Final report on Maine, May 2012

well, my head is spinning. I got back from my Maine trip a few days ago…so still unpacking, sorting and trying to get back in the swing of things at home & at the shop. Here’s a recent panel carving:

But I’m distracted in several different directions. One is Doug Stowe’s long run of excellent posts about education. This is a pertinent subject, my kids are heading for first grade next fall…and we need to figure out how we want that to play out. Anyone got a winning lottery ticket to spare? Doug’s stuff is really thought-provoking – here’s one from today: http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-american-schools-should-look-like.html

Last week he beat me to the punch reading the NY Times, Doug posted a link to this article that I had flagged: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/opinion/sunday/lets-be-less-productive.html?_r=2

As I said earlier, the Maine trip was great – I always have an excellent time at Lie-Nielsen, this sign is something I did for the classroom there:

and got lots of birding in,

waxwing in apple tree

osprey

yellowthroat

common yellowthroat

and more waxwings

saw old friends, etc….

but the certain highlight of the whole trip was two hours I got to spend with Bill Coperthwaite.

Bill Coperthwaite

Showing the crooked knife:

I have mentioned here before, but now will again, that Bill’s book A Handmade Life is one of my absolute favorite books. Period. I keep one at home & one in the shop. I don’t know of a book I have read more.

I had visited Bill’s house in 2004, but he was on his way out of town that day. Here’s some photos from that trip:

a detail:

So last week, I planned ahead & got to visit a bit before I hit the road back to Massachusetts. Bill & I have a lot of mutual friends, some of whom were my major wood-working influences. We talked of knives, axes, puzzles, friends, Sweden, England, the lack of corners in his house, and on & on. I can’t wait to get back to spend some time making shavings with him…it was so inspiring.

More photos from 2004:

one more – these were in October that year, but May was equally beautiful:

here’s links to read more about Bill and the Yurt Foundation

http://www.herondance.org/reflections/bill-coperthwaite/

http://www.yurtinfo.org/theyurtfoundation.php

 

such a long, long time to be gone…and a short time to be there.

I’m back from a great trip to Maine.

Rockport, ME

 

Then, because there’s nothing like raking light…I kayak-ed into an Edward Hopper painting – (thanks, Ted D.)

lighthouse trip

 

here’s my best shot of the week:

best of about 700 shots

 

Here’s a link to some shots from the Lie-Nielsen workshop. As always, folks there were great.   http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150825497703016.396964.100708343015&type=3

 

more stuff from Maine, and more woodworking to come. Home now for 5 or 6 weeks. whew.

 

 

 

 

 

birds

The Carolina wrens outside my shop are now feeding four chicks – so there’s lots of activity there. Also, a red-tailed hawk interlude, then early this morning, Marie & I made our annual trek to Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, where we stalked the worm-eating warbler.

 

joined chest work

I have not had much action here on the blog in recent weeks – but I have been woodworking. Just haven’t got photos shot, and most of my posts stem from photos. Slowly I’ll get back in the swing of things; but it is May, that means birding gets much attention…

I have been carving a bunch of oak for some joined chests I am building – here’s a detail of the outline for one panel.

 

carving underway

This chest is pretty small – about 40″ wide across the front. Here’s the frame, test-fitted, with one panel to go.

frame test fitted

This chest has been here in process - http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/scratch-stock-moldings-2/

At the same time I am making an all-carved chest; here is its front frame cut & fitted, with a side frame begun -

carved chest

This chest has also made an earlier appearance:

http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/joined-chest-progress/

http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/carving-a-wide-muntin/

See – that’s the trick about the blog. I tell the whole story eventually, but not in sequence. I’ll save doing it in order for a book…

I’ve been reading some blogs lately too – Rick McKee keeps making the carpenters’ blog from Plimoth better & better http://blogs.plimoth.org/rivenword/

and I don’t miss a post from Louise either http://louiselangsner.wordpress.com/

Education is a big issue in our house these days too – so I try to keep up with Doug Stowe – but he writes a lot, and it’s all  very good stuff. http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/

this past winter, Doug included a great clip of a lecture by Roy Underhill – pardon me for swiping it – but here goes. It’s long, 18 minutes, but you have 18 minutes. watch it. Roy is teaching many disciplines in this clip – some you don’t even notice.

 

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits

This tool chest business is pretty much making me unbearable at home. Thanks, Chris….just what I needed.

tool chest finished I guess

 

I spend my days fooling around in the workshop, essentially playing. My wife is home, chasing the two six-year olds around; trying to keep the hearth & home intact. And I come in, telling the kids to get their crayons organized, “you should put them back in the box when you’re done…” “then you’ll have more room..” so on.

Then I turn on the kitchen – “these measuring cups should be sorted & organized…” or “how can you find anything in here?”  ”Why do you keep this in here???”

a big hit.  Right.

Mark Twain said “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits”

carving tools in trays within trays

I made removable trays for my carving tools, so I can bring the small trays to the workbench. they sit in the sliding trays inside the chest, then can easily come out to carve with.  It’s taking some getting used to, but it seems like it might be a smooth move…

removable trays

at the bench:

tray at the workbench

In theory, I can then shift different tools into the sliding trays if & when I need to work from a different set of tools…but I don’t see me w/o carving tools as my primary gig.

Here’s a few carvings I worked on today.

today's carvings

 

One is a box front.

box front

and some stiles for a joined chest.

detail stile's carving

The other day, I did the center panel for this joined chest I have underway.

chest front detail

If you want to tackle some of these carvings, get up to Lie-Nielsen later this month; the weekend of May 19/20 I’ll be teaching a class in carving a number of this sort of design… here’s the link. http://www.lie-nielsen.com/?pg=35  _ there’ll be good birds in Maine by then…but I promise to make it to the shop on time… If you can’t make it, the DVDs cover similar material http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?grp=1320

While waiting for the warblers to get up here to New England, I shot a couple of swallows the other day - a tree swallow

tree swallow

 and a barn swallow

these guys rarely sit still, so I was lucky to find them.

 

 

the Woodwright Experience

the Woodwright's Shop

look where I was last week.

I have had very good fortune in my woodworking career – great teachers, friends, projects. All I could ask for…

One of the top highlights has been the chance for the past 10+ years to work on occasion with Roy Underhill. Roy saw my shop at Plimoth one day on a scouting trip he made through New England, looking for ideas for his show. I remember getting a phone message at work – “Roy Underhill called you” …”yea, sure” says me.

It’s hard to express the impact Roy’s books and shows have had on my work. I remember being in my early 20s, having just met Alexander & Langsner – and the green woodworking world was pretty small. Having found a television show about it was astounding…I remember watching the first couple of seasons on my lunch breaks at my part-time picture-framing job. I used to go to the local pizza joint & change the channel to see the show.

Years later, I ended up working in the living history museum field – and lo & behold, one of the books that addresses some of the challenges in that work is also by Roy – Krushchev’s Shoe: and Other Ways to Captivate an Audience of 1 to 1,000  (http://www.amazon.com/Khrushchevs-Shoe-Other-Captivate-Audience/dp/0738206725/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1335301008&sr=8-3)

So whenever I’m at a symposium, lecture, woodworking shows, etc where Roy is also on the bill, I try to make sure I get to see what he’s up to. It’s always worth seeing. Great teacher, presenter, lecturer, also can do woodwork – except he hasn’t finished a project in 32 years! Still worth it.

Last week, we had great students from many parts of the country, they had come a long ways, set aside time from their busy lives, all to let folks like Roy & I get to do what we love to do – share our ideas about furniture & woodworking.

students carving

another

learning to hew

more

many shavings

Ed Lebetkin’s store upstairs continues to swell w tools… if he doesn’t have what you’re looking for, he’ll probably end up with it soon.

tip of the iceberg

 

partial view of the whole iceberg up there. If you’re looking for something in particular, write to Ed  at edlebetkin@gmail.com

 

partial view of the whole iceberg

 Here’s a drawing my son Daniel did after watching an episode where Roy & I made spoons. To the right behind me are the finished spoons that were propped up for viewing in that episode. As well as a bunch of blocks that Roy brought in to make spoons from, behind him:

The episode is here, # 3108  http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/video/3100/index.html 

So if you have not yet made it to Pittsboro, NC for a class at the Woodwright’s School, put it on your list. It’s getting better all the time. http://www.woodwrightschool.com/

I feel that being a part of his Woodwright’s School is truly an honor, a real highlight in my career. Thanks for having me Roy, it means a lot to me.

BUT – here is the real kicker from the week down south: 

barred owl

 

yardbirds

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, the other morning I shot this great blue heron in my pajamas….

I first visited this house about 13 years ago; and looked out the window & saw this view:

 

It was summer, not the early spring of that photo – but on the riverbank is a pole standing upright – and on it at that time was a kingfisher. Found one there the other day too

Kingfisher, female

Today my wife called down from upstairs, “there’s an egret in the river!” – so I bopped my head out the window, and all I could see was a yellowlegs – I can never tell if they’re greater or lesser yellowlegs…

yellowlegs

So I kept yelling upstairs, “it’s not an egret – it’s a shorebird” …then the egret strode into view.

It was here all day; even stayed for lunch

Another view (I took all these pictures, got to do something with them)

Every year I re-tape the stick to the pole that’s driven into the bank.

 

I’ll get back to posting some woodsy stuff. I have lots of ideas lately just not much time. Off to Roy’s soon, & there’s always something going on there.

 

 

 

 

 

box class coming up

nailing box bottom

OK – I have a week to get ready. I’m off to Roy Underhill’s place; the Woodwright’s School in a week or so. I have some white pine boards for box bottoms & lids; and a load of tools to sharpen, sort & pack.  http://www.woodwrightschool.com/

And a lesson plan to cook up – so I will re-read this article.  PF_box_articl  (the top banner of the blog now has a few pages from my now-deceased website, including the one that says “online publications” or something like that. That’s where this box article was recently buried…)

It might help me, I haven’t made any boxes from start to finish  this winter; so I am a little rusty.

The bar in the back of the school is no threat to me, but Ed’s shop upstairs is – I need more tools like a hole in the head, but I’m sure I’ll  go up just to see what’s there…

Then we have to come up with a television scheme or two.

And I have to get some birding in, Roy tells me the Louisiana waterthrushes are back at his place.

 

revisiting a well-known collection

Over the years I have been very fortunate to have access to lots of original examples of 17th-century furniture to study & learn from. Museums & collectors have been very gracious with their time & collections so I could get an education.

Last week I revisited for the umpteenth time the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT. Among other things, this museum is home to the furniture collection assembled in the early 20th century by Wallace Nutting. Nutting worked a lot of his furniture over; and had a mentality and approach that is easy to criticize from 90 years’ perspective. Regardless of where one stands on the Wallace Nutting situation, the collection has some great stuff in it.

One piece is this long joined table – it’s the piece I went to see. Here is a lousy overall of it.

Salisbury table, Wadsworth Atheneum

The top is by some thought to be new; Nutting’s book says it’s the old top, removed, replaned and now screwed onto the frame…I couldn’t decide one way or the other – but didn’t spend too much time worrying about it either.  All the framing is riven; and the top  is two flatsawn oak boards joined together. It might be that we expect the top boards to also be riven, quartered stock; but at 7 feet long, it’s just beyond the limits of practical working lengths for riving boards.  Some square tables from the period have riven boards making up the tops, but these are less than 4′ long usually. One’s at Wadsworth. 

Here is the carving that runs along one long apron.

carved guilloche Salisbury table, Wadsworth Atheneum

and some of the details of the turned work -

turning Salisbury table, Wadsworth Atheneum

I noted the scribed line struck across the squared section – at first I thought it marked the location for the mortise the brackets fit into - 

scribed line, Salisbury table, Wadsworth Atheneum

but then I found similar marks on the lower end of the stiles. I think this scribe line marks the spot where the craftsman started turning the square-to-round transition. So this becomes one of those tiny details that always help with my work in the shop. I won’t scribe every turning this way now, but sometimes I will, knowing that it’s “period-correct” in at least one case.

I have a mental & somewhat photographic collection of these small technique/habit tidbits from period joiners. This is the kind of detail that’s hard to get without access to the original artifacts. That’s why I always try to include these sort of shots on the blog – because I know it’s not really feasible for the curators to let all of the woodworkers traipse around these collections, wreaking havoc wherever we go…

Most of the American furniture collection is in storage these days, as the museum works on a huge expansion project. I got to stroll the aisles and saw some old favorites while I was there.

This Thomas Dennis chest is Nutting’s books, but it was not part of the Nutting collection. It belonged to one of the Hartford collectors – Goodwin, I think. The lid is new, early 20th-c.

Dennis chest, Wadsworth Atheneum

First thing I noticed this time with this chest is the very slight set-back for the panel grooves – the panels are only recessed a minimal amount; it seems the stock is riven quite thin, so Dennis adjusted how much he set the groove back from the face of the framing.

carved panel, Dennis chest, Wadsworth Atheneum

 

We opened the chest up & the inside face of the chest’s rear section has moldings decorating it, a nice touch. Doesn’t take much time to add this sort of stuff, and it makes things look snappy…

interior moldings, Wadsworth Atheneum

 

The rear outside is barely worked at all with a plane. Many riven surfaces; virtually nothing flat back there at all.

And then the Thurston/Houghton stuff from Dedham & Medfield, Massachusetts. To me, these chests are always charming in their simplicity.

Dedham chest detail, Wadsworth Atheneum

A little bit of carving, basic framing & some scratch moldings. This one has been painted in the last few decades to mimic an old painted surface – a related one in a private collection had backgrounds painted w lampblack pigment, and the surfaces worked with either logwood or brazil wood dyes. ..so bright red with black behind. Another thing to try at some point.

As in most of the Dedham chests, this one has scribed lines to mark out the joinery right across the framing…

A great many thanks to Alyce Englund for her time & attention.

 

some bowl turning

I have been splitting & planing some red oak – but not at any joinery stage with it yet. In the meantime, I have been turning some bowls from the sycamore tree that I gathered some material from recently…

turning sycamore bowl

 

Here is a detail of the hook working the inside of the bowl. For someone used to turning furniture parts, it was quite a revelation that the action happens BELOW the centers!  Here’s a link to a photo of the hooks http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/bowl-hooks-i-use/

cutting the inside

 

I always tell folks I am not a bowl-turner; but a joiner who sometimes turns a few bowls. It’s great fun, I have been using it as a warm-up exercise in the morning, then doing bench work afterwards… A few of the bowls. These will dry in the shavings until they stabilize. By then they will be distorted; just the way I like them.

For a real bowlturner, so see Robin Wood’s stuff.  http://www.robin-wood.co.uk/