Where I been, you don’t know…

well. I’ve been swamped lately. Just back last Sunday night from a week in Maine at Lie-Nielsen,

 

PF at LN

Here’s their tiny blurb about it:

“Just finished shooting our fourth DVD with Peter Follansbee, “17th Century Great Chair.” Details coming soon…”

Because it is May, I got some osprey shots in Damariscotta.

osprey May 2013

Then finished up there with a two-day class in riving, planing & carving. First thing Monday morning it was off to work, trying to get the shop organized, then jumped right into prepping for a talk I gave today to EAIA whose annual meeting was at Plimoth. It was simple enough to do the lecture; but then all day in the shop there were toolies who stuck around and asked questions that were more in-depth than some of my usual fare. It was great, but now the lawn needs mowing, we’re trying to fence out some groundhogs; the kids’ weekend activities – (horse-back riding & baseball) are coming up and the ordinary dump run, etc.

 

 

 

 

Oh, and it’s been still almost sweater weather at some recent points, but now it’s hot. so out with the woolens, find the window screens, etc.

so that’s why no blog lately. I hope to get back to it pronto.

here’s photos from the class at Lie-Nielsen, it was a great group of people – I always have a good time there. Also a  link to their facebook page about it. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151424181563016.1073741844.100708343015&type=1

 

Thomas Dennis chest at auction

By now, you know I am a big fan of this style of carved oak furniture. This chest is being offered at an auction in North Carolina, http://www.brunkauctions.com/lot-detail/?id=94982

It’s in pretty beat-up shape, lost its feet, top is trimmed and patched here & there, etc. But so what? The carving is all there. What fun. This is listed as attributed to the Mason/Messenger shops in Boston, but that’s a mistake. It’s Thomas Dennis from Ipswich, Massachusetts; 1660s-1700. It has never been published before in any of the numerous treatments on Dennis’ work…this one literally came out of the woodwork.

 

carved chest

 

I noticed they have added a few more pictures from when I first saw it two weeks ago. These two show each end of the chest. Clearly one set is oak, with the ray-fleck pattern from the riven quartered stock. The first pair here seem very plain for riven, quartered oak. Now it’s really difficult to judge a piece by the photos; and these are snapshots rather than the good quality shots above..but if I had a chance to see this chest, I’d look at these end panels to try to understand why they are different from one set to the other. It almost looks like the figured set are sycamore/plane tree.

Someone will get a nice chunk of New England joinery history at a discount price. The condition will keep it from getting into the stratosphere. Me, I’ll have to carve my own – after the wainscot chair I have underway now.

 

 

recent work

wood ducks

I haven’t been just goofing around. I have started several things in the shop. One of which is resuming my dovetailing practice. It’s not a joint I have used much over the years; but I have done several in the past two years. The 2nd toolbox is well underway; I started the sliding trays the other day. This time in pedestrian tulip poplar. Oak clapboards for the bottoms.

Last time I put scrap carvings in as the bearers for these trays, I liked that result so much I did it again. http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/it-was-the-rust-that-got-me/

carved bearer for sliding tray

Cutting dovetails is much different than my usual mortise-and-tenon work. Much less physical. Here’s the deep drawer for the chest of drawers I’m working on. I pin the drawer front to the bench with a holdfast in the bench’s leg.

scribing DTs w knife

Last year I bought a knife & awl from Dave Jeske at Blue Spruce Toolworks   http://www.bluesprucetoolworks.com/ . When I ordered the tools, Dave asked me what wood I wanted for handles. I said it didn’t matter…but was pleasantly surprised when I opened them and saw oak!

Blue Spruce knife

But dovetailing ain’t like mortising. The chopping is about the only time I sit in the shop. Feels funny. Back to mortising next week…

chopping while seated

Here’s the mocked-up drawer corner. Good enough for me. I think of the translation of Felebien, http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/felebien/

speaking of joints “blind in one eye.” It’s a big drawer, about 10 1/2″ deep, by 36″ wide. I’ve made smaller chests! Pine front, oak sides. The front gets moldings & turnings. First, it’s off to Matt’s class this weekend…to learn moldings from someone who actually knows what they’re doing. http://www.lie-nielsen.com/documents/Workshop13_Bickford(April).pdf

 

Here’s the help, laying out carving designs on the next batch of spoons. They were like a hurricane; blew in, a bit of a concentrated frenzy, then gone to the next thing. Spoons soon.

they see patterns very well

layout begun, even before the spoon is done

 

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. 

 

strapwork carving designs

Sometimes I buy two copies of a book on purpose, other times it’s because I can’t find it, buy the replacement and then later find the first. So a while back I sent George Walker http://georgewalkerdesign.wordpress.com/ a copy of the 1981 journal “Furniture History” because it has an article by Anthony Wells-Cole about the “strapwork” design found on oak furniture in Devon, England and Ipswich, Massachusetts from the seventeenth century. Wells-Cole ran down the existing work in oak, then looked at possible sources for it, including stone monuments and print sources. The article is titled “An Oak Bed at Montacute: A Study in Mannerist Decoration.”

Hans Vredeman de Vries, 16th c

I’ve been prepping lately for my now-postponed carving class, so had the chance to review a lot of photos of various carving patterns. The strapwork one in the Wells-Cole study in particular always fascinates me. I have carved it umpteen times. Never the same twice.

Based on markings still visible on the old ones, one method for layout seems to be horizontal and vertical centerlines, then spacing things outward from there in four directions according to the size of the timber, and the size & shape of the tools.

carved box, Thomas Dennis, 1660s-1700, Ipswich, Massachusetts

 

this next box has an abandoned layout partially struck on its inner face of the front board. I always get excited by this sort of evidence, march off & adopt it at my bench, then I pull up and think, “wait a minute, this is a mistake – that’s why it’s not done!”

I usually work outwards from the center, and most often start with a circle there, then the bands/straps working east/west/north/south.

PF in process

adding leaves inside the strapwork

This time, I marked the pattern left and right, but only on the top half of the board. Then it’s easy enough to copy from there to the bottom half. Then remove the background. 

the second half

removing background

Depending on a number of factors, one of which might be whim, you can make the curved straps that run along the top and bottom margins either broad and shallow, or taller and tighter. Once you learn the vocabulary, you can combine these parts in a streaming run of designs, never to be repeated…

Here’s broad & shallow:

versus taller and tighter:

Those are both the same maker, Thomas Dennis again. Here’s more variations:

 

Then, don’t forget this one: http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/thomas-dennis-eat-your-heart-out-this-is-oak-furniture/

(The photos in tonight’s post run the gamut from my own, others from Trent, Rob Tarule, and a couple clipped from books. thanks to all…)

 

 

first the beach, then the tools

First, I went to the beach.

 

Huge rafts of scoters were coming through. Many will stay the winter. There were several hundred scoters, and twice as many cormorants flew in from Duxbury bay too.

 

I was not the only one looking for birds. This peregrine falcon was around yesterday too – I saw it strafe the shorebirds through heavy fog. Today it sat on a windmill out at a house on the beach.

peregrine falcon

Then I posted these tools for sale. Email or comment, and send me a mailing address. I can invoice you w paypal or you can send a check. My address is:

Peter Follansbee

3 Landing Rd

Kingston, MA 02364

go. thanks.

PF

http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/tools-for-sale-router-hollow-augers-etc/

 

 

some boxes finished

I know it’s hotter elsewhere, but for southeastern New England, it’s been pretty hot & humid. That’s what has slowed down my blog. But I have done some woodworking now & then. After returning from the class at CFC, I finished a couple of carved boxes.

carved box, July 2012

This one I had in the class with me, although that pattern is a bit ambitious for students at first. One student tacked it this spring at Roy Underhill’s class, but he just carved, didn’t make a box….

Here’s the side view, showing the carving, wooden hinge, and pine lid:

wooden hinge

I was moving stuff around in my shop the other day & found parts for two small boxes. So I finished them up last week. Here’s one:

 

It’s small, about 9 1/2″ x 15 1/2″ x 5″ high. A handy size around the house.

 

open

There was a larger one that I just finished, this time with an oak lid. Two boards, edge-jointed & glued.  Iron hinges.

carved box, oak lid. Aug 2012

 

There’s more. These will all appear on the static pages of the blog here when I get around to them.

Meanwhile, my friends at Lie-Nielsen need to tighten up security, it seems.

the thief

 

 

 

 

Look at this

Look at this:

chip carving

Winston James, a reader of this blog, bought one of my spoons a week or two ago. With his check, he sent this example of his work, in basswood. I’m thrilled to have it, it’s on display in the kitchen now. Thanks Winston. Nice going. (the lighting is weird because I shot them quickly in the shop before I went to Maine…)

detail

Now, who’s going to cut this stuff in oak? Any takers? If you KNOW how it was done in oak, I’d like to hear it. No speculation, just the facts…

17th-c chip carved oak desk

 

 

 

last words (hopefully) on tool sales & a joined chest

 

Sorry to drag out this discussion about selling JA’s tools, but here is one (last) sermon on the subject. First of all, thanks to all regarding the comments, I read every one of them, Alexander did too. we are grateful for your interest in our joinery undertakings. We never could have envisioned twenty+ years ago that it would turn into this.

I never felt that anyone was whining. I read it as a few folks felt they missed a chance, & were offering alternative ideas on how to proceed. I greatly appreciated everyone’s ideas & comments. The general consensus is that the way it has worked is fine. Some feel otherwise, but to my ears, no one came on strong complaining. Mostly I got that people are hip to the idea that we are trying to get these tools out from boxes collecting dust & back into use in woodshops.

I just want to remind everyone to be nice in your comments. I have only deleted one or two comments over 4 years of this blog – but I won’t have folks sniping at each other. There’s plenty of that on the web – we don’t need it here. Green wood, hand tools, furniture history, a few birds & some kid drawings – that’s most of what this blog is about. let’s keep it that way.

Friday June 22 I will post about 8 rabbet planes. All useful, working planes. I’ll probably get the post out in the mid-morning, east-coast-of-America time.

Meanwhile, here is the latest joined chest I just finished last month. Not a copy of an existing chest, but I took my usual liberties with the Devon, England/Ipswich, Massachusetts stuff. Oak & pine.

joined chest

chest front

 

 

 

 

 

splitting a nine-foot log

They should all split like this one. Nine feet long, 21″ at the top, 23″ at the bottom. Red oak.  I split this one from the bottom, it just worked out that way. Usually, I’d split down from the top. Two steel wedges, two wooden wedges. A little snipping with a hatchet. Less than half-an-hour to get it into one-half, one-quarter and two eighths. I later counted about 100+ years on the rings, still quite fresh in the heartwood, sapwood is all decayed. Must have been down for a while to lose the sapwood completely.

here’s the photos, including a juvenile yellow-shafted flicker, rounding out a woodpecker trio at the house. Haven’t seen or heard a red-bellied here lately:

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