Make a Joint Stool at Roy Underhill’s July 15-19

Well, now it’s April, which means it’s practically May. Might as well be June, which makes me wonder what you’re doing this summer.

What you could do is come to Pittsboro, North Carolina to make a joint stool at Roy Underhill’s Woodwright’s School. http://www.woodwrightschool.com/elizabethian-joint-stool-w-pet/

Out at the mill, we’ll split out an oak, and get to use a lot of wedges, hatchets and other big tools.

splitting oak w wedges

hewing at the mill

Maybe the owls will come out to watch.

Roy’s barred owl

Next, we’ll take the pieces into the school’s bench-room in town and get to planing.

If we make enough shavings, the Bag Man appears.

lots of planing to do

the Bag Man

Mortise & tenon joinery, drawboring, chamfering (turning for those full-tilt crazies) – it’ll be like the book come to life. I don’t remember what’s in the book, so I’ll be making it up as I go along.

chamfered frame

pole lathe practice

There’ll be tools galore, I’ll bring mine, Roy’s school has tons, then there’s Ed’s store upstairs!

If you wanted to know about green woodworking, then a week with me & Roy ought to do it. It reminds me of Twain’s quote about Kipling: “Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known, and I know the rest.”

 

Seriously, it’s a great week there. if you are interested in learning the craft of oak joinery with old-style tools, here’s your chance. My box-carving class at Drew Langsner’s is full, with a waiting list – so this is the only other week-long class I have this summer. Unless you’re in Germany in June! http://www.mehr-als-werkzeug.de/course/KU1631301/Carved-Box.htm

So get going. Get over to Roy’s website: http://www.woodwrightschool.com/elizabethian-joint-stool-w-pet/

get goin’

 

half a pair of joint stools

half a pair

I have two joint stools to finish to go along with a table and joined form I am making. For the seven-foot long table top I opted for quartersawn white oak. So I made the tops of the stools and form from the same material. Yesterday I planed the board for the stool tops. I kept it at double-length to make handling it easier while I planed it flat and dressed the thickness. I decided to keep it that way while I ran the molding too.

 I trimmed it to width, then dressed both faces and trued up the edges. I then crosscut both ends and marked out the middle where I eventually would crosscut it in two.

 I marked out the 7/8” wide thumbnail molding spacing with a marking gauge along both long edges. Then I followed the steps I outlined in the joint stool book for making the molding; a rabbet plane (in this case, a filester) to begin to define the depth, then bevelling off the shape with smooth plane/jointer. I fiddled a little with a hollow plane like what Matt Bickford does; I had the rabbet, then I chamfered that, then ran the hollow a bit. It was just a bit shy of the right size, and was not perfectly fettled. So it served to further rough out the shape, but I still did the final definition with the smooth plane.

filester filetster plane

hollow plane

 

shaping molding

I ran this molding along both edges, then did the two outside ends. Here, I marked the width with a knife and square, rather than a gauge. Then cut it apart and finished each seat with one more molding. Usually I do the end-grain moldings first, but in this case it was worth reversing that order.

quartersawn stock

The wood is amazing quality; clear, wide and perfectly quartersawn. Air dried. The next best thing to riven. I then finished shaping the seats, and bored one & fit it on the stool. Just like in the book…. http://www.lostartpress.com/Make_a_Joint_Stool_from_a_Tree_p/bk-majsfat.htm

boring & pegging

 Now, fresh on the success of “Riven Cedrela” I have the phrase “half-a-pair of joint stools” ringing in my head like “four-and-twenty blackbirds…” so stay tuned. It could be my first nursery rhyme. 

 

17th-c joinery & carving at Port Townsend School of Woodworking

Workshops and classes take a lot of planning; and it seems now that schedules are planned further ahead than ever before. I have been asked about summer of 2014 already…

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If I am to get out west, (real west, not Connecticut) then it’s time to get cracking. I have two classes planned at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking.  http://www.ptwoodschool.com/Home.html  I’m really looking forward to getting out there, and meeting Tim Lawson, Jim Tolpin and others…But…I need students to make it happen. So, if you are out left, and want to learn some funny, old-timey joinery and carving – it’s time to get to it. If I am to see some western birds, then let’s get serious. 

joined stool, chamfered not turned

Port Townsend WA

http://www.ptwoodschool.com/2013_woodworking_schedule.html

http://www.ptwoodschool.com/joint_stool_from_a_tree.html

http://www.ptwoodschool.com/17th_century_carved_panel.html

The dates are April 22-26 for the joined stool class, and the following weekend for 2 days of carving, April 27-28.

opposing lunettes

carving underway

reproduction 17th-century furniture

 

Will I see you there? 

To read more about the school, here’s what Schwarz said some time ago, http://www.popularwoodworking.com/article/woodworking-at-the-end-of-the-world

 

Lively up your stool

The joint stool book has been out a while now, so once you’ve digested  your copy  http://www.lostartpress.com/Default.asp go get at some oak & let us see what you came up with. Hopefully summer will let go soon, so the heavy work of busting open a log won’t seem so daunting. I know I have cut back on what I have tackled during the heat & humidity…

Here is a stool sent in a while ago by Larry Barrett:

Larry Barrett joined stool

 

side view

Here’s what Larry had to say:

“Hello Peter and Jennie
Attached are a few photos of joint stools, carved boxes and chairs – all made thanks to things I have learned from you both, either via your new book, Peter’s blog, or classes with Jennie.  I have a good sized black (or maybe red) oak and a chestnut oak on the ground so there may be more to come.  Thanks again,
Larry Barrett”

We’re thrilled to see this sort of work = so keep them coming. If you are working your way through the joint stool book, send me some stuff. we’d love to see it.

 

If you don’t want to carve your stool like Larry did, and you need to liven it up, get out the brushes. I had an ash stool frame hanging around the shop for quite a while, and last week I put a sawn white oak seat on it, and then set about painting it. Here’s the initial result

 

 

The first step was the black squiggles and dots, then a thin coat of iron oxide mixed in linseed oil went over that once the black was dry to the touch.

Here’s one example of the inspiration for this, a painting by Judith Leyster, early 17th-c in Netherlands:

Judith Leyster painting

 

Another is this painting by Nicholas Maes:

Old woman saying grace

 

 

 

Make a Joint Stool from a Tree…soon

Today is February 25th, the Lost Art Press website says that free shipping on orders of the joint stool book end on February 27th.

So if you haven’t ordered the book yet, and want to save a few dollars …order in the next couple of days.

http://www.lostartpress.com/Make_a_Joint_Stool_from_a_Tree_p/bk-majsfat.htm

then go get a log…

scoring the end grain

 

if you want to read more from Alexander & Follansbee…now’s your chance

I was looking through some old correspondence between Alexander and me; from 1991. In it, we mention that such-and-such would be good for “the book.” Slowly we were assembling what we thought we knew about joinery techniques, all with the plan to publish it as “Make a Stool from a Tree” – drawing on the title of Alexander’s 1978 chair book.

Things happened. 1994 I got a job, both a blessing & a curse. then later I got married. A blessing. Then later still, twins. double blessing.

And the book got shelved a number of times. It was always on-going, but might sit for a year or two sometimes.

And I am glad it did. things happen for a reason, and last spring, I was in Saratoga Springs, NY where Chris Schwarz & I were roped into judging of a bunch of woodworking entries in the big show there…it went on for hours, & they didn’t feed us.

Turned out to be  a good thing. Off we went to some great pizza joint, where Chris was to meet Matt Bickford to pitch Lost Art Press to him for a book…while we waited, Chris pitched to me too.  So all those years, turns out we were waiting for the right publisher to come along.

The book is ready for ordering now, follow this link to Lost Art Press. Free shipping on orders between now & Feb. 27 http://www.lostartpress.com/Make_a_Joint_Stool_from_a_Tree_p/bk-majsfat.htm

I’ll have more to say about it, & so will Chris on the LAP blog.

 

one more view of the scrolled stretcher

I meant to include this view in the previous post.  http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/joint-stools-carvings-and-other-joinery-stuff/

 

so here it is. better late than never.

detail, scrolled stretcher on kid's joint stool

OK. that’s it.

 

Joint stools, carvings and other joinery stuff

Chris wrote about the stool book the other day; http://lostartpress.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/drawboring-in-make-a-joint-stool-from-a-tree/  our end of it is winding down now. I made several stools during the course of shooting photos for it. Often I just needed a detail of one process or another; so the last two were a couple of shorter joint stools just to use up some random stock  Here’s one of them:

 

child's joint stool

 

This one has carved aprons – I often have carvings laying around, having done them as demos or instruction. I think one rail was just that, then I made the others to match.  Watch this blog for some unexpected uses of carving patterns.

The other night I watched some episodes of Roy Underhill’s show, one of which was the joint stool one we did with Megan Fitzpatrick. http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/video/3100/3107.html

I was reminded that one of the stools I took down to the Woodwright’s School last summer served multi-duty – teaching example/sample, and TV prop, then photo fodder for the book. Finally, I finished building the thing – and photographed it for real the other day.

 

child's joint stool w scrolled stretchers

 

The apron has a braid carved in it; I discussed this on the blog when I cut these rails; http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/patterns-patterns/

There is also a scrolled stretcher; I didn’t discuss this in the book. They are simple enough to do; here is a period example on a joined chair from Plymouth Colony. This chair has long since been restored; rather generically. This pre-restoration photo shows the scrolled profile on the aprons, stretchers and rear rail just above the seat.

 

Plymouth Colony wainscot chair, pre-restoration

Here, you can see the same stuff on the side rails too.

side view

 

This pattern works easily if you first cut a rabbet in the rail. Then the scroll work/chisel work is done in a piece of oak that’s half the thickness…makes sense. I bore a hole at one end of the scroll, make some sawcuts here & there, then cut out the details with a chisel and mallet. You can use a bow-saw, turning saw, whatever it’s called, or just shape it with chisels and straight saw cuts. Hmmm. Now that’s another photo essay at some point. Not this week, though…

Meanwhile, here’s a re-assigned carving -

re-assigned carving

 

 

stools and tables

joined stool, red oak

 

This is one of the joined stools I have around the house and I had it out the other day to make some notes  for the book – and Rose did this drawing of it:

Maybe she’ll be the next Eleanor Underhill.

I got a question last week about a trestle table that I made. Here’s the table first of all:

more pictures of it here: http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/trestle-table-done/

The question was about the stock, and in this case it’s sawn oak, not riven. I forget off the top of my head the dimensions of this stuff, but they are in the range of maybe 3 x 5s – something like that.  For a table with riven stock for the framing, here’s our kitchen table:

It’s oak for the framing parts, with a white pine top. The top is 2 boards, edge-glued together. Then the whole top is pinned to the stiles and rails. the top is about 41″ x 67″ and it is never really that clear of stuff.

the stiles are 3″ squares, and the aprons are 4 1/2″ high and maybe about 1 1/4″ thick,  or so. The end stretchers are thick as well, and because I used a central stretcher,  they need to be a little more carefully squared than some.  Here’s the apron and a bracket. It had brackets on the long sides, but they got in the way, so I removed them.

so there. Now you can go rive a table, it’s like a joined stool, but no angles.

 

where did that time go?

I’ ve been busy frittering away my time, (here: http://lostartpress.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/coming-soon-%E2%80%98make-a-joined-stool-from-a-tree%E2%80%99/ ) and then come to find out Woodworking in America is coming right up. And I am going to be part of it…which means I have work to do to get ready. Yikes.  Here’s the lowdown on the conference https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=23002&

I’ve started sorting through some pictures, one of my assignments is a slide talk/lecture sort of thing one evening. Some of what I like to include for a presentation like this  is  a lot of period work – I’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of access to old stuff…and I know woodworkers always like to look at furniture. Here’s a couple of pieces that are in the slides right now, doesn’t mean they’ll make it in the end. Most of these photos are by Gavin Ashworth, for the journal American Furniture.

Probably my friend Trent’s all-time favorite wainscot chair.  Most likely from Rhode Island…it’s a real beauty.

And here is a detail of the back rail/panel view – note the “tabled” panel, with its molded edges, set above the beveled section that fits in the frame.

This one is northern Essex County Massachusetts; Trent, Alan Miller & I wrote about a slew of these cupboards 10 years ago. When I saw Gavin’s photo, the central door really hit me – I had seen this cupboard in great detail, but never got the effect til Gavin lit it up. Then here’s a detail from an engraving by Sebastiano Serlio – showing a similar effect.

But my gig always has carving in it, so here’s a taste…

and me  striking a similar pattern…

Well, that’s enough for now. I have lots to do. If you’re in Cincinnati, maybe I’ll see you there.