench be better for assembly? No, a second bench will only gather crap. Instead, make your only bench longer and assemble stuff on that. Or assemble on your sawbenches.

Right now I have a third workbench, as well, the Holtzapffel. It’s in our sunroom. I hope to move that bench onto its new home soon and move Katy’s cherry workbench up to our sunroom so she can work there – on her homework, crafts or whatever.

Then I’ll have one bench and more floor space. And you will see more photos of my backside.

— Christopher Schwarz

For those of you who don’t read my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine, I’ve just written a piece on how to make an authentic Campaign chest without spending hundreds of dollars on hardware or wood. Check it out here.

— Christopher Schwarz

One of the interesting features of Campaign Furniture is that some of it is assembled with rivets. Well, that’s what the antique dealers call the fastener.

While the brass or copper fasteners might look like the rivets found in wooden boat construction, it’s unlikely (a nice way of saying “flipping impossible”) that these pieces are riveted.

Why? Because a traditional rivet (or nail and rove) is a joint that requires access to both ends of the fastener. It works much like a clinched nail. (Here’s a description with a drawing.) With these campaign pieces, the “rivets” are put into a blind hole.

My suspicion is that these “rivets” are likely brass screws that have had their heads filed off after they were driven in. However I am keeping an open mind to other ideas that are as simple or even simpler.

This morning I installed the lockset on this folding bookcase and decided to mess around with the riveted look. I had to use longer and bigger screws to do this, so I reamed out the countersinks in the lock. Then I bored the pilot holes all the way through the case and installed the screws.

I used some old brass screws from my grandfather’s stash. Well, I thought they were brass. They actually were brass-plated steel. I found this out when I sawed off the tips of the screws and saw shiny steel instead of shiny brass. Oh well, a coat of stain should take care of that detail.

I think it looks OK. I might try building a small chest using screws and then filing off the heads.

— Christopher Schwarz

This post has nothing to do with woodworking. But it has everything to do with the way that I approach life. So if you are one of the people who appreciated “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” read on. Otherwise, there’s nothing to see here.

I don’t buy a lot of stuff. Basically, I wear stuff until it falls off of me or breaks. I still have sweatshirts, jackets and vests from high school – and I graduated in 1986. So durability is important to me. Here are some of the things I really like.

Pointer Jeans: I wear blue jeans every day. I hope to be buried in them. While there are lots of stupidly expensive domestic blue jeans out there, you can’t beat Pointer jeans. This company is almost 100 years old, operates out of Tennessee and produces outstanding jeans at the same price as the imported stuff.

I have their slim cut jeans and carpenter’s jeans. Awesome stuff. Fits great. Looks great. Wears like iron.

Red Wing shoes: You can still get good shoes that are made in the United States and are designed for real work. I have a pair of Red Wing boots that are simply awesome. The Maine company has a less-expensive Chinese line of shoes, but those don’t interest me.

American Apparel: For me, this is the Lie-Nielsen of the T-shirt world. This California company defies every stereotypical business model and produces fantastic clothing at reasonable prices. Half of my clothing – T-shirts, sweatshirts, underwear – is American Apparel. We have a retail store here in Cincinnati, and it amuses me greatly to shop there. All the employees and customers are college hipsters, except me. I don’t care. It’s comfortable, made well and well-priced.

Orient watches: Confession time. I’m a watch whore. I love mechanical watches, as opposed to the quartz battery-powered stuff. I have some old 1960s-era Hamilton watches that I love, but nothing – nothing – beats an Orient watch. These Japanese-made mechanical watches are durable, priced well and beat the pants off all the European stuff. I think they are better than the Swiss movements. Orient has a long history of making mechanical movements, and the company weathered the quartz movement while other makers shuttered their doors or switched to making digital crap.

Saddleback Leather: Pretty much everything I want in a commercial good is embodied by the Saddleback Leather company. This family-run operation makes incredible leather goods of the highest quality and at reasonable prices. My wallet, shoulder bag, laptop case and suitcase are all Saddleback. They know how to make stuff. They know how to treat customers. Enough said.

— Christopher Schwarz

Question from a reader: “I have seen websites like Mr. Follansbee’s with instructions on making these [joint stools] using absolute period techniques and tools or offers to buy one. I’ve seen stools that look (in pictures) to be authentic but which are noted as being early 20th century. So – once it had acquired an old patina – how would you know how old it really was if someone used authentic tools and techniques? Could you tell from the oak itself? Just curious.”

Peter Follansbee, one of the authors of “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” responds:

Hmmm. This is the stuff of legends. I remember reading about the Armand Lamontagne “Brewster” chair before I had ever made a chair myself.

Many years later I learned a lot about museum pieces, antiques, early reproductions and various other permutations of historic furniture (restorations, repairs, “marriages” etc). To be really comfortable making judgment calls takes a lot of exposure to period pieces – not just photographs, but hands-on time with numerous pieces. Even then, there are times when someone shows me a piece of joined furniture reportedly of the 17th century, and I am left with nothing to say. Sometimes, it just “feels wrong.”

As far as the stuff I make, how can one tell after years of use that it’s late 20th/early 21st-century work and not a 17th-century piece? I believe that dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) requires sapwood to be able to tell the approximate date that the timber was felled – and I remove most or all sapwood, because it’s not strong enough and sometimes prone to decay. A few of my joined chests have some sapwood in the panels – but you’d have to disassemble the piece to test these. If you were at all convinced the piece was a period piece, then you’d be reluctant to disassemble it to test it.

The piece’s surface finish could be tested and would probably be identified as modern linseed oil (hardware store’s boiled linseed oil with its additives, versus period linseed oil, made from flax seeds and little else). But again, you’d have to spend some money to have such tests done, and even then an argument could be made that the finish was added afterwards.

So when it comes down to tool marks, style (carving patterns, turnings, moulding shapes), wood selection and form, it takes a trained eye to evaluate a piece. My carved boxes, for instance, are easy to spot in most cases. I tend to carve the fronts and sides of the boxes, whereas most period ones I have seen are carved on the front only, with a few exceptions. I often use wooden pegs to join the box’s carcase, again only rarely encountered on period examples. These usually are nailed.

Joint stools are easier to sneak by because there’s little to go on. When we were working on our study of the joint stools that eventually became the book “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree,” Jennie Alexander concocted a method in which we could embed a coin in one of the mortises so that half of it was exposed and half was entrenched in such a way that it was clearly part of the construction process. I’m not sure she ever employed any of the proposed methods. I would need to consult our archived correspondence, and there’s no time to delve into those reams of papers. I’ll leave that to my kids.

Some of the stuff I have made for 19 years at Plimoth Plantation might cause a ruckus if it ever gets out in the antique market. There it’s used in such a manner that it shows wear and tear, develops a deep patina and even shows decay, repairs and other features common in 350-year old antiques. The pieces have accession numbers stamped on them, but so do most museum pieces. I have photographed most of my work over the years, and so one could match up my photos against a piece that might show up for sale as an antique, but that’s pretty extreme.

For an example of the kind of patina my pieces develop at Plimoth, click here.

The early 20th-century reproductions are usually easy to spot. They rarely use riven stock, and English ones would likewise not exhibit pitsawn stock…so the smooth interior surfaces of a joint stool, for example, are often a giveaway. I have seen other examples wherein the pins in the joints don’t exit inside the stiles… things like that are a dead giveaway.

For a further discussion, read this good article by Harold Sack.

— Peter Follansbee