And woodworkers have apparently taken a liking to SketchUp. You can find complete models of workshops, complete with power tools. Or a model of the Veritas Low Angle Jack Plane by Steve Maskery. Or Gidon Reid’s Lie-Nielsen Low Angle Block Plane. You can even design furniture like this entertainment cabinet by “Rommel.”

There are probably a dozen other computer programs that help you design projects, but I really like using SketchUp. I can dimension my projects and print out drawings to take to the shop. If you take the time to go through their excellent tutorials, it’s really not hard to use.

SketchUp is available in a FREE version for personal use. For commercial use and high-quality output, the cost is around $500. Still a bargain for such a useful and powerful program.

MAKING THE BENDING JIG

In building the table, I figured I would start with the most difficult part – the legs. And since the legs were to be relatively thin (1”) I decided that the strongest way to make them would be using a bent lamination technique. This involves gluing together a number of very thin, flexible strips and placing them in a bending jig to dry.

So the first step was to build the jig. I found some old exterior 3/4″ plywood left in the attic by the previous homeowner and decided to use that. Something like MDF (medium-density fiberboard) probably would have been better, but hey, “ya use what ya got,” right? Anyway the plywood worked fine.

I started by laying out the full size dimensions right onto the plywood. For a smooth arc I drove in three nails and then bent my aluminum yardstick around the nails. Next, I drew along the yardstick with a pencil. Then I opened up my compass to 1” (the thickness of the legs) and ran it along the yardstick to draw another line exactly 1” from the first, see Fig. 6.

Figure 6

Finally, I measured and drew lines on the jig perpendicular from the edge of the jig to indicate the top and bottom of the legs.

Once I had the leg drawn, I glued and screwed another piece of 3/4″ plywood under the first so that the finished jig would be 1-1/2” thick. Now I cut along the lines with my band saw, see Fig. 7. Of course I didn’t cut right on the line. I left room to sand up to the line.

Figure 7

Note of caution: You might assume that you can just cut one line and you would have a perfectly matched mold. That won’t work. The two arcs are different and you have to allow room for the leg to fit between them. So the waste (between the arcs) is actually the final shape and size of the leg. You might want to save the waste piece as a reference later.

While sanding I noticed that there were some voids along the edges of the plywood pieces. I filled these with wood putty and sanded them smooth. (This is not a problem if you’re using MDF.) When building a jig like this, the surfaces don’t have to be perfectly smooth and the arc perfectly consistent. The thin pieces of wood in the legs will bridge over small gaps, but try to get them close.

One other thing I did at this point that saved me a lot of hassle later: You’ll note on Fig. 7 above that I labeled the “BOTTOM” and the “TOP” as well as drew some reference arrows to show how the jig should fit together. Since I didn’t want a perfect arc (the center point is closer at the top of the table than the bottom), these reference lines and words proved valuable later during assembly of the laminated legs.

Next, I cut a third arc roughly 3” parallel from the outside one. This would allow a place to fit smaller clamps directly in line with where the pressure should go.

With all of the cutting done on the band saw I switched to the drill press. I drilled a series of 1”-dia. holes, about 3/4″ inside the inner form, see Fig. 8. These holes will accept clamp heads during glue-up.

Figure 8

The last step in building the jig was to screw the inside piece down to a 3/4″ plywood base, see Fig. 9. (Note: I did NOT glue this piece down. Later I wanted to be able to remove it and use it for cutting the legs to length.)

Figure 9

The only thing left to do was to wax up all of the jig parts so that glue wouldn’t stick to them. Now I usually use a little block of paraffin wax to do this, but this time I decided to try using some Pam cooking spray instead, see Fig. 10. It wasn’t such a good idea. The cooking spray came off the jig and soaked into the outside pieces of the leg. I had to use mineral spirits and do some sanding to get it all off. My advice: just coat the jig really good with paraffin before every use. (Note: Paraffin wax is available at most local craft supply stores.)

Figure 10

Continued on Wednesday, July 26th.

Creating Customer Trust

Ryobi Radial Arm Saw Recall

Porter-Cable Cordless Nailer Recall

Super Shop

Randy will be posting his thoughts soon as a regular contributing editor to WoodworkingONLINE.com

Now, I know Doug, and although he’s built hundreds of great woodworking projects, I know he’s not too handy with computers. So I asked him if he’d used a CAD program to draw them. (And wondered to myself how he’d figured out how to use it.) That’s when he told me he had used a low-tech method to design the table — a sketch on a scrap of paper and some cardboard!

Over the next few weeks, Doug is going to send images of his work to me and explain to us all how he solved some of the problems in building the table as he goes along. You’ll have to excuse a few of the photos though. Doug hasn’t purchased a tripod yet for his camera, so a few of the images are a bit out of focus and skewed to the left or right. (Especially the ones where he shows his hands in the photo while he’s taking the picture.) I hope you learn a little and enjoy this first WoodworkingONLINE construction article.

– Joel

Fulfilling a Need
One of our favorite spots to sit in our new house is in a couple of chairs that swivel completely around so we can look out on our backyard. We like watching the birds at the feeder, squirrels chasing each other around the yard, and the change of seasons. But there’s nowhere to set a cup of coffee, a cool glass of lemonade, or the morning paper, see Fig. 1 at right. So, my wife Cathy and I decided we needed an end table between the chairs.

I’ve built some other cherry furniture and one of the distinguishing features in all of these pieces is the gentle curves. The dining table (Fig. 1a) and coffee table (Fig. 1b) are made using a bent lamination technique. And on the sofa table (Fig. 1c), I cut the two opposing curved pieces out of wide cherry boards. Most of the rest of the furniture I have built follows a Shaker style and though these curved pieces are more modern, they seem to be simple enough in design that they all work together well. (Not to mention that Cathy loves the look of cherry.)

Figure 1a

Figure 1b

Figure 1c

DESIGN

I’m pretty good when it comes to designing and drawing in two dimensions. But when it comes to drawing or thinking in three dimensions, my mind usually starts spinning. (Which explains why the few times I’ve tried woodcarving have been hopeless failures.) So when I work on a complicated three dimensional piece, I usually start with a few measurements, maybe make a prototype, and then just “go for it” adjusting things as I go. That’s what I did here.

I started off sitting in the chairs with Cathy (with a yardstick in hand) and we began talking about how high the table should be. She wanted it a little lower, I wanted it a little higher. We compromised on 22”. Then we measured the distance between the chairs and figured the top should be somewhere between 19” and 23” in diameter. Given those dimensions, I quickly sketched out the “plan” on a 3” x 3” piece of scrap paper, see Fig. 2 at right. I sort of had a vision of the arch for the legs that would be similar to the dining table (shown above), but that scrap of paper was all I ever worked from on this project.

Cardboard Prototype

I started by building a prototype out of cardboard, see Fig. 3. My new General International table saw came in a very stout box and the thick corrugated cardboard was perfect for the prototype. Though it wasn’t as thick as wood, it quickly gave me a sense of the design and the size. I cut out all of the cardboard pieces on my band saw, stacking the legs up all on top of each other and cutting them at the same time. And for the top I used my band saw circle-cutting jig.

Figure 3

Once all five pieces were cut to shape, I glued the legs together with hot melt glue gun glue, Figs. 4 and 5. It was surprisingly strong. At one point I almost went with three legs, but kept coming back to four. It seemed like it would be easier to assemble them together later. (At this point I had no idea how to fasten the legs together, but something told me that if I used four legs it would be easier than three!) I’ve always wondered since then what it would have looked like with three legs?

Figure 4

Figure 5

Cathy and I couldn’t seem to agree on the diameter of the top. She wanted a bigger (23”) top and I wanted a smaller (19”) one. This is why making a cardboard prototype is great. I made a big one and a little one and we had them both sitting on the legs for a day or so. We decided again to compromise at 21”. (But what I never did tell her was that I chipped out the edge of the top on the real table when I was making it and to get a clean edge it probably ended up closer to 20”!)

– Doug

Continued on Wednesday, July 19th.

Doug’s answer was a band saw and he gave his reasons why in a seminar later that spring. Here are his reasons:

Doug: I’m often asked by new woodworkers, “What woodworking machine should I buy first?” Of course, I usually recommend to start with a table saw for the first stationary tool, and a router for the first handheld tool. They are truly the heart and soul of a home woodworking shop.

But, if I was told I could only have ONE machine tool what would it be? For me, that’s an easy one. I’d pick the band saw. Here’s why:

1. Resaw. The band saw is the only common machine tool you can use for resawing wide pieces of wood in one pass. (Resawing is cutting thicker wood into thinner pieces.) The maximum width you can resaw on most table saws is about 3-1/2”. A typical 14” band saw will allow you to resaw at least 6”-wide pieces. This is perfect for cutting book matched pieces. I’ve even resawn pieces as thin as 1/64” to use for veneer.

2. Curves. Ever try to cut a curve with a table saw? You can cut a curve with a scroll saw, as long as the wood isn’t more than about 1” thick. And I’ve had some bad experiences with handheld jig saws. The blade tends to wander and bend. The band saw is the perfect tool for cutting curves in all kinds and thicknesses of wood. And by changing the blade to a narrower width, you can make very tight turns. I can cut a radius the size of a pencil eraser with a 1/8” blade, and can actually make a 90° turn with a 1/16” blade on my band saw.

3. Stretches the Imagination. I consider the lathe and the band saw the two tools in my shop that allow me to be creative. Most other tools (table saw, jointer, drill press, etc.) are designed to cut or drill only straight lines. You are limited to working with designs that are built around straight, angled, or beveled lines. Or building some kind of a mold (such as when bent laminating) to produce curves. The band saw is much more free flowing. Lines can be straight, angled, curved, or any combination of those. I recently visited a gift store and saw a wide variety of band-sawn boxes. They were all made by the same craftsman – and all were very different. The famous woodworker James Krenov once wrote: “Of all my machines, the band saw has done the most to help me use wood the way I really want to.”

4. A Precision Tool. Most people consider a band saw a rough-cutting tool. They would say it’s a “get-it-close-enough” tool that must be followed with a lot of sanding, filing, or planing. But most of these people probably haven’t spent the time to tune up their band saw. Using the right blade is the first trick and making sure it’s very sharp is the second. If it’s tracking straight and positioned correctly in relation to the side guides and thrust bearing, a band saw can be a very accurate, fine-cutting tool. Creeping the fence over a hair will trim just the tiniest bit off the thickness of a tenon. Or sneaking up on the final fit of a dovetail cut on the band saw is pure pleasure. For me, it’s a much more controlled cut than I could get with a hand saw or chisel. In some ways, it’s a “motorized hand tool” that allows you to be intimate with your work.

5. Does It All. Probably the main reason I would take my band saw with me on the deserted island is quite simple: It does it all. There isn’t another machine tool in the shop that crosscuts, rips, resaws, cuts curves, bevels, miters, joints, cabriole legs, cones, collapsible baskets, marquetry, and with the addition of a jig will cut a perfect circle, a duplicate to a pattern, and a whole lot more. You can’t do all that on a table!

So, if my shop ever catches on fire, my band saw on its mobile base is the first thing you’ll see me grab on the way out the door!

For some reason, a lot of woodworkers are only interested in completing a project as quickly as they possibly can. I know I was that way at one time. Then I’d jump right into the next project without taking any time to enjoy what I was doing.

But since then I’ve taken some classes and gotten a lot more comfortable using hand tools. Now I like to slow down the process and enjoy the simple act of cutting a chamfer with a hand plane or sawing a taper on a table leg with a rip saw. I asked Paul about his feelings on this subject.

Joel: What is more important for the home hobbyist/woodworker — experiencing the journey or reaching the destination?

Paul: The question presupposes an either/or answer, when in reality one is as important as the other. You see, work in and of itself should be as enjoyable and rewarding an aspect of life as anything else we do, especially as it takes such a large segment of it.

When you feel that your work is essential to your life, there is a heightened sense of consciousness that undergirds the whole of your endeavor to establish true and substantive skill, regardless of whether you are an amateur or a professional.

Regardless of whether your work supports your family with finances or you build things for the needs of your family and friends, the actual doing of the work should always have a sense of rest in that even though you look forward to a project’s completion there is also the sense that you don’t want to, in any way, short-circuit the journey and lose the sense of fulfillment in each of the steps that bring completion.

In years past, woodworkers worked with wood because it was essential in support of their daily life and so it gave meaning and fulfillment to them. Modern definitions of words like hobby, pastime, amateur, and novice, may convey negative connotations when the probability is that these terms are the result of an innate desire to experience meaning through our work. Our culture has in many ways dumbed things down to make trivial what was once acceptably noble.

I know many highly skilled amateurs who make the most exquisite furniture, musical instruments, and so on, yet they are considered amateurs because they didn’t have some type of official training or certification, or they don’t do it for a living.

They do it for the joy of participating in the craft. For me the issue is a unique blending of all aspects of my life’s call to be a craftsman. It seems increasingly difficult to find people who experience true contentment in their work. Those I have found mainly work quietly with their hands and see work as a privilege.

This week, I asked his opinions about craftsmanship.

Joel: Inexpensive, mass-produced furniture is everywhere these days. Is there still a need for the kind of craftsmanship your school promotes?

Paul: What you say is true. Today, most furniture is mass-produced in factories. All too often a mass-produced piece sells for a price similar to what most individuals might pay for the wood alone.

Competing With Mass-Production

People often tell me that small woodworking companies cannot compete with the type of furniture production that comes from factories, and in one way that’s true. But this statement assumes that the only way to view this is from an economic perspective. In my own case I’ve spent the best part of my life earning my living as a full-time woodworker. Until we began the Homestead Heritage School of Woodworking in 1995, I worked in the shop next to my house, making everything from small kitchen items to furniture.

I have enjoyed passing on my skills to my children and being with them through their growing years. Part of their education was to develop craft skills that included woodworking. I don’t know if they will find their vocation as woodworkers, but they now have woodworking skills sufficient to build fine, hand-built furniture, musical instruments, boats or whatever else can be made from wood. Best of all are the memories I have of working in the woodshop with them during their formative years.

They will be able to build heirloom pieces for the rest of their lives, if that’s what they want to do. Another benefit has been in teaching dozens of other young people on every level from raw beginner to advanced to work with wood. Many are now woodworkers in their own right; some are amateurs, and others earn their living from it. The list of benefits would be too long for the space we have allocated.

The Demand for Highly Crafted Items

But to respond to the question, it is my opinion that there is still a market for fine, hand-built furniture, and so my answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. Most people want to buy the best they can for the money they have available to spend. Some are forced by circumstances to buy the best they can with the little money they have, especially when they first get married. For others, money may not be an issue.

I think that many people know quality when they see it, even though they may not be able to afford it. I see many people in this category. They see hand-built furniture as a good investment, believing that it will last for generations. I have known people to save until they can buy what they want, rather than buy something inferior that they all too often regret because it is made from pressed fiber board to poor standards of workmanship. Custom designing pieces is a service that appeals to many of our customers. They come to our show room or look through our portfolio and will usually connect with the craftsman who will actually make their piece. They can leave it all to the craftsman or stay in touch with progress reports throughout. We now have long-term relationships with our customers that span twenty years.

Not only do we teach woodworking here at the school and other venues, but our background is furniture making and design too. When our craftsman teachers are not in the classroom, they are in the shop building hand-built furniture that sells to individuals throughout the USA. All of these pieces are truly hand crafted in every sense of the word; many of them we design personally for our customers.

Moreover, custom designs are a mainstay of our furniture making business. Many people are looking for something unique in that they want something designed and built that will last for several generations; they want real wood and a quality that bespeaks the integrity of the men that made it. That’s hard to find in today’s world of high-tech mass production.

I’d like to know your experiences. Have you ever bought lumber online? Was it S4S or rough? Did you have any problems? Were there shipping issues? What was the quality?

I’ve got a poll going on WoodNet.net. Check it out and tell me about your experiences.

Buying Wood Online

Paul is also a published woodworking author and is working on a book about hand tools and how to use them. He builds custom furniture for sale and some of his most distinctive pieces, like this Rocking Chair, sell for thousands of dollars.

Paul trained as an apprentice in England as a young man. He gained valuable experience using a combination of hand tools and power machinery, that he feels is sorely lacking today. In fact, Paul feels so strongly about the lack of educational opportunities for young people, especially in the woodworking field, that he thinks it has had an adverse effect on our lives. As he says, “… we’ve reached a crisis point in woodworking for children that sometimes I think it is irreversible.”

I used hand tools exclusively during my class at the John C. Campbell Folk School, and firmly believe that without the week-long hand tool foundational class that I took a few years ago at Homestead Heritage, I would not have gotten nearly as much from the chairmaking class as I did.

Paul and I were trading emails recently and got to talking about how most woodworking schools are all about power tools. I asked him why he felt that laying a foundation for learning to use hand tools was so important? He has strong feelings about hand tools that go beyond his desire to teach their usage, or his ability to attract students to his woodworking school. The following is his thoughtful response to my question:

Joel,

Hand Tools Versus Machines

First, let me say that I was trained in a well-balanced apprenticing workplace for five years using hand tools and power machines. I’d never seen an all-power woodworking facility until I came to the US.

Here I discovered that almost all of the woodworkers I came into contact with worked with machines only, albeit scaled-down versions of industrial models. I was shocked when I saw the mental and physical contortions woodworkers went through to develop and use jigs and guides to perform even the simplest woodworking tasks, like recessing a door hinge or cutting a dovetail, and when I considered the hazardous effects commonly associated with long term exposure to machine use; personal injury, wood-related diseases caused by machine dust and the physical discomfort of wearing protective equipment for ear, eye, nose, throat and lung protection, and also hours of wasted shop time.

I found this type of woodworking to be the norm rather than the exception, yet I’ve met thousands of fellow woodworkers who, had they had the opportunity to apprentice in some way, would have developed more substantive skills of craftsmanship working with hand tools. With no one to teach them the basic fundamentals of using hand tools the only remaining option was to embrace machine woodworking. Most woodworkers that I have met, whether amateur, semi-professional or professional, love working with wood, no matter what skill level they have attained. I then saw that, in the years that changed the face and the dynamic of woodworking, each successive generation knew less about true hand craftsmanship and more about the industrialized methods.

Even in public schools machine-only methods took over, and so the latter then lost all connection with the former. Incremental changes over several successive decades, so-called advances in technology, led to a complete disconnect, severing those unique relationships intrinsic to mentoring craftsmanship. With no context to engender the kind of care it takes to produce accurate and fine handwork, many of the methods craftsmen once relied on to create masterpieces must now be relearned and even rediscovered.

Most of those interested in woodworking today would naturally believe that all of the traditional methods, skills and techniques were improved on by better engineering and therefore that the machine replaced those methods with something better, but that’s not the case. Hand tool methods were never abandoned because they didn’t work; they work extremely well. They were abandoned because they didn’t keep pace with the whole process of mass-market technology industrializing a society. In that process there was no place for developing the creative, intuitive aspects of true and substantive craftsmanship.

Hand tool woodworking demands a relational, experiential approach to gain the essential knowledge a person needs to work with wood successfully. I find that inspiration comes through personal discovery. Yet, in the wake of this industrial “evolution,” such forgotten knowledge now lies buried under successive layers of so-called industrial progress. Yet for the main part, at least ninety-five percent of the over two thousand woodworkers I have personally taught, who I believe represent a good cross-section of the woodworking populous, had never successfully sharpened a chisel or used a hand plane until they learned it here at Homestead Heritage. Once they did, it was like a fresh awakening, and a whole new and expansive world of woodworking possibilities opened up before them.

Children and Machines

An unfortunate byproduct of this whole development, one of the things we fail to balance in the equation, is the reality that woodworking has now become an adult craft. Children must now wait until they are more mature physically and mentally to cope with the industrial substitute and its mass of related equipment. No one can responsibly put a child between the ages of 6 and 16 on most modern-day woodworking machines. No matter how many safety guards you place and procedures you enforce, children do not belong in an industrial shop, even if it’s now disguised in a domestic situation like the garage or home shop.

Leaving children out of the shop until they attain the necessary maturity is to the miss the narrow window of opportunity that for most of them may only come once. The best years to learn any craft are between the ages of 10 and 20 years. That’s when all of the synapses come together. That’s when the senses are the most acutely aware and children are the most receptive. It’s through this type of exposure that vocational calling becomes a reality. Vocation, from the word vocal or voice, originally meant to answer a calling. Few young people today will find such a calling in woodworking, and to me it’s no wonder since most children today will never work with wood in any real way.

Simple skills and hand tools once commonly used in home and school workshops are all but gone. Yet the very methods that I’m talking about, the pre-machine era methods, were ideal for training young people to strengthen their character and work with their hands.

Touching the Senses—Communication

Unlike machine woodworking, hand tool woodworking methods touch all of the five senses. They demand your complete attention but in the most positive sense of the word. By its very nature, woodworking with hand tools by necessity requires that you fully engage in the whole process because you now supply all of the power, give direction to the course of the tool and, by what you see, feel and hear, determine all the necessary micro-adjustments to use the tool to its optimal level according to those senses. That’s what the senses are for. The machine, on the other hand, also needs focused attention, but it’s a different kind of attention in that now your main focus is on personal safety and concern for your material. One slip and a finger or even a whole limb can be lost or at best your board may be kicked across the shop by one of those 3hp motors.

Power equipment relies on two things: speed and force. High revolutions to drive the teeth or cutting edge of the blade and the fact that you are always pushing directly in towards those cutting edges mean that there is the constant risk of injury. Two dangers exist that accompany machine use. One, when you do it long enough, admittedly you gain confidence, but then you also run the risk of becoming complacent. Two, all too often new woodworkers are self-taught when it comes to using woodworking machinery, they have no experience and no relational working knowledge of the inherent dangers associated with machines to relate to. I’ve learned a hundred times more from the minor injuries and near misses I’ve had than I ever did from someone telling me of the possible dangers or simply reading about them.

When a man works with machines, much of his thought time revolves around personal safety on every level. On the other hand, when he works primarily with hand tools, he rarely thinks about it.

As I said earlier, unfortunately it’s the young people of this present-day culture that have lost the valuable links to the past. Dust masks, ear and eye protection, sensors, guards and fences, dust extraction and so the list goes on are now the norm and of course all are necessary by-products of industrialism. They are essential to the personal and public safety of others and the well-being of modern-day woodworkers the world over, regardless of age. For me though, because I’ve mastered certain basic hand skills, wearing such safety equipment is only necessary for a few hours per week. But the machine-dominated woodworker must wear such equipment throughout most of his working day if he wants to minimize potential health risks and hazards that may well be long-term and even irreversible.

In the final analysis, you see it’s not simply a question of efficiency and economy, but more a matter of fulfillment and quality of life. I want to encourage others to preserve the best of the past and combine it with the good things of today, so that they complement one another. I have found that hand-tool skill is so intrinsic to fine woodworking that much of the finest woodworking ever accomplished was done so without the use of any machine. Stradivarius violins and cellos are still considered the finest ever made, and timbered intereriors of massive cathedral roofs with dozens of yards of finely crafted decoration to the most exacting of standards were carved centuries ago.

Another key issue with machine woodworking is the reality that all too often machine woodworkers never fully experience the personal relational knowledge only possible through using hand tool methods. Not only are all species of woods different, but so too the grains within the species vary from one board to the next, and even within each board. By working so closely with the grain and fiber of the wood, a certain understanding of the wood begins to develop that cannot be gained any other way. Working the wood with hand tools gives the most direct contact, and by working the wood this way, feeling the response of the tool to the wood through the tool as an extension of your hand, you gain the knowledge and understanding I am talking about.

As you work the wood fibers with hand tools, you find yourself in a constant state of awareness, yet at the same time unconsciously micro-adjusting the course and direction of the tool’s cutting edge in a minute-by-minute symbiosis only possible by the discipline of using hand tools.

Conclusion

Having said all of this, many might say that I advocate hand tool woodworking only and that machines should be abandoned for the old ways. That’s far from true. In my shop I use power equipment, particularly for dimensioning the wood, ripping, surface-planing and so on. Yet, most of the actual crafting of a piece of furniture is done by hand, and because I can use hand tools, planes, scrapers and so on, I no longer need to sand with coarse-grit papers, which then reduces my sanding by about 80%.

Furthermore, because I hand planed and scraped my surfaces to be free from machine saw and planer marks, I can hand sand without using any mechanical sander. I no longer have to wear a dust mask, ear protection, eye protection and so on. If you never learn to master sharpening and using a handful of tools, you have only one option. I am thankful that I can make the choice most woodworkers don’t have.

Paul

John Olson, who is in charge of both the cabinet shop and the blacksmith shop at the “Farms” mentioned one time that he had a shave horse and drawknife that he uses on occasion to make chairs. When he explained that he takes the shave horse outside and sets it under a shade tree, especially on really hot days, I knew that was for me! The only problem was, I’d never used a shave horse to make chairs.

That’s where the Folk School came in. I did a search for green wood chairmaking and the Folk School had a class at the right time and the right price. It was also in an area of the country that I’d never visited and it allowed me to stop in Berea, Kentucky on the way down. Berea is the home to a couple of well-known woodworkers, including Kelly Mehler, Warren May, and Brian Boggs. I also wanted to visit the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. The Grove Park Inn is an historic Arts & Crafts-period lodge that’s filled with original Stickley, Roycroft, and Limbert furniture. It’s one of the top resort hotels in the country.

The class itself turned out to be a lot more interesting than I’d hoped. The class was held in the woodworking shop, an old stone building with a large front porch. One section of the shop is filled with Oneway lathes (the lathes will soon be transfered to their own new building) and another small area had 6 or 7 workbenches. All of the shave horses are out on the front porch and this is where we did most of the work on our chairs. First thing Sunday night, right after supper, we got together to sharpen and learn a little more about the tools we’d be using.

Well before the class began, we’d been informed of the tools we’d need to bring ourselves — including a draw knife, a half-round spokeshave and a couple of mortising chisels. We were also told that a few of the tools that the school owned were in short supply, so if we had them, to also bring our sharpening stones, brace and bits, dowel pointer, hollow auger, back saw, mallet, ruler, skewed knife, and flat-bottomed spokeshave.

I already owned most of these tools, but I had no idea what a dowel pointer and hollow auger were. So, I got on ebay and did a little shopping. I managed to find some good deals, and before I knew it I owned enough 1860′s version tools to fill a large tool box. The only thing I didn’t have was the tool box!

So I decided to build one. I used plans for an Heirloom Chest that was published in Workbench magazine. It’s not exactly a true-to-period tool box, but it met my needs, plus it was quick and easy to build.

After learning how to sharpen our draw knives and spokeshaves, we started the week by quartering and riving the Oak logs. If you discard the outer early wood (or sap wood) and the inner pith, a single four-foot length of log provides enough green wood for one chair — if you’re careful. Lyle Wheeler, our instructor, explained that building chairs was easy. “…All you have to do is start with a log, and then cut away all the parts that ain’t a chair.”

Lyle uses only veneer-quality red Oak logs for his chairs. (As he put it, “Life it too short to dance with ugly women.”) Knots and twisting, turning grain can make working with green wood extremely difficult. So it’s best to use 8 to 10 foot logs that have concentric growth rings that are about 1/8″ apart. Luckily, Lyle had already rived most of the parts for our chairs. We actually practiced all day on Monday by building the parts for a couple of foot stools that will be auctioned off in August.

Once you’ve rived the parts for your chairs, you’ll end up with enough rough stock (billets) for 3 long and eight short rungs, two front posts, and two back posts. All of the billets are square, except for the four top rungs which are rectangular shaped.

The next step is to make the rung billets round. Well, actually the next step is to make them “octagonal,” or eight sided. We used the draw knife to do this. Once you have it octagonal shaped, you take it down one more time by making a sixteen-sided (deca-hexagonal!) billet. Then they’re shaved into round using a half-round spokeshave. This handy tool has a concave-shaped blade for easy shaving of round stock. As long as you’re not shaving against the grain, it’s pretty simple to make a round piece of wood. The secret is to not over-do it and to keep rotating the billet in the shave horse. Remember, you want a round billet, not one that’s oval.

The gallery has some good shots of some of the shaving process. That’s Lyle in the bib overalls. Oh, and that’s me with my finished chair. I’m looking forward to setting up my shave horse underneath a shade tree out at the Farm.

More next week, Joel

How exactly did this flame-haired, mustachioed Looney Toons outlaw come to be associated with hand tool aficianado’s? That’s a mystery I’m not sure I want to know the answer to! Where ever it came from, we “Galoots” are proud of our moniker. I guess I’m a galoot. I spent quite a bit of time, leading up to my visit to John C. Campbell Folk School, buying all sorts of 19th century vintage tools at flea markets, auctions, and on ebay. I now have a tool box full of brace’s, center bits, hollow augers, dowel pointers, draw knives, spokeshaves and such.

I own a few old Stanley metal-body planes, Disston hand saws, card scrapers, and chisel sets. The one thing I don’t have is a nice shoulder plane. That might change soon though. ShopNotes magazine has a great article coming out in their latest issue on how to build a double-dovetail version. The issue should be in your mailbox soon. For the price of a couple of pieces of brass and steel sheet stock, a Clifton 410 replacement iron, plus a few hours in the shop and you’d be in business.

Now I’d like to be able to afford one of the Holtey A7 planes, but at around $5k, I’d be afraid to use it! So what about you? Are you interested in building your own hand planes, or do you prefer letting the experts do it?

Joel

Roy Underhill is their God … a Lie-Nielsen Toolworks catalog their Holy Book … shops without electricity their Shangri-La … and making paper-thin shavings with a hand plane their Nirvana.

Here’s this week’s best Woodworking Hand Tools thread.

Warren assembles and tunes the instruments though in the small shop that’s located right in the showroom of his store. He’s been making his furniture and instruments since 1977. Some of the most beautiful Dulcimers are made with native poplar, which kind of surprised me. Warren makes no attempt to hide the early wood in his instruments. He even takes advantage of flaws like knots at times.

The other stop that I made in Berea was at Kelly Mehler’s woodworking school. Located in a secluded area outside of Berea, Kelly invites other skilled craftsmen and women to his school to share their expertise with his students. I arrived in the late afternoon on Friday. Kelly and his assistant were just cleaning up after a week-long class on basic finishing with Teri Masaschi.

Kelly’s shop is full of light thanks to several south-facing windows. The downstairs portion of the shop is the machine room. And upstairs is where all the hand work is done. Kelly prefers using multi-use European woodworking machinery in his shop, the main reason being the safety factor.

By the way, to make sure he’s there, Kelly prefers visitors call ahead to make an appointment to visit his school during the week. I have a feeling the next time I call Kelly, it will be to sign up for one of his classes. Maybe if Brian Boggs has a chairmaking class next spring!

Located just a couple of hours away from Asheville, North Carolina; Greenville, South Carolina; Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee; and Atlanta, Georgia, the school seems to have no problem filling classes that ranged from photography to blacksmithing to organic gardening during the 5 days that I was there. The school holds (primarily) week-long workshops focusing on handicrafts, music, nature-studies and Appalachian culture on a year-round basis.

Brasstown is nestled in the incredibly beautiful southern Appalachian Highlands, way down in the far southwestern part of North Carolina. Just to the north is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway are nearby as well, so it’s a great place to take a vacation.

As school director, Jan Davidson puts it, “The Folk School was founded in 1925, a collaboration of two progressive educators and an Appalachian community. Olive Dame Campbell, Marguerite Butler and the people of Brasstown set out to create a unique institution that seeks to bring out the best in people.” Based on the “folkehojskoles” (folk schools) of Denmark, it was named in honor of Olive Dame Campbell’s husband, John. He wanted to establish a school in the rural south that would bring people together rather than sort them out. Unfortunately, he died in 1919 before he had a chance to do so.

Wanting to fulfill John C. Campbell’s dream of starting the school, but realizing that they could not impose their ideas on the mountain people, Campbell and Butler eventually developed a genuine collaboration with over 200 residents of Cherokee and Clay counties who pledged labor, building materials, land and other support in getting the school started. The result is a special place that offers “… unique non-competitive educational experieces, as well as a combination of rich history, beautiful mountain surroundings, and an atmosphere of living and learning together.”

The class that I attended, “Ladderback Chairmaking,” was taught by Lyle Wheeler. When I signed up for the class, all I knew was that we would attempt to build a red oak ladderback chair frame using the same tools that craftsmen used in 1860. At the start of the week, we took what was essentially an oak log and turned it into a chair using post and rung construction, with hand-cut, green wood mortise & tenon joinery.

There were six of us in the chairmaking class, ranging in age from the mid-20s all the way up to the mid-80′s. Once the log was quartered and rived using a froe and maul, all the chair parts were shaped on a shaving horse with a drawknife and a spokeshave. Hollow augers and dowel pointers clamped in a brace were used to form the tenons. And a brace, bits, and mortise chisels were all that were used to cut the mortises. Our instructor, Lyle informed us of the history of the trade with interesting anecdotes throughout the week. We discussed green woodworking techniques, and Lyle gave us a demonstration of splint bottoming. It was hard, hot, and physical work, but very satifying.