Today, seeing the shelving units come together, means we have crossed one more bridge toward true simplicity in that we can cut accurate housing dadoes as quickly as most machine methods and with an accuracy that parallel some very sophisticated equipment. Throughout these US courses we use the Veritas router for jobs like this. This tool knows no equal when it comes to dialling in the exact depths we need for dead accurate housings such as the ones we use in making bookshelves. Stanley and Record once held the market but now the more refined makers have become well established in just about every continent. I get emails from mainland Europe asking me which router to buy. Veritas has become my stock answer.

We have an awareness of family here in the classes as people often talk about their families and especially their children. Snoopy came along to supervise Richard’s work here a couple of days ago. We took the picture to show how inclusive family ties need to be when someone comes away from the family to take a course like this. This blog helps keep people informed and secure at some level and so I enjoy passing on the fact that every single one of those who came is really doing exceptionally well in their achievements no matter what they may say to you. The dovetails all came out. For some it was a breeze, for others a struggle. The important thing is that a box was made and so too a shelf replete with dovetail joints, mortise and tenons and housing dadoes and all of this using no more than my Three Joints and Ten Hand Tools methodology I first taught back in the late 1980′s. Not much has changed but we have all grown into woodworkers and that’s a great move forward.

Beyond the projects, tools like scrapers are front burner issues now that we’ve progressed to using oak. Sharpness is key to good work and accuracy is impossible without surgical sharpness at the cutting edge. By the time we are done they will understand sharpening saws to task, how scrapers overcome the wildest grain and that planes cannot plane some woods no matter what they tell you at woodworking show sales areas. At the end of the day they will know exactly what they need to know to work wood. The next few days are critical in my endeavour to change their lives and deindustrialise their lives to find new balance and self worth.we shut mass-manufacture out at this point in time. We all like that. Peace partners with hand tool methods and harmony reigns.

Here are a few answers to recent questions:

Q.

Which glue do use mostly?

A.

Any PVA works well for me. I haven’t found a great deal of difference between the makers and they all certainly work fine. There are specialist glues for plastic laminate and such, but we are talking about glues for wood. No I don’t use polyurethane glues in general.

Q.

What’s the liquid in the spray bottle you use on your diamond plates?

A.

I use inexpensive glass cleaner. That’s not window cleaner by the type of glass cleaner sold as auto-glass cleaner. I buy it from the Dollar Store in the US or the Pound Shop in the UK. It’s safe, keeps the stones from clogging guaranteed and usually costs no more than a dollar or a pound.

Q.

I was wondering when and how much will cost the 1 month course you’re making in UK. From your website I saw it’ll be somewhere in 2014?

A

Our dates are not set yet because we have an extensive three month program coming later in the year. We have put everything on hold to invest our efforts in a concentrated effort to change the way we apprentice people. Our 2014 dates in the UK are undecided but we will be working on that in the near future. We do have one major month long intensive course starting in July here in the USA and that seems to be gaining much interest so we are looking forward to that.

We will be adding more questions in the general blogs in future. We are also planning to make more comments on the magazine and catalog  content by the different magazine publishers and catalog companies in the US and Europe. If you have issues you would like me to look at please feel free to send them on but make certain to give good reference details.

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In the flea markets and car boots of the world there are thousands of chairs that retain the structure of the most used joint in the world. I see them wherever I travel with hide seats and woven seats, solid wooden seats carved to shapes corresponding to the human form and as flat as a pancake. They can indeed be monotonously dull and uninteresting until you consider their origins and the work that went into these complex pieces that somehow defy the impossible stresses and strains we expect them to withstand in the day to day of life. The point in all of this is to say that there are still  new designs that occasionally hit the streets from time to time that I predict may or may not be up there with Hepplewhite or Adams but will be recognisable as 20th century designs of note, with authors recognised for their awareness and distinctive approach to working wood.
I also thought another article worthy of note beside Jonathan Binzen’s above was Chuck Bender’s article on Wharton Esherick. Of course we can’t all travel to every venue supporting our inheritance of woodworking designers and so the articles are of real value to us. I thought that Chuck conveyed me right into the heart of this designer’s front room studio in the way he wrote the article. It was for me a lovely article and one I would like to keep and read over from time to time. Chuck is a working craftsman teacher and we shared a little time on the Woodworking Show’s circuit this past three months of winter. We chatted as he a carved a ball and claw foot one day and I will add some pictures when I find them. This article was in Popular Woodworking.

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It’s said that the one who frames the issues determines the outcome. With frame saws that may not be so predictable and so I found myself drifting with thoughts of frame saws these past few weeks and the thought crossed my mind that rigid plate steel saws like the ones developed in Britain and further developed in the USA by people like Henry Disston might seem to be a more advanced methodology than say the mainland European frame saw. It struck me then that thin plate was the demand of craftsmen for finer work such as dovetailing and small tenons used in furniture making and so on, but that the plate envisaged was actually too thin for a push-stroke saw without some way of keeping the saw plate from buckling under the forward thrust between hand and wood. Hence the addition of brass or steel splines that allow thinness and rigidity in the same tool.

Thick and thin plate

Thicker plate seemed to be preferred in Western makes of ‘freestyle’ saws as the saws were not pulled into the stroke but pushed, and that then required slightly thicker steel plate. To counter some of the weight and retain strength, Western makers came up with the taper-grind that removed about one third of the weight without compromising rigidity. This also enabled a change in direction for alignment if needed and even a curved cut to a certain degree. Of course thicker plate stock meant more effort and energy in the cut. Adding a rigid back, be it steel or brass, gave rigidity to thin stock and so the Western-style tenon saw was born for finer joinery and furniture making work. In recent years we have seen the Western world adopt Japanese saws and so there has been another trend toward pull-strokes. These saws work well too, but because they are more difficult to sharpen, over time we have seen yet again another substitute with the arrival of the disposable pull-stoke  saws mass-made by various giant tool companies. And that’s the kind of saw most people buy today.

Differences do exist between types

A huge difference between push and pull stokes is that the pull-stroke saw almost demands a vise and bench to pull against, and whereas the push strokes work really well on saw horses, pull strokes are indeed more problematic; having the whole earth countering downward pressure from above is a whole lot easier than pulling against your own strength in the same motion. Accuracy too becomes an issue between the two. Which one is backwards seems to me a matter of the culture you are raised in and programmed by.

Mainland Europe’s frame saw

Though of course Britain has long since had a variety of frame saws, most of those in the furniture maker’s arsenal are turning saws. Isambard Kindom Brunel and Samuel Bentham were indeed the first ones to create the vertical frame saw for slabbing trees into  boards and this method was used up into the early 1900‘s in some regions of Britain. The frames were huge and so too the blades. It wasn’t so very long before we saw the continuous bandsaw blade we know today.

Frame saws old and new

In mainland Europe and later on in North America, frame saws of every size were used for everything from limbing and logging to fine dovetailing and shaping for violin necks and so on. Many modern-day woodworkers like Frank Klaus use frame saws in their everyday work and on an added note Joel Moscowitz of Tools for Working Wood came up with a most stunning development by simply extending the length of a common coping saw blade, refining the cut, and adding the components for making your own turning frame or bow saw. Joseph uses one he made from the kit parts for all of his shaping work in making violin necks and bodies. It makes a really fine tool. Made using the same cross-beam and stem structure, with tourniquet tensioning to a thin blade pulled taut by the pressure on strings traversing the length of the saw, the saw has a handle and pinion that allows the user to turn the actual blade during a cut, so that the blade can readily follow curved sections in similar fashion to a coping saw.

The advantage of the frame or bow saw is that push and pull stroke both work as and if necessary and for some applications this can prove greatly advantageous. The steel can be super-thin and you don’t need a whole lot of width to the plate for most work. For this frame saw I used a very functional metal cutting bandsaw blade generally used in a hand held power metal-cutting bandsaw. The bimetal steel quality is really excellent and the aggressive non- or negative-rake to the front of the teeth cuts wood along the grain quickly and effectively. Because of the size of the teeth, I can also cut cross-grain with smooth efficient cutting too and so I found that this bow saw can cut small tree limbs and dovetails with equal alacrity and leaves a very smooth cut. I also found that I could rip along the grain or at a tangent, so this answered my quest for a saw that could be used for a range of tasks far beyond those that I could get with a regular handsaw or tenon saw. Of course I am not suggesting that it replaces either. I think that the frame hinders certain tasks that are easier with the British-style saws, but for under $5 I have a saw that adds new dimension to my woodworking and also gives me a saw I can hand to a young woodworker that will give a measure of bandsaw capability without the dangers of a bandsaw machine.

Simply made in half a day

Making the saw is not complicated, even though my two jointed intersections may at first seem intimidating. This is a functional saw and making one is constructive and enjoyable. On Monday evening this week we had a hands-on workshop making this saw with friends and staff at the Maplewood Center woodshop. I made one complete in about four hours, but I also taught it and took two hundred pictures for my how-too as well. By the time the evening was over we had made eight bona fide frame saws that not only worked but worked exceptionally well. Here are the first dovetails I ever cut with this particular frame saw using a metal-cutting bandsaw blade as the blade. Eleven year old Isaac made one too, alongside his dad, David Ashdown. This is just another step toward getting children back into the woodshop. I think too that this is a good step for others who might be intimidated by machine bandsaws. It’s not exactly the same purpose or intent, but it means people are equipped for certain types of work without the inherent dangers machines inevitably bring.

Evidence of work and functionality

Here are my finished dovetails. I also cut a mitered haunched tenon that followed the gauge lines perfectly. You may take an hour to get used to the lightness of the saw and the nuances of flexing to task rather than forcing the saw.

A new series

I am about to do a series on spoons, spatulas and other shaped items and this saw helps me span the huge crevasse between hand and machine methods for those who prefer not to use machines and those who simply cannot use them.

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From Local to Global

My two-day introduction to woodworking is much more than the name itself really implies and though I know that for many this course is set to change their lives, to describe it as a life-changing course may seem a little over the top. In reality, this and the upcoming 9-day workshop has actually changed the lives of literally thousands of woodworkers worldwide, so why should I be reluctant to call it anything less.

The Month-long Workshop 

In just a few more weeks we will be holding the last month-long workshop we will be holding in the USA. On this course we take a handful of enthusiastic woodworkers with only minimal experience in hand tool woodworking to transform the way they think about and work with wood. It’s hard for some to imagine, but they will build three complex projects from three different wood types. They start first by building a coffee table like this one using solid North American Oak. The table is quite a challenge in that we incorporate the use of dovetails and mortise and tenon joints to create a truly heirloom-quality piece.

The class is limited to 15 people and at the time of posting this we have 10 spaces available. Click here to book.

A Cabinet Makers Tool Chest

The second classic is a tool cabinet maker’s tool chest from Pine or mahogany. In previous years we have made this piece from woods like Eastern White Pine European Redwood and whereas the attendees have a choice between the two woods, we thought some might like the hardwood version and may change its function to be used somewhere else in the home. This is also the piece we will be featuring in the next upcoming series in a couple of weeks time. To find out about our online broadcast go here woodworkingmasterclasses.com  and follow the prompt to subscribe, which is free and costs nothing for many featured films that pass on techniques such as how-to-makes and in skills issues.

A Craftsman-style Rocking Chair

The third piece is something of an iconic Arts and Crafts piece that replicates an inspired design I developed from the Craftsman-style furniture era. This is again a piece I see as critical to anyone who wants to master the skills of chairmaking and enter the realms even professional woodworkers find intimidating. This rocking chair is very much a scaleable piece from which the makers can adapt and alter for other chair types such as office and dining chairs.

upcoming schedule is fairly radical. As you know I work hard to pass on my woodworking skills as a generational gift to counter past and current trends that have so undermined the future of young craftsmen and women in the USA and Europe. My sabbatical does not translate into a year off but more a year different. My decisions do affect you and so so I want to appraise you all of the changes we envision so that you can make plans accordingly.

One (maybe two) More Nine-day Foundational Courses this Year – Book Early

There are still spaces available in the June 22-30 Foundation Course in Upstate NY. Click here to book

If the demand is there, we may be able to offer one more nine-day workshop this year. There is always a tendency to wait to book until the last minute, if we do the class it will be in October but in order to make the progress we need to make we must have a cut-off date after the month-long class. Contact us as soon as possible to let us know if this October class will be in demand.

Apprenticing 8 Woodworkers From Around the World

Later this year we will be taking 8 young people under the age of 30 and over 18 years to spend three solid months making about 50 pieces of furniture between us. This series of pieces will go on exhibit in the UK as exemplary works of art created by studying artisans. The goal as always is to enter core realms of real woodworking and furniture making and so we have decided a minimalist path works best for establishing true skill only possible with hand methods of work. We will use one machine only during the three months and a range of different hand tools to convert our stock too useable rough-sawn sizes. We have chosen the Laguna 16” bandsaw from Laguna USA for one of the machines and are considering three UK or European types for a second bandsaw.

Beyond Our Local Reach

We also have other strategies planned for training in other world regions including Africa and India. The vision we have takes much time for planning and this is the reason for some necessary shifts to our short and long term ambitions. Does this mean that we are not continuing our work in the US? Not in the least. We started almost 25 years ago and we still have work to do, but by current necessity classes will be restricted for a season. That said, it does seem that after the July/April Month-long I will not be teaching in the USA for at least 12 months. Our visionary work to progress woodworking on every continent now continues expanding through the different series we film for woodworkingmasterclasses.com. Woodworkingmasterclasses.com has become an essential arm to our efforts in the real woodworking campaign and has enabled us to reach audiences on a much expanded level. Your involvement enables us to make further progress by that support you give and so as we train you in the traditions of hand work, we are able to take what we develop for you and take it to needier continents too.

Because of all this, I plan to teach only this one upcoming month-long workshop as described above, which will be on a first-come first-served basis. If you or anyone you know is interested in this hands-on workshop, please let us know as soon as possible. You can call me directly on my cell phone 518 260 5320 if you have questions, or email Joseph@hisbench.com. Beyond that you can book your bench space directly on the NL website here.

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We finished two workshops this weekend and I will spend time getting ready for the upcoming class starting this coming Saturday. It was a special weekend really. Nick Richards finished his Timber Framing workshop and everyone took away their trestles made exclusively using timber-framing methods and M&T joints of different types with them. The weather was so beautiful we kept all doors open and let the gentle breezes pass on through. I got to make friends with the guys Nick was teaching too as they came in the shop to see my class and we sat for lunches together too. Of course mortise and tenons are all scaleable and so we cut the same joints in furniture making but we adapt techniques and tools to suit size and task. The accuracy they strove for in making the trestles was impressive. Shoulders dead square in both directions and then the draw-bore peg pulling the shoulders permanently tight. The bracing gave absolute rigidity to the whole and when they came to lift them, being green wood, it really took two to hoist them into the back of the trucks and trailers.

Saying goodbye always has mixed feelings somewhere between satisfaction and separation. Everyone shook hands and hugged and went on their way with their trestles in tow. The workshop was made all the more powerful without machines subbing for developed skill and so too the sense of accomplishment is always heightened because of the physical demands it takes to work wood by hand. So, I think we will all look forward to meeting again somewhere in the future.

As the real woodworking campaign continues gaining success from one phase to the next, I find more and more people becoming creative in realms they never thought possible.  My two days passed in a heartbeat. Much faster than I thought they would and before I knew it I was sitting on a bench by the pond getting my journal up to date. I think we gained so much and of course the thing that makes the workshop so interactive is of course around the bench Q and A time. You could say that this is somewhat predictable but, really, it’s not at all. Every question may have the same inquiry, but then it’s often asked differently by different people. This makes the time really proactive and one day I may get to recording the questions.

Pretty usual early on is the time spent on sharpening. I just read a book on sharpening that someone put our recently. I thought it was funny because the intro said in two sentences that the task was remarkably simple and then made the whole procedure more complicated by presenting analytical facts and scientific data that totally changed what is essentially simple and straightforward. How many books we need on sharpening I don’t know. perhaps I should write one too. Six pages should do it. There was no new revelation in the book and I couldn’t really recommend it. There is nothing new under the sun I suppose. We spent time demystifying the misinformation on planes and planing, joints and making joints and of course this is all preparatory for further workshops whether they be at the bench live with me or through our Online Broadcast with Woodworkingmasterclasses.com.

Judging by parting comments we did hit the mark. The goal of course being to inspire and make free. I think the mysteries were debunked for sure. The joints came out well and some needed a little more practice, but they are now ready for the next phase in their training. This two day workshop really works well so I was glad to see its success so well received. I closed with the last picture as I walked to my apartment for rest.

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 the furniture maker and joiner, these clamps make much sense. Two things struck me about the Universal clamps as you will see from the images. The import knockoffs have a much smaller locking mechanism that translates into damage in the registration dents if you apply too much pressure. Of course if you know this the you will not be too excessive and they work fine. The second point is the distance between the indents. The thicker alluminium allows for closer registration points for the lock to register.

One thing that we furniture makers would make much sense of would be a snap on extension. The old Record cramps were available with extensions and simple pine passed through that locked another 2 or 3 feet on there for longer reaches. We relied on these for large frame joinery like window frames and doors and such.

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I managed a few moments in Nick’s workshop through the day and it was then that I noticed an old timberframed building that will make a new structure at the Maplewood Center. The old hand hewn beams were lay right next to new sections that Nick had prepped for a garage building to be built nearby. I thought it was neat to see the old against the new and see the same joints being used.

In the workshop I really liked the fact that there is a domestic US engineer tool maker making hand made woodworking tools for woodworkers and that they make inshaves and draw knives and some of the finest timber framing chisels I have seen. We should support these guys at Barr Specialty Tools in their endeavor so here is a link I think is worth holding onto.

These guys are really wrestling through their mortises with Barr’s chisels. They sharpen really well to a keen edge and have great edge retention so they are tough to boot. The class was really going well throughout the day and I was glad to see their progress. Soon they will be undertaking projects of their own and I know one granddad there that plans on building a timberframed play house for his grandkids.

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The significance of timber framed structures throughout Europe and the USA cannot be denied when it comes to man’s quest for surviving seasons of harshness with store-housing crops and overwintering livestock and much more. Throughout the USA, hundreds of thousands of these structures survive as examples of workmanship and a way of life we may never see at such significant levels again, yet here at the Maplewood Center for Common Craft the traditions of timber framing continues. As old structures deteriorate, are dismantled for tax reduction and so on, workshops at a New York venue counter cultural shifts in a strategy that ensures the skills it took to build them don’t die out.

This week the Maplewood Center held a three-day timber framing course I felt privileged to watch and photograph and I could sense first hand the preservation and conservation of what I can only describe as the art and craft of timber framing. The students develop traditional patterns of timber framing as they watched professional timber framer Nick Richards take them step by step to build a working timber framed trestle from 6×6 framing timbers. The joints are of course draw-bore mortise and tenon joints full width and 2” thick. Using the same traditional tools and methods goes beyond just making good joints. Nick explains the reasoning behind the joints, recalls their historical value to worklife of past eras, the importance of using well-defined methods of construction, their relationship to full-sized buildings and how these students can indeed take the skills and apply them to their future work in structures they build.

Seeing the camaraderie is important  to me. Woodworking on this scale is somewhat different to my own sphere of furniture making yet many principles and skills are readily transferable and certainly cross from one sphere of working wood to another. Drawer bore methods, layout procedures, and joint making procedures are but methods for making. Beyond that we have chisel and saw sharpening, patterns of workmanship, tool techniques and much more. Nick discusses sourcing woods and which woods work best for framing structures. The Q & A time is of course incredibly valuable for equipping students with the right knowledge and information when they return to their home region. The interaction between students and teachers develops a dynamic of its own as they progress to new levels of confidence using hands-on methods and tools some may never have used before. I felt visceral levels excitement that sparked new levels enthusiasm throughout the timber-framed workshop we were receiving instruction in too. Nick was the framer who built the timber framed buildings used as workshops here at the Maplewood Center and this includes the massive woodworking workshop that hosts the New Legacy School of Woodworking next door.

All in all there is a lot going on at the Maplewood Center. Nick will be holding another three-day Introduction to Timber Framing September 20-22, 2013. I suggest that you sign up early as class size is generally limited to six students per workshop.

Watch out for an upcoming blog about the Maplewood Center. They have other courses scheduled to help you be creative in traditional crafts.

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