Happy Father’s Day

It’s Sunday, the day of the week that I post a blog. It’s also Father’s Day. How could I not combine the two.

I lost my Dad five years and 15 days ago. I lost my Mom on April 11 of this year. For the past two months I have been dealing with breaking down a house that holds many memories – I house that I helped build from the foundation up. You see, I worked in construction and then furniture making with my Dad. For the last 20 years of his life, we worked together in one way or another. That’s just another way to say that I have many, many memories.

My Dad was more than a Father. We were friends. We traveled the roads selling furniture at shows from Chicago to Connecticut and from Cincinnati to Virginia. We had many hours driving, talking and laughing. One of my funniest memories of Dad was while driving in the New York city area when I car cut us off causing me to swerve the truck and trailer full of our furniture. As things settled down and we moved beside the reckless driver, my 70-something-year-old Dad purposefully extended his middle finger at the other car. We laughed for miles. I’m a lot like Dad when I’m on the road.

One of the ways that I am not like my Dad is in how he “got” things. Dad could pick up a book, read about any topic and get exactly how to do whatever it was that he read. That’s one of many traits of his that I admired. (I, on the other hand, am a woodworker. I’m visual. I have to see it happen before I really get it.)

When Dad decided to build his first house, he picked up a book on how to do the wiring and went about the work. It took him a few inspections, but his job passed. Our family lived in that house for a few years before he built another home. He did the same when he began woodworking. Books were read, tools were bought and a new hobby was started. (My brother and I argued about who would get his first piece – a cherry lowboy – when my parents were gone. The photo above is that lowboy – and it sits in my house.) Dad could do almost anything.

When I talk to woodworking groups on my first visit, I tell them a story about my Dad and how important it is to get your kids or grandkids involved in this hobby, or any hobby. The story goes like this: One thing that Dad couldn’t do really well was correctly pronounce words that he read. For example, when water was first sold in bottles, one of the first to market was Perrier. Dad would call it Pierre. (This is a bit more difficult when writing versus speaking.) He pronounced taco, as in Taco Bell, with a long, drawn-out a. He was only off a bit, but it was a noticeable bit.

As a 13 year old shadowing my Dad’s every move, I also began woodworking. I liked what he liked. I did what he did. I pronounced words as he had told them to me. (That was a mistake.) We went to Washington Court House Ohio to a lumber mill – Willis Lumber, if you know the area – to buy lumber for a lowboy and a Shearton Field Bed that I wanted to turn. (I had already turned a dozen bowls at the lathe – obviously I had mastered turning so I moved on to a bigger challenge, and Dad was happy to indulge my fantasy.) After you picked your material at Willis Lumber, you went upstairs and asked to have your selections measured so you could pay. Dad went upstairs and I stayed behind to make sure everything we picked was measured.

As the guy measured our lumber, he asked what we planned to build with all the 12/4 cherry and 12/4 mahogany. I pumped out my chest and said that I was building a bed with the mahogany and that Dad was making caribou legs for his lowboy. (Dad told me they were caribou legs – as I said, big mistake!) A huge grin washed over the lumber guy’s face. It wasn’t until later that we found out that these legs were called cabriole, not caribou. I can only imagine how many laughs we brought to the lumber dealer employees.

From John Kiesewetter’s blog at cincinnati.com

What I don’t have to imagine is how much fun and how many laughs this episode brought to Dad and me. We talked of it often. Years later we had a weatherman in Cincinnati named Ira Joe Fisher who, in the winter months, loved to give the temperature in Caribou, Maine. Each morning while drinking a cup of coffee before heading out to work, Mr. Fisher reported the thermometer readings for Caribou, Maine, and Dad and I would smile at each other. We had something between us that few others knew about. Woodworking gave us a connection that to this day makes my eyes well up when I think of it. This is why it’s important to get your family involved in your hobby. You never know when lifelong memories are made.

And if this is too much information for you, imagine my middle finger being extended. As I said, I’m a lot like my Dad.

Happy Father’s Day and …

Build Something Great!

Glen

Two of My Top Ten Gripes

Woodworking is a great way to make a living. There are, however, problems with even this career. This week I’m posting two of my current top ten gripes.

Number one on my list – this specific gripe stays at number one or number two throughout most of the year – is the safety police. If this is you, please know that it is not your job to constantly point out things that you consider too dangerous. The fact that I don’t have on safety glasses and ear protection as I work at my table saw or run a router is not the end of the world. These particular violations have been pointed out so often that we all know the rules. If you feel you need to wear glasses every time you step into your shop, then do so.

Number two this week are those that hear someone state a woodworking rule, but do not hear or understand the exact meaning of that stated rule. Case in point: Don’t use your table saw fence in conjunction with your miter gauge, and never glue cross grain.

This past week I posted on the Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM) blog about bump-cut tenons. This technique has been used for years and years – someone commented that they had seen Norm Abram use this on New Yankee Workshop. The rule that should be followed is that you should not use your table saw fence in conjunction with your miter gauge IF YOU ARE MAKING A THROUGH CUT. That last portion of the sentence is the real message. If you’re not cutting through, use your fence and miter gauge as you see fit.

Another rule is that if you glue cross grain your board will split. I ran into this problem way back in another post on the PWM blog dealing with case sides in lowboys. It has also surfaced when working on the returns around slant-lid desk lids. Both can and often were glued fully.

Take a look at the this photo. What you see is a torn-apart bookcase side that I assembled in 1977 or 1978. (It was a bookcase for a high school sweetheart who broke up with me before I finished the top section.) These boards have been stored in a stone-walled basement of an old farmhouse, been moved from house to house in six moves and have been stored in my garage for the last 20 years. This week I went to re-purpose the wood to knock out a couple small drawers. I tried to knock off the blocks with my hammer, then tried to hook the claw of said hammer under a corner to split the pieces apart. No luck. Finally I drove a screwdriver between the two pieces and the split was made.

In the photo you can see that the regular yellow glue did not fail. What failed was the wood. While this glue-up was across only about 8″, I think it shows that it’s possible to glue in this manner and there are certain circumstances when it is OK to do so. You just need to know the rule – the exact rule – and when you can bend it. (I always glue the first 4″ to 6″ of moldings I use on my projects.)

Please don’t blindly follow what you hear or read.

Build Something Great!

Glen

Scroll Pediments: On Clocks Anything Goes

Scroll pediments are the front panels found at the top of some of the most impressive pieces built in the 18th- and early 19th-centuries. Furniture such as  Bonnet-top high chests of drawer or highboys (as shown in the left-hand photo), bonnet-top chest on chests and many period clocks have scroll pediments. It’s on these panels that gooseneck mouldings are applied. Scroll pediments, at least on the highboys and other chests that I have seen in books and museums, have the grain running from side to side. (Most scroll pediments attach to the pediment returns with dovetails.) The same holds true for many clocks. But that is not always the case.

Tall case clocks are different when it comes to how they were built in the late 1700s and early 1800s. On tall case clocks, you can find many construction techniques that leave a 21st-century woodworker scratching heads. Some period clocks – some very expensive period clocks – appear to be held together with little more than chewing gum and grime collected throughout the years.

I have pointed out a few of the let’s say questionable construction techniques I’ve found on the Egerton clock that I’m working on. The scroll pediment is just another example. On the original clock, which at one time was for sale at $120,000, the grain of the pediment runs vertically. I know this because I have a photo of the back of the hood.

As I work on my tall clock, I am changing many of the oddities I found with the original, but as always the case, a few of those questionable construction techniques are being repeated. Case in point is the scroll pediment. I decided to keep the grain direction vertical. How this changes the building of my clock is most apparent as you work on the pediment returns. Dovetails, which are found on many of the period clocks that have broken-arch pediments, are not an option because the grain on the returns runs perpendicular to the scroll pediment. As a result, I attached the pediment and the returns with screws. I expect that nails were used on the original, but I went with screws (tightly fitted at the bottom and in over-sized holes at the middle and top for seasonal movement) for a more secure hold.

What is extremely interesting to me is that if you look at the front of the original Egerton clock you could not know that the scroll pediment grain runs vertically. You would, in fact, guess that the grain runs at a 45-degree angle because that’s the look presented at the front. A veneered face with fancy cutouts fronts the pediment.  The veneer grain is angled. (That’s a detail that I will add to my build.)

Build Something Great!

Glen

 

The Best Legs

It’s taking longer for me to complete a project than it use to. Before, I would run through a project cycle in a couple of weeks. Today, with my other job nicking my shop time, I’m lucky to complete a project in a couple of months. Spending too long on a piece makes me slower and tends to drag down my interest, so I decided to begin a second project. While the time to completion on one project pushes farther out, I’m able to maintain interest and enthusiasm by switching between the two ongoing projects.

The second project I began this week is the above pictured writing table found at Colonial Williamsburg – my first exposure to it was in the book “Southern Furniture 1680 – 1830″ (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.). I’m not sure why I’m so captured by southern furniture. I expect it’s due to the simplicity of the designs.

This project build begins with the legs. As I pulled lumber off the rack, I thought about what makes legs look the best. My first thought is that it depends on the wood. I’m building this table with mahogany, and its feathered grain does not show a strong difference between flat-cut and quartersawn woods, especially in pieces that are 1 9/16″ wide. On the other hand, maple does show a strong difference when comparing the two cut types. So what do you look for? The photo above shows the three ways most lumber is cut, and how each would appear in a leg found on this table. When you see this, I hope it’s obvious which cut is better choice. It’s rift cut. In rift-cut lumber, all four faces of the legs closely match in grain appearance.

If you build using rift-cut stock, tapered legs look best, whether you’re cutting a two-sided taper or are tapering all four sides. An even bigger difference is found if this same philosophy is applied to cabriole legs, but you also need to align your grain in the right orientation with legs found on Queen Anne and Chippendale furniture. Here’s what I mean. If you align your cabriole leg so the foot is across the grain, as shown above and to the left, you get rings or circles at the knee of your leg. These circles are not appealing, but the issue is more than aesthetics. That circle pattern indicates a weakness as you slide down to just above the ankle. That’s where your leg can break as the grain crosses the narrow cut of the leg.

If you orient the foot so it’s with the grain, as shown to the left, you get a much stronger and more pleasing end result. Notice there is no ring at the knee. The grain runs pretty much up and down the entire leg. That means there is no weak point at or above the ankle. This leg should not fracture during its life because the weight is carried through the leg as it follows the grain.

These are simplistic examples, but it should be clear that you need to watch the grain direction of your legs. If possible choose rift-cut lumber, and if you’re working up a set of cabrioles, make sure to point your toe with the grain. I know that it’s not always easy to follow these guidelines. If you find that you have a couple of legs cut using the best grain and a couple that aren’t, use the better legs at the front of your project. Ever hear the saying, “Put your best foot forward?”

Build Something Great!

Glen

When to & When Not to Reproduce Period Techniques

One of the areas in which you struggle when building reproduction furniture – and I’m not talking about a full-out reproduction in which you pit-saw the lumber, scrub the surface flat then build the piece – is in trying to determine when to copy the workmanship. I had another decision to make yesterday as I worked on the Egerton tall clock. In the shop, I built the mask for the clock. That’s the piece that surrounds the dial and sits directly behind the door.

The photo above is of the antique clock. What particularly I wrestled with has to do with the joinery, specifically the dovetail, that joins the stiles to the rails. In the photo you can see how Egerton did the work. And we get to see the results of 200+ years of wear and tear. Should this technique be repeated? I decided to pass, and here’s why.

If you study the joint, there is no glue surface whatsoever. The stile fits perpendicular to the rail. The only flat grain of the dovetail is at the sides. Unfortunately, where that flat grain meets the rail, the rail is end grain. And where the rail is flat grain, it meets the stile which is only end grain. No structural glue surface. Also, a close look at the photo (remember you can enlarge the picture if you click on it) shows a couple of fractures that have been repaired. One last note is that I did try the joint and as you might expect, the rail broke across the grain even with the cut of the tail socket.

Given that, I passed on the dovetail joinery. I built the mask using a half-lap joint. Flat grain glued to flat grain. (Yes it is cross  grain, but it is still a strong, lasting joint.) Above is a look at the lower-rail-to-stile joint. Below are the two completed masks.

Build Something Great!

Glen

Catching Up

As you may have noticed – and I hope that you did – last week there was no post. Today I have something that I hope makes you smile. And I promise that next week there will be more woodworking in my message.

On a recent trip to Pennsylvania for a week long teaching gig, I found myself standing in front of more than a few bottles of wine. As my eyes scoured the many choices, I couldn’t help but notice a couple of bottles by Hayes Valley, which is a California produced wine. Interestingly, Hayes uses woodworking graphics on the labels. (At the left is a 2011 Merlot, and at the right is a 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon.) On the label is a antique hand screw clamp – of course, it couldn’t have been a table saw or router.  My guess is that the company is trying to say that after a single bottle of Hayes Valley Merlot, you’re screwed. Or maybe the message is that this California winery uses every last drop squeezed from the grape to make its Cabernet. Or, we pictured an antique hand screw because our wine-making processes are slow and outdated.

If you have a thought to add, or if you know of other products that feature woodworking images on the label, please add a comment below. Until then …

Build Something Great!

Glen

 

 

 

Optical Illusion

Remember that you can enlarge these photos by clicking on the actual picture.

I’ve been looking at the Egerton clock for sometime. What’s cool about this clock, if I haven’t wrote about this as of yet, is that the scroll-board is pierced so the sound of the bell strike is better heard. As I work on the hood, it’s time to make decisions about the pattern work in the scroll-board.

I should also add that the pattern of the scroll-board is cut into a piece of veneer and that veneer is placed over holes drilled in a scroll-board backer. A piece of dark cloth is fitted between the two in the original clock.

Take a look at the photo. Can you see a pattern. I thought I had it a couple times, but when I set down to  plan the layout, it never came together. At first, I was trying to look at and figure out the dark areas, the areas I needed to remove. It just didn’t work.

Finally, I decided to look at and study the non-dark areas, or the material that stayed in place. I know there are brain-teasers that make your mind work to see the opposite, but I never figured thought this would be an example.

Once I changed my point of view, I figured out the pattern. Just above is a SketchUp drawing of my latest rendition. In it I have lines set at 45 degrees and spaced every 5/8″. The small circles are 1/2″-diameter in size. At each crossing of the layout lines, I put a circle. Next I connected lines between the circles. each line is space an 1/8″ apart.

In SketchUp, when you connect or close areas they change color. I went back and removed any colored section from the circles and areas between the connection lines. That left the waste areas dark, just as in the scroll-board. Below is a close-up look at the layout.

Yes, I know there are a couple lines missing.

All I need to do now is complete the circles – if I want or need to see the completed layout. Or with the 45-degree lines in place, I know that the centers of my circles fits at each intersection. Of course, I also need to chop out the waste which I believe will be done using a combination of carving gouges sized to match the circle circumference and chisels. Unless you guys come up with a better idea. Help.

Build Something Great!

Glen