Just wrapped up a photo shoot with Fine Woodworking magazine; 2 full days in front of a camera. So I have no photos of my own from the past week in the shop, other than this one:
But I do have some good shots of a local red-tailed hawk over at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary. I’m not sure, but I think there’s 2 of these nearly-tame hawks, this one’s an adult.
It’s the most un-skittish hawk I’ve ever seen out & about. It’s also pretty reliable, I’ve seen it on several occasions. Backlit below:
But caught it on the wing in the sunlight here:
Those were a week or so ago, then today was very windy, and it came out of nowhere & landed right in front of me about 5 feet off the ground. I clicked off a bunch of shots, the light was awful, but a couple are worth having.
Here the bird was working hard to balancing in the wind.
After about 5 minutes it swooped down, made a pass over something in the grass, and re-lit on a higher pole. I left it there, and went on my way. This headless shot shows the color of the tail well.
The two joined stools I’m making are mostly all cut, a little more carving to add to the small end aprons. Then I need to wait a few days before pegging them. So I took some time to continue my “finishing-leftover stuff” campaign. This time I went into the loft and dragged down my version of Curtis Buchanan’s democratic chair. (Well, it was a little beyond this point – the stretchers were in too.)
I had the seat, legs & stretchers all assembled. So what I had left was boring the posts for the crest rail, then test-fitting that,
and boring it for the spindles. Then just shaving the spindles and assembling. I say “just” – lots can go wrong in those few sentences. But as it happened, I made it through. Here I have the crest bored for the center spindle, and I shaved that & installed it. That stiffened things for boring the other holes in the crest. I set the other spindles in just to check their alignment, then moved them back out & bored it.
I didn’t shoot any step-by-step photos, but I did set up the camera to shoot a sequence of the assembly. I set it for once a minute and just took what I got. Here I’ve marked the depth on the spindles’ bottom tenons, and I’m knocking them in place. Unlike Curtis’ video series, I glued this chair.
After some alignment gymnastics, I am knocking down the crest onto the five spindles, then the posts come down into their tapered mortises in the seat. A lot has to happen. Hide glue next time, slower setting than the yellow glue. I got away with it…
Using a zig-zag ruler to check from seat to under the crest at both posts & center spindle.
Then splitting & wedging the joints.
Done. My first real chair of this construction since 1993. My lack of practice shows, but it will work fine for the shop. The ash legs split a bit as I drove the stretchers in. A few angles are off down under the seat. But I keep hearing Jennie Alexander’s voice back when I was making chairs with her – “The eye is very forgiving.” And when you sit in the chair, you can’t see it.
Woodworking has taken me to some wonderful places, and I’ve met people who in very short order become great friends. And I’ve been thinking recently of those I met down in Australia, particularly my friends in New South Wales. I was lucky enough to go there in the fall (their spring) of 2018. What a fabulous place, and such a terror to hear about these past few weeks & months. A benefit of social media is that it makes it easy to keep people posted about folks’ safety/situation, etc. It’s good to hear that so far they’re safe, but some have left their homes. Whether the houses will be there when they get back no one knows. Wish I could send all you folks some rain.
Right before Christmas, I threatened to finish a carved box with an oak lid. I came close, but at the last minute decided to take a break instead and leave that box for 2020. Once I let it slide, I decided to add painted background to the carvings. It’s been a while since there’s been paint on the blog, so here goes.
To paint a box like this requires a tiny amount of paint. I poured a bit of linseed oil/mineral spirits mixture into this shallow dish. Then squeezed a dollop of some vermilion artists’ oil paint. Next I dipped a wood shaving into a jar of iron oxide dry pigment. The vermilion is just a touch to brighten up the iron oxide. By itself it can be too brick-ish. Red lead was often used in the 17th century, which would be brighter too. If you have some Japan drier that will help the paint/oil combo dry quicker than usual. Mixing in a bit of raw umber can help in the same regard…I had neither the day I decided to do this. So my paint will dry VERY slowly.
Then mush them all together. I often use a glass muller and a piece of plate glass (sort of a flat mortar & pestle) if I have a lot of paint to make. But with this small amount there’s no need to get too carried away. The iron oxide is ground so fine that it dissolves pretty well.
Then it’s like an oak coloring book. A narrow round brush, thin paint and easy does it.
I did all the red first, then shifted over to black for the other color. A standard color combination for that period. Easily sourced colors. The black can be bone-black, lampblack and other sources too. All charcoal/carbon derived.
It’s easy to over-think the paint scheme. It’s pretty casual, just alternating the black and red as much as you can. Without getting too picky about it. This is the front, painted and now waiting to dry.
The ends of this box are carved too, so I painted them at the same time.
Clean-up is a pain. Rather than find a way to dispose of leftover paint, I have been highlighting the carvings in the shop. I had some red leftover and got up on the ladder and painted part of this tie-beam above my bench. I only made it halfway across the room. So next time I’m using red paint I’ll get at the other end.
Here’s the end of another year. This blog will keep chugging along, going into its 13th year. Today, carving an arcading pattern along the apron for a joined stool. I’ve never done this design in print or video. The rail in the photos is about 3 1/2″ high, with a small molding down on its bottom edge.
Here’s one of the carvings:
The layout is all done with a marking gauge, square & awl, and a compass. Oh, a ruler too. Then I do the chisel-work first. It probably doesn’t matter whether you do chisel or gouge work first.
The first set of strikes define the peaked area between the arches.
Then I come in with the chisel very low, and bevel up. Mallet work at first – to chop down to the depth I scored above.
Further along, showing the “peaks” defined now.
Now comes gouge work. This first one is a large #7 (according to the Swiss numbering system, but it’s an English tool.) Might be about 7/8″ wide.
After striking two arcs outside the arches, I then tilt the gouge over a bit and relieve behind the strikes.
Then with a narrower #7, I struck small, somewhat pointed arcs meeting at a centerline on the top margin, between the arches. Then relieve behind these cuts.
Now for inside the arches. A more deeply curved tool defining a small rounded button at the bottom margin, inside the arches.
Switched to a slightly wider gouge, again with more curve than the #7s – I just begin hollowing right near that incised mark, removing wood carefully.
Then I back up further, and go over what I just cut. One of the few times I carve little-by-little. Most everything I carve is to the full depth on one shot.
Now I concentrate on tilting the gouge over to cut along the scribed line. First on one side, then the other.
A little more…
Then the other side gets the same treatment.
Then I blend those surfaces by cutting down the middle of the arch.
Then there’s just a bunch of details; punches, chisel-incised marks, etc.
I shot a video of carving one of these aprons & was mostly pleased with how it came out. But, I continue to be video-challenged. I uploaded it to youtube so I could copy it here. But it looked like crap on youtube. The video itself here on my machine is quite sharp…I’ll try to figure it out & add it later.
PS: well, now it says “HD” – seems better. I don’t know what happened.
One camera, so sometimes my mallet or hands is/are in the way.
When we started Plymouth CRAFT a few years ago, we had little idea of what it would turn into. All we knew was that we had lots of talented friends that we’d like to highlight as instructors, and that we figured there would be a receptive audience.
Boy, did we underestimate the extent of both angles there. Especially the receptive audience part. To us, our students, friends and supporters have been the greatest benefit of our undertaking. We’ve never seen such a supporting and generous group. We’re continually moved by people’s response to our efforts.
A couple of years ago, we took a cue from Fine Woodworking Live, and began a fund to offer scholarships for those with an interest in our work, but for whom tuition is either out of reach or a stretch. Because of the generosity of our supporters; audience, instructors, board members and more, we’ve been able to offer a spot in most of our classes to someone drawing assistance from the scholarship fund.
Yesterday, Paula Marcoux sent out an email/newsletter reminding people of this scholarship program, both so they can apply if they’d like, or donate to support it. If you’d like to know about the scholarship program, have a look at this link:
The fine print – Plymouth CRAFT is a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Your gift helps us thrive! – so, donations are tax deductible, etc.
We’re working on 2020 now, a little late but we never claimed to be on top of things. Still no Greenwood Fest (we miss it too, and are doing our best to bring it back) but in the meantime, we’ll keep tweaking things, like last year when we introduced the 6-day chair class. There will be two offerings of that this year, one in May, the other in August. Still finalizing the August dates, here’s the May listing: https://www.plymouthcraft.org/ladderback-chairs-with-peter-follan
I saw this buck one day while walking at Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield, MA.
Some days later, saw him again and noted that he’s the first one to book out of sight when a human comes by. Women & children to fend for themselves I guess.
The nearly tame red-tailed hawk is a photographer’s delight.
Only the 2nd time I’ve seen an eagle there in 19 years. Crappy photo, (heavily zoomed & cropped) but it’s always a treat to me to see these birds. When I was growing up there were none in eastern Massachusetts. Maybe none in the state.
On my drive home from Kentucky, I detoured up to Follansbee, West Virginia. I have long wanted just to see it, took about an hour out of the way back & forth. The highlight was the old bank – now a T-shirt shop I guess.
CITIZENS BANK OF FOLLANSBEE – STUFF WITH ATTITUDE.
I have no comment.
Sifting through our wildlife camera – we’ve caught some fun stuff this fall. Two things I never knew were in our yard. One was a saw-whet owl.
Thanks to Marie for correctly ID’ing it, I thought “small owl – must be screech.” It’s been back a few nights. Maybe it’ll hang around here all winter. I once saw a saw-whet in the daytime & posted it here ages ago (2013).
The other nighttime visitor was a fluttery something that swept through a video. I viewed it many times, then was able to freeze it & get a screenshot. A flying squirrel. What do you know.
– Here’s one of two video clips that it showed up on.
I’ve been home from my most recent Lost Art Press workshop-trip now for a week. I just made it into the shop for real today, but took no photos. Christmas presents. So photos later of those. Maybe.
But I started sorting photos from the past month or so. I made another field trip with the Boy Wonder, aka Brendan Gaffney https://www.instagram.com/burnheartmade/ to see more of Chester Cornett’s chairs. This time we went to the Mathers Museum at Indiana University. I’ll just post photos with captions/notes. The lighting conditions were tough. So, horrid color, real high ISO. These photos aren’t going to win any prizes.
Here’s Brendan for scale, measuring a 3-slat high chair/bar stool. There’s one of these in Alexander’s book, but it’s not this chair. I think this one was sassafrass, very lightweight wood. Harder rungs, they might be hickory, I forget.
This one’s white oak. A 3-slat chair. Chester often bent the rear seat rung to mimic the bent slats. JA wrote to never include sapwood and heartwood in the same stick. Chester didn’t learn chairmaking from a book.
Same chair. Side view.
You can tell this is a 3-slat chair because Chester wrote 1, 2, 3 on the slats.
Another little 3-slat chair. Painted, probably by the owner, Chester didn’t paint them. I like how the paint wore away & highlighted the drawknife work.
A 6-slat rocker. I think this one was sassafrass again. Side view – a real nice chair, his drawknife work was excellent.
All that detail is knife-work. The faux turnings, the giant finials, all the pegs.
Maybe if you click this photo to enlarge it, you’ll see the numbers 1-6 on the slats.
The numbers are in this view too. The layout for the slat mortises is pencil too.
The details on all those rungs, even the rear ones.
The bookcase rocker. What a monstrosity. I’ve built some ugly, heavy chairs in my day. But nothing like this.
Brendan for scale again. The chair is smaller than you might think. The shelves are maybe 6/4 stock. The shelves just above the seat are hinged to access compartments on each side.
