Some 2020 classes and links

I’m off to teach one last class for the year, the carved oak box at Lost Art Press. Then home for a few months before 2020 season really kicks in. My teaching schedule for 2020 is a bit scattered. Several classes filled before I could even write about them, like the JA chair at Pete Galbert’s. He thinks it’s me – I know it’s the chair and his avid students. I’ll post here if any openings come up in that class.   

https://www.petergalbert.com/schedule/2020/7/13/make-a-chair-from-a-tree-with-peter-follansbee 

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THE JA CHAIR W PLYMOUTH CRAFT

 

 

Like we did in 2020, we’ll run that class at Plymouth CRAFT – I think twice, once in May, once in August. We’ve not put them on the site yet, but are very close to ready. If you’re signed up for our newsletter then you’ll hear about it the minute it happens. We rarely send out news, we’re too busy or distracted. I’ll also post here on the blog before registration opens. I expect it too will fill quickly, we keep it at 6 students so I can keep an eye on everything that’s happening. I don’t know how Drew Langsner did it all those years with 10 or 12 students. Here’s the link to sign up for the Plymouth CRAFT newsletter – https://www.plymouthcraft.org/contact

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MAKE A SHAVING HORSE WITH TIM MANNEY

While on the subject of Plymouth CRAFT though – we did just post Tim Manney’s first shaving horse class. Not using one, but making one. A 3-day class with Tim guiding you through the steps to build the horse he wrote about in Fine Woodworking, July/August 2017 (issue #262) – there you’ll see a quote from Curtis Buchanan, who estimates that in over 34 years, he’s spent 21,000 hours at a shaving horse. “The one (shaving horse) I’m using now was designed and made by Tim Manney and it’s the best I’ve ever used.” Need more than that? Sign up here: 

https://www.plymouthcraft.org/build-a-shaving-horse-with-tim-mann 

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Also, while I think of it, there’s still a few spots left in Plymouth CRAFT’s classes working on the Plymouth Tapestry –

 

https://www.plymouthcraft.org/plymouth-tapestry-registration 

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CARVED DECORATION 17TH CENTURY ENGLISH STYLE

I do have a couple things coming in 2020 about carving oak – I’ll be back at North House Folk School out on Highway 61. I’ll teach carving oak patterns twice during “Wood Week” – a series of classes that run the gamut. This place is right on the shores of Lake Superior (it’s like an ocean, but different) – an astounding experience that I’m happy to repeat. Looks like there’s room in my two classes, (most of my others are full, so this might be the one shot – and the setting & surroundings are amazing) so come join us. 

 

https://northhouse.org/events/wood-week 

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CARVED OAK BOX

The other is Roy’s. April. Make a carved oak box. Whoops – filled instantly. Sorry I’m late posting this stuff, but Roy’s place is really popular. I think he just opened registration yesterday. Not my fault, really. A lot can happen between now & then, so the waiting list won’t hurt  – https://www.woodwrightschool.com/classes/waiting-list-wish-list

https://www.woodwrightschool.com/classes/carved-oak-box-w-peter-follansbee-2020 

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I’ll try to squeeze in one or two more, but it’s getting tight. I have some custom work to do, but always welcome more. I also have a student or two coming here for one-on-one work. You can email me if you have questions regarding private lessons or ordering furniture.

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MAUREEN’S FIBER ARTS

Closer to home, at home, in fact, my wife Maureen has kept up her knitting/felting/shibori scene and has a number of things in her etsy shop. Just like my wooden stuff, when you buy some it makes room for us to make more. https://www.etsy.com/shop/MaureensFiberArts

A couple of samples of her work; it keeps us warm all winter.

Spoons, furniture & more for sale

My timing almost couldn’t be worse, but I have some items finished for sale. They can’t come in the house, in fact two were bumped out. In between driving places and eating voraciously, have a look. If you’d like to purchase any of it, just leave a comment here & then I will either send a Paypal invoice or you can send a check. But leave the comment so I can mark the items as sold.

The main problem with my timing is that I’ll be away from December 4-15 or so. That means the larger items; the joined chest, carved box, joined stool, won’t ship until December 17th. Should be fine for those who are holiday shopping. But just so you know…

There’s a lot of stuff – the furniture first, then 5 spoons down below, and after them, something new for me – birch bark containers. The smaller stuff I can mostly likely ship before I leave on Wednesday next week.

to order something, leave a comment, if you have questions, email me peterfollansbee7@gmail.com

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all the support I get here for my craftwork.
PF

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CARVED OAK BOX;  SOLD

red oak, with white pine lid & bottom. Till inside. I just made this box recently as a model for the class I’m teaching at Lost Art Press in December.
H: 7 1/2″  W: 22″  D: 13 1/2″
$900 plus shipping

 

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CHIP CARVED BOX W SLIDING LID;  SOLD

Spanish cedar and white pine.
H: 4 1/2″ W: 16 3/4″  D: 7 1/4″
This box was made from leftover Spanish cedar from the chest of drawers I built this summer and fall. Dovetailed & chipcarved. The lid slides in grooves in the sides and end.
$600 plus shipping

 

 

 

 

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JOINED STOOL; red oak and white pine   SOLD
H:  15 1/4″  W: 14 3/4″  D: 14 3/4″
Red oak with a white pine seat. Iron oxide mixed in linseed oil, with lampblack squiggles for the finish.

$600 plus shipping.

This little joined stool is not new. I made it a few years ago, and completely forgot it was in the house. We found it when we moved stuff around to get the chest of drawers in place. So I took it to the shop, gave it a fresh coat of linseed oil and here it is. Priced as “gently used” –

 

 

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JOINED CHEST
Oak with a pine lid and bottom, till is oak & chestnut.
Dimensions are H:  21″  W: 30 3/4″  D: 16 1/2″
$3,000 plus shipping.

This one was in the house, but we knew it. I just put a lid on it after several years. I wrote it up a week ago or more, but just added it here so all the items for sale are in one place. (you can read the lowdown here: https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2019/11/17/a-small-joined-carved-chest-for-sale/

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CARVED FRAME & PANEL  SOLD
H: 17 1/4″  W: 13 3/4″
$500 including shipping in US.

It’s been a while since I made one of these carved frame & panels. I forget why, but I had the panel first, then made a frame to go around it. To turn it into a cupboard would be more work than I have time for, so it’s a wall hanging.

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SPOONS

I haven’t forgotten how to make spoons, just haven’t had much time. Some of these go back to the summer when I started them.

Spoon #1, cherry crook.  SOLD
L: 10 1/4″   W: 2 1/4″
$110  including shipping in US

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Spoon #2,  SOLD
rhododendron crook
L: 9 1/4″  W:  2″

Carved this one in September, from a rhododendron crook someone gave me in the summer. I love to carve this wood. Some fear using it for a spoon, thinking it’s poisonous. The leaves and things apparently are, but the wood is fine. I’ve used it as spoon wood whenever I could get it for nearly 40 years.

$110 including shipping in US.

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Spoon #3, black birch
L: 10 3/4″  W:  2 1/2″

A shape I accidentally carved one day for my wife, and we use it all the time in the kitchen. So I give it another go every so often. Black birch is a great spoon wood – a little harder than grey birch. I like carving it a lot.
$110 includes shipping in US.

 

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Spoon #4, black birch
L: 11″   W:  2 5/8″
$110 including shipping in US.

Similar to above, different carving on the handle. Made them at the same time.

Spoon #5, walnut  SOLD
L: 11″   W:  3″
$110 including shipping in US.

Found it in my spoon carving basket. Finished it off while I did the others above. People go crazy for black walnut.

 

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BIRCH BARK CONTAINERS

These are something relatively new for me. I learned bits and pieces of this work, principally from Jarrod Dahl. I like making them, I’m never going to make them as a regular thing. Last June we got some birch for JoJo Wood to carve, and I sliced the bark off before anyone could get at it. I wrapped the bodies then, and made the lids just a bit later, and added some chip carving. Then just turned some handles for them recently from butternut. I don’t imagine I’ll often have things like this; I rarely get the bark. But they are fun to make…

BIRCH #1 – SOLD
H: (not including handle) 6 1/2″ DIA:  4″
$110 including shipping

BIRCH #2  SOLD
H: (not including handle) 6 1/2″ DIA:  4 1/2″
$110 including shipping

 

 

 

 

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BIRCH #3 – SOLD
H: (not including handle) 4 3/4″ DIA:  3 3/4″
$90 including shipping

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BIRCH #4
H: (not including handle) 3 3/4″ DIA:  4 1/4″
$90 including shipping

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BIRCH #5 – SOLD
H: (not including handle) 7″ DIA:  4 1/8″
$110 including shipping

 

 

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BIRCH #6; this is the “saved the best for last” – I made most of this one in Jarrod’s class. Then added the chip carving and a boxwood handle.
H: (not including handle) 9 1/2″ W: oval = 4 3/4″ x 6″

$300 including shipping

 

the Havoc of Displacement

This is the first chest of drawers I made – in 2003. Made it as a wedding present for my wife.

The new one bumped it upstairs. Before we moved it, I took a picture, pretending that our house was clean/clear and spacious. And that you could move around in it. Which is a complete lie.

We have an old 4 1/2 room house. There’s 4 of us living in it, and we’re home all the time. And we have so much stuff it isn’t funny. So me building  a chest of drawers that’s something like 46″ wide and nearly 60″ high is just plain stupid. It’s one thing to build that large chest of drawers. It’s another to make room for it in the house. The house leans toward the river, but not as much as this photo makes it seem. The new one fit in the same spot just fine. Just as before, I took a few lying photographs before things all went to wrack & ruin.

Here it is, with more oak junk on top.

To give you some idea of the mayhem, when we move one thing in this house, it ripples all through the house. So this day we moved three large pieces to shuffle things around enough to fit. I shouldn’t show this to anybody, but I took photos of the Havoc of Displacement.

And Maureen catching her breath after the move from one chest to the next.

 

Here’s the old one, now installed on the upstairs landing. The moving-stuff-around necessitated some yarn storage switcheroo. Still working that out.

Somewhere in there, I made a carved picture frame for the print Heather gave me of the painting she did of me. https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2019/07/16/im-speechless-if-you-can-imagine-that/ Hanging that did the same thing on the walls that moving the furniture did on the floors.

Scout didn’t want to miss any of it, but he also wanted to be safely out of the way. He found just the spot on a railing upstairs.

 

the Plymouth Tapestry

From the beginning five or so years ago, Plymouth CRAFT https://www.plymouthcraft.org/ has been more than just woodworking sessions. We’ve featured cooking classes, some blacksmithing a time or two, and textile work again & again. One project going on around us lately is an unbelievable undertaking in needlework – the Plymouth Tapestry.

a detail from the Plymouth Tapestry

 

Plymouth CRAFT is offering two classes in February 2020 to be a part of this work – here’s the lowdown first on the project itself: 

“The Plymouth Tapestry is a signature project of Pilgrim Hall Museum, which will conserve and display this forty-yard long artifact for generations to come. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, the Plymouth Tapestry is a spirited retelling of the narrative of early Plymouth Colony, starting with the creation of the land and People of Wampanoag Patuxet. The story arc passes through the development of radical Protestantism in post-medieval Europe, portrays pre-Mayflower imacts of European exploration on Native Peoples, depicts the Separatists’ sojourn in the Netherlands and their wide variety of maritime misadventures, and finally tackles the ups and downs of their first year of settlement in Wampanoag homeland…all in twenty-one six-foot-long linen panels, vividly and minutely worked in silk and wood thread.”

The tapestry is being designed by our board-member Elizabeth Creeden. If you’ve been to Greenwood Fest, you met Elizabeth in the Greenwood Shop – her work on this project is mind-blowing.

here’s part of a panel before the stitches happen:

And a sperm whale passing by the Wampanoag

Here’s the details about the two 6-person workshops – and the link. Tickets go on sale December 1, 2019 at 10am Eastern time.

Six participants per session will work with noted instructors to advance the execution of the of the Plymouth Tapestry’s Prologue Panel. The workshop will take place in the newly restored historic Steinway Library at Pilgrim Hall Museum.

Stitchers of any level of experience are welcome; the instructors will teach and direct participants to make best and most efficient use of their time with the aim of accomplishing progress on the panel.

Please note: Depending upon the needs of the project, participants may work in only one or two types of stitches during the workshop. In so doing, they will gain mastery through repetition and will have the satisfaction of seeing their work publicly displayed on this historic artifact and conserved in perpetuity.

An utterly unique experience!

https://www.plymouthcraft.org/plymouth-tapestry-experience

Here’s more about it, from Pilgrim Hall https://www.pilgrimhall.org/plymouth-tapestry-project.htm

a small joined & carved chest for sale

I’ve taught the style of carving I do many times, shot a few videos about it and included a slew of it (almost 50 pages) in the book Joiner’s Work that was published this year. https://lostartpress.com/products/joiners-work The first “pattern” I have students do is a simple exercise that uses one tool and two moves. If you go crazy with it, it can look like this:

That’s a detail from a small joined chest I started many years ago. Ah, I can check – it was 2013, because it was preparation for a pair of episodes on Roy Underhill’s show – https://www.pbs.org/video/woodwrights-shop-paneled-chest-peter-follansbee/  Roy always wanted backup materials in case something went wrong, so I started two of these chests prior to going down to shoot.

They both ended up in the book, the first one was a dead-plain one that’s in the section on fitting lids to a chest. This one, sans lid, is on page 40, in the carving section, complete with a caption that says “Someday I hope to actually finish this chest…”  Today was that day. Thankfully, unlike the chest of drawers, this one only took the morning to finish. The pine lid is quite bright, but given time it catches up to the oak in tone. I’ve just given the whole thing a going-over with linseed oil. I don’t usually go on about the figure in oak, it’s always there in my stock, but I never think about it. This chest, though, has some really nice red oak. The two-tone effect in the front panels was there the day I split the log, something in the tree, I guess.

 

Here it’s open, with the till lid propping up the chest lid. The lid is a single-board of white pine. Red oak chest, white pine bottom board too.

When I turned it around, I saw more practice carvings re-used, here one of the rear panels and the bottom rail. Iron gimmal (snipe-bill to many of you) hinges. I forget who made them, either Peter Ross, Tom Latane or Mark Atchison.

The till lid inside, molded edge.

I opened the lid & saw that the side & bottom to the till are American chestnut. Leftovers from a restoration project I did that year.

I really like this little chest, but I’m supposed to making this stuff to make a living. So it’s for sale.

Dimensions are H:  21″  W: 30 3/4″  D: 16 1/2″
$3,000 plus shipping.

Finished the chest of drawers

The chest of drawers is too large to photograph in the shop, I was outside the front door to shoot this one. And I see I left a can of WD-40 in the window. Oh well. It feels good to have this done. Forget the notion that I started it 10 years ago; I feel like I was working on it forever this summer & fall. But, I can tell roughly how long I worked on it, thanks to Chris Becksvoort. I bought his book Shaker Inspirations from Lost Art Press https://lostartpress.com/products/shaker-inspirations. Not because I care about Shaker furniture, not because I want to convert my shop to a mixture of hand & electric tools. Not because of any reason except I really admire Chris’ dedication and skills and was sure there’d be stuff in there that’s useful, regardless of his minimalism and my horror vaccui. In that book, he notes that he keeps records of all his time on a given piece. Careful detailed notes…

I used to many years ago write on a calendar what I worked on each given day, roughly how much time, etc. When I was in the museum world, the most common question we ever got, no matter what, was “how long does that take?” I realized the question was not going to go away, so in the winters, I would carefully keep track of my time for making a piece, a joined carved chest – 75-85 hours; joined stool, 12-14 hours. And so on. 

But after a while, I got out of the habit. After reading Chris’ book, I started at least writing what work I did each day, and roughly how much time I was in the shop. So  I was able to go back and calculate that I worked on the chest of drawers 14 full days and 17 partial days this year. Some of those “partial” days were 1/2 days – in other cases, I listed three or four projects I flipped back & forth on a given day, so might just be an hour or two. But let’s call them all half-days to simplify the math. That comes out to 8 1/2 more days. So just over 3 weeks to make the lower case entirely; and finish work on the upper case. Umpteen zillion pieces of wood. Plenty of mistakes, poor miters, irregular moldings – but no blank spaces to speak of.

A slew of photos; with captions.

The cedar base molding mitered and applied to the end rail.

And pegged w a square peg. I did this to all the large moldings.

this turning blank is the first of many steps to make the final 2 pieces of decoration – 2 oval applied turnings. 3/8″ thick rosewood glued to sacrificial oak.

On the lathe, you just turn beads of various proportions; here’s the initial shaping. Ordinarily, I’d apply thin pieces to every face of the oak & end up with lots of these things. I just needed 2, so I got on with it.

You see them taking shape now.

I turned a few so I’d have some to choose from…

Not the best skew work, but it will do.

The rear of the lower case. Pine panels, oak frame.

End view of the lower case – Spanish cedar panels, resawn, bookmatched. Same wood for the moldings.

Lower case, empty. East Indian rosewood turnings.

 

Looking into the empty lower case. Tenons in end rail engage mortises in lower edge of upper case to keep the two pieces aligned.

Drawer construction. Side hung, half-blind dovetails at front, nailed rabbets at rear. Pine bottoms, ship-lapped. Beveled at front into groove in drawer front. Nailed up to drawer’s bottom edges.

First two drawers inserted, the only carving thus far, a recycled box-front-as-drawer-side.

The lower case, filled w drawers now.

The upper case. Empty. Here’s the oval turnings applied on the top end rails.

Bottom edge of upper case. Mortises for those tenons to align the cases. Another recycled carving, as drawer runner for side-by-side upper drawers. I left out a dust board that should be in rabbets in the lower front & side rails. I ran out of 1/2″ pine boards, so let it go.

the WD-40 shot again.

The sunlight on the rosewood is something else. I had heard nightmare stories about using this wood. Too hard, allergic reactions, etc. I got lucky, had no problem. It turns like nothing I’ve ever seen.

Make a Carved Oak Box; at Lost Art Press Dec 9-13

There’s a nearly-last-minute opening in the final carved oak box class for the year – I’m returning to Lost Art Press for a small class (6 students) in making these boxes. There’s few versions in my book Joiner’s Work https://lostartpress.com/products/joiners-work and this class will follow much of what’s in there – but there’s always more to add. Different patterns, more details. I have taught the class four times in the past 12 months; this is the last time for this year and there’s only one shot at it next year. So…if you’re free December 9-13 and able to come to Covington, KY – have at it. Here’s the blurb, contact Megan Fitzpatrick to register…

“In this workshop, we’ll explore the construction techniques and decorative carving styles of oak boxes made in New England during the 17th century. Using quartersawn red oak and white pine, we’ll size the materials, cut rabbets to join the corners and fasten them with square wooden pins. Fitted inside the box is a lidded compartment called a till. The white pine bottom is attached with hand-made iron nails. The lid, also white pine, opens on a wooden pintle & cleat hinge.

 

Much of the focus is learning the carving style. Using about a half-dozen different gouges and simple layout tools including an awl, square, compass and marking gauge, we’ll go through numerous patterns in practice sessions prior to carving the actual box. We’ll study reference photographs of period carvings, learning how to lay out and cut them based on the tools and some basic geometry.

No experience necessary. Some basic tools required; a list will be sent to participants. (Follansbee will have some extra carving tools for students’ use.)

The fee for the weeklong class is $1,200, plus a materials fee for the wood and hand-forged iron nails. Register by sending an email to Megan Fitzaptrick at Lost Art Press: fitz@lostartpress.com.