Connect the dots

Remember the other night when I showed some drawings and carvings, I included this one that I was working for the frame I’m cutting.

Here is the brace with that design on it – done in pine, frustrating carving softwood. It’s not like carving oak.

I know this pattern from surviving carvings on oak furniture made in Devon in the 2nd half of the seventeenth century. I have a fair number of reference photographs of works I studied over there, and related ones made here in Massachusetts. But by far, the best on-line reference for Devon oak furniture is Paul Fitzsimmons’ Marhamchurch Antiques website. I always open his emails, and always take the time to look at his newest offerings. They never disappoint. http://www.marhamchurchantiques.com/current-stock/all/

Here’s that motif from a chest Paul posted some time back:

The bottom rail is the one I’m thinking of, the top rail is related, but a variation. Here’s another, I forget where this photo came from, the chest is Devon, c. 1660-1700.

While scrolling through some reference materials here at home the other day, I remembered Thomas Trevelyon. His story is complicated, but he produced perhaps 3 manuscripts, c. 1608-1616 of various subjects. Astounding stuff. In some of my last years at the museum, our reference library received a facsimile copy of one of these, I think I might have been one of only two  people to even look at it. These aren’t pattern books, because they were never printed – they’re manuscripts. I never got straight what the purpose was.  BUT – purpose or not, here, the border of this illustration is what I was remembering:

This one’s from University College, London – I got it from here,  http://collation.folger.edu/2012/12/a-third-manuscript-by-thomas-trevelyontrevelian/

where you can read much of the story about Trevelyon. One of his manuscripts is now digitized & available here:  http://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Word_%26_Image:_The_Trevelyon_Miscellany_of_1608

He uses this border a lot in the UCL manuscript. Sometimes there’s a flower between the S-scrolls. This pattern will make its way into all of my furniture-carving classes this year. It’s great fun to connect the dots like this.

 

 

Plymouth CRAFT spoon-carving & sloyd/slojd update

Plymouth CRAFT is now a year old. http://www.plymouthcraft.org/ It’s an organization with which I’m thrilled to be involved.  After a great first year, 2016 looks to be even better. As you have read here, Greenwood Fest in June will be a memorable event. I’ve been working with Paula Marcoux as we coax all the instructors for details about their sessions. We’re close to the point now where Paula & I have to sit and figure out who does what where & when.

In the meantime, Paula took the chicken way out and booked two workshops that happen after the festival. We had wanted to pursue having the instructors stay a few extra days and teach in-depth classes – but the hardest part was deciding how much of that we could do, then who to tap. It being our first venture, we decided to have just 2 classes – that’s enough for now. These classes will be held at the Pinewoods camp where the Greenwood Fest is happening. Dates are Tuesday and Wednesday, June 14 & 15. Tomorrow registration will open for these small classes – one with JoJo Wood and one with Jögge Sundqvist.

JoJo will explore the finer points of spoon design, concentrating on the most demanding spoon, the eating spoon. I spent about 20 minutes carving with JoJo once and it changed the way I approach things. This class will be small, 10 students. And it will push you in ways you can’t fathom.

See the description here http://www.plymouthcraft.org/?tribe_events=an-in-depth-look-at-the-eating-spoon-with-jojo-wood

Jögge has a treat in store, making a distaff…”A what?” you say. This class is a crash course in Swedish design, tradition, culture and more. Emphasis is on the use of the drawknife, slojd knife, and a couple of other common hand tools. This is a class in technique and thought, not a project-based workshop. Yes, a distaff is a useful thing, for spinners. Here, it’s a symbol.

Here’s his photo of some of his distaffs

photo JöggeSundqvist

http://www.plymouthcraft.org/?tribe_events=distaff-the-passion-of-carving-with-jogge-sundqvist

I’ll be skulking around both of those days, trying to eavesdrop on these two exciting workshops.

If you can’t make it to those classes, or need a warm-up, I have a spoon carving class with a few openings left; coming up in February.

We’ve had great response to spoon carving; each class has its own dynamic. But the common threads are people get started and can’t stop…so come & make some wood chips. http://www.plymouthcraft.org/?tribe_events=spoon-carving-with-peter-follansbee

Then in April, Tim Manney will come down from Maine to teach his methods of steam-bending spoon blanks. This will be a real treat. I have written about Tim’s methods before, and I continue to enjoy his work. https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/what-if-a-chairmaker-made-spoons/

Tim will be at Greenwood Fest too – I just haven’t got around to posting his bio yet. But this weekend in April is a chance for close instruction in a mind & wood-bending approach to a traditional craft. http://www.plymouthcraft.org/?tribe_events=steam-bent-spoon-work-with-tim-manney

 

Spoons & more for sale, Jan 2016 – proceeds towards workshop project

 

Some of you have seen that I have a workshop-build underway. This is a momentous happening for me, as perhaps you can imagine. After leaving my museum job, where I had my workshop for 20 years, I was drifting around a bit, thinking I’d “find” something suitable. It’s now been 2 full years since I packed up my old shop & moved my stuff to storage. I had a loaner shop that I used to shoot the last batch of photos for my upcoming book 2 of joinery. I also tucked a 6’ bench in typically cramped basement quarters here at home. And that’s what really spoiled me, because I got used to, and really liked, being at home.

This story is already getting too long, so I’ll skip ahead. For about a month now, my friend Pret & I have been working part-time cutting joints for the timber frame that will be my 12’ x 16’ workshop. It’s fun, and is going great. The hardest part for me is keeping my head in the present – in my mind, I’m in the shop, working out what goes where, and wandering around inside that space. But that’s getting ahead of myself.

Over the years many of you have written to thank me for the blog and its stories, ideas, etc. I always appreciate it when someone takes the time to send an email or comment, it means a lot to me. The new shop will allow me to get back to photographing furniture work the way I like to, (the basement shop has no room for me, much less a tripod, etc) so you can look forward to more of the “old” posts, maybe by springtime. We have some more joinery to cut, and a lot of details to work out. In the time not working on that, I’m trying to get some stuff made so I can earn money – to buy insulation, siding/sheathing, flooring, shingles, and all the other miscellaneous bits to bring the shop to completion.

So – the fundraising bit –

I have a few spoons for sale, and will have more coming soon. There’s also some odds and ends; hewn bowls, and a carved panel in Alaskan yellow cedar. https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/spoons-bowls-more-for-sale-jan-2016-shop-build-fundraiser/

I still have a box or two, and the baskets. Those are found here: https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/furniture-sale-winter-2015/ and here: https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/baskets-furniture/

I’ve had a couple of complaints about selling stuff here on the blog, one of those I wrote back to & talked about how much free stuff there is here, and always will be (as long as the blog lasts, over 8 years right now). The writer & I worked out the situation, and it all ended well. The reality is I now make my living making things & selling them, and travelling around teaching. Some months are better than others, just like everyone else. After thinking it over long & hard, I decided to add a “donate” button here, while I build the shop. The button will disappear when the shop materials are all set. If anyone is inclined to help out that way, I’d greatly appreciate it. I hesitated to include this option, but I decided that people might want to help out, and my yard is too small to have you all over, so here’s a different way. On the page for spoons, and on the sidebar.

Email  if you’d like any of these items. I can send a paypal invoice, or you can mail a check. Just let me know. Thanks as always. Peter.Follansbee@verizon.net   

 

 

furniture carving & spoon carving classes in February

I have several blog posts underway, but tonight I’ll interrupt my ideas just to give a nudge to some folks looking for classes in carving. My season kicks off in February, with a class on the weekend of the 13/14th at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking. http://www.schoolofwoodworking.com/woodworking-classes.html#Speciality_Weekend_Classes  (scroll down, there’s an April class of mine listed first, but the carving-only one is mid-February)

We’ll be working for 2 days learning the ins & outs of carving 17th-century style patterns. I have just been working on some new old designs to add into the mix – here are some drawings I’ve been working on, these patterns are part of the huge inventory of designs found on oak furniture from Devon, England, with their offspring in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Here’s a version I carved maybe 5 years ago:

There’s carving, and there’s spoon carving –

 

 

 

so for the would-be spoon carvers – come down to Plymouth CRAFT for a weekend of spoon carving. We’ll split, hew and shave spoons from freshly-cut local woods. Learn about the tools, the grips and the design of the spoons. The whole world is spoon-mad, so you might as well jump on board.

http://www.plymouthcraft.org/?tribe_events=spoon-carving-with-peter-follansbee

the rest of mortising: beyond boring

There’s more to mortises than the boring machine, as enticing as that device is, it’s only the start. I wait until there’s several joints laid out, then bore all of them…then tuck the machine away & go on from there. 

Here’s one of the through-mortises that’s all bored, three 2″ diameter holes:

Then it’s chisel work. This is actually a different mortise, but the principal is the same. Here I’m chopping the end grain. 

And here paring the side walls/cheeks of the mortise. 

I went to pick up my 2″chisel the other day, and there’s a ladybug crawling around. In January?

This mortise is chopped. Now the timber needs to be reduced to 5 3/4″ at the joint. It’s how we compensate for the various sizes of 6x6s in the frame. 

First, saw down to the scribed lines, 

then knock out the waste with the chisels, 

then pare it flat. 

then cut a bevel along the bottom end of the mortise, where a corresponding one on the tenoned piece meets it. 

Jarrod’s new video

My late friend Victor Chinnery once quoted a phrase he read somewhere – “think much, say little, write nothing.” This, 20 years after his book Oak Furniture: the British Tradition. I’ve been thinking of that quote this week.

Several years ago, I was a guest on Roy Underhill’s show The Woodwright’s Shop, and for a topic I chose spoon carving. The 24 or 26 minute episode shows me & Roy making spoons, with methods that I was using at the time. I don’t carve spoons in the same sequence now…but that was how I happened to be doing it at that time. http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/watch-on-line/featured-guests/peter-follansbee/

In spring of 2014, I went to Lie-Nielsen to shoot another in a series of videos with them, and we carved spoons. https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/book-dvds/

That video shows a different sequence from what I did with Roy…and right after shooting that work, I left for a short class in Minnesota with Robin Wood. I got a ride up Highway 61 with Jarrod Stone Dahl, Robin and JoJo Wood. One evening JoJo showed me how she hews the spoon blank from a straight-grained blank, and once again, my techniques adapted. The gist of it is that we all keep learning as we go. Hopefully it never stops.

Now you can see one of my favorite spoon carvers, Jarrod Stone Dahl, show you step-by-step his methods in carving spoons with an axe, knife & hook knife.

 Jarrod’s new video from Popular Woodworking is available now for download or you can order the DVD. I bought mine last night. I’m sure I’ll add some stuff to my spoon carving repertoire. http://www.shopwoodworking.com/the-art-of-spoon-carving-dvd

If you’d like to come carve spoons, (or boxes, etc) my teaching schedule for the first half of 2016 is here: https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2016-teaching-schedule/

 

In Search of Simplicity

Bill Coperthwaite

From time to time readers of the blog have seen/heard me go on about Bill Coperthwaite. Bill’s impact on a whole world of craftsmen/women is pretty far-reaching. I met him near the end of his life, but a group of people are working to keep his legacy going. To learn something about this endeavor, read the website In Search of Simplicity http://www.insearchofsimplicity.net/

One of Bill’s traditions the group has kept alive is his calendar. If you buy this year’s, that means you don’t need to buy one in 2044.

http://www.insearchofsimplicity.net/dickinsons-reach-calendar.html