on & on about hatchets

Whew. I’m just back from a week of riving, hewing, planing & carving as seven students & I made oak boxes from a log at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, ME. Also one wicked croquet game, followed by an incredible juggling demo. It was a good week. 

CFC

The students quickly learned the benefits of hewing, mostly once they realized that it meant less planing.

Who knew new hew

Which brings us again to hatchets.

Pretty much the number one question I get is where can I get a hatchet like the one in the book Make a Joint Stool from a Tree. http://www.lostartpress.com/Default.asp 

my everyday hewing hatchet

Well….I don’t know. So a couple weeks ago, Chris Schwarz was visiting my shop & we shot a short piece about how you can use several different configurations of hatchet to remove excess stock. Here’s Chris’ video

 

 

This prompted some discussion in the Lost Art Press blog…some offering that the Gransfors Bruks company makes a single-bevel hatchet, which they call the Swedish Carving Axe. BUT my memory of that hatchet is that it’s not really a single-bevel hatchet. It’s designed in part by Wille Sundqvist, a great inspiration to many of us; but Wille doesn’t make flat stuff like what I use in joinery. My suspicion was confirmed, it is a double-bevel hatchet with bevels of different lengths. Hhere is the description from GB (thanks to Joe Olivas for chasing this down & sending it to me)

“Gränsfors Large Swedish Carving Axe
The Gränsfors Large Swedish Carving Axe is used for woodworking and shaping wood. The axe has been developed in collaboration with master craftsmen Wille Sundqvist and Onni Linnanheimo, with inspiration from old designs. The Large Swedish Carving Axe has a relatively long, curved cutting edge which is double-sided as standard. The axe is also available as a special order with the edge ground specifically for right-handed or left-handed carving. The right-handed Swedish Carving Axe has a broader, straight rather than convex, bevel face on the left side of the edge, if the axe is held in the right hand, and a shorter, straight bevel face on the right side of the edge. The left-handed Swedish Carving Axe is the same but in reverse. The broader, straighter face, on the side nearer the wood, provides excellent support when carving. The handle has an uneven surface, giving good friction for a firm grip.”

I like their tools, but it’s not a single-bevel hatchet. Further, Drew Langsner points out on the Country Workshops page that the GB carving axe needs some work on the bevels for accurate hewing. http://countryworkshops.org/Axes.html This fits with the GB description above in which they talk of special orders with one long bevel and one short bevel, both of which are straight, not convex.

(Drew’s choice of words is “flat” not straight. It took me a minute to know what GB was talking about.)

The point of the video Chris & I shot was to offer that you don’t absolutely have to have a single-bevel hatchet to prep stock for joinery. It makes things easier, but you can do it with a double-bevel hatchet too.

I have several hatchets. The large, German ones I like best for joinery stuff, i.e. making flat boards.

hewing

The small double-bevel ones I mostly use in spoon carving, but they can serve to hew flat faces too.

it can be done

The large Wetterlings I got from Lie-Nielsen is also for hewing, but when I have a lot of stock to remove. (I don’t find it on their website, but it’s in their showroom…write to ask about it http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?cat=558 )

Wetterlings from Lie-Nielsen

 

 

If you have only one hatchet it might be best to get a medium-sized double-bevel hatchet like the Hans Karlsson one Country Workshops now carries. I use mine all the time…Then keep looking for a single-bevel one.

 

Some are interested in the small Stanley hatchets that Jennie Alexander modified by grinding the “back” face down to a single-bevel. Maybe we’ll hear from JA on how that was done…here’s the tool:

JA modified hatchet

JA modified hatchet

 

I know there’s a single-bevel hatchet made by Ox-head. I have never used it, but saw it one time & it seemed a bit off to me. It looked like it had a secondary bevel on the flat side, but not big enough to actually be a bevel, just large enough to keep it from working like a single-bevel hatchet. Does anyone use one of these? I’d like to hear from you if you do. Send me one to try & I’ll send it back to you…

a recent post about the hewing hatchets is here: http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/the-hatchet/

 

further riving details

I got another note from Drew Langsner this morning; here it is.

riving shingles in Japan

Hi Peter,

Here’s more on riving. This photo is of a gentleman who demonstrates riving shingles at Hida Folk Museum, near Takayama City in the Japan Alps. You can easily see that he’s been doing this for hundreds of years. He is riving chestnut.

  It’s not shown in this photo but he will often rive a billet into thirds. Here’s the technique. He starts a split 1/3 of the way across the width. Shortly after the froe enters the billet he removes the froe. He then drives it half way in the remaining two-thirds of the billet. Immediately the froe is removed, replaced into the first opening, and driven down some. Then removed and replaced back into the second split. This continues until one of the side boards pops off. Then he finishes riving the other piece into halves. Very neat trick. I think the chestnut makes this somewhat easier than other woods because it is more bendy and therefore doesn’t pop apart as fast as a wood like red oak.

  Also note his riving brake. I’ve been riving wood for shingles, chairs, fencing for 40 years now but had never seen anything like this. The brake not only holds the wood in place. It also puts pressure (tension) on the outer side of the curve and this causes the fibers along the curve to come apart as the split opens up. 

  

One other trick. The master warms the wood over a small fire before riving. In winter this defrosts it. But I think that all year around it makes the wood a bit more bendy.

  

The froe is almost identical to the ones we use. 

    

(Photo by Drew Langsner from the 2010 Country Workshops Japan Craft Tour)

Thanks, Drew. We’ll see more about the CW froe soon.

 

a note from Drew

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while. Some time ago, I wrote a post for Lost Art Press about some riving technique that we described in the joint stool book, http://www.lostartpress.com/Make_a_Joint_Stool_from_a_Tree_p/bk-majsfat.htm but we only illustrated it with a diagram from Eleanor Underhill. After the book was out, I had some oak I was splitting for joined chests, and used the technique. Got a photo – so that is now captured in Lost Art Press’ archive…here’s the link:

http://blog.lostartpress.com/2012/03/29/breaking-the-riving-rule/

The kicker is that in working the book, Jennie Alexander & I settled long ago on various snippets of phrasing that we used in workshops & our own communication. One of these is “Always split in half.” It’s almost a maxim for riving. The gist of it is that if you split off-center, then the weaker/thinner section will bend, and the split will do what we call “run out.”

Then Drew sent me a note about that post & that maxim. For those of you who don’t know him, Drew Langsner is, to my mind, the unsung hero of green woodworking. Since 1978 Drew has run Country Workshops, one of the most mis-named woodworking school going. www.countryworkshops.org

There, students have learned ladderback chairmaking, Windsor chairmaking, timber framing, coopering, bowl & spoon carving, Japanese woodworking, basketry, log-house building and other topics I have forgotten. Through it all, Drew has been refining & exploring his ideas and thoughts about how simple tools and wood interact. ( I have no decent photos of Drew – he takes most of them down there, so he isn’t often in them…)

Here’s what he said about my riving post -

“…But I don’t think it’s a rule to always split in half; there’s various of times when other patterns make more sense…grid splitting for turnings, off center splitting for trimming excess, doing what you’re doing in the photo, going slightly off radial to show off the rays. On really nice oak I’m wondering if you can make a riving that’s more like a board that was sawed just away from the pith. I realize it won’t have the perfect growth ring pattern. But if you found it in a pile of lumber I almost bet you would use it. If there’s a rule it should be to use your brain and your experience…I think.”

So there, use your brain & experience. I agree with Drew. I have seen him use some finagling so he could manage to squeeze out “extra” pieces from an oak, not wanting to waste the tree. His experiences with riving are vast. If you don’t already get the Country Workshops e-newsletter, sign up for it. There’s often great stuff there. see them here: http://countryworkshops.org/newsletter/newsletter/newsletter.html

Go take a class there. Louise’s cooking is worth it alone, but the woodworking is great too. http://louiselangsner.wordpress.com/

These days, Drew’s woodenware seems to be reaching back to his art background, sort of functional sculpture. http://www.drewlangsner.com/. If it weren’t for Drew, I’d be somebody else. That’s all there is to it. And I wouldn’t know who Thelonious Monk was…

 

forget the oak, there’s food to be had

If you have read my blog for a while, then you have heard me go on about Country Workshops, the school in western North Carolina for woodworking classes. I have been a student there since 1980, and sometimes an instructor these days.

up towards the workshop

I can’t say enough good things about the place, and its keepers, Drew & Louise Langsner.  If you are not familiar with CW, then try the website to learn more about it www.countryworkshops.org

hatchet & plane work

In their newsletter today was an item that just about knocked me out of my chair – Louise has started a blog about her cooking. I have often joked that the woodworking is just what we do there to kill time between meals. If you’ve been there, you know what I mean…

 

So if you like good food, and/or cooking take a moment to catch up on what Louise is up to… here with her friend & swimming companion, Smoky Joe.

http://louiselangsner.wordpress.com/

Nice goin’ Louise.

 

what are you doing this summer?

What are you doing this summer? Me, I’m driving a bunch, and flying some…

Country Workshops

 I have two classes in North Carolina this year, the first at Country Workshops from June 20-24th. I’ll be returning there to teach making a carved box again. Last I knew there were still maybe 2 spaces left in this class. I’m very partial to Country Workshops; it’s where I learned much of the woodworking that I know. It’s always a great experience there…Other classes there this summer include two courses in chairmaking, coopering, carved bowls & spoons and Carl Swensson’s Japanese Woodworking… I’ve ranted & raved before about what Drew & Louise Langsner do there, now for over 30 years. Have a look here:  http://countryworkshops.org/

hatchet & plane work

Then I’ll scoot home, work a bit, then go back down south in July for a class at Roy Underhill’s Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, NC. This time it’s a joined stool. Lots of mortise-and-tenon work, after we split & plane the stock from a red oak log. It’s my first time at Roy’s new school & I am really looking forward to it. He told me today there’s 3 spaces left, so if you’ve been thinking about it, get crackin’.  http://www.woodwrightschool.com/elizabethian-joint-stool-w-pet/

joined stool

There’s other demo/lecture type things this year, but these are the only hands-on classes that I’ll be doing in 2011. I just wanted to let folks know that there’s only a few slots left at this point – so if you’re thinking about it…think no more, sign up!

 

walnut high chair carving

Today was the day for carving the high chair’s back panel. I decided on a design that I know well, removing one variable in the project. I didn’t want to learn a new design while carving a new wood too.

 The panel is pretty small, about 9” wide by 10” high; so I had to adapt the design to fit the space. To get to that point, I decided to draw it in chalk; ordinarily I would just scribe a centerline on the panel and start carving…too chicken with the walnut. I have only a little extra wood so wanted to get it right the first time.

chalk outline & V-tool work begun

The pattern I chose is from the Devon, England group of joinery, also seen in Ipswich Massachusetts, c. 1660s-1700. I have gone over carving this stuff a number of times here on the blog and in print for Popular Woodworking Magazine (June 2009). One thing about this design is there is very little background to remove. Lots of detail, but lots of leeway too…here it is in oak.

in oak

 

All I had to do was translate oak-ish techniques so they would succeed in walnut. By now I had enough of an idea how to get that done. The V-tool work proceeded as usual. Maybe a little less oomph with the mallet, but otherwise just cut most of the outlines with the V-tool.

I used hand pressure to incise some of the detail shapes, where in oak I would just strike them once with emphasis to cut the shape. To achieve this, the movement comes from the lower body, rising up on my feet, & coming down with my weight.

hand pressure

Then I snuck up on them removing wood just outside where I relieved things with either the V-tool or hand-pressure & gouges.

removing background

Once I had carefully cut down all the limits of the background, then I took out the waste areas. I did all this work with hand pressure, where I would mostly do it with the mallet in oak. Some of this stuff is covered in detail in the DVD I did last fall with Lie-Nielsen; for instance, the position of my hands on the tools, and bracing the forearms against the torso for stability. Beginners often miss the idea of how to hold the tool, and where the cuts come from in your body…I learned a lot of that stuff when I was a repeat student at Country Workshops many years ago. It has stayed with me throughout my woodworking career, and that’s why I stress it in any instruction I do.

Then some shaping, beveling etc to finish out the pattern.

shaping with bevel up

Some punchwork on the background and accents on the panel itself completed the carving. Then it was time to cut the panel, and bevel its back edges to fit the grooves in the frame. I would use a hatchet on oak for the gross removal of stock, but again, chickened out in walnut. It does plane quite nicely, so this was easy work. I just held the panel in a wooden bench hook to plane the bevels.

bevelling back of panel

Then test-fit. Next time some arms, finials, and seat. And carve the faces of the stiles. And make the rear stretcher. Oh, I thought I was almost done.

test fit

next

next

starting to look like something

For more on this type of carving, I’ll be out & about a few times teaching carving & demonstrating in 2011.  Some details are already available, others to come. I’ll do a carved box workshop at Country Workshops in June  http://countryworkshops.org/Joinery.html

I’ll also be at the Northeastern Woodworkers Association Showcase in Saratoga Springs this March 26 & 27. http://www.nwawoodworkingshow.org/information.htm

In October I’ll be at Woodworking in America, not sure they have their details up yet….

Roy Underhill’s place in July, for making  a joined stool. http://www.woodwrightschool.com/elizabethian-joint-stool-w-pet/

I hope to do some Lie-Nielsen events, just haven’t figured out where/when yet. The video is previewed here

and their site is here http://www.lie-nielsen.com/

 

re-sawing walnut

When I am working in the shop regularly, it’s easy to come in each morning pretty much pick up where I left off the day before. Winters I work sporadically in the shop – so sometimes the continuity is broken up a bit. Plus I try to do some of my own woodworking in this season, stuff that doesn’t fit in the 17^th- century work, like the Welsh chair I have underway lately. So lots of back-and-forth.

 Because there’s sometimes a lag between sessions in the shop, I like to plan some physical work to start off with each time. Usually it’s just the simple act of hewing & planing some stock like the other day’s post about oak. Recently though, I warmed up by resawing some of the stock for the walnut high chair. I have some 1” thick stuff set aside for the carved back panel and the seat board. One inch is too thick by a long shot – it would make the chair too clunky. So I set out to re-saw the stock into ½” thick pieces. I don’t do a lot of this, but just now & then. I used a regular old rip saw for this job, but one I have just filed a week ago or so. I decided to use the modern cabinetmaker’s bench with vices to hold this stock for sawing. I could use a holdfast to secure it on my joiners’ bench too.

resawing walnut

 Resawing like this is simple in concept, and pretty tough in practice. I marked a line all around the edges of the board with a sharp marking gauge, scored deeply to really define where I wanted to saw. Then I set the board in the vice, with one corner pointing up. My first cuts run across this protruding corner, sighting down the edge nearest me, and across the end grain of the board. I’m not trying to cut all the way across the end grain, just starting to let the saw ride in an ever-lengthening kerf. After a time, I flip the board around, with the other corner jutting upwards.

on & on

Now I work down the opposite edge, and bring it across the end grain. Within a few minutes’ sawing, the kerf now is connected across the end grain. At this stage it’s a matter of extending the kerf down the edges of the board, flipping it one way then the other. I guess the way this works is that the edge nearest you is the easiest to see, so you watch the saw come down that edge, while guiding it through the already established cut on the end grain. Rather than run the saw down the edge across from you, out of your sight, you take the board out of the vice & flip it around. Gives you a moment to catch your breath too.

board now upright

 

After I have sawn down both edges a bit, I set the board upright in the vice. Now the goal is to saw out the little apex between the two triangular areas you have already sawn. For this bit, the saw is held with its teeth parallel to the floor. Then it’s back to angled cuts, back & forth, until you extend the kerfs all the way down the board. After a time, I put a wooden wedge in the top of the kerf to keep it from closing on the saw.

wedging the kerf

As I got near the end, I had to keep aware of the vice now pinching closed what I was trying to open with the saw. It’s human nature to saw harder & faster as you get closer to the end, but that ain’t the way to go. I try to work more lightly as I get near the end. For the last bit that separated the halves of the board, I took the piece out of the vice and propped it on my chopping block to make the last cut.

Here’s the end result. I then took these and stacked them in the shop with spacers between them – even with dried stock; it pays to wait when you’ve opened something like this. Weird tensions can be released. Better to find them out before I stick this stuff in the chair.

resawn panels

I’m no expert sawyer, but manage sometimes to get it right. I spent about 30-40 minutes sawing this peice, including running back & forth to the camera for photos. The panel is around 12″ -14″ wide x about 24″. It’s not like it’s pitsawing http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/pitsawing/

 

next step on the Welsh chair (not Windsor)

While I have been taking some shop time this winter for the extra-curricular chair that I started, I have relied heavily on Drew Langsner’s The Chairmaker’s Workshop for details on making one of these chairs. But the inspiration for Drew and for me is really rooted in Wales. John Brown’s book Welsh Stick Chairs is a beautiful little book. If you like chairmaking and don’t know this book, I highly recommend it. A couple short essays about the history of the Welsh stick chair (I’ve been calling mine a Windsor, and Brown must be rolling in his grave) and about John’s background and how he came to be a chairmaker. I never got to meet him (he taught at Country Workshops twice I think… I had hoped to make his first class there, but had a niece’s wedding I couldn’t skip. I don’t know what happened the 2nd time.)

The bulk of the book is a photo essay of John making a high-back chair in his small shop. Very simple tools, and pretty deft techniques. I often think a book like this is preferable to a how-to book; it’s like lo0king over his shoulder while he makes his chair. Both Drew’s book and John’s are available from http://countryworkshops.org/books.html

planing tapered oak legs

Here are my legs being tapered at the bench. These were stock for joined stools that got rejected for one reason or another, and will make perfect tapered oak legs for this chair. Once I have planed them into squares, I sit the foot of the leg in a “joiners’ saddle”  – a small block of wood with a large V-notch cut in it. This automatically puts one arris up in the air, then I shove the top of the leg against the bench hook, and start planing the facets on it. Keep rotating the leg, and shaving each corner til you get an octogon, (not a hexagon as Brown says in his book – that’s an error.)

joiners' saddle

Later, I was working the seat again. Here I am spokeshaving the edges after having trimmed them earlier to define the outline. Mine’s an old Stanley 151 spokeshave. By the time the real souped-up spokeshaves were available, I was no longer really a chairmaker, and as a joiner I rarely use a spokeshave. This one works OK; if I did a lot of work with a spokeshave, I’d look at the new versions.

shaving seat's edge

spokeshave detail

This project is something I am trying to fit in around my regular work, but so far I have managed to get the bulk of it to move along. Now I gotta go searching around for some stock for the arms. I have plenty of ash & hickory leftovers from turned chairs for the spindles.

 

extra-curricular woodworking – Welsh style chair

I was out of the shop for the past week or so. When I have a bit of a hiatus like that I like to start back up with some physical work to loosen up again. Yesterday I chose a long-waiting extra-curricular project to warm up with. A few years back, I saw this chair made by Drew Langsner when I was teaching at Country Workshops.

Drew's Welsh chair

It’s the first Windsor chair I have really wanted to make in many years, after having first seen them in John Brown’s book, Welsh Stick Chairs, then I saw some old ones on my first visit to England in 2000.

Back in the 1980s I made lots of American style windsors; but left that work behind for joinery. But I knew when I sat in Drew’s chair that I wanted to make one or two for the house. There’s plans for it in his book The Chairmaker’s Workshop, so I generally based the one I started on the seat plan in the book. I had an elm plank that was nearly perfect for the seat. I made a cardboard template for the seat’s shape, and marked the positions for spindles and legs. This ain’t joinery, so those that know me might be surprised to see pencil lines – but they really help in boring these compound angles.

boring spindle holes

spindle boring detail

I bored most of the spindle holes, but a couple I wasn’t sure of the angles (from Drew’s book it looks like the angles are for the high-back version of this chair). So I left a few to be bored once I have the arm bow made & test-fitted.

 Next up was adze work. I clamped the seat in between bench dogs on my #2 bench, the German one with vices. Standing on a plank to raise myself higher, I worked mostly across the grain of the seat with my small curved adze.

adze work

detail adze

This tools works well, I used it a lot this summer making hewn bowls. Jogge Sundqvist taught me to swing or pivot it from the wrist, while ‘throwing” it too. I followed this tool with a curved drawknife, called an inshave. I have one I bought many years ago, it’s OK but not a great tool. It’s just that by the time good inshaves were available, I was getting out of Windsor chairmaking.

I have a small hollowing spokeshave I use to clean up the inshave work.

hollowing spokeshave

progress thus far

And that’s as far as I got, about 2 hrs all together, to make the template, mark the seat board, bore some of the holes and begin shaping the seat. It’ll take some more hollowing to finish the seat off, then comes cutting the shape. So it took 2 or 3 years to get started, but now my new Windsor chair is finally underway. Hopefully I’ll get some time to keep it moving along.

See   http://countryworkshops.org/books.htmlfor Drew’s book, & I think they have John Brown’s back in print too.

 

lectures, demonstrations and workshops

I have a bit more travelling to do soon. First off, a lecture at Historic Deerfield, as part of the symposium in a couple of weeks:

“The Full Splendor of Beauty and Grace”: Design and Proportion in Early American Architecture and Furniture;  November 12, 13, 14, 2010. 

Details are here: http://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/full-splendor-beauty-and-grace-design-and-proportion-early-american-architecture-and  There I will present a talk about design, layout and proportion. Hmmm. I guess I should put that together soon.  I’ll have to include this shot, it’s of a piece in their collection.

carving detail

 

Next month, I will go back down to Maine to demonstrate at the Lie-Nielsen open house in Warren, ME. http://www.lie-nielsen.com/?pg=1 here’s some video they shot at one there in July. http://www.youtube.com/user/LieNielsen#p/u/8/2nbt_L4Cr2c

And then there’s a few things are already on the calendar for 2011. Among them are The Woodworkers’ Showcase in Saratoga Springs; March 26 & 27th, 2011.  http://www.nwawoodworkingshow.org/

And I’ll be back at Drew & Louise Langsner’s Country Workshops to teach a class in making a carved box in the Spring. June 20-24th  http://countryworkshops.org/Joinery.html

up towards the workshop

hatchet & plane work

There’s more, soon to be announced.