This post originally appeared on Peter Follansbee’s blog, Joiner’s Notes. Reprinted here with permission. I read last week that chairmaker Dave Sawyer passed away. I never knew him, but I felt very connected to his work through our many mutual friends. Over the past ten years or so I’ve been working on this idea in …
Indexer Suzanne Ellison was browsing this week through the 1570 “Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi,” a huge six-part book documenting the recipes Scappi cooked for cardinals and popes. And she turned up these interesting plates featuring some early furniture forms straight from the Middle Ages and “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” Check out the staked tables …
Staked, Boarded and Folding Furniture from 1570 Italy – Read More »
The most infectious hand tool I own is a 3/16” beading plane that has a permanent space in my traveling tool chest. Nearly every woodworker who uses it becomes possessed by the entirely sane desire to own one (or three) for their work. However, finding a functional antique beading plane in the wild is difficult. …
An assortment of JP chairs built between 1880 and 1900. If you’re a vernacular furniture fanatic, or you live in Tasmania, you may already know what a Jimmy Possum chair is. If you’re one of the other 7.4 billion people on earth, buckle up and read on about my journey to Jimmy Possum: an unbroken …
or…watch Nancy Hiller morph into Basil Fawlty A peaceful view over the hills from the garden at Standen, just the kind of thing you need when you’re ready to tear your hair out I take copyright and permissions protocols seriously. It’s a simple matter of the Golden Rule: I write and design stuff, and if …
I never solicit reviews of my work. In this business, that is called “logrolling” – I’ll pretend to enjoy your book if you pretend to enjoy mine. Most of the crap on the backs of books is logrolling. Ignore it. When we get an honest review from someone who has taken the time to really …
New Review: 'The Joiner and Cabinet Maker' – Read More »
Editor’s note: Please note you are entering the Chair Chat area, a place full of naughty language, toilet humor, bad dad jokes, inappropriate musings, infantile jokes, plain bad jokes, very ugly chairs and many other things that can harm a to a not-yet-fully developed brain like a child. We again rate this post PG13, because …
Chair Chat No. 23 with Rudy and Klaus: Paddle Supports – Read More »
When I teach classes about handplanes, the climax is a contest where we see who can plane a 3/4” x 6” x 12” board to perfection – both to the try square and to the eye. Last year at one of the classes, one of the young students in the front row took the contest …
During the Lost Art Press Open Wire, a reader asked if I would post a video on how I turn tenons. I’m not a fancy turner, but I can make a respectable tenon. When I make a bunch of chair parts, this is how I prefer to do it. Here are the tools shown in …
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