I know many of you here see my other blog, but in case some do not – I just posted the last two boxes for the year on the substack blog – https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/p/last-2-boxes-for-2023
And Maureen has posted her latest round of knittted wear and eco-prints – so that’s what all her needle-clicking amounts to – it’s like magic to me.
I finished the large cupboard I’ve been working on most of the year and switched right over to carving some pieces for boxes and a table. Above is a yellow cedar box that sat around here half-done for ages & ages. It went through some wrinkles but finished up pretty nicely.
Once I had that wrapped up, I brought down some oak leftover from the cupboard and continued with more strapwork patterns like I used on the box. Each time I carve this sort of pattern it’s a bit different than last time. This week’s version features dished volutes in the arches – below I’ve struck around the volute to set it off.
Then comes dishing it out, twisting myself into a pretzel to try to get a smooth curve
Once I get that hollow begun, then I go over it again to try to make the whole thing hollow right out to its rim, except under the arches at the top.
This board is about 7″ high x 24″ wide/long. Will become the front of a box next month. It’s all done now, but I didn’t get any photos today…
While I was tinkering away at some carving – I found out that the links here to my pages of carving patterns and the plans for the joined chest were not exactly functional. I knew they were dicey, but couldn’t bring myself to deal with them. I went in now and think I have them back up & running. So if anyone is looking for those things – there’s a link at the blog’s header or right here https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/carving-drawings-plans/
That page should tell you what you need to know about them – but if you have questions, fire away. Here’s one of the strapwork patterns, included in set #2.
I’ve posted several new entries over on the new blog, https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/ up to 5 posts there now. But here’s one that hasn’t got there yet. I have a new log of near-perfect red oak (technically black oak, quercus velutina). The first things I need to get from this log are a slew of thin wide boards for drawer bottoms, soffit boards and the floor to the upper case of the cupboard I’m making. I had the bottom section of the log cut to just over 2 feet long and split that into 1/16ths to get it home.
Then I take these one at a time and split, hew & plane what I can get out of it. The trick sometimes is getting the most out of each bolt. In this case, it wanted to be split in thirds. Not always easy to do, often quite difficult. Perfect straight-grained stock helps. This log had a lot of sapwood – I split it off first thing. Firewood.
On the end of the bolt, I measure the spacing into thirds. Do this on both ends. In this case, the spacing at the narrow edge was 5/16″ or so. At the wider edge nearly 2″. Then score across those lines by whacking the froe gently into the end grain. I barely want a split to start this way.
Then ease thin wedges into the split – I use 2 at a time. Don’t strike them hard, just coax them into place.
Once those splits begin showing up down the sides of the bolt, stop. Knock those wedges out and flip the thing over & repeat.
Once a crack has started from each end, then I work the wider end first and drive the wedges in eventually splitting off one-third. Here the last action was a wedge driven in the thin edge to connect the dots.
From there it’s easy, just riving the leftover section in half. These boards were about 9″ to 9 1/2″ wide at one end, a little more than 8″ at the other.
I’ve only had good results splitting into thirds with dead-straight stock and fairly short lengths. It was Drew Langsner who first showed me that it’s even possible. Takes some extra care, hurrying doesn’t work. But in this case, that wide clear oak is worth every minute you spend to get it. These boards are rough-planed just over 1/2″ thick at the outer edge. They’ll be stacked & stickered and dried for a month or so. Then re-planed to final dimensions and installed.
I just posted the recent carved oak box for sale – as well as two JA-style ladderbacks. I set it up as a stand-alone page here https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/box-chairs-for-sale-may-2023/
The prices are $1,400 for any one of these three items – includes shipping in US. I usually ship this stuff through UPS, sometimes the post office. If you come pick them up, we’ll adjust the price accordingly.
This is one of the chairs – white oak & hickory with a hickory bark seat.
If you’re interested in ordering any of these, or some other furniture, send an email to me Peterfollansbee7@gmail.com
I have to go pick the lint off that carved box now – didn’t see it until I looked at the photos!
During the past couple of years I have worked with Jeff Lefkowitz in developing two sets of carving drawings/patterns. Both sets feature patterns derived from oak furniture made in Devon, England and Ipswich, Massachusetts. At first I was keeping up with making companion videos to go along with the patterns. Most of the first set got done, but maybe only half of the 2nd set. It turned out that the further I went into making videos, the longer the process became.
For several months I’ve had a white oak panel hanging around that was an orphan – just a leftover from other projects. But so perfect I had to carve it – so over the past week I spent a day carving the panel & shooting the process. Then tied to the desk here editing the result.
This panel is one of two shown in the 2nd set of carving drawings. It’s a 2-hour video, which is practically carved in real-time. The panel is a bit larger than what I drew in the series – but these designs can easily be stretched (or squished). Layout, drawing and carving – I tried to anticipate whatever you might need to tackle this pattern.
Here’s the video, you can watch it here or on youtube. I went into the youtube channel & tried to collect all the carving videos into a playlist called “17th century style carving” – might have missed one or two shorter ones of little consequence.
These youtube videos are all free – but from here on I’m going to start charging something for these. I’ll aim to keep the price within reason. I just can’t justify the time spent on them otherwise. But the free ones won’t disappear – so would-be carvers won’t be left out in the cold..
The carving drawings & chest plans are available here – https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/carving-drawings-plans/
For various reasons I’ve not been in the shop much lately. I’ve managed a couple of half-days here & there now and am starting to see some things coming together.
I had the carvings for a box done, so cut the rabbets and till parts, then assembled the body of the box. Attached the bottom. I don’t have anything on hand for the lid, so might rive some oak boards and dry them, then joint & glue-up two boards to make the lid. Unless some wide clear pine comes around. Here’s the carving from the sides, or ends, of the box.
Quite literally the biggest news is that I took the pile of sticks that is the cupboard and re-assembled the lower case. Now I can make the soffit that hugs under the top drawer opening then I’ll be able to assemble 80% of this section. Then I can work on making the drawers. The turned pillars are in limbo – I broke the spring pole to the lathe (lasted 14 years, which ain’t bad. It wasn’t much of a pole to begin with) A friend cut a new one for me, we just have to get up in the loft & install it.
Similarly, I had all the shaved bits for this version of Curtis Buchanan’s democratic arm chair – so made the seat this week then assembled a bunch of it today. Still to come are arms and arm posts.
I still have some commitments to tend to, then early May is time for birding. But I’ll keep picking away at this stuff. More of all of it to come. There’s still two ladderbacks (with a 3rd right behind them) available if anyone’s interested. See previous post.
A couple of things – I finished that Windsor chair I made – painted red & black, all the rage w/ modern Windsor chairs. Takes more patience than I have. Next time I might do oil paint & be done with it. But…now that it’s done, it’s my new favorite chair.
It was great fun to re-visit making Windsor chairs. I hope to make a few more this year. We’ll see what I can fit in between other projects.
And I edited a little bit of video that I shot when I was carving that painted drawer front for the reproduction 1680s cupboard that’s underway. The execution of the carving is just the same as before – it’s just the visual impact is immediate because the “finish” is done first.
The previous version of this video is much longer, more detail. Even more repetition. Some of you might have seen it last year – but for anyone who wants to see more of the above – here it is
And one day a week or so ago we had some hooded mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) on the river. They don’t often show up here, just every once in a while. Usually winter…
Last year I made this carved & painted drawer front the other way ’round. Carved first, painted after. I tried the reverse this time.
Most 17th-century carvings I’m familiar with that include paint have it as the background. So it’s like a 3-D coloring book. Carve out the recesses, then paint them. Like this English box:
But the cupboard I’m making has only one carving on it and its foreground is painted black. Here’s a detail from the original.
Prepped the oak board a few months ago. Trimmed it to size, then painted it black with dry pigment mixed in linseed oil/thinner/fast-drying medium. Then laid out the pattern with a compass, marking gauge, awl & square.
When that step was just a concept, I was concerned that the layout would be difficult to see. But the tools scratched right through the paint so the lines were bright. BUT – if you do this, make sure you have worked out the geometry first. I made a layout error and had to re-paint and wait til the new coat of paint dried. Just a day or two with that drier added, but a stupid mistake that could have been easily avoided.
This carving uses no V-tool for the outlines. I struck the shapes with a few different gouges and chisels.
Then using a very shallow, narrow gouge, began removing the background. This particular carving is pretty shallow.
Here’s a detail showing that background. Eventually it will get a coat of linseed oil so the oak behind will not be so stark. That’s much later though.
Whether you carve first or paint first, you must be careful at various points. There’s touch-up regardless of the method. This approach certainly makes the painting easier – and the carving is not any more difficult. So maybe it’s the way to go…
Here’s a post, including a video, from last year when I carved the same drawer front. Pre-painting. https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2021/08/18/the-cupboard-project-carved-drawer-front/
I can’t remember the last carving I did. I had this box front (the one with the painted background in the photo) carved for quite a while – youtube says 2 years! Very late in the day today I began sorting some stuff to turn it into a box. I wanted some pattern to carve on the sides – but didn’t want anything too involved. Below the box front is the beginning of what I carved…
It’s my version of some carvings I saw over 20 years ago, on my first-ever trip to England in 2000. Victor Chinnery took me to a church in Durrington, Wiltshire that had a lot of 17th-century carved decoration reinstalled in the pews. Each pattern looked different and the place was full of them. I got a few lousy photos – managed to scan a few of those old slides some years ago and salvaged a couple.
I didn’t dig out the photos when I was working – I only had 20 minutes of daylight left and wanted to get something down on the oak. I have this little box I made back then – I keep some loose tools in it under my bench. So that was my source for today’s version.
The nice thing about these particular period carvings is the seemingly endless variety. Very little v-tool work. Most of the outlines are struck with gouges to determine the shapes.
These patterns have what I call “approximate symmetry” – they don’t have to be perfect. Your brain likes to see patterns and will tolerate the variations. Or mine will, anyway.
Right after that trip to England I made a couple of boxes with these sort of patterns. It was fun to revisit that stuff today – I’ll scrounge around the shop and find the stuff to finish that box with…
Below is the youtube video from maybe 2 years ago of carving the piece that will be the box front.
Yesterday I went shopping for some quartersawn oak for my carving class this spring at Lost Art Press – this is the reminder that tickets for that go on sale tomorrow, Thursday Jan 12 at 10am eastern time. https://www.tickettailor.com/events/covingtonmechanicals/827443/#
Today I’ve been shifting those boards around trying to find space to store them in the shop. More of that tomorrow. By mid-afternoon I had enough and turned to some housekeeping in my photo files. I was trying to organize the folder “chairs” – I think I have “boxes” mostly sorted. I found a chair I totally forgot about that has some carvings on it that might show up in that class.
This is a chair I “made up” = in that it’s not a copy of any particular 17th century wainscot chair. I took the measurements from a surviving chair, but super-imposed carvings on it from here & there. I made this back when I worked in a local living history museum, but have no memory of what it was for, where it went, etc. It’s certainly the last one I made there.
The format of the chair was taken from one I copied some years before that. Made in Hingham, Massachusetts, descended in the Lincoln family – this is my copy of that chair – now in the public library there. You can go sit in it if you like.
That carving in that chair is unlike most others – most of it is done with just a V-tool. Maple & walnut inlay for the barber pole accents.
These chairs are beastly to sit it. Worse to lump around the house, they weigh a lot. I made one in 2020 that I kept here, much to my family’s chagrin. It’s the best carving I’ve ever done – so I’m hanging on to it. This one is almost a verbatim copy of 2 chairs attributed to Thomas Dennis – one at Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts and the other at Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. I have made 4 versions of it – this time I made up the rear panel and changed the crest rail’s pattern a bit.
Here’s the panel.
One of the exercises in that class in April will hopefully be strapwork – the carvings with the connective bands running through them – like the vertical panels in the first chair – or the top rail of this chair
But for a comfortable wainscot chair, nothing beats this next one – another chair I made a few times. I guess I made this one about 20 or more years ago. Bob Trent showed me the original it’s based on and that led to me writing an article about it once. https://chipstone.org/article.php/347/American-Furniture-1998/A-Seventeenth-Century-Carpenter%E2%80%99s-Conceit:-The-Waldo-Family-Joined-Great-Chair
But the carving on this is nothing to speak of – the others have so much space to fill. This one is different in many ways.
PETER FOLLANSBEE: JOINER’S NOTES 