Anthony Guidice (The Seven Essentials of Woodworking) touts the frame saw as the saw to use, and says that, for working in hard woods, a crosscut saw isn’t desireable.
Does anyone have a experience with purchased frame saws?
Does it make sense to use a rip saw to crosscut hard wood?
Also, does anyone have a suggestion as to what “new” (as opposed to used) saws a newbie should consider buying for general purpose ripping/resawing, general purpose crosscutting, joint making, etc? Either specific products or what specifically to look for would be much appreciatied. The more specific the better; there are too many options!
Replies
http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/saws/kenyon.html
http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?cat=507
That's nonsense about frame saws being the only way to go in hardwoods.
And no, you should not try cross cutting with a rip saw (although it is possible to do the reverse (rip with a cross cut saw), it not efficient or enjoyable to do). The blade geometries are significantly different.
Japanese saws are another excellent option:
http://www.japanwoodworker.com/dept.asp?dept_id=13079
Another good source:
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc
Edited 9/6/2007 3:17 pm ET by Samson
Edited 9/6/2007 3:18 pm ET by Samson
I find my crosscut saw very desirable...
Once early on in my woodworking education I wasn't paying attention and I grabbed a rip panel saw to do a rough crosscut... Slow and messy... So no it does not make much sense to crosscut would with a rip saw. Occasionally when I'm being lazy with handcut joinery I may make a shoulder cut with my rip back saw, but the crosscut saw is much cleaner.
I've never used a frame saw, nor have I ever had the desire to... I think Tage Fried used one... that's where the popularity comes from.
In addition to Samsons links... http://www.adriatools.com also has very good saws.
Its funny how things change, isn't it? Tage Frid made similar remarks about hand saws. Seem so uninformed now. Its silly to try to x-cut with a rip saw. Mike Wenz has some experience making saws that can rip and cross cut. I guess he's trying to save his customers money. I say buy two saws and forget about it. Sawing is hard enough when you have a saw designed for your cut.
Resawing by hand with a regular saw was probbaly never common. The reason is that it isn't easy to do. So my advice is to skip that. Aside from that, if you work by hand you need at least 2 rip saws. They should have blades as long as your arm at least. One should be as coarse as possible (mine is 3-1/2ppi) and should be filed with no rake. Reserve this saw for 2 by and 4 by construction lumber and 4/4 pine. The second should be 5-7ppi with a bit of rake for 4/4 hardwoods. You might want one more rip saw with fine teeth for ripping 2/4 stock. This saw can be shorter than the others. i promised myself I'd make one andd haven't gotten around to it.
I don't care for coarse x-cut saws, though I have one and need it occasionally. Instead I recommend a 20-24" 12 tooth panel saw.
For general joinery, I like to have rip and x-cutting back saws, though this is probably non-traditional. I recommend longer fine toothed back saws, maybe 16" in length, 12ppi for general joinery. I have a 19" tenon saw that I find useful. But it takes a little getting used to. Both of these could be framed saws with fixed blades. This is really the right place to experiment wih framed saws. They aren't a panacea. And its the teeth more than anything that matter.
Adam
I’m a big fan of the bow saw; I picked that up from Mr. Frid. Easy to make for yourself in both rip and crosscut and can do any task you ask of it. I have make at least eight of various lengths and styles and given a few more away to friends. Total cost of each, the price of a blade, (say $12.00), and scrap hardwoods. Personally I have had no need at all for these expensive boutique saws and have never gotten used to the Japanese types. But that is just me.
Napie,
Another adventure on my list. Suggestions for blades?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Highland Hardware.
Chuck,
You asked what seemed to be a simple question, and you showed that you did some research. Then the trouble began. One response said that the recommendations that came from your research are useless. Then Adam Cherubini gave you some recommendations. Adam almost always has strong opinions. The the next respondent said that all those boutique saws are a waste. So he has strong opinions too. Who ya gonna believe?
If all of this information were fed into a computer, the computer would crash. I can't see how you can make any useful decisions from the totality of what you received. This is often the case on Knots.
So what's a guy to do?
My recommendation is to move slowly. No need to buy too many saws to begin with. If there is a woodworking guild near you, join it and find someone who uses hand tools and visit their shop, and have the person let you try their saws to do some different things. That is the best way to learn. It is nice because you can try tools to see what they can and can't do before you buy them. It is nice because you are getting all of your advice from one person, which is less confusing than getting it from 16 people, all of whom do things differently.
The great thing about woodworking is that everybody is right. Certainly what Adam does works. He actually builds stuff. Same with Napie, yet he uses different tools and different techniques. Everyone is right. But that is confusing to the new person.
Adam mentioned a person, whom he called Mike Wenz. I am sure that Adam was talking about Mike Wenzloff, who hangs around here on Knots. Also he runs a business that makes hand saws. Mike is very easy to get hold of and easy to talk to. I have nothing invested in Mike's business but I like, respect and trust him. I suggest that you go to his website, and noodle around. Then write to him, and ask some questions. You might want to get on the phone with him. There is no doubt that Mike will:
1) not sell you anything you don't need
2) will give you excellent info on what saw you can use for what purposes.
3) will not steer you wrong.
I suggest that you try to take my first recommendation of finding a woodworker closeby whom you can visit, and contacting Mike Wenzloff. His website is:
http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/saws/
His contact info is:
Wenzloff & Sons
2120 17th Avenue
Forest Grove, Oregon 97116
503-359-4191
Here on Knots, his handle is mwenz.
Write to Mike.
Have fun. Don't buy too much too soon.
Let me know what happens.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
"Everyone is right"
You're wrong about that.
Objective reality as demonstrated through empiricism does exist.
For example, the writer (mentioned by the OP) claiming that only frame saws are good for cutting hardwood is full of sheet. Same goes for whoever told him that cross-cutting with a rip saw was preferable in hardwood.
Samson,
If I wrote better, I could have gotten across what I really meant. What I meant when I said that "everyone is right", is that everyone has ways of doing things that work for them. So their opinion on what works for them is right. English is a wonderfully ambiguous language. It is what makes conversations so stimulating. You really don't need to struggle to find out what the speaker meant, you can just attach your own meaning. Of course, in a real process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, it is far more useful to try to understand what the other person actually intended, rather than to just attach one's own meaning. But then again, conversations in which both parties are struggling to attain a higher plateau of understanding, rather than just trying to make their own point, are not ubiquitous. Wouldn't you agree?I like your ideas on empiricism. I work at NASA in the field of astrophysics. So building and testing hypotheses and models for objective test is part of the life I live outside of woodwork. Please let me know more about your background in science. We may have common ground outside of woodwork. Our conversation was initiated over an issue of intended versus transmitted meaning. I have always enjoyed the research of Noam Chomsky and Lev Vygotsky on language and thought. The interacting effects of language and thought are, to me, the most interesting issues in behavioural science. It is only through precise use of language that we can truly eschew obfuscation. :-)Are you interested in either astrophysics or psychology? What are your scientific interests.
Thanks,
Mel
PS what did you think of my recommendations to the person who wants to know what saws to buy?Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel, my reply was tongue in cheek. I guess I need to use smiley's more ;-)
I took your "everyone is right" as I think you intended - they are "right" in that what they do, and are used to, is what works for them. I couldn't resist pretending to take it more literally as those who are "right" in this way often make (rather silly)pronouncements that generalize their own limited experience (some might say anecdotal or provincial) as the objective universal truth - or perhaps more precisely to put their own experience on a pedestal that excludes that of others. For example, "frame saws are the "best" or "only" way to go in sawing hard woods."
There are several ways to skin any woodworking cat, and most of the time any effort to rank those "ways" is a fools errand. That's my wordier effort at your "everyone is right" sentiment; how'd I do?
I'm not a scientist, at least not as my livelihood. [please read some of the following sentences as though smile/wink ascii were included - I'll let you choose which] I am drawn to science however, and study all such things in my leisure time (in other words, when channel surfing, I usually stop on discovery science, the national geographic channel, or the like). And when I was a kid, I was quite unique in that I was certain I would pursue paleontology. I did win the Max Newman Memorial Science award in HS as the best science student, for real. I also did research at the Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Institute one summer studying "Cell Surface Expression and Shedding of Lymphoma Associated Antigens" as part of an effort to develop an assay making use of monoclonal antibodies, a new breakthrough at the time.
oh yeah, saws - those are real useful. I got a bunch. And like you said, Chuck couldn't go wrong with a Wenzloff from what I've heard.
Peace.
Sampson,
You are a gentleman. Thank you for your response.
Glad you liked my advice to check with Mike Wenzloff. By the way, I wasn't even suggesting that he buy a saw from Mike. I was merely suggesting that he contact Mike to get some good info on saws. Mike has been generous with advice to me on saws and their maintenance. I recommend him every chance I get. You are right, "Universal statements" in woodworking are just about all wrong. Nicely said.Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
9619,
You're right--everybody is right. There are a lot of ways we do things, and they're not always the best, fastest, smartest, safest, most efficient, etc. But if a person isn't too stubborn, each attempt with a method is refined, and results get better.
And in our minds we are right, untill we see different and feel the need to change or improve our method. Hairloom
Mike,
Chuck L has some questions about which hand saws to start with. Is there any chance you could look at the message that started this thread, and see if you could give him any advice?Thanks,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,I look at KNOTS and other internet ww sites like my opportunity to be educated (or sometimes educate) the way Merlin taught Wart in TH White's "The Once and Future King". Each of us offers a different avenue to explore, each with helpful lessons and pitfalls. Its wrong to expect consensus, and its wrong of you to reduce this thread to "Who ya gonna believe?" as if some of us are lying. We're not selling used cars here.Adam
Adam,
Many years ago, I bought a used car. The salesman was my wife's cousin. He told me the car had been treated well, by an older couple. They'd regularly brought the car to the dealership for service, etc, etc. Two weeks after I bought it, it's transmission exploded. He told me it was a good car. It wasn't a good car, it broke down once a month for the 6 months it took to pay off the loan. So was Ralph lying? No. I know he spoke in good faith. But he sure was wrong.
Ray
Ray,
The most convincing way to lie to someone is to first tell the lie to yourself until you believe it to be a true - a maxim of salesmen everywhere. One is more convincing (no body-language give-aways) when one believes the lie is the truth. This is the politician's trick also. And the clergy's.
Faith - a belief without proof. Faith is a fine social lubricant, allowing us to meet folk and emulate trust in them (and vice versa) so that later we have the chance to become real friends. Initial faith avoids the need for using the club, knife and (in the worst cases) cooking pot when a stranger comes.
In time, the faith is replaced by trust, as evidence is gathered that our new friend is indeed well-intentioned. (Or trust is withheld if the knife is hastily hid or the cooking point is glimpsed being made ready). Trust requires hard evidence of good will.
A demand for prolonged faith with nary a jot of trust-evidence provided? Aha! One suspects a mechanism of social, political or religious control and manipulation is being applied. Some enjoy being controlled by a Large Authority, of course.
Reputation: an ability to share and reuse the trust that others have in something via your trust in them. This is why salesmen, politicians and clergy (amongst other social roles) often have reputations that are at rock-bottom. Many have had initial faith in them but lost it when evidence reveals untrustworthiness of the worst kinds.
So, with the salesmen, politicians and clergy - watch out! They may be the most convincing of liars so best to take their protestations of "good faith" for what they're worth and go straight to the trust mechanism before buying, voting or joining that church or this.
Of course, many salesmen, politicians and clergy are good, honest folk. But how do you tell which are which without that trust-evidence or a good reputation?
In our WW domain, incidentally, we can see the difference a good reputation makes with the likes of LV and LN.
Lataxe, a diffn't kinda semantician
Lataxe,
You old cynic, you. Mel recently sent me a book. In it, the author quoted a schoolboy who said, "Faith is the capacity of believing that which you know to be untrue."
Would you hit the visitor with a cookpot, or put him in it? Just curious, in the off chance that I make it to your country, and can wrangle an invitation to dinner. :-0)
I really don't think cousin Ralph was other than mistaken in his belief in that '63 VW. Being mistaken is a state that most of us find ourselves in, from time to time. (Even I, once thought I was wrong- but I was mistaken.) That is one reason that Mel posited the possiblity that varying opinions ought to be given the "who ya gonna believe" test. Of course, if you believe what Adam says, then you ought to believe...Adam. And so, around and around, with the politicos, and other AUTHORITIES. And, as Adam suggested, Mel might have been wrong... In my childhood, I used to watch a tv show hosted by the talented musician comedian and philosopher Steve Allen ("How's your bird?") A frequent guest on the show was Professor Irwin Corey, "The World's Foremost Authority" Gee I miss him.
Ray
Adam,
It is good of you to point out my faults. I do have a number of them, and I continually try to reduce the number.When you read messages from people who are new to saws or who are new to woodworking, you should look at the world NOT through the eyes of a highly knowledgeable, highly skilled woodworker and historian. Try to see the world as the questioner sees it. He is confused. He has gotten multiple pieces of feedback which are mutually contradictory. You are a mature woodworker who can look through all of those contradictory messages and make some sense of it. The person who asked the original question, does not have your background, and is surely confused. I could give you five different mutually contradictory messages on matters of astrophysics and you would be bewildered. Yet an astrophysicist, who had as much experience at astrophysics as you have at woodworking, would have no trouble seeing through the different contradictory messages. The fault would not be yours for not having the background. There, indeed, would be no "fault" involved. Like the original questioner here in this thread, you would be an avid beginner with contradictory information to assimilate. If you would like to learn more about how learners assimilate and accomodate new pieces of information, let me recommend that you read of the psychology of Jean Piaget. I did my dissertation in that area.Adam, you tend to write with the tone of an older university professor. You speak down to people. You are probably younger than I am, yet you remind me of my grandfather. When I said to the questioner, "Who ya gonna believe?", I had no thought of being negative toyou and to the other respondents. Each of the respondents had worked things out for themselves in different ways. They are experienced woodworkers. Each was a very nice person for taking the time to respond. Thanks for writing. I hope my feedback to you on working with newbies is useful to you.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
“let me recommend that you read of the psychology of Jean Piaget. I did my dissertation in that area”. <!----><!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
Could you possibly be any more pedantic?
Napie,
You said: Could you possibly be any more pedantic? You don't know how much I appreciate your response.
I was trying, by example, to show Adam that:
1) being pendantic is easy to spot, and
2) sounding pendantic is not pleasant to your correspondent. I was trying to be subtle. I failed.
But you made my point for me.
For that, I am in your debt.
You would have made a better sidekick to Johnny Carson than Ed McMahon.
To quote Richard,
"Slainte",
MelP.S. Tell me, what type of woodwork do you do? What are your specialties -- the things you like to do best? Knowing that, I'll know what types of questions to address to you.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Charles (I mean Napie),
I always enjoy your snapping albeit it teaches us nothing but how a snapper can snap.
However, you must consider a change of nom-de-plume. Do you know what a nappy, in Britain, is generally full of?
Lataxe, practicing some snappin'.
PS I have a fine metal-bodied bow saw with 3tpi. It can take a limb off a tree or slice a big log up in no time, whereas that DT saw I bought takes ages to achieve the same lop. I am considering recommending that everyone starts to use chainsaws for furniture-making, as they are even faster than bowsaws!
Forget the chainsaw; the brush hog on my tractor will be much faster!
<!----><!----> <!---->
As to my alias, well, the British meaning of things has never had much value to me, no matter that I love bubble and squeak. My forefathers bailed out of the Isles in 1705, pushed off to the colonies by the gentry to be a buffer between the upstanding English settlers and the savages. We didn’t return until two different times in the first half of the twentith century having to do the same thing in reverse, such is the calling of a Northumbrian. So in short, while I fully understand the meaning of my “name” in your vernacular, your vernacular has no meaning here.
<!----> <!---->
BTW, who is Charles?
<!----> <!---->
Napie,
Charles is another fine Knots savage of taste, discernment and an evil typing finger. He also is intransigent on this and that matter. From here, you look to be the same bloke, with your barking and that.
Lataxe, from Coonty Durham (the civilised bit south of Northumberland).
PS I thank your genes for that bit of help with them goosesteppers a while back. I only wonder how you reconcile such helpin' with your distain for altruism?
PPS Where is the "here" in which my vernacular means nothing? I am here in Knotsland. Where are you?
Edited 9/9/2007 4:06 pm ET by Lataxe
It had nothing to do with altruism of course. Better to stop them on your doorstep than ours. Additionally, putting you all in our debt for half a century has been good for business; it kept Tony in line and seems to work on Gordon too.
<!----><!----> <!---->
Here is home, (the great unwashed <!----><!---->Midwest<!---->, AKA fly over country).
"Better to stop them on your doorstep than ours".
Ah but the stoppin' is dangerous activity,wherever it's done. You telling me your dad and mine did it for the pay?
Lataxe, glad he never had to go but woudda done (maybe).
Edited 9/9/2007 5:55 pm ET by Lataxe
Life is a dangerous activity if done correctly that is: “The brave do not live forever, but the coward never lives at all”.<!----><!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
As for the going, well, my one grandfather at <!----><!----><!---->Normandy<!----><!---->, the other at <!---->Iwo Jima<!---->, my father at <!----><!---->Inchon<!----><!---->. One uncle on the wall, his brother who came home, sort of, and my momma, (their sister), misses them both. As for me, <!----><!---->Lebanon<!----><!----> in ’83. Now, one nephew in <!----><!---->Iraq<!----><!---->, another in <!----><!---->Afghanistan<!----><!---->. We just do this in my family. Daddy always said, “Some people do their duty, most let others do it for them”.<!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
Napie,
You must explain how one can both do one's duty but eschew altruism. I would like to learn this mental gymnastic albeit I have my own procedures for reconciling my utter selfishness with an ability and desire to also serve (some) others, in this little way and that.
Perhaps it's just a case of multiple personalities? (A perfectly valid condition - I have several myself).
Lataxe, logic chopper.
Lataxe,
I saw your message to Charles (I mean Napie).
So is Napie another nom de guerre of Charles Stanford, or does this Charles occupy a different body? I didn't think that Charles Stanford needed any more names. That would be interesting, if Napie is C.S., then the one person who came to Charles' defense last week, other than you, was Charles himself? Fantastic. It kind of reminds me of a great musician. Do you remember Les Paul. He was the person who invented the electric guitar, and more importantly, he invented the "voice over". He would have his wife, Mary Ford, sound like a choir. MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Believe me, I am NOT this Charles person you are talking about.
<!----><!----> <!---->
Les Paul did not invent the electric guitar. He made some substantial innovations to it and he and C. L. “Leo” Fender independently came up with the solid body instruments we see today.
<!----> <!---->
I bet you are an absolute blast at a party…….
Mel,
Napie is (it appears to me) very much his own person. Calling him Charles was just a dig along the lines, "Your attitudes and style are familiar, as they are rather like those of Charles' ". Napie seems to like to correspond in a combative fashion (as does Charles). It is instructive to spar; and even gouge or bite.
These blokes may have a different worldview and style of putting it over, from me and you. But I think you are rather intolerant if you are suggesting they should change themselves just to please your sensibilities. Why not just get out of their ideas (however expressed) what you can?
I am a happy Knots interlocutor as, for example, Charles revealed Ayn Rand to me (a completely mad OCD-paranoic anarchist sort of woman - but still full of fascinating and sometimes illuminating ideas). The pair of them (Charles & Napie) also cause me to consider some woodworking wisdom I might otherwise have rejected "automatically" (ie from my own set of prejudices) from time to time.
Finally, they are interesting blokes precisely because they are not like me. I just hate it when folk have the same ideas as me - how can I exploit or learn from them?
Of course, many folk may have multiple personalities on Knots. Whilst some may see this as cheating it does tend to support that fine Situationist recommendation to us all: "Let us destroy the myth of the single integrated human personality".
Lataxe, of singular Knots persona (if not personality); and fascinated by aliens.
PS I still think the idea that a bowsaw can do any and everything that other specialist saws are designed for is an excessive claim. Or perhaps I have missed the subtle nuances?
I think the psychology behind self-appointed forum policemen is exponentially more fascinating than that of forum curmudgeons, don't you?
Poor Mel has a thankless job, he scurries around to be found in practically any thread exceeding five entries to make sure everybody is playing nice and getting along according to Mel's Rules of Woodworking Forums (2d Edition). He's taken over the job from ForestGirl; it finally wore her out as it will Mel eventually. Or in Jamie's case I think some actual woodworking intervened. She's much better as one of the guys instead of her dual role as Mama Hen and captain of the Grizzly Cheerleading Squad. Think Cheri Oteri.
Maybe in Mel's case it is some sort of latent empty nest syndrome, or the wise old bird/semi-retired, fought in both World Wars, earned three Ph.Ds, was on the road with Kerouac, played in Ziggy's band shtick we've been entertained by before. Perhaps he can self-diagnose and on a more hopeful note, even self-medicate.
Edited 9/11/2007 12:09 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
Voodoo chile,
"Perhaps he can self-diagnose and on a more hopeful note, even self-medicate".
I hope not - I like old schoolmarms, for many reasons.
* They often know lots (albeit it may have to be discerned amongst the admonitions).
* Their gentle smacks are somehow exciting.
* They give out homework, which causes one to go off and learn stuff rather than just play-out with the lads or go to look behind the bike sheds.
* Out of school, they sometimes may be seen transformed into creatures behaving wildly and with abandon. Coo, we never really knew them after all!
Lataxe, much more tolerant then you, ye horrible, savage ideologue-thang.
As a newbie, novice, beginner, apprentice, who knows very little, I usually have little to contribute (unless it's a question about contact dermatitis) and this post is not much different...however, I will PRESUME to speak for newbies who post questions of those more learned and experienced than we. Yes, when posting questions, we HOPE to get THE answer that will direct us to the perfect tool(s) that will help us make the leap forward into competence, save us from making the mistakes previously made by our woodworking betters here at Knots and leave us feeling that we made a wise purchase...and occasionally, no, rarely that happens...but the reality is that any of us who have been on this site more than a few weeks and have read any of the threads quickly comes to the realization that a single right answer is more often a pipe dream than a common occurance.
Still, many of us persist in asking for opinions, sometimes to reinforce our own nascent ideas, sometimes because we have NO idea, and oft times to explore the spectrum of ideas that y'all have. I'll admit that sometimes I come away confused but usually it's because I don't have the knowledge base to fully understand and process the answer (eg when I asked a question awhile back about sharpening molding plane irons).
I will admit to some distress when the difference of opinion leads to less than friendly replies as did this thread. Thank goodness it resolved with at least the appearance of gentlemenly respect.
In conclusion, please continue contributing your own opinions (egocentric or otherwise) and let us sort them out as we will. NObody said this was gonna be easy, at least no one said it to me.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy" B. Franklin
Cheers, Neil
Neil,
Apologies to you and anyone else to whom I may have caused undue stress by taking the thread away from the intended subject matter of the OP. A little of the stimulating kind of stress is OK though....? It was a bit self-indulgent perhaps.
I don't know about you but I'm about to try the bowsaw - might even make one. There's plenty of good opinion in this thread with which to begin the process in an informed rather than a blind state. We lives and larns.
Lataxe
Ah Lataxe,
You have always entertained in your Geordie way and have never caused me any stress...I was refering to the times when these discussions have deteriorated into personal attacks which thankfully have not been often...no, your ability to turn a phrase and find some aspect of humor no matter how irreverent in the subject at hand or a new one you've introduced is always entertaining...no apology needed...
Neil, the not so novice appreciator of humor subtle and otherwise
I didn't know nuances came in varieties other than subtle.
Bake,
You have ensnared me in your tautology-seive!
Nuance -variation is shades, like those of clouds (or nuages, in fact).
Lataxe, too wordy by 2
Hey bake,
File your complaint with the dept of redundancy dept.
Heh,
Ray, purveyer of hot-water heaters, and inscrutable cats
Ray,
Our Korky is far from inscrutable. His every intent (all two of them) is writ large in his little pusscat fizzog, not to mention the rest of his great furry person.
He is threatening dogs at the garden gate again, just now. (Why does he do it? I don't know. Perhaps this is his version of "inscrutable"). His other intent is to eat, which we are all quite certain about.
Sometimes he seems to sleep but he's just pretending. Really he is dreaming about beating up another dog or what might be in his bowl.
Lataxe, a cat servant.
Lataxe,
Clawdette, our cat, is inconceivable, impregnable, and might as well be inscrutable. You see, she has been neutered.
Nonetheless, she seems not to have held that against us, as she is by far the most affectionate cat we've had, of all the felines to have graced our houshold over the years.
impurrfectly yours,
Ray
“let me recommend that you read of the psychology of Jean Piaget. I did my dissertation in that area”. <!----><!----><!---->
<!---->
If your writing here is any indication, I cannot possibly imagine how tortuous your dissertation must have been. Good Gawd, did anybody on your committee commit suicide? It's almost incomprehensible to imagine you writing a master's thesis, much less a doctoral dissertation.<!---->
Edited 9/9/2007 11:48 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
Charles,
I am a practical fellow. I had three choices: go to Vietnam, go to Canada, or stay on in university life. I chose the third. Not that I don't like Canada. There is nothing inherently wrong with a country in which summer occurs on a weekday. My dissertation was more than a bit "dry" to read, although I really enjoyed the topic. When adults watched children solve certain problems, they couldn't understand why the children made such bad errors so consistently. Piaget kinda hinted that the adults might want to wonder if the children were using the same words they were using, but with different meanings. AHA! When the adults asked the children how they were using the words, the chilren's answers were consistent with their meaning of the words. The importance of seeing issues through the eyes of others has remained important to me. When I read some of your responses, it is quite obvious to me that I wouldn't consider answering like that, but rather than just dismissing your answers, I tried to understand what made you answer that way. When you do that, whole different realms of thinking open up. I can think of reasons why you would. It is like "men are from Mars, and women are from Venus." The lack of understanding between the two can be enormous. Just trying to understand where the other is coming from helps. It doesn't guarantee you'll figure it out, but it sensitizes you to the fact that there are forces at work in the other person's head that aren't in yours.This is no different than the study of different cultures. Where I work, at NASA, the Engineering culture and the Science culture are very very different. Italians see things differently than Norwegians. Most importantly, people who are new to a field (say woodworking) do not cannot cope with a group of mutually contradictory advice, even if one of the pieces of advice is better than the others. The newbie just has no way of knowing which is which. The old saying "To someone with a hammer, the world looks like a lot of nails" is an example of not trying to see what the other person is thinking.Psychologists have a fancy word for it, -- egocentrism. People who are more egocentric, tend to focus on themselves. That stops them from helping them solve the problems of others. They can't see them. Indeed, they don't try. Have you ever seen a person who speaks a different language try to converse with someone who only speaks English. I have seen the English speaker get very frustrated and give the same answer over and over, just louder and louder. That doesn't solve anything.I hope that helps you see why I think my dissertation was in a useful area, and why I believe that in order to give someone else advice that they can use, you have to know where they are coming from. Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
"I hope that helps you see why I think my dissertation was in a useful area, and why I believe that in order to give someone else advice that they can use, you have to know where they are coming from. " Hope does spring eternal, LOL!
I could use your help, Mel. Seems my grandson, at the age of 10, is in desperate straits math-wise. I'm afraid he's just going to give up. Needs great understanding, hope I'm up to the task 'cause I just volunteered to be his one-on-one if it's necessary. School's not working for him, it would seem. I had an 18-year-old employee for a year who'd been through that, and did give up. Sad, sad, sad.
PS: I haven't read the bulk of this overweight thread. Wish I had time for the entertainment.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 9/18/2007 11:18 am by forestgirl
FG,
It is great to hear from you. Glad you got some jollies from my remarks on trying to help newbies. I wish you the best of luck in helping your grandson in math. I tutored math for years. My BA and MS are in math. I found that most of those who were having trouble with math had a fear of math. If you could break down that fear, they could get it. In math, we use a lot of names that scare people. In algebra, we talk about the commutativity and associativity, and students break into a sweat and their eyes gloss over. ALL WE DID WAS NAME SOMETHING. We could, just as easily, have called those two things "Judy and Ralph". The terms we used were scary. You live a long way from me. If we were closer, I'd come over and lend a hand (no charge, obviously). As it stands, we have email. You know how to send a message to me. Please feel more than free to do that. I can't guarantee anything, but I'll try to help. Have fun.
MelPS - no need to wade through the rest of this thread. It got too heavy for my taste. Too much posturing and egocentrism.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel, thank you so much! I'll send an email, probably tomorrow as I have a good-bye-dinner engagement tonight and will be a little too "relaxed," shall we say, to compose thoughts tonight. I don't know how much the challenge of my helping will be increased by the difference in the way math is taught these days, compared to my childhood.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Forestgirl - I'll throw out another offer of help to you though you probably won't need additional help if you've got Mel on your team. I think he and I are of a like mind when it comes to an approach on teaching. Don't know if you'll recognize my screen name....I'm not quite as prolific as you, Mel, and others on this site. But I'm another one with a math degree, a California teaching credential, and a long history of helping anyone who happened my way that needed math help....my students, kids, nieces, nephews, sisters, etc, etc, etc. I sort of reference that in my only other post on this thread way back on post 123.
Your 10 yr old grandson would be about 5th grade...depending on the school, I'm guessing that for the first time he's getting bits of algebra, bits of geometry, dreaded word problems, oblique hints of what a function and equation are....etc. Scary stuff indeed.
Due to distance problems with most of my tutorees I've done quite a bit of successful tutoring over the phone. So if the need should arise, if for nothing else 'cause at least I'm in your same time zone, just let me know.
Needless to say this offer expects no compensation a 'tall, a 'tall. I've always considered this part of the teacher's code.
charlie -- "Count your blessings....it could always be worse!"
Charlie,
I just read your offer to help Forestgirl do some math tutoring. It is great to see such things on Knots. Also, thank you for the nice words. Maybe between the two of us, we can help her grandson.
Enjoy,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Thanks so much, Charlie. I've gotten a few offers of help via email also, so I feel like there are good resources and you guys are so generous!!! The young guy has some attention-span challenges that complicate things. I'll send you an email later today and let you know what's what.
Thanks!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
No prob. Give a call out to me anytime.
If you prefer to go the email route, I can do that also.
charlie -- "Count your blessings....it could always be worse!"
Edited 9/20/2007 12:47 pm by charlie4444
I've been busy -- hubby's birthday. Not sure where things are at right now, haven't heard anything. But I'll be hollerin' when help is needed. Appreciate it!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"I could give you five different mutually contradictory messages on matters of astrophysics and you would be bewildered."See, you have no idea of who I am or what I do. How could you possibly assume such a thing? Ditto for the OP. You say he's a newbie, but do you know that to be the case? He didn't say. ChuckL could be Thomas Lie-Nielsen for all you know. He asked for specific information.Your post not only suggested that the contradictory information he received came from liars (I didn't see contradictory information btw), but that he needed YOU to sort it all out for him.I was guessing your intention wasn't to disparage everyone else. So I wrote you publicly so you could say one way or the other. You have never struck me as arrogant or condescending until now. Adam
Adam,
Did you bother to read the original post? In it, Chuck says he is a newbie, and asks for advice to reduce the number of saw possibilities. But don't let that stop you from haranguing all and sundry who dare to present their own views, or suggest a means of reducing the pile of conflicting info to a manageable level. Better he defers to your pronouncements. Nice to find out that in addition to being an engineer, and premier woodworker, you are now an astrophysicist, too.
Prof Corey reincarnated!
I could be wrong, now, but I don't think so.
Ray
Ray,
I am getting confused as to who is this week's "Knots pariah and whippin' boy".
Having got used to the cane at school (the real school, not that pretend one we have alluded to) I am willing to be the pariah any time. This will save poor Adam from your cruel ministrations. (He is still putting salve on them cuts Larry give him).
But there is next week to consider. I have made a tentative slash here and there but where is the official pariah list? At this rate one will have to "do a Charles" and invent several half-crazed personalities so that a phoney war can be started amongst 'em all!
Lataxe, eagerly awaiting cyber-punishment, one way or another.
PS You must be sniffin' some rare wood dust just now.
Lataxe,
Well, it's been a rough week, and the dog has learned to stay out of foot range. Just don't go pickin on my little buddy Mel, and you'll be alright, I reckon.
Ray
Ray,
I just picked on yer furry friend. I am expecting a wee bite in the ankle, so you can stay snoozin' by the fire.
Lataxe, emulating our cat (beats up on the nozzles of passing dogs, then legs-it before they recover).
You're right. My mistake. I probably skipped that word because its meaningless to me. As far as I'm concerned ChuckL still could be Thomas Lie-Nielsen. You are a fine woodworker, but I have no idea how much experience you have with hand saws. You could have asked this question for all I know. The point is we just don't know enough about the OP's from any of these questions to suggest the best possible course of action.Adam
There wasn't anything wrong with your posts at all. You stated your opinion and your methods of work are more than valid.
Adam,
You propose to Mel that: "See, you have no idea of who I am or what I do".
However, we know only too well who you are and what you do, as you tell us all in no uncertain terms, here in Knots and on your blog, which I read with great glee.
Still, not being sensitive like Mel, I am able to extract the solids from the gas, as it were, without a grimace. However, I do wonder: were your forebears royal at all?
Keep up the strange as well as the good advice, though but, as it is valuable, despite being dressed up in flouncey lace a bit.
Lataxe, a peasant of little taste or discernment
Adam,
I just got your response. Before responding to you, I read the responses that you got from others. Lataxe and Ray already hit you pretty hard. I felt a bit sorry for you. But both made similar and strong points. There is really nothing left to say except I am saddened that this ever got started. Both of us just meant to help a guy who asked for help.I never intended any insult to you. You were not on my mind when I told the newbie that it is impossible to wade through the morass of contradictory advice. I was responding to a plethora of messages taken as a whole. I could not figure out what was what, so I figured that the newbie was even worse off. As far as I am concerned, this thing is over. I want to get back to discussions about woodwork.I respect you and your writing. You are a valuable asset to Knots. You are the resident academician and researcher, and you are a woodworker. That is generally recognized, not just by me. Let's set a good example for others. I suggest a virtual shaking of hands, and moving on to talking about woodwork. What say?
A fellow Italian-American,
Melvino<!----><!---->
I just don't agree that its egocentric to speak from one's own experiences. And from my perspective, I think it's very presumptuous to attempt to summarize or definitively answer these complex questions. In T.H. White's "The Once and Future King", Merlin turns young King Arthur into different animals. While living as an ant or a fish, Arthur learns important lessons. That's how I see these forums. I offer my advice based on my experience. Napie offers his. Both are specific and useful. But we leave it to the OP to learn from these posts. Its not for us to find the middle ground. That's the OP's job. I don't think you can do that for him. I understand why you want to try. I read the CAIB. In another thread on chisels, you suggested using blue chip chisels. I think this is a similar issue. People often ask me and what should I say? Should I recommend the chisels I started with, or the chisels I have now? I never know the answer. I think its best to hear from the ant, and the perch, and the badger, and leave the rest up to Arthur.Adam
Ciao Adam,
D'accordo. Certo.
Grazie.
MelPS
I find that reading someone's recommendations is interesting, but reading their rationale is even better. On the chisels, I did my best to give my rationales for each brand. A lot of people forget how liquid that an investment in Lie Nielsen tools is. You can sell them in six days on EBay for almost full price, even if they are used. I have learned that every topic, chisels included has immense info, and that it is impossible for everyone to know all of it. If we all spit out a large portion of what we know on chisels alone, the newbie would be massively overwhelmed. I remember the feeling distinctly. Thanks for writing. All of the animals need to be counted.
A presto.
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
"I have learned that every topic, chisels included has immense info, and that it is impossible for everyone to know all of it. If we all spit out a large portion of what we know on chisels alone, the newbie would be massively overwhelmed. I remember the feeling distinctly."I agree but I don't see a better alternative. I understand folks want quick answers. They may leave a thread frustrated that there are no quick answers and find they need to read a book or two (heaven forbid). I'm okay with that result. CAIB Page 181 "Avoiding Oversimplification"Adam
Adam,
Hard to disagree with you on this.
I have never pushed for over simplifying. On the chisel question, I never got into the dubbing of Hirsch's highly polished blades. That is simple enough to fix, but a bit time consuming, and it was unnecessary. But I tried to focus on value for cost. I tried to see the question of what to buy from the newbie point of view. I distinctly remember feeling the way he described when I bought my Hirschs. I was looking to get as good quality as possible at as low a price as possible. So I told him that the Blue Chips are the cheapest to buy initially but require more sharpening, and that the Pfeil are a mid priced set which are very good, and you can get much of your money back on EBay if you want to sell them, and that the LV are superb and you can get almost all of your money back for them on EBay. I believe that paragraph is simple enough, not complete enough, but a good place to start. I don't want to argue. I agree. Let's help make all stages of woodwork fun, including helping newbies with their initial purchases.Enjoy. Keep up the good work.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
Hey, hey! I did not insult Adam; I merely poked a little fun at his tendency to bombast. I have a lot of respect for people who know stuff and pass their wisdom, even if some of it arrives with a fanfare of trumpets, a fierce glare or some terrible doggerel.
I wish we could be ourselves around here without getting told-off or tutted-at by Mel the schoolmarm, all the time.
There, now I have practiced my "Lataxe-the-curmudgeon" you awarded me - on you. Do not feel hurt, it only makes me worse!
Perhaps this kind of mick-taking banter is just too Northern-British? If so, I will cease. (No I won't).
Lataxe, wondering if he is in Rome or some other place where one must behave diffn't.
Mel, to keep it simple you are saying;-
keep breathing (taking in information) but make sure you wear a decent filter!
Mufti,
You said, "keep breathing (taking in information) but make sure you wear a decent filter!"You have a way with words.Helping newbies is not easy. It is hard to remember what I was thinking when I learned a skill 35 years ago. I know that if one gets too much info, one closes the info pipeline. I believe it is like raising kids. You have to refrain from doing everything for themb and telling them everything, but it is nice to give them some support and hints. I read a sign one time. I forget the exact words, but it goes something like:
A good teacher gives you information.
A better teacher helps you understand.
A great teacher gets you motivated.One doesn't motivate a student by inundating them with details which can only be understood by someone who has extensive experience. That can come later. I made some good furniture on the outdoor porch of an apartment using a bench made from discarded plywood and 2x4s, along with a Sears Craftsman circular saw and a piece of plywood as a fence, and some other tools that I bought at garage sales. My chisels were not as good as Marples. I didn't worry how many tpi my saws had. I focussed on making nice furniture. I made lots of "mistakes". The more mistakes I made, the faster I learned. The thing I remember most about my early days in woodworking was the absolute joy of starting a new project, drawing it up, and making the piece. Later I started reading too much, and I became worried about making mistakes, and I became more hesitant and reticent. I still read a lot, but I am back into the "joy of woodworking". Maybe we need a thread about the "Joy of Woodworking". If I could do anything for newbies, it would be to have them focus on making furniture and obsessing over which brand of tools to buy and how many tpi for a saw. That can all come later. Thanks for writing, and for simplifying my lengthy prose. In the future, I will "breath but wear a decent filter". Heck, I might make that my new tag line. :-)
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
I want a hat just like muftis.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Mel, I read everything, I have more than one copy of some books,not just woodworking, because I pick them up in a secondhand store and do not realise I have an earlier or later copy until I get home. In front of me are two copies of "The Village Carpenter" by Walter Rose and I would not put money on not having an earlier copy in the loft. I nearly started to bone up on metadata until I realised it simply referred to the optimization of cross referencing of information.
So as one jackdaw, I reckon we never read anything new, and we can only innovate by our own mistakes and voyages of discovery. And heaven help me if I start to think new equates with better.
Help me to understand why somebody working in the 21st century reproducing 18th century works would pick such terrible examples of period craftsmanship as their model.
Do you have Israel Sack in your professional library?
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Sure you can buy and learn to use a frame saw. But you're better off buying the blades and making your own. They are real simple to make and cheaper that way. And cheap is the main attraction of these for beginners.
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30 years ago I made a bunch of them, including a large resaw and Tage Frid's famous Danish saw he cut almost everything with. Back then I couldn't afford many Disston #12's. Frankly, unless you spent an apprenticeship in Europe, I find them a bit awkward after growing up using western saws. They do offer a sharp, thin-kerf cut as well as any of the disposable Japanese saws do these days, however. And if you rub wax on the blades like Frid did, in dry hardwoods you can get away with crosscutting with a fine rip blade if you don't mind a hard start. OTOH, the rip blade won't work well at all crosscutting the damper, airdried softwoods I build boats with. What makes them awkward is they are top heavy, making it a bit more difficult to cut to a line because the saw likes to tilt and redirect the blade in the kerf.
The smaller frame coping saw is an exception, as they perform vastly better than the flimsy western variety.
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With the tighter blade, turning 90-degree corners like in cutting dovetails is easy:
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Here's a link on making them. Like all these shop-made saws, take your dimensions off the blade you buy first. Highland and others sell the blades, except these days I can't find any source for the wide Frid-style blade in my first pic.
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=12073&highlight=Coping
Edited 9/7/2007 3:20 pm by BobSmalser
Bob,
I'll vote for your response as "Post of the year". Great pics. I just looked up the reference to your other "how to" information. Top notch. Thank you.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Couldn't someone just buy a bandsaw blade for re-sawing and cut it to length for the wide blades?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I'll have to look at the Ece blades now that they've been mentioned.
I've found converted bandsaw blades make a second-rate saw for a number of reasons. Many are too thick, tensioned to run with a cup, difficult to retension, and too hard not to be costly in files to redo the tooth profile. I'd rather cut down a good bowsaw blade or even recut the saw's stretcher to fit a different length blade.
While I find the larger frame saws top-heavy, that doesn't mean they don't cut as well as anything out there...they do...putting tension on those thin blades longitudinally equals a lot of money spent on hand tensioning in the thinnest, taper-ground Western and Japanese saws.
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And many of the storebought frame saws look crudely made, without brass ferrule reinforcements or brass washers for those ferrules to bear on. Threaded drill rod is far superior to strings. I'd copy mine instead. If you do, the only one that I consider close to perfect is the coping saw. On the others the scantlings are too heavy and can be reduced, depending on the wood used. H. Mahog, ash and other high strength-to-weight ratio woods are good choices, and my use of walnut a bad one. You don't want any more scantling than you need to prevent the saw from flexing in use, and the storebought saws are closer to the mark than mine.“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think...that a time is to come when those (heirlooms) will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our father did for us.’ “ --John Ruskin.
Bob, the ECE frame uses a threaded rod instead of string or wire....it's a damn fine frame really.
It locks down rock solid, you couldn't turn a spigot if you tried when you put her in full tension.
Edited 9/9/2007 4:33 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
Hi Chuck,
Mel's message ended up sending me an email about the thread. I've got a couple minutes, so please forgive the brevity--Thanks, Mel.
You cannot go wrong with Adam's recommendations on the saws and their usage. I prefer 28" rips, though some people I know like 26" and others 30". There's no real guide for which, though my choice is predicated on stroke length at a saw bench.
Basically, if you continue gathering saws for use, having some longer cross cuts which are coarser for breaking down stuff, to finer and shorter as you get to finished lengths and or "important" cuts is a good guide.
I would recommend assessing what it is you want to accomplish and ask more specific questions. Including, how thick/thin of stuff you will be cutting, whether you are breaking stuff down and or looking for finish cuts as well whether you will be doing joinery and what aspects of it. There's no sense in using a 28" 4 1/2 ppi cross cut if you are cutting 1" stuff. The converse is true as well...no sense in using a 20" 10 ppi cross cut on 2"+ stuff if the goal is simply rough cutting to length. It is easily justifiable to have several cross cuts if varying degrees of processing is done by hand.
All that mumbling applies to rips too. In general, having two rip saws is sufficient--if you intend on ripping various thickness of stuff. One shorter/finer for thinner stuff (say splitting a board to become two rails/stiles) and one longer/coarser for planks.
I'll check back if I get notification of a message...and or check back in later tonight if I can drag myself in from the shop at a decent hour.
Take care, Mike
P.S. The idea of the "strong" cross cut being usable for ripping is certainly a valid and old idea. Its limitations are more on thickness of stuff being ripped rather than cross cutting. As for cross cutting, it sacrifices edge quality for speed in thinner stuff. In thicker stuff, the speed/quality is a good blance.
Frame saws are wonderful. However, don't buy the Putsch saw that Guidice recommends. There quality has declined (at least the frames have). Buy an ECE. You need two - the big rip and the slighly smaller joinery rip with 9tpi.
The 9tpi ECE blade will need the set peened out as Guidice mentioned (so will the bigger rip). Once you get that worked out, the 9tpi rip truly will cut like butter on both crosscuts, rips, and joinery cuts. To crosscut, incise your lines as Guidice recommends (which you'd do even if you were using a Western xcut - at least if you wanted/needed a really clean cut).
There is a learning curve with these saws but it's worth it. Practice with it. The big rip saw will handle all your rough(er) rips and resawing.
The ECE and Putsch blades are not impulse hardened which means you can do your own resharpening. These saws tolerate a less than perfect effort at resharpening much better than Disston-type Western saws. And since you'll be using a rip profile for everything (read Tage Frid) you'll be sharpening the easiest type of profile to sharpen.
The key to using these saws effectively, as Guidice mentions, is to keep a very light grip on the saw. They'll track a line dead on if you relax your hand and forearm and just let the saw cut. Using one of these is the golfing equivalent of just swinging the clubhead. You just relax and let the tool do the work.
When you first use one I guarantee that you will grip it too hard and try to put too much muscle in it. Keep using it, keep thinking about relaxing and then you'll understand how the old timers could saw all day long with one of these and never get tired. You can resaw for thickness and you'll get bored before even the first tinge of fatigue sets in if you use the saw correctly - light grip, just move your arm and let the weight of the saw work.
Edited 9/9/2007 10:51 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
TTM,
Your info on the Ece saws is intriguiging. My bandsaw has a resaw limit of 12". I have some thick (8/4 to 12/4) boards I'd like resaw, but they are too wide (up to 19") for the BS. I'm hoping not to have to rip them narrower for resawing. Would the 27" Ece rip be a realistic option. I can only imagine how long it'd take to resaw a 48" x 16" board for example, but wondered if it seems at all viable?
If it is, can you also say a little more about the peening that would be required to reduce the set - tools and procedure - how much reduction.
Thanks!
I'm thinking you'll be a little short on throw for a piece that wide, but I'd do it anyway.
It takes one gentle whack with a ballpein hammer with the blade on the anvil part of your machinist vise (if you don't have one just lay it on your workbench, might take two pops). Go slowly so you don't miss the tooth, you want to hit each tooth with a more or less equal blow the same number of times; that said, don't worry too much.
Edited 9/9/2007 4:32 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
Mr Voodoo,
Bluddy hell - that was not only informative but persuasive! I am glad Charles is taking a bit of a rest and we have another one of his multiple personalities just now.
Lataxe, always looking for another experience (not that sort).
Wrong:
If you search the electric guitar's history Adolph and Beauchamp are always credited with it's invention but another man, Lloyd Loar, was working with coil-wound pickups and "electrified" instruments as early as 1921--some ten years before the Frying Pan. Loar's coil-wound patent also depicts a pedal device with volume controls and an on-off switch!
As a musician he understood how difficult is was for some instruments to be heard in a live setting, so he installed a pickup on his own F-5 mandolin.
Talk about a credibility problem, you have a doctorate and you actually place your trust in Wikipedia? Talk about miss-informed.
All you have to do is look at the work in that book to question his advice. Tear-out everywhere!
I've wondered for years why anyone pays for his writing. (BTW, I own that book, too.) He used to say every tool but his European ones were crap, then he started hawking Lie-Nielsen.
The idea that he knows tool sharpening better than generations of cratfsmen is ludicrous. If the rip profile worked better for crosscutting, then everyone would have done it. The profiles we have were worked out by trial and error over years and years.
All right, off my soapbox...
-Kit
In handwork the visible part of any crosscut is formed by a struck line planed back to if necessary, not by saw teeth. The saw one uses does not affect the look of the end of the keeper piece - not one bit.
I could crosscut a board with a chainsaw and it would be perfectly clean assuming I incised and chiseled a large enough area to the waste side of the line to accommodate the chainsaw blade.
There is no excuse for obvious tearout and I wouldn't indict centuries old European woodworking methodologies based on a few cuts in Guidice's book.
Guidice says in his book that the only two brands of planes that can be used pretty much out of the box are L-N and ECE, and he's right, assuming one excludes the ultra high end boutique makers whose planes work equally as well or better, but are available only on special order and have significant lead times. I don't know the evolution of his thought on the matter, but I would be more apt to trust a guy who acknowledges the quality of L-N than the converse. I don't think there was ever a time when Guidice claimed L-N, specifically,was not quality merchandise.
Edited 9/11/2007 7:36 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
I have woodworking tools from several generations of ancestors, some dating back to the Civil War. It is obvious to me that rip saws fell into disuse as electric hand held circular saws became popular in the post-WWII era. If you're trying to recreate the experience of using 100% hand tools for woodworking and carpentry, then by all means, you need a few rip saws. On the other hand, if just want to have the right tool for the job using today's equipment, I'd say a rip saw is near the bottom of the acquistion list. There is one notable exception however. Japanese saws (pull saws) are so nice, sharp, and easy to use because they are under tension when cutting instead of compression, that you should add a few of them to your tool chest. A Japanese rip saw will cut a much finer kerf when ripping as well. The newer breed of Japanese saws with replacable saw blades are a good way to go as well. Disposable saw blades are certainly a modern invention so it may not suite your insterests from that perspective.
It is obvious to me that rip saws fell into disuse as electric hand held circular saws became popular in the post-WWII era.
For carpentry that might be true. For cabinetry (furniture making) I think rip saws fell into disuse much earlier as water powered saws were used by these shop workers. So though this statement may surprise many, I agree with you. For the person perfectly happy with his table saw, I'm not sure I see the need to start using a rip saw.
My sense is that the saw you choose shows in the final product. So I recommend hand saws to folks interested in making reproduction furniture.
That aside, I think every woodworker would benefit from having a sharp panel saw, sharpened x-cut. Its nice to be able to break down your stock wherever it is. Saws for joinery too, seem to offer some, if not advantages, than addtional options over the common suite of power tools. Sawing tenons with a hand saw comes to mind.
Adam
Adam,
With no disrespect, actually just the opposite, So I recommend hand saws to folks interested in making reproduction furniture.
Why?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
If you were going to make a reproduction wouldn't it seem logical to use the tools and methods that were used on the original?
Have you ever visited Colonial Williamsburg?
Taun, Adam, et al,
One can carry this thinking to an extreme, don't you think? Should the tree first be dropped with a felling axe? Is a sawpit better than trestles, for using a pitsaw to make the boards? I suppose kiln dried lumber is out, else the table leaves might not move enough, or lowboy (er, dressing table) ends mightn't split as readily, the first winter--oh, you boys don't have central heated homes, do you? ;-)). Having gotten to this point, handsawing the boards to length and width before dressing to thickness at the bench (oops, removed those pitsaw marks, replacing them with those of the foreplane, didn't we?) , makes the same sort of sense. Now we can clean things up more with the trying plene. What happens to the foreplane tracks, and the handsaw marks on the edges? Gone. Oh well, might as well get on with things and go over the stuff with a smoother. Maybe put a scraper to those areas that still have tearout.
At this point, I'll go out on a limb, and say that, to all but a very few, your authentically felled, sawn, surfaced panel is indistinguishable from one machine cut, jointed, planed, ripped, and then run over with a smoother, and scraped.
Now it may be argued that there is a je ne sais quoi, that is imbued in a piece of furniture made entirely by hand. That may be true, but it is only true for the maker, and those he tells about the process. That certain something, is, I believe, a romantic notion that the things of the past are somehow better than those of our workaday world, and that quality may be recreated only by using the technology of the past. I've heard it expressed as something along the lines of a subtle irregularity in surface and molding line that is lost in machine work. I posit that this is a surface quality only, and that it may be reproduced at the surface level, by using the appropriate tools at that level to attain an authentic surface. All the other work done prior to that is irrelevent to the final product , just as would be, if you'd taken a belt sander to your hand made panel.
All this verbosity is not to say that there is not something of value in hand work to be appreciated by the craftsman . The zen notion of the process having importance as well as the product has validity, I believe. But once the process is over, the product is what it is, and an impartial viewer will have no way of knowing the process involved, other than what is revealed on its surface. How can you see a sawmark that isn't there?
Respectfully submitted,
Ray
I start with the presumption that to build a reproduction the methods of work need to be reproduced as well. I work backwards (?) from that point. I got comfortable with that presumption some time ago and doubt that I'll revisit it. Gene Landon encapsulates my thinking on the matter as well as any "famous name" guy that might lend legitimacy to a hack like me. There is an interview with Landon in the FW On Building Period Furniture (Landon looked to be in his 30s) that I find very little to disagree with.
Note, however that I am not in possession of the knowledge (compared to the Williamsburg guys) to be able to do this to the fullest degree that would be possible.
You're essentially asking if I can revert back to the first cell a la William Hurt and the answer to that question of course is no.
This always comes up in these discussions - you know- you're not using pit sawn lumber, yada, yada. Matters little to me.
Edited 9/12/2007 9:29 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
Taun,
Many years ago, I was acquainted with a fellow who built reproductions. We weren't friends, really, colleagues, maybe describes our relationship best. We swapped ideas, and traded lumber and hardware back and forth. One day I stopped by his shop, and he was putting the finishing touches on a four-drawer Chippendale chest. It was a nice piece, with quarter columns, ogee feet, and cockbeaded drawers. As I walked up to him he was putting the last screws into the plywood back. Of course I gave him a ration of $hit for using plyboard on a reproduction. "Well," he replied, "I'm using brass screws!" Then he went on to brag about plywood's dimensional stability, and how solid wood ship lapped together doesn't exclude dust as well, he had a litany of reasons for doing things the way he did.
It all made sense, to him. Just like the way I do things does, to me, and your methods do for you. That's what makes horse races and elections interesting. And furniture making too, I guess.
Ray
Ray,
I understand your thoughts that the last tool that touches the wood determines the surface, and that out of square etc. is just poor workmanship.
I'd like to push back on these points a little. First the process matters because, as Adam said, it affects the decisions the craftsman makes and thereby affects the resulting piece.
Second, hand versus power makes a difference. You would concede, would you not that hand cut dovetails have a different look that router or CNC cut dovetails, right? I suppose that is a surface issue to some extent, but it is not owing to the failure of workmanship.
Third, I don't agree that out of square and other deviations from machined micormeter perfection are "poor workmanship." Why is square the measure of success and quality, for example. Scientist have done studies of beauty, for example, by showing people human faces. The results routinely show that faces that are not symetrical or "perfect" in other ways are judged more beatutiful by the vast majority of people. I think the same can apply to furniture. Ethan Allen can make a factory "perfect" sidebaord, but the thing has no soul. The soul of a handmade piece often shines through because of the process that the maker went throught in wrestling these particular pieces of wood into their finished configuration.
On a tangent:
I had the incredible pleasure of speaking with Curtis Buchanan the other day. I said that I found it remarkable how distinctive the work of individual windsor chair makers is. He agreed and told me an interesting tidbit about one minor deviation he made from the process his mentor taught to him. His mentor used a chair devil to cut spindle tenons and Curtis uses a shave. A very subtle difference, but one that Curtis believes is important to achieving a better looking chair in that the shave produces a significantly different surface and shows more the builder's "hand."
Process means a lot. Read Eugene Landon.
Samson,
"the process matters because, as Adam said, it affects the decisions the craftsman makes and thereby affects the resulting piece. "
This is true only to the extent of the limits of the craftsman's competency (ability to manipulate the tools and materials). A more competant workman achieves greater similitude to the ideal he is striving for than one who is less able. That is, he can produce a flat top with square edges, at will*. It matters not that a plane, or a planer was used to dimension the lumber.
*There may be times when he won't want to take the time or expend the effort to do this. A glue block need only be "square" on two faces, the others may be more or less square, or left as split from a larger piece, for instance.
"You would concede, would you not that hand cut dovetails have a different look that router or CNC cut dovetails, right?"
I'll concede that one to you. What if, after I lay out and saw the dovetail pins, I "chop" out between them with a mortiser instead of a chisel, and saw the tails with a bandsaw? After the joint is together, could you tell the difference? I hope you will concede that noticeable gaps (deviation from perfection) between pins and tails in a dovetail are poor workmanship, however thay are cut.
I'm not saying that there is no hand operation that cannot be duplicated with power tools. Far from it. Nor am I suggesting that hand workmanship need be poor workmanship, to be authentic. There is difference in having axe marks show where they should, in a primitive piece, or foreplane tracks on a backboard; and deliberately planing the wrong way on a drawer front to "show" that it's done by hand, or leaving gouge marks on the ball of a ball and claw foot for the same reason.
" I don't agree that out of square and other deviations from machined micormeter perfection are "poor workmanship." Why is square the measure of success and quality, for example"
To the extent that a top intended to receive an applied molding is out of square, the worker has added to his work. That is poor work. His miters must be individually fitted, in lieu of coming into place right from the miter box, or shooting board. While the end result may be perfectly acceptable the process was inefficient.
Ditto for the drawer opening or case that is out of whack. The closer the workman can come to the ideal, the less work he will have to do to get the drawer to fit. Now a case can be made (heh, heh) for building a drawer deliberately in a slightly trapezoidal configuration front to back, to make a tapered fit that will reduce the possiblity of binding while maintaining a close fit around the opening. No one will want to make a drawer or case a non-right-angled paralellogram, only to have to plane one or both corners off to get the thing to enter its opening, or the front to come flush. If that happens, it isn't charming, its careless, or sloppy.
Interesting that the same craftsman who extolls the accuracy achievable with hand technology, is often the same one who excuses poor workmanship as typical.
On the one hand you have a hog trough where slop is acceptable, understandable, and expected, at the other is fine, stylish furniture, where the standards then as now are somewhat higher.
Ray
We see this issue very differently, Ray. I can tell that I will never convince you and vice versa. That's fine. Each to their own.
I do agree that the piece is what matters, my experience is that hand tools inevitably produce a much different piece than power tools, and not because of poor workmanship, but because of the nature of those tools and the processes they each entail. As I've said before, I can see no point in being a painter who measures perfection in how close I can duplicate an image created by a camera.
Sam,
That's fine, I'm not trying to convert anyone,here, either. I'm just saying that a hand sawn, hand planed board, trued with a try plane and smoothed with a smoothing plane is indistinguishable from one that is run thru a table saw and planer, and smoothed with a smoothing plane.
That is, if both are done by me. I've combined the two methods many times on the same piece, when I've had boards too wide to put thru my planer. All comes out the same. Now, your or Adam's hand work may very well be different from mine. I haven't seen it. Maybe it has that indefinable something, that mine doesn't. Gipetto had some special stuff that brought Pinnocchio to life, I never saw that either.
Take care,
Ray
Ray,
What you say is what you wish were true. And I'm sorry for that. Any fool can tell the difference between a hand made piece and a piece made by machines. Its as clear as the difference between an antique and a repro. Saws and planes effect more than surfaces, Ray.
You may have to try it to fully understand (if you don't already). As Samson said, its not enough to substitute a hand saw for a chop saw for this one cut. You have to shut off all the saws, then try to work quickly. This inevitably leads to one place; you on your hands and knees beside your bench looking for a piece of scrap that's just the right size.
Lastly a little friendly advice: Beware the Winterthurization! The old curators are retiring and a new crop from Winterthur are taking over America's museums and recreated colonial cities. Interpretation plans are being "updated". In coming years, museum visitors will come to learn that the glitz of 1776 wasn't quite so shiny and that a darker, rougher side lurked just beneath the surface. I sadly predict this will undo more than a few businesses who refuse to adapt to the changing market. Winterthur is the key. Read what they write, listen to what they say, and watch what happens.
Adam
BTW, anybody notice Eugene Langdon is building William and Mary furniture in his classes this year and next? Did you know he was one of the judges who selected my Wm&Mary work for EAL's directory in 2005? I'm not suggesting a connection. Just think its worth keeping your eyes open.
Adam,
I've spent the past thirty some odd years looking at, and working on antique furniture, and trying to duplicate what I've seen, not wishing, nor lowering my standards to the lowest denominator I can find.
There are operations that cannot be duplicated by machine. I've never said that that isn't the case. There are operations that matter not a whit whether they are done by hand, or with machines. Case in point is the "Pilgrim" chair that the Ford Museum bought, that several years ago fooled not just any fools, but some of the foremost experts in the country.
I hope you can elaborate on what is left of the effects of saws and planes on a piece of wood, after the marks they left are removed by other planes.
Believe me when I tell you I've tried it, more than once, more than one way, more than I ought to have, maybe. I've learned to make haste, slowly. What are you looking to do with that piece of scrap? Usually when I'm on my hands and knees, it's to find that chip I've broken off the corner, or the bit of inlay I was about to scorch. Drat!.
I had some of a much touted authority's restoration work in my shop, years ago. It was so "authentically done" that the owner of the piece (a Willard clock) asked me to knock it all off, and replace it with something that matched the original workmanship more closely.
I'm all for continuing scholarship, Adam. It enables us to benefit from those items we might not get a chance to see ourselves. Broadens our horizens, if we just lift our eyes.
Ray
I took this picture a few weeks ago. The piece is a Philadelphia chippendale desk circa 1760. At first glance the drawers and gallery are masterful work. Take a closer look. The flats on the serpentine drawer fronts are all irregular sizes and shapes. This isn't wear and the drawers were numbered. The double arch mold appears inconsistent. In fact, the vertical divider varies in thickness top to bottom. Does this look like any repro you've ever seen? I've never seen anything like this.I looked into a drawer of a Philly Chippendale high boy. The bottom ran front to back. It was made up of many riven pieces (all the drawer components were riven). No two glue lines were parallel. Why? Because its faster to split and plane than saw. The drawer dividers were different widths, some tapering, drawer sides were different thicknesses, I could go on and on, exterior, interior, its not surfaces where you see these things best. The surfaces of period furniture have almost all been meddled with anyway. We don't even know what an original finish was or looked like. I heard that there is no formal maple furniture without evidence of some kind of red paint or dye. They stained curly maple to look like curly mahogany. Interesting?Adam
Adam,
Trying to attach a pic of a Conn desk. It has similar partitions to yours, but none of the anomalies you are so fond of. It too is 18th c, but its maker was apparently a little more careful. So I ask, why do you choose to take a less than average example of period workmanship as your standard?
C:Documents and SettingspinedfLocal SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5MI3E3MZX912072145[2].jpg
Edit:
Incidentally this is in my shop for restoration. It has an old surface, little finish, no sign of red paint or stain (it's maple)
The carved "fylfot" drawer has an apparently contemporaneous ink inscription: Moses Leavett, Grafton
Feb 1792
This draw is for money if I can get any"
The next lower "draw" has the inscription:
Moses Leavett
Grafton
This draw for notes"
Edited 9/12/2007 10:35 pm ET by joinerswork
All this just strikes me as viewing period furniture from differing perspectives--and examples.
Certainly there are examples that demonstrate a high degree of refinement and skillfulness in the work (more as most modern wood workers define it) as Ray's example demonstrates. Just as true there are the more everyday, common examples which support the other side of the perspective as with Adam's. Those that, while still well made (survived this long), are less refined, more guttural.
I also believe that just as it is foolish to exclaim "this" or "that" are true examples of finish or levels of skill or care in crafting ad hoc. Surely in every period there were makers striving to be "better" than those around him. It is the human way.
I also think that major cities had more "refined" tastes influenced by European craftsmanship that was of a given level of craftsmanship than out lying or rural areas. this to me is similar to the main differences in the 1800s of furniture made in New York and Oregon or Utah et al. As a local area becomes more aware of high styles, there is an expectation of greater craftsmanship (or design/execution detail).
Take care, Mike
You have it all backwards, Mike. Urban shops had more time pressures, so we see the influence of "Turn your face to London". There may have been 20-30 busy cabinet shops in Philadelphia in the second half of the 18th c and maybe 50 in London (or more). Village builders had more time and were motivated to build in ways that would make their repair efforts easier or less frequent. That's the reason why I showed Philadelphia Chippendale. This was a £20 desk, the best of its sort, and this is the workmanship. Ray's picture is blurry, but the carvings alone suggest a naive piece, maybe a village craftsman.The "better" you talk about has to be defined carefully. What I showed IS the better. It was the better then and is the better now. I put a couple pictures up on my blog. One shows a shimmed dovetail. I don't consider either picture related to this discussion, but they are beautiful pictures.
Edited 9/13/2007 7:11 am ET by AdamCherubini
Adam,
There is better, and there is better. Sacks Fine Points of Furniture I andII illustrate this nicely, though he doen't go into construction.
The following link may be of interest:
http://www.chipstone.org/publications/2001AF/gadson/gadtext.html
Apparently there was at least one patron, and a pair of contemporary makers who found fault with just the type of workmanship you find so appealing.
I have seen at least a couple locally made blanket chests whose dovetails are all wedged-- every one of them; suggesting to me that they were deliberately cut loose, (perhaps to ease assembly,) then wedged, (perhaps to forego the need for glue). That is technique, not poor craft. A single wedge in a line of pins would not be something to crow about.
Ray
I don't know what you're talking about. You asked a question and I answered it. "How exactly does the use of hand saws and planes effect the appearance of period furniture?" (that was the question I heard). I answered that question with specific examples and a photo.
I'm not going to argue with you for the sake of arguing. I don't enjoy it.
Adam
Gee Adam,
The question I thought I asked was along the lines of,"How does a sawmark have an effect on a piece of wood after it is removed by a plane?"
If your photo was to have answered that by saying, "if done by hand, it will be tapered over its length" , I have to answer, "It ain't necessarily so," And repeat my point about competancy, in this case, being able to saw to a line.
And also, "What was it you were looking to do with that scrap you were looking for on hand and knees?"
I am sorry you feel that we are arguing. It seems to me that your aversion to what you see as argumentative behavior, is that you prefer being deferred to, over being questioned, or being presented with an opposing opinion. Don't we all?
But, you and others are correct, in that this point has probably been explored to the nth degree.
Take it easy Adam,
Best wishes,
Ray
Ray,
I wrote a whining post to Adam, telling him off for being such a wuss (doesn't like arguing - in an Internet forum!! Cuh, wots he think they're for)?
However, I deleted the whine before posting it. I realised that this talking-down style of his is just that - a style that reflects his cyber-character. I find him pompous and rather adamant (scuse the pun-thingy). But he will not change for me and why should he? I don't mind if he feels Grand; or even if he actually is. :-)
I just try to ignore the awful rhetorical style and extract what I can in the way of any wisdom. Normally, though, there is too much (for my taste) "do what the olden folk did" and not enough "and here are some reasons for doing so". But summick is better than nowt.
Also, some folk like to be told, "Just do this because I am An Authority (claim pending)", which is fine with me.
But I suggest that attempting a genuine dialogue is probably a wasted effort.
Lataxe, a republican (small r).
"The question I thought I asked was, "How does a sawmark have an effect on a piece of wood after it is removed by a plane?""No. That's not the question you asked. That's a different question. You asked about "the effects of planes and saws", not "the effects of planes and saws marks". The effect of the use of hand planes and hand saws can be evidenced in period furniture in:
1) irregular or inconsistently shaped components
2) the use of scrap material or riven material
3) the use of wide boards, often restrained in positionOf course different pieces exhibit these qualities to differing degrees.
Of course one can produce furniture by hand that mimics machined regularity. The Hay shop routinely produces work like this which Mack admits is not typical of the period, but IS typical of Wmsburg craftshops.
While irregularities (of shape not surface) are almost always present in period pieces, they are almost never present in modern reproductions, as far as I have seen. Your new question, essentially, what is the effect of tools whose marks can be removed, is better considered in terms of removing machine marks, because that's what you and everyone else does.What I see are boards perfectly flattened and squared then swiped with a hand plane. In this case, the authentic surface finish does not mask the aerospace straightness and flatness of the milled stock. If modern reproduction furniture makers spent more time with their hand tools, they probably could mimic period components. But I never see that done, probably because its basically twice the work.Now I have a prediction. Your response will contain insults and obfuscation as did every one of your posts to me thus far. Your questions were all clearly meant to ridicule, like the one above where you changed the subject cleverly and included a good dose of mockery. You've offered nothing of substance to this thread and in my mind, you are rapidly approaching troll status. Maybe its time for a few new screen names, Ray.Adam
MAdam,
Even a troll is sometimes preferable to a Duchess of Pout. Not that I've noticed any trolls, just people that aren't bowin' and scrapin' in Your Direction for all their worth. Off with their heads!
I am making you a nice crown, although it is likely to be too small, no matter what its circumference. Meanwhile, take a pill or summick before that ego bursts you. (No don't, I want to see the little "pop!").
Lataxe, a tinkerbell.
Ray - a troll!? How much dafter are you going to get?
As an innocent bystander.
Adam, Ray & Samson: I don't think you folks see it but I think you're all right in your own way. You all see it in a different way but the end result is what you strive for. Is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so.
This is one of the most enlightening discussions I have seen on Knots in all the time I have been fortunate enough to participate in here. I'm currently reading books about 18th C. furniture, that have been suggested by all of you folks, to learn more about this fascinating era in our history of furniture making.
I've seen pieces made by all of you folks and each and every one of them are an inspiraion to me. Please don't let this insignificant dispute stand in the way of your creativeness. Us newbies need your talents so we can progress.
You gurus of the past are charged with the responsibillity to bring forth new talents. Perhaps I should back off a bit with the charged bit and say we need you to guide us forward. Like it or not you all have established a line in the sand that we all strive to achieve. At least I do.
So in closing I would like to thank you for all the inspiration that you have given me.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob - have to definitely agree with you on about half of your points but find I've got a difference in thinking on the other half.
This has truly been a fascinating discussion, involving quite a range of personalities. I find myself in agreement with a lot of what Mel has observed and pointed out...but that's just the teacher part of my personality coming out. You see, good teachers have to be able to understand how to make little Johnny or Suzie learn...and one approach doesn't fit all 30 kids in a classroom. Some people care about that...some don't. If communicating with a person is important it's a useful skill to have and develop.
Reading everyone's posts, especially when they were dissecting the extremely fine points of crafting furniture, was inspiring. Truly. Bob, I totally agree with you on that and especially when you say "everyone's right". Not the first time that's been said one way or another on this string of posts.
But when you go off onto "gurus of the past" and "we need you to guide us forward" and "you all have established a line in the sand that we all strive to achieve" well, my first thought was "laying it on a bit thick there, aren't you Bob?" I don't think these guys need that thick of a slice of coddling. Just the opposite in fact. Unless I read them wrong, they seem the more totally independent type with self-driven standards. And I don't see them as the pinnacle...just fellow travellers a heck of lot further down the road.
In a world where neanderthals coexist with normies, I don't see that there IS one perfect right way. But what's my point? For what it's worth, it's this:
To me, woodworking is inherently a very personal relationship that is explored between you and the wood. Period. No one else is involved when you get down to making sawdust. The wood is a living, breathing thing. It's magical, mysterious, and beautiful. How to bring all of that out is the question. Takes some creativity, takes some skill, takes a lot of experience. But it's not a group effort kind of thing...which makes it extremely interesting to me when a forum group discussion starts drifting over into any area that touches upon the individual creative part of woodworking.
This also reminds me of the times I've tried to teach anyone how to play acoustic guitar. They hear me play....sounds wonderful! they say. They want to do that. I tell them "I can teach you what you need to know. But unless you....YOU....absolutely have a LOVE of the sound of an acoustic guitar and think it's the sweetest thing you've ever heard....so that even if you're doing nothing but just strumming open strings you're in heaven....well then, no amount of teaching on my part is going to keep you motivated to PRACTICE, to IMPROVE. 'Cause it takes a lot of practicing...probably more than you realize.....and that's all done with just you and your guitar."
What was it I heard around here on another post from a fellow named Mel?
"We are all Masters".
Yep...I'd go with that. Seems to fit real well. To paraphrase JT, It's just me and my guitar, folks.charlie -- "Count your blessings....it could always be worse!"
Charlie,
woodworking is inherently a very personal relationship that is explored between you and the wood
Words that will be on my woodshop wall (coddle, coddle).
Seriously though, your post is very well put, especially the above.
Now I will go to the shop and fettle the brain, perhaps with some Granite Flakes!
Best Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 9/14/2007 7:24 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
Dear Adam,
With all due respect:
"I hope you can elaborate on what is left of the effects of saws and planes on a piece of wood, after the marks they left are removed by other planes."
This is the question I asked. Now maybe it isn't the one you read, or the one you want to answer.
While you are correct in citing the irregular, tapered, riven nature of some period work, I have not found it to be the norm in the old work that I have had in my shop. Well, for turning stock, sure.
The contention that rural pieces are more highly regulated than their more sophisticated city counterparts is intriguing. My experience is that country furniture is often overbuilt; components are heavier than need be, shelves thicker, aprons wider, than a comparable urban item. But a whole other area that ought to be considered, I believe, is the furniture that was made for export from the large urban centers, for export as a speculative venture, vs items that were bespoke. I wonder if differing standards might be found within those two groups.
I'm sorry that you take opposing views to yours as personal insults. And I do admit that one post to you was laced with sarcasm. But my questions were not meant to be insulting or mocking, but to try to draw out your thinking and rationale for embracing a level of craft that you see as the norm for the period, and I do not.
You showed one photo exemplifying what you espouse, as an irregularity almost always found, and I countered with a similar example, showing the regularity that I accept as typical of what a competant worker can do as a matter of course. I have at this time a four drawer chest, a slant front desk, and a yarn winder (pop goes the weasel) all from mid 19th c or earlier. I checked them with a pair of calipers. Within each piece, case ends, tops, drawer sides and fronts are remarkably regular, for hand work. It's almost as if the maker knew beforehand that he was going to use the same marking guage setting later when dovetailing all those parts. (Sarcasm again, I admit it) The drawer blades are the same width, just as you'd want when cutting dovetail sockets for them, or getting out drawer bearers all at once instead of measuring and cutting each as it was nailed in.
An alternative school of thought to the "adapt, improvise, on the fly" course of work you embrace, is to streamline work by introducing uniformity as much as possible, working to a set of standards that eliminates fiddling around, looking for a scrap that can be made to work. I'm sure that we can both go on finding examples to support each of our conceptions of how it was done. But let's call it a day, and give it a rest, while we're still friends.
All done trolling now, til next time,
Ray, future names:
Pineknot
Pinetree
Pinecone
Pinesap
Pinesol
Pine oil
Other potential future names:
Pine by me (as in "whatever")
Pining for you (as in "at your service")
Pine in the arse (as in ...)
Pined your own business
Piner 49er (SF fan?)
Pine a Guiness (bend an elbow)
Pine time to leave me (tribute to Kenny R)
Pine apple (a sign of welcome)
Pinal tap (metal fan?)
And That's Pinal (variation: The Pinal Word)
Pumpkin Pine (if you like pie or that antique finish)
Riding the Pine (nah, Ray's no bench warmer)
I walk the Pine (tribute to Cash)Pine Box Derby (if you were a scout or are an existentialist)
Edited 9/14/2007 10:16 am ET by Samson
Edited 9/14/2007 10:58 am ET by Samson
Sam.
Pine in the arse. I've been called something similar.
Back under the bridge, festering, til Arthur comes along.
Ray, the badger
Maybe it would be as equally expositive if Cherubini explained his theory behind the really well made pieces of the period (Affleck et al.) and why they are less worthy as models for the modern woodworker. I detect disdain of these works on his part and if that is the case then I would be at a loss to explain it.
It still seems illogical to me to pick average examples to reproduce as opposed to the stellar ones.
Ray,
We're not friends and as far as I'm concerned this thread is finished. I've offered specific, relevant information to this and was ridiculed for my trouble. I won't make that mistake again.
Adam
What you offered were photos of a poorly executed example of a high-style form from the 18th century along with your thinly-veiled assertion that it represents the norm. It does not. By a long shot.
Not only does it not represent THE norm I doubt it even represents A norm even for the bloke who built it. It raises more questions than it answers and to extrapolate any kind of conclusions to the population of these particular furniture forms based on this example is mind-numbingly stupid. I think you know better. You're stubborness is getting the better of you today.
The piece you posted is not an exemplar of the form. It's not even average. While I don't understand why, it appears that it means a great deal to you that somebody executed a really lousy piece of furniture a few hundred years ago. Why you choose to hang your hat on such an example is strange, to say the least.
How would you have us reconcile the piece you've shown us with the better examples found in quite a number of books on furniture history, well-respected guides to antiques, current periodicals, current and past scholarly work, etc ? Are we supposed to treat the piece you've pictured as some sort of 'discovery' that invalidates the outstanding examples of other, similar pieces? Just what would you have us do with the wisdom you are sure that you are imparting to the forum? Somebody F'd up some drawers on a highboy a long time ago. And this means precisely what to you?
What are we supposed to learn from the piece you pictured, that hacks (or beginners) existed in the 18th century, that this really wasn't a hack job or somebody's first attempt, or an overly hurried attempt? What is it, exactly, that you are asserting?
Who made this piece? Can it be attributed to some shop? How do we know that it wasn't some adolescent's or early teen's first attempt at a high-style form?
Where's the beef?
Edited 9/14/2007 2:45 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
How would you have us reconcile the piece you've shown us with the better examples found in quite a number of books on furniture history, well-respected guides to antiques, current periodicals, current and past scholarly work, etc.
I ask the following in sincerity and not as any kind of one-upsmanship or to be provocative for it's own sake:
I'm curious about is how you know that the others are "better" than the one Adam showed a small detail of? What are the metrics you are applying to determine "better?" Is there a manual for aesthetic beuaty that dictates straighter lines, smaller gaps, more square, no tapered parts, etc. ? By this logic higher style with tighter tolerances and complexity, demanding more competent craftsmanship, are by definition "better" pieces, no? So a primitive chair can never be the equal of a queen anne, etc. as far as aethetic appeal? That doesn't strike me as right. Wasn't it you that was noting how that spiral staircase clock in the latest FWW was impressive in terms of craftsmanship, but not so compelling as a piece (good art, if you will)?
You answered your own question.
If, AS A MATTER OF TASTE, Adam likes the objectively and comparatively rougher executions of these forms then I have no quibble at all. He just needs to say that's how his particular taste runs. The vast majority of others' don't, but that is not a big deal either.
My personal taste in this kind of work runs to the more finely executed examples. Don't see a need to apologize for that.
I don't buy into the notion of the primitive execution of high-style forms, which seems to be what you're doing. I think it's a cop out. But it's an opinion.
Edited 9/14/2007 4:03 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
I see.
Your answer begs the question of whether all such things are really just matters of taste (subjective and personal) or whether objective quality actually exists as a thing separate and apart from us as perceivers. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
Thanks for the answer, in any event.
Cheers.
P.S. In response to your edit: I never asked you to apologize at all.
Edited 9/14/2007 3:56 pm ET by Samson
Your position seems dangerously close to throwing out a lot of fine scholarship in this area.
And perhaps it's dangerous to assume that the end result is what the maker intended. Who knows, the craftsman who built the piece that Adam showed us could have been devastated by how it turned out or became devastated as his skills developed over the execution of later pieces. To wit: I don't continually repeat the level of craftsmanship evident (or lacking) in the first pieces I built. Do you?
Affleck pieces exist. Their existence alone is practically refutation enough.
Edited 9/14/2007 4:20 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
I have no position. I am not Adam's champion or stand-in.
I was simply asking whether the "defects" (as compared to other examples) in the detail Adam showed by definition meant that the overall piece was disqualified from being considered a great piece of furniture.
Utilitarian objects are often hard to judge, because aesthetics are only a part of the equation - craftsmanship, suitability for purpose, longevity, etc. all count too.
I will allow that if hard core furniture afficiando's (people who have looked at and studied a lot of furniture as their life's focus) through the ages agree that certain pieces are the preeminent examples, I respect those judgements. This agreement over time by multiple people who are looking hard and are well informed, likely indicates strongly that these pieces are actually the best - the Rembrandts of this form, so to speak. This exercise purges the vagaries of taste to some extent. Time is often an important element as the avante garde may not be recognized in its own time.
Taste cannot be the arbiter of quality, otherwise meaningful judgments about quality would be ruled out from the start.
P.S. You edit faster than I can respond, but for what it's worth: intent is a red herring; the piece is the piece.
Edited 9/14/2007 4:23 pm ET by Samson
Craftsmanship in furniture is objectively determinable.
Earlier, I referred to "gross discrepancies" for that is what they are. They are not the normal variations that result from handcrafted work. They represent much less than average craftsmanship for that period. I would not build a piece and replicate those defects. In fact, as others have said, it would be rather hard to replicate those defects if one has ever planed to a mark or maintained the setting on a marking gauge. You would have to overtly make mistakes to replicate that piece and at that point you've moved into something beyond building reproductions.
Craftsmanship in furniture is objectively determinable.
No dispute there. But as I've said before, excellent craftsmanship alone does not make a masterpiece in furniture or anything else (see again the spiral staircase clock).
Samson,
This has been an interesting thread...
But as I've said before, excellent craftsmanship alone does not make a masterpiece in furniture or anything else (see again the spiral staircase clock).
I agree with were you are going, but I must say that although good craftsmanship does not alone make the a masterpiece a masterpiece does require good craftsmanship. I think this returns us to the picture Adam posted... The arguments against it is that it's not good craftsmanship (and I have to agree), thus it is not a masterpiece. We don't have to look at design to determine it's status.
The question is if it is representative of the furniture at the time. A hand tool user would know best; are these oddities in the piece a function of speed or poor craftsmanship? Most of those in the know seem to believe that it's poor craftsmanship, with the exception of Adam. If it's not representative, why reproduce it? When a person purposefully reproduces poor craftsmanship, no matter how well they do it... it's still poor craftsmanship.
I think what Adam is excited about is that the piece really shows some of the techniques used at the time. It's weaknesses reveal a method of work that 'better' pieces would not.
Buster
although good craftsmanship does not alone make the a masterpiece a masterpiece does require good craftsmanship.
This begs the question of what contitutes "good craftsmanship?" As I think I asked Taun Ton above, are symmetry, straight lines, and tiny gaps the defining characteristics of good craftsmanship, for example?
I've seen many primitive, shaker, country, etc. pieces that were very well crafted as far as being sturdy, drawers working smoothly, chairs being comfortable, etc., but that lacked straight lines, symmetry, and the other things you feel are lacking from the piece Adam showed.
You and Taun Ton, believe that for this form (a secretary? IIRC), this type of craftsmanship is not acceptable, as the best examples of this form (as recognized by centuries of furniture experts) are more refined. It boils down to that, right? And you two are probably right.
That said, perhaps if I saw the whole piece that Adam gave us a detail from, I might think it's quirky looseness in the hand work (while not typical of the generally recognized best of this form) is worthy in it's own right as a wonderful piece of furniture. It could work aesthetically, and assuming the craftsmanship "faults" did not compromise its function or integrity, it might all be good??
My original point was that perhaps "better" could not be taken for granted, as in the more refined example were obviously "better." In their time, the work of the Impressionists was considered quite controversial as far too "loose" and abstract; indeed, as showing a lack of craftsmanship.* Experts now consider many of Monet's paintings masterpieces. Maybe Adam has come upon an Impressionist secretary? I'm kidding, but hopefully you get my point. You always need to see the piece, to know if it's good. There may be more than one way to execute a wonderful secretary is my suggestion. I won't rule it out because I know what other great ones have looked like before. I'll keep my mind open to the possibility of other avenues to greatness - even messy imperfectly executed ways.
*http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/books/10book.html?ex=1297227600&en=bc98e2f0266c705d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Edited 9/14/2007 9:46 pm ET by Samson
Edited 9/14/2007 9:59 pm ET by Samson
Edited 9/14/2007 11:00 pm ET by Samson
Sam,
The points you are raising are dealt with in David Pye's WThe Nature and Art of Workmanship, and to some extent in his companion book, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design. His discussion of rough and fine workmanship, and workmanship of risk, and workmanship of certainty are worth the price of the book.
Ray
I'll check 'em out. By the way, I'm not at all surprised my themes were unoriginal. I'm no scholar os aesthetician.
Sam,
"not at all surprised my themes were unoriginal. "
Well, as they say, "great minds run in the same channel"...
Ray
This begs the question of what contitutes "good craftsmanship?" As I think I asked Taun Ton above, are symmetry, straight lines, and tiny gaps the defining characteristics of good craftsmanship, for example?
I think you're looking at this too abstractly. Bad craftsmanship is anything less than the standard at that time and location. This is important different standards of craftsmanship exist, what would be bad in one style may be appropriate for another. It would be unfair to apply 2007 standards to 1800 shops, but we are not Adam's piece seems substandard for its time.
Good craftsmanship is seen in the fundamentals, so yes, tight joints, nice gaps, and a smoothly operated drawer are all hallmarks of good craftsmanship. Symmetry is an odd one, since our minds will tend to find symmetry unless things are so out of whack... and if they are: that's bad craftsmanship.
That said, perhaps if I saw the whole piece that Adam gave us a detail from, I might think it's quirky looseness in the hand work (while not typical of the generally recognized best of this form) is worthy in it's own right as a wonderful piece of furniture. It could work aesthetically, and assuming the craftsmanship "faults" did not compromise its function or integrity, it might all be good??
I suppose... First don't get me wrong, on one point I do agree with Adam. The piece apparently makes a great study piece, he is right to be excited about furniture that shows how furniture was made. In that sense this is a wonderful piece.
You seem to be point toward the idea that maybe this piece was something more than just another secretary of the style... Maybe something new? But on it's face it just a piece of poorly done furniture, and that's how I'm going to take it.
Buster
Your definition of the appropriate standard of craftsmanship seems rather vague and subjective. Rather like justice Potter's famous statement in trying to explain hard-core pornography that he couldn't necessarily define it, but... “I know it when I see it..." Moreover, what some others were doing at the time still begs the question of what was good about what they were doing?
Further, you have changed the attributes of craftsmanship we have been discussing to suit your argument. I suggested that if integrity and function were intact, the "flaws" you all saw in the piece (e.g., taper in a riven divider as opposed to unifirom thickness; lack of perfect symmetry in the serpentine curves at either side of a drawer; etc.) might not be flaws at all. You now are trying to shift away from these attributes to make the piece functionally inferior by asserting loose joints and sticky drawers.
As for symmetry, I was thinking along these lines:
An important use of face recognition in humans is mate choice, and a related ability is how we judge beauty from faces. For many years, symmetry was thought to be a crucial factor in distinguishing a beautiful face from an ugly one. New research reveals that bilateral facial symmetry might not play as important a role as previously thought—even faces that have quite different left and right halves can be judged as attractive. “This suggests that you don’t need to have perfect symmetry in your face to be considered beautiful by others,” says the main researcher of the study, Dahlia W. Zaidel, PhD, of the University of California at Los Angeles. “The results also could help clinicians—plastic surgeons and dentists, for example—because they show that perfect left-right symmetry is not critical for facial beauty.”
11/05 Society for Neuroscience http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=news_111405c
In short, asymmetry can be perceived as beautiful too.
"But on it's face it just a piece of poorly done furniture, and that's how I'm going to take it."
You can take the piece however you like, of course. I'm going to reserve judgement as I, for one, have only seen a tiny detail photograph from it.
You already "know" the piece is "poorly done" because you believe dividers must be uniform thickness, gaps around drawers must be a uniform 1/32", etc. At base, I question these rules you impose in that I don't think they are particular informative as to the overall quality of the piece - quality being a judgment as to the success of the piece on many levels from aesthetics (is it beautiful?) to functional (does it work as good secretary) to robust (is it sturdy) and on and on.
You seem to be looking at this from the broad sense of 'design'. We speaking different languages here. You're trying to turn it into a piece of abstract art.
I suggested that if integrity and function were intact, the "flaws" you all saw in the piece might not be flaws at all.
Craftsmanship is about integrity, function and intent. The intent of this piece according to Adam is to be part of X style. So much so that he claims it is representative of the style. Other pieces of this style show a higher degree of refinement. The style itself (not me) dictates a strong degree of refinement. The intent of the maker would be to match the degree of refinement standard to the style, again anything less is poor craftsmanship.
You can argue the intent of the make all you want, we'll never have an answer. All we can do is assume, I'll assume he was building in the style at the time.
I've caught up on my reading. It appears that Mr. Cherubini, for whatever reason, has latched onto the idea of 'rough' and has taken the notion to ridiculous extremes. Those Popular Woodworking folks must have beaucoup rope in inventory.
Perhaps if he mis-placed his hatchet and turned his attention to carving a cartouche - maybe this might serve as an antidote to this silliness. As well a spell of house arrest at Winterthur might be therapeutic.
Not trying to speak for Adam here--he's quite capable.
In my responses to Adam in this thread, I suppose it appears I reject the piece Adam shows and what little I understand of his rationale. I in fact do not ad hoc reject either. Regardless of my own opinions, his is a valid one and there are certainly many examples one could choose that are of such a nature.
I think when it comes down to it, there were far more pieces such as this example--and far "worse"--than those exemplary pieces found in museums and cataloges of collections. In fact, it is most likely at the high end of "common."
I certainly own some pieces which are no better or worse from the early 1800s. One such piece does look wonderful to us. But I wouldn't make that piece as is (or as was originally made). I would not choose to lessen the "best" that I am capable of.
The design is wonderful in my opinion (I've seen other photos). There are execution details I would not choose to replicate unless I was in fact replicating the piece.
Take care, Mike
I have been gone awhile, but Wow, 156 responses to this thread....and so many people wanting to talk about themselves! It reminds me of feeding my cows and barking out orders and trying to get their attention. Some of the cows just stare at me like they can not hear me , or worst simply don't care. Don't tell me you are a doctor, or how smart you are, or how many words you know that I don't, just show me your work, and let me decide if you are a fake, an amateur, or professional.
Oldtool,
I read your analysis of what is going on.
It is spot on.
You could be the smartest person that I have ever known.
You should run for president. I'll vote for you.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
I have been very busy and don't have the time for the long stuff, but like to keep up with woodworking news.
Oldtool:From time to time one comes across the occasional post that is so pithy and trenchant that it deserves an award.Yours is just such a post!Hastings
I follow and read your stuff, and did get an award today by winning a KC golf tournment! Just 9 holes.
and so many people wanting to talk about themselves!Geeee.. At least we get to talk about ourselves and NOT somebody lookin' our fence that don't like us!
It reminds me of feeding my cows and barking out orders and trying to get their attention. Some of the cows just stare at me like they can not hear me , or worst simply don't care.My Daughters did that all the time! If I got mad at them they would run to their Mother and tell her "DAD is pickin' on use AGAIN!"My wife would tell her daughters that he is 'just a man' YOU HAVE TO LOVE THEM EVEN WITH ALL THEIR FAULTS! By the way.. I thought she was as Ralph would say 'The greatest!'
I'm curious about your theory or anybody's theory, as a matter of process, when one would decide to quit planing to a mark and leave a component very visibly irregularly thicknessed.
I have a hard time imagining it myself, even when attempting to work quickly, to in essence say "to hell with it" it is close enough - especially when there was only an eighth or so to go. I've found that milling parts to dimension to be one of the faster parts of handtool woodworking. Similar situation of the drawer Adam posted - it would be almost harder to work that thing out of whack than it would to get it closer. As a dedicated hand tool woodworker, with some decent pieces under my belt, I'm having a very hard time putting myself in the same frame of mind as the builders of these less-than-well made pieces. And I guess at the end of the day that's pretty much what they are.
As somebody else mentioned (Ray Pine, I think), the workarounds necessary to accommodate these mis-shapen parts would probably be as time consuming as preparing the individual pieces accurately in the first place. To be clear - I'm not suggesting aerospace industry level accuracy either.
Perhaps the question to the board should be:
Describe a project in which poorly processed parts (especially show parts) made your work easier and the project go more smoothly.
Having done this kind of work myself, I would find it difficult to believe claims of any significant time savings gained by incompletely milling parts, or short circuiting basic milling operations and standard marking out procedures.
Maybe some of our 18th century brethren were just fooling themselves. Certainly other shops, during that century, did very accurate work with consistently milled parts. I suppose if somebody wants to study the practices of shops (if they even did come out of a professional furnituremaking operation at all) that put out less than well made works then that is their prerogative. I personally don't see the point in it.
Edited 9/18/2007 10:30 am ET by PanBroil
I don't think you've read the few messages I posted in this thread, PB.
I think it would be difficult for me to choose to make these variances in weight, shape and simply out of square or evenly thicknessed pieces. It would require more effort on my part.
That there are pieces of furniture less well made than are in fine collection catalogs and books is true. So who made them? Hacks? Perhaps, perhaps not. Certainly not my--or evidently your--sensibilities. But so what?
As for the rhetorical question...when would I decide it's good enough--I do it all the time, on nearly every piece. I do not strive for absolute measurable (or not measurable) perfection on component pieces. That is not to say things do not fit or do not align, but I suspect even at times I fail there as well. What I strive for and what I achieve simply do not always align.
Tell me, how do you account for less than perfection in your own work--or that of pieces from the 18th century (or any other for that matter)? Did you read the Chipstone article referenced earlier? I've read that reference and others which indicate even the better shops didn't always do their best. That's life for a maker who is producing to feed their family.
Take care, Mike
I make mistakes all the time, but I do manage to mill workpieces to the lines that I mark out. I dunno about this accuracy thing - I use a wheel gauge to mark a board for thickness. If I plane to that mark then it will be by definition pretty darned accurate since this kind of gauge makes a very crisp mark. It is just as efficient to plane to a gauged line than not, right?
I might occassionally get a little greedy and take a touch more than the line, but it's still darned close to what I needed. I suppose in that circumstance I've taken MORE time, since I went a pass or two beyond what was called for. A more common mistake in my woodworking would be poor stock selection resulting in too much movement after the parts were milled to finished dimensions.
I would have to know how an 18th century professional's shop was staffed to be able to comment intelligently about what may or may not have caused the variance in the quality of the work from time to time. How many apprentices did the shop have, how much responsibility were they given, etc. Pretty much the same things that might affect the output of a professional shop today.
Edited 9/18/2007 2:49 pm ET by PanBroil
Last try. I don't care one whit about the intent of the maker; I care about what the maker actually produced. If he intended to make a strong, functional, nice looking high boy, for all I know he succeeded in this case as I haven't seen enough of the piece to know.
You assert a tautology as far as "X style" requiring Y level of refinement. Once you have choosen one piece as the representative of the style, only reproduction is possible - no new creation. Think for example about all the subtle differences among continuous arm windsor chairs you have seen. The details may be different, but they are all continuous arm Windsors. Some may be more rustic, but more comfortable. Others may be more pleasing to the eye, but weaker, etc.
But at the end of the day, I really have no interest in pigeonholing "styles." Instead, I'm really only interested in whether the piece of furniture is good or not.
Okay this is my last try. Intent is very important to this discussion. Why I design and build my intent is to make something I like, and that others will like. I am fairly open to trying new things. I can choose to take inspiration from certain styles, but my creation would be new. I could not claim that an inspired piece is representative of the style could I?
The question arose at what is better in reference to the style in which the piece was made. Adam asserted that this piece was representative of a style, Ray said it was a poor example, and finally you said what makes the other pieces better. If the intent of the maker was to create a piece of the style, then he failed. If it was to build something new and different, then maybe he succeeded. We don't know since, we've never seen the entire item. Again, Adam's assertion that this is a piece of this style indicates to me that that he believe the makers intent was to be within the style. Adam, the only person to see the entire piece in this thread, would be the authority on it.
Once you have choosen one piece as the representative of the style, only reproduction is possible - no new creation.
This is a fairly self limiting idea of design. I'm talking fundamentals, the basics. Symmetry, refinement these are basics of the style. There are lots of different designs that follow the fundamentals and they are unique.
But at the end of the day, I really have no interest in pigeonholing "styles." Instead, I'm really only interested in whether the piece of furniture is good or not.
That's fine. As I pointed out at the beginning of the last e-mail you are talking about design in the broad sense. From a design perspective craftsmanship is really only about the integrity of the construction and the functionality of the parts. When were done, we can pretend our intent was anything if we wish...
I think you've summed it up pretty well.
I have no major stake in being right about any of this. You can be right, and I'll just babble for the amusment of the snickering peanut gallery who comfort one another with knowing posts about how stupid this all is.
What I find intriguing is trying to figure out what makes certain pieces "work" - as in fire on all cylinders as far as being beautiful or delightful in various ways. I'm automatically skeptical of preordained rules that limit the possibilities - or stated another way, preordained requirements that rule out pieces as good without even looking at them because they do no meet some arbitrarily imposed metric (e.g., dividers of uniform thickness along their length). You would presumably say that the metric is not arbitrary; it is instead a defining feature of the given form. That's fine if you are interested in fidelity to forms. My interest begins and ends in trying to appreciate (and striving to create) good furniture.
I'm particularly intrigued by hand work and notions like wabi sabi. Why is it that Ethan Allen, or Thomas Moser, or contemporary Stickley Factory furniture, while quite nice and with appropriate refinement as far as squareness, uniformity, gaps etc. is not nearly so appealling to me as most of the originals I see? Why do the antiques kick the butts of these extremely well-crafted reproductions? I think Adam, myself, and maybe others (with the obvious exception of the curmudgeonly peanut gallery) are haunted by this question. We struggle to understand the sensibilities, processes, tools, materials, methods of work, time constraints, material constraints, and anything else we can think of to try to assemble the pallette from which these masterworks we admire were created with the hopes that if we work from the same pallette, we might capture some of what is great about those works. I think it's a worthy endeavor.
Thanks for the discussion.
Edited 9/18/2007 4:04 pm ET by Samson
Edited 9/18/2007 4:07 pm ET by Samson
Edited 9/19/2007 10:13 am ET by Samson
All,
Why is it that Ethan Allen, or Thomas Moser, or contemporary Stickley Factory furniture, while quite nice and with appropriate refinement as far as squareness, uniformity, gaps etc. is not nearly so appealling to me as most of the originals I see?
At least in the case of EA, you would be apalled (sic) at the quality they currently produce! There's so much sapwood covered by stain/finish it would make your skin crawl.
I'll tell you what you find so appealing with hand crafted period furniture. For the truly great pieces, it was made with heart and sole! It was made with tools that were available at the time. Not to mention the environment the craftsmen worked in.
I have often thought about this as I'm trying to make a piece. We have climate controlled woodshops, the latest abrasives to sharpen our tools. The experience of craftsmen over centuries to learn from and to hone our skills.
The craftsmen who made these pieces that we so much admire were breaking new ground in furniture design and the making of same. We have the Internet, television and all sorts of other resources available to us, even Knots. They didn't even have a telephone!
In spite of all the advantages we all enjoy today, we still adopt many of the methods that these folks employed! My God, think about it. We have vastly superior tools and materials, to do what? Emulate the fine craft of old. I'm truly amazed at the quality of their work.
Let our egos take a back seat so we can all share our wisdom for the better.
Regards, Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
It is absolutely possible to heap a great amount of craftsmanship on a lousy design. It surely is.
TaunTon & Samson,
Is it possible that the piece Adam showed us is what Norman Vandal (Queen Anne Furniture, page 10) refers to as a country (rustic)? Is what Ray talks about more of the urban (again reference to Mr. Vandals book)?
My point: A given original piece of the Queen Anne style, whether country or urban, is in my mind a masterpiece regardless of its craftsmanship in structure. There are many examples of this in Nuttings prose as well as others.
I realize that my newbie status into Queen Anne furniture probably doesn't qualify me to interject into this interesting debate; but then again I've been there before and it is one way that I learn.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Ray,
You've got it right in so many ways. It is faster to build anything square, plumb and true. If you deviate from that every thing becomes relative and each piece must be adjusted rather than worked up with a few simple tools and rules.
I spent years frustrating guards at the Denver Art Museum constantly setting off their alarms when I got to close to their pieces. Antique dealers used to kneel down and say, "Most people look at the tops of our furniture." My wife and I bought a few good pieces that both furnished our house and provided study pieces. I know good craftsmen worked accurately and with highly refined skills. Then I spent years as a finish carpenter and cabinet maker. I learned to take a level and square with me when looking at a job to bid. Struggling with sloppy work takes longer and costs more. It doesn't matter if it's furniture or carpentry. I also learned I can work more accurately by hand than by machine.
Now my work involves dealing with wooden hand planes. The early ones are simply better than the later ones. It's easy to see when plane makers introduced machines or tried to cut labor costs. That happened a lot sooner in the US than in Great Britain. The main reason, I think, is that the bench trades survived a lot longer in Great Britain. There's a whole world of difference between an 18th Century British plane and a 19th Century American plane. When American makers tried to reduce skilled hand work the quality plummeted. Here are a couple photos that clearly show the difference. First is a ca. 1710/1720 British plane by Robert Wooding:
View Image
and a ca. 1875 Casey & Co plane:
View Image
The difference in craftsmanship is evident at a glance but the Casey & Company plane has so many shortcomings I could write about them for longer than anyone would care to read.
We've worked hard to incorporate machines into our work. The goal has been to increase production and lower costs. We've gone about as far as I think is possible without sacrificing quality. If one wants to produce a plane as good as the early 18th Century Wooding, nearly all the final work has to be done by hand. We're not working with normal woodworking tools, we work on metal type machines where settings are dialed in by thousandths and we can still work more accurately by hand.
I suppose, if one has no experience with woodworking machines, it's possible to project qualities on them they don't actually have. It's also possible that never working to plumb, square, and true might lead one to believe hand work must be crude and sloppy.
Adam,
I think conceptually you are correct - using period tools to create a period piece produces a result that is more similar in details to an original piece. This has been demonstrated over and over again in art forgery where using period equipment helps to easily reproduce the nuances of the period. But there are two kinds of period details which tell me different things. The first is irregularrly sawn or split boards in secondary locations. This is a pure timesaver and shows how ecomomically a person trying to make a living works.
Differences in pieces that should match show the limitation of the individual craftsman at the time. In early 19th century contemporary documentation I have read (I don't have any 18th century documentation) the craftsman of London constantly refer to how high a standard of work was required with the speed needed to make a living at piecework and the need to specialize because of that in order to make a living. In a regional market there would be less specialization. A mismatched set of drawers to me is an example of work that may inadvertently show the need to for speed, but it also shows that the customers in that market weren't as demanding as some others and the level of skill reflects it. Remembering of course that at the same time (mid 18th century) French craftsman were making furniture of an entirely different and orders of magnitude of complexity to an amazing standard for really rich clients (like kings).We also know from production records that a trained craftsman working by hand could produce very high quality furniture about as fast or faster as a modern shop. Practice and good basic skills work in combination to produce a speed of work that is a lot faster that jigging up for hand and machine operations. But certainly a highboy well build with table saw and router can look just as spectacular as one done by hand if each builder has a sense of aesthetic and knows how to proportion things. I would much rather see everyone build furniture to the limit of their ability than see arguments on which is more authentic. Both pieces of furniture build today are modern reproductions not instant antiques.Joel
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com
Hi Adam--it would not be the first time I have things arse backwards!
For me, the "period" which moved me for so long was early 20th Century Scandanavian Modern. Stuf which predates Krenov but is seen in his work. I made a lot of drinks cabinets, display credenzas, basically map chests used to store prints, etc.
But I have been moved to build from a much earlier period and so in my sense of being "period" have been swaping out the hand tools I have had for those more closely to that of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Some is augmenting--I certainly have relied on wooden molding planes, joint cutting planes and what not. So this "retooling" has mainly meant the bench planes and augmenting my wood plane selection. Other tools are close enough to "period" in their type or in actuality.
My influence though is more the Phyfes of the era. In their pieces there doesn't appear to be the gross differences of the piece you have shown. But then, I have only seen photographs, not being on the right side of the country to more readily see them first-hand.
If I go back much further, I see other examples, say the Denis chest. Surely the carving of the chest is first rate. The design well laid out and executed. And surely the non-show surfaces--the back panels, rails and stiles--are quite literally left with the hatchet marks, uneven rails/stiles. But the inside/sides/front are very skilfully done. From the same town and period, there are lesser examples of the same type of work. What is to be made of that? Surely it is easy to extrapolate there are differing intentions and skills to be found, at least in Ipswich in the 1600s.
Back to Phyfe and his contemporaries. Just as surely there are lesser examples from New York over lapping Phyfe's work during the same period.
At the same time as the example you show, there were "better" and "lesser" work being done in England, France, Belgium, etc. Those too are of the "same period." How does that figure into all this? Perhaps you would say it does not as it is from another place. And because of your situation, that of Williamsburg, that of Stephen Shepherd, people who seek to work in a period of a given locale, it may mean little that "better" work was produced elsewhere.
I think that one can find contemporary pieces to the one you show without the vagaries inherent. Which is "more authentic"? What does it tell us? If there are better examples, did those same makers always work to that level of care? Or were some pieces better executed and some less well done within the same shop? If so, why, how?
And there are more questions. Questions I slowly and informally seek to answer for myself. I do have it easier. While I look to the past for inspiration of pieces to build, I live here and now. Which means I can freely build to my level of skill and or care without remorse of being period inauthentic even if what you show was the best of the day. (Which I do not believe to be the case.)
Before I leave this thread I do wish to comment on the example you provided. I have looked at the pictures you have shown of the piece before. While I would personally try to best the level of work it shows (wouldn't the maker himself?) I find no real fault in it in general. Yes there is an uneven appearance. But it isn't the gross unevenness of a hack maker. Some will disagree with that I suppose. But I don't think the maker made the piece without some level of care or concern. Like us today, I suspect should he have lived to produce more work, there was an attempt to produce more even work--because he is no different than us today or those who preceeded him.
In none of this first cup of coffee rambling do I in any way mean to imply your work is uneven. Heck, though you may look to that as an example, I bet you could not make it on purpose with that degree of unevenness without taking too much time to do so. I suspect your version would be more refined, more even in appearance. Whether that indicates a differing level of skill or care or both, I don't know. Only you could answer that post process. Maybe not even then. I think the answer would lie in the fact you are a different person and like it or not, living in a different time.
Take care, Mike
As I read more of this, I realize I come at woodworking from a different perspective, perhaps. For what it's worth, I'll elaborate.
My parents are professional artists - Dad a painter and Mom works in ceramics. I grew up exposed to studios, many different artists of all sorts, gallery shows, museum shows, talk of artistic quality and critique. All this informs my attitudes towards woodworking.
For example, I have no desire to make reproductions whatsoever and authenticity is irrelevant if it doesn't have an impact on the quality of the piece. My touchstone in all this is QUALITY as that term is used in philosophical works like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" or in artistic critique or essay by folks like Clement Greenburg. At base, the issue is whether the object is great - as in would hold its own with the recognized best of all those that have come before. But while, most paintings couldn't hang in the same gallery with a Rembrandt and hold up, that doesn't mean that lesser paintings might not still be of high quality - it's a spectrum.
Now, as far as the hand tool and irregularity issue. In my experince in my shop and being exposed to lots of antique furniture (grew up with lots of antiques and went to a lot auctions, had an uncle who was an antique dealer), what delighted me about the best stuff was often the places where the the maker's hand was most directly on the piece. Those aspects to me, were a large part of the vocabulary that allowed the piece to speak with a unique depth and beauty. The hand tool process leaves open doors to happy coincidences and artistic choice that are not necessarily open in machine work. The choices an artist makes as she is going through the creative process (what tool to use, how precise and finished, how square or uniform, etc, etc.) are where the rubber meets the road as far as creating a piece that will have high quality as far as being great in whatever style from primitive to courtly to colonial.
In the end, its' not how the masterwork was arrived at, but only that it is a masterwork. That said, I've never seen any CNC factory machine made masterworks. Machine/micrometer precision is a false benchmark for quality. It is not where the greatness resides in a piece.
Samson,
Your plain words are more illuminating (for me) than anything else on this subject so far:
"......what delighted me about the best stuff was often the places where the the maker's hand was most directly on the piece. Those aspects to me, were a large part of the vocabulary that allowed the piece to speak with a unique depth and beauty. The hand tool process leaves open doors to happy coincidences and artistic choice that are not necessarily open in machine work. The choices an artist makes as she is going through the creative process....".
Now I just have to properly discover and explore my own creative process. At present it is in its infancy; but growing. :-)
I will mention, though, that some machines can be used very creatively. Granted, those that require the most manual input and dexterity also allow more of the maker's creativity to manifest (eg a lathe allows more creativity than an RO sander, to quote obvious examples).
Does any machine approach perhaps the ultimate creative hand tool - a carver's chisel? Some chainsaw carvers I know might say yes..........! With the exception of CNC machines and other highly automated machines, most powered tools require the guiding hand of the maker. Does an electric motor always detract from the creative process, do you think? (I'm really asking).
Lataxe
Does an electric motor always detract from the creative process, do you think? (I'm really asking).
To me there are no hard fast rules about motors or anything else - the resulting piece is the thing. But an arrow back spindle shaped at shave horse with a spoke shave has a lot more chance of reflecting the maker's hand than a similar spindle spit out by a CNC machine in my experience. Similarly, a molding cut with a wooden plane has a different feel than one cut with a router guided by a bearing, fence, or straight edge.
Perhaps a sorry analogy, but if you walk into town you tend to see differnt things than if you bike or drive. You might be more likely to stop and chat, you might get wet in the rain, etc. Different processes allow for different results. I've noticed I like the results that hand tools and their processes impart as a general matter. For me, the tension is usually patience as I'm not up to Adam or others who are as quick and accurate with their hand tools, so I tend to be slow. My sloth is rewarded as the more hand work I endure in making a given project, the happier I usually am with the result.
Cheers.
Mike,
Like many others, I suspect, I've been struggling to understand the nuances in different making techniques, tools and the resultant qualities. I am still confused after the erudite and valuable discussion in this thread. Saws and hand sawing are particularly difficult (to do well but also to understand the effects of). However, your remark:
"I also believe that just as it is foolish to exclaim "this" or "that" are true examples of finish or levels of skill or care in crafting ad hoc. Surely in every period there were makers striving to be "better" than those around him. It is the human way".
resonates with how I feel about all design: good design means different things to different sensibilities and evolves like everything else (unless deliberately preserved "in amber" by the adoption of a "pure" approach like that of Adam).
Charles' basic asumption that the established style of an era is best achieved with that era's tools/methods also seems a good starting point; but starting points assume there will be movement, with the initial tradition morphing as that "human way" you mention exerts its influences....
*****
In practice I've found that there is certainly a different quality in the furniture I've made using only handtools, to that made entirely with machine tools. My stuff is relatively simple Arts & Crafts; however it has been instructive to examine and try to quantify these differences.
There are many examples of how handtools change (and to my current sensibility, improve) a piece. Some (familiar, I'm sure) examples: surfaces not ultra-flat; roundovers of variable radius; DTs and other exposed joinery slightly (and randomly) variable in angle or spacing.
There are also some evidences of the handtooling that reveal less precision in places where I do not want that and which do not enhance, but rather detract from, the piece. (Or so it feels to me, with my modern eye). The odd ill-fitting tenon, slightly out-of-square butt join and so forth.
The worst of these imprecise bits are those that are both invisible to the look of the piece but also critical to its physical integrity and strength - fully-housed M&Ts, for example. A badly-done handcut M&T is invisible today but might pop into visibility another day as the joint pulls apart. I have seen many old pieces in this condition. I do not want that kind of authenticity.
As I learn the handtools and associated skills, I find I am making choices, in some instances, to revert back to machine tool methods. Where precision is wanted and speed is also available, the machine tool is chosen. But, as Ray argues, anything that requires a handtool "look" is not "reverted" even if a little precision and speed have to be sacrificed. (I will get better with practice, anyway).
So far I haven't discovered any joint or other part that creates an obvious look when that joint is not visible in the finished piece - except if the joint is not well-made. But I do not want a "look" in the finished piece that cries: "badly made here"!
Nor do I care if "badly-made" was once a norm in most furniture of a byegone era. I am alive now, in a culture that has come to value and expect precision, at least where it matters to functionality (ie the piece not sagging or otherwise failing). As you say, I have strived to be "better".
But I am still learning; so more of the Adam/Charles/Samson viewpoint is being gone over again..... I suspect I am still missing something.
Lataxe, who has wittered on too much.
Lataxe,
I read your message with great interest. I have felt some of the same feelings that you have about this discussion that is going on among the professionals (and a few hobbyists). I believe that your reaction (and mine) is common in this world. It happens whenever a group of less experienced individuals listens to a group of professionals talk about "fine points". My message has nothing to do with woodworking. This message is a long one, and probably not worth the effort of reading, unless you are interested in the sociology of woodworkers. If you have important things to do, such as watch paint dry, it might be best to stop reading now. A guy named Vygotsky wrote a book called "Language and Thought". I read it in 1968 so I don't remember the details, but one main point was that Language affects thought and thought affects language. Take the Eskimos. They have dozens of words for ice. I have only one. The reason they have so many words for ice is that they have vast experience which allows them to see differences that are much finer than I (with far less experience) could discriminate among. I believe that this accounts for your reaction (and mine) to the current discussion in this thread. In olden days, the pros got together and talked in the guilds, and the "lesser beings" got to speak when spoken to. Here and now in Knots, people like you and I, with far less experience can talk to people like Philip Marcou about planes. I believe that the only difference between now and the old days is that now,some of the pros are less inclined to just dismiss those who are more in the learning stage (and that is a great thing). Maybe they are nice because they remember when they were at our stage. Too bad that you don't live over here in the colonies. We have something that happens here in Virginia and surrounding states. It is called a Country Music Festival. The professional country musicians come and sing and play their guitars and banjos. The non-pros listen. Then something very interesting happens. You, a true sociologist, would love to watch the process. Everybody who brought their instruments starts showing up in the parking lots in the evening. Folks move from one group to another and do some "pickin and grinnin". As the night wears on, fewer and fewer people are still playing, but the ones that are left are VERY VERY GOOD, and they have found others whose style is their style, and with whom they want to "trade licks" (where a "lick" is an interesting sequence of notes on ####guitar or banjo". The folks who make it all the way to the wee hours of the morning in the parking lot generally don't know one another. They use the evening to find others from whom they want to learn some stuff (read "respect the capability of the other". But unless the feeling is mutual, the group breaks up and reforms.My description is a bit simplistic, but it is an interesting sociological phenomenon which happens in a single evening at a Country Music Festival. It also happens here on Knots. Those that can make finer discriminations than others, need to be able to exercise their minds with each other. So what about those of us who are still "climbing the ladder of woodworking wisdom"????? Well, it certainly is fun and a learning experience to join in these conversations. One night in 1988, I had an experience that I will never forget. I walked into a bar in Lake Buena Vista Village, Florida (near Disney World), and there was Charlie Byrd, the famous guitarist, having a music session with the house band. There were only four customers in the place, and the session went on for three hours. It seems that Charlie had come by and, since he knew the pianist, agreed to spend some time jamming with the band. I was transfixed. Charlie was having fun, and the rest of the group was working hard and sweating. After the session, I talked to the local musicians who were playing with Charlie and asked them how it felt. The answer was something like: exhilerating, tiring, fun at times, but frustrating at times. Then the piano player said something like "the pros don't like to do this for long, and the rest of us couldn't take the pressure of doing it too long. I need a drink. I grow more as a musician if I stretch like this once in a while, but the rest of the time, I need to be working at a level that I am more comfortable at."Just as you do, I love to jump in these conversations among pros on fine points, but I sometimes find that the discriminations that are being made are opaque to me. I just don't have the experience to see them, and when I think I see them, I tend to feel that some of them are not important to woodwork that I do. Like the pianist who had the opportunity to play with Charlie Byrd that fateful night in 1988, I find that I have an "approach-avoidance" conflict about joining such conversations. After doing it, I NEED to get away from discussing what are "fine points" to me, and back to actually doing things which stretch my comfort zone more reasonably. (for example, make a drawer with a style of dovetails that I have not done yet.)I have been dancing around a stronger point. I have noticed among newbie woodworkers, a reticence to jump into their project and really enjoy the "JOY OF WOODWORKING. There is a tendency among newbies these days to obsess over whether they are buying a saw with the right number of teeth per inch for a given use, and whether they are fettling their Stanley in the OPTIMAL way, and whether they are using the technique that is BEST. There is a tendency for them to believe that there is one best way and tool for doing everything. I notice a "fear of failure" among some of them which comes from "paralysis by analysis". I would rather see a "need for achievement" in their attitude. In short, they are worrying too much about things that are "details at their point of development" and they are often not focussing on diving in and really enjoying the joy of woodworking. Now, finally, I know how to state my point simply. "Keep learning, but more importantly, NEVER NEVER NEVER get caught up so much in points that are not relevant to your current skill level, that your obsessing over details overpowers you excitement about actually making sawdust. There, I got it out.
I doubt that anyone is offended by my message, because I doubt that anyone got past my first paragraph. By now, they would be fast asleep. Who cares about these fine points of the sociology of woodworking? But then again, I wrote this in order to work out a point in my own head, and not to convince anyone else. Only ideas and hypotheses here, and no facts. I enjoy thinking. George Bush said, "The mind is a wonderful thing to lose." ( or was it "use"?). MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel:"Take the Eskimos. They have dozens of words for ice. I have only one. The reason they have so many words for ice is that they have vast experience which allows them to see differences that are much finer than I (with far less experience) could discriminate among."I am afraid that this is no more than an urban myth and has been disproved."[T]he Eskimoan language group uses an extraordinary system of multiple, recursively addable derivational suffixes for word formation called postbases. The list of snow-referring roots to stick them on isn't that long: qani- for a snowflake, api- for snow considered as stuff lying on the ground and covering things up, a root meaning "slush", a root meaning "blizzard", a root meaning "drift", and a few others -- very roughly the same number of roots as in English. "See more here:http://ahistoricality.blogspot.com/2005/05/mythbusting-inuit-words-for-snow.htmlI know it doesn't really affect the point of your story. You see the same things in any skill-based activity. The nuances become more nuanced and the subtleties get more subtle as skill increases.Hastings
Edited 9/14/2007 6:59 pm ET by Hastings
thinking logically-----------
if I am designing and building an object------------
and every ripcut must be done by hand----------
and furthermore---- i am living and working in a time and place where material is comparably inexpensive---but labor is comparably expensive--------------
well those facts----factor into the design-----and ultimately the "feel"of the completed piece
--the design may well revolve around the size of material I already have----riven components become more feasible----if possible,use of a splitting gauge becomes attractive--etc.
the "feel of the piece" is influenced by the " fact of the rip saw"
don't think so???????? imagine designing a piece to be produced with only --say a table saw and a router.----you CAN'T use a plane, you CAN'T use a chisel, you CAN'T use a hand saw---etc.----you are limmited to a table saw and a router
won't THOSE limmitations shape the design and impact the "feel of the piece"
of course they will !
pretending otherwise would be----is silly to strong of a word"
at the very least---pretending otherwise would seem to reveal an "agenda"
Best wishes,all----stephen
Hastings,
I am in awe of you knowledge of the verbal behaviour of eskimos. I learned the thing about the number of eskimo words for ice back in 1984, and haven't thought much about it since. I really never checked to see if it was true. I WAS DUPED!!!! Thank you for letting me know. I think you are right in saying that my point holds in any skill based activity. Not that any of this makes much difference. I keep reminding myself that medicine is important. Growing food is important. Keeping a clean water supply is important. Taking good care of your family is important. These woodworking topics are not nearly as important. But maybe that is why they are fun.
Enjoy.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
mike,
That is just what I was trying to say in an earlier post- there are and have always been customers with simpler taste who want "neat but plain" as well as those who want all the frou-frou. Likewise good, bad and indifferent makers of those objects. One may argue for one style over another, but shoddy workmanship is just that. I don't understand the adulation of a desk partition that tapers an eighth inch over ten inches, as an example of the best that Phila had to offer in craftsmanship at the time. It just ain't so. Those guys had marking guages as well as the fellows in the country, and one might suppose, customers of more discerning taste.
Ray
Have you agree with you here Ray. I think the pictures that Adam posted are of a "lesser" example to be sure. And that's being kind. There's nothing endearing about gross discrepancies and I think it was possible to do better work even under time constraints.
Slamming it together just becomes the 18th century's hand-wrought equivalent of today's cheap mass-produced furniture. There was probably a market for these quickly made pieces but they certainly should not represent the ideal.
Clearly, the ridiculous extreme today would be reproducing outright shoddy work from the 18th century. I assume that is not what Adam is proposing and that he knows the difference.
"Well, I screwed this drawer up but I'll use it anyway" is not my idea of 'authentic' even though somebody clearly did it (Adam's photo).
There is a vast difference is leaving secondary surfaces rough (hand hewn or otherwise) and using clearly boogered up drawer fronts and other poorly made (even for the period) parts showing as primary surfaces.
Edited 9/13/2007 12:21 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
I guess you'd have to read that article. I think I wrote: precisely because its more work to saw by hand, colonial craftsmen found ways to avoid sawing. And you can see evidence of this pretty clearly in period work. They have stuff a little out of square, stuff they didn't bother fix with their saws. Wide boards were a time savings for them, and other parts are often irregular, non uniform, or cobbled together. Folks making repros on table saws (that's everyone but me as far as I can tell), often can't resist the urge to fix this sort of stuff. So we see nice, neat, uniform backer boards, straight glue joints in drawer bottoms, and carcasses that look like they were machined on aerospace milling machines. This is all our sense of quality and workmanship, not theirs. So using hand saws can help us appreciate and understand the values of period craftsmen, and for that reason alone, I think they are worth while a try at least.Adam
Adam, fantastic post.
So much of the character and nature of the old pieces comes from that cobbled together aspect - those "imperfections." I think that you add some pictures and elaboration and this would be a GREAT article topic.
One thing though, I think that along with the hand vs. power saws, some other elements contributed to teh cobbling: the need to be reasonably quick, and the need to be econmical with the materials.
If you take quick out of the equation, hand tools can be a fine as you please. Same with unlmited materials as you can just try again with another board etc.
Sort of like that old maximum: "you can have fast, good, or cheap, pick two" I think they tried to choose fast and cheap, if you will, with the loss of "good" only being these "imperfections" which ironically add so much to the character of the pieces!
If you take quick out of the equation, hand tools can be a fine as you please
This is what I see in the "ware room" of the Anthony Hay shop in Williamsburg. I don't think of those pieces as typical of the period, though they argue they are typical of Williamsburg. They look to me to be illustrative of what can be done with hand tools, but not particularly what was done.
Adam
Adam,
Thanks for the quality response, as I had expected. It's interesting and is evident when you look closely at these old pieces, or some of them anyway.
When I first became interested in period furniture I devoured all the readings I could get my hands on. I'm up here in the booneys and there aren't many places to see pieces, actually there are none. Guess I need to get out more!
I use whatever tool I feel comfortable with to accomplish the task at hand. It's that conundrum of chasing squareness at the risk of being unfaithful to the original I guess. To that end I choose squareness.
But you know, even with all these so called aerospace accurate tools I can still manage to miss by a 64th now and again! :-)
In the near future I'm planning a trip so's to get closer to these magnificent pieces.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Adam,
We've ploughed this ground before, I believe. I think it depends on the piece, and to some extent, the era, one is trying to reproduce, don't you agree?
Certainly the stuff of the Pilgrim era was left more unfinished than furniture made in the early 19th century. You would not leave axe marks on a drawer back of a Hepplewhite sewing table, for instance, would you?
And there were then, as now, different levels of quality for different types of furnishings. A country home's kitchen worktable wouldn't be built to the same level of finish as a high style pier table built for a home in town.
Years ago, I revelled in recreating the irregularities I perceived in some of the old pieces I had seen. In hindsight, I might have overdone it. While an indifferent craftsman might well have been satisfied with tearout on a drawer back, doesn't it make sense to reverse the direction of the plane for a stroke or two at the end of the job and clean up those areas that are nasty? It isn't just expedicious or "authentic", to leave those areas of roughness, it is poor workmanship.
As far as stuff being out of square, in my experience, those things that ought to be square, cases, tops, drawers, generally are, or were when built. It is sometimes difficult to separate the ravages that time has wrought on an antique from the intent or standards of the maker. Again, instances may be found where, "close enough" was obviously the order of the day. But I'd not agree that the typical shop didn't have, or bother to use, a square, when doing so would make a visible difference, or make a later job, like fitting a drawer to an opening, or applying a molding, easier.
Regards,
Ray
I think I wrote: precisely because its more work to saw by hand, colonial craftsmen found ways to avoid sawing. And you can see evidence of this pretty clearly in period work. They have stuff a little out of square, stuff they didn't bother fix with their saws. Wide boards were a time savings for them, and other parts are often irregular, non uniform, or cobbled together. Folks making repros on table saws (that's everyone but me as far as I can tell), often can't resist the urge to fix this sort of stuff. So we see nice, neat, uniform backer boards, straight glue joints in drawer bottoms, and carcasses that look like they were machined on aerospace milling machines. This is all our sense of quality and workmanship, not theirs.
So using hand saws can help us appreciate and understand the values of period craftsmen, and for that reason alone, I think they are worth while a try at least.
Dead on.
Perhaps wooden boatbuilding and repair are the last bastions of mandatory rip saw use by professionals. The workpieces are usually too big to move and power tools don't always answer for the required angles and finish requirements. Moreover, sawing 35 linear feet or so per task is an incentive to learn what makes a good saw a good saw:
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But other times, the larger handsaws may be optional but certainly fill a niche. With less than a dozen beams to cut and fit, buying a Makita beam saw simply doesn't pencil out:
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While back when I was young and short on money I certainly made my frame saws work, today I prefer Disston 12's, 16's and D-8 thumbhole rip saws. They all cut but the Disstons require a lot less fiddling.
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“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think...that a time is to come when those (heirlooms) will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our father did for us.’ “ --John Ruskin.
Edited 9/12/2007 2:05 pm by BobSmalser
I wouldn't want to rip any of those timbers without a pitsaw, Bob! Boat builders are amazing people. I watched my Dad rip a piece of plywood by holding a bosch jig saw between his knees and guiding the sheet with both hands! You are amazing and wonderful craftsmen.Adam
Edited 9/12/2007 9:54 pm ET by AdamCherubini
A couple things I didn't see mentioned thus far I hoping some here will respond to:
A friend read Guidice's book and bought a new ECE frame from Highland Hardware a few years ago and brought it over to show me. TTM said when tensioned the frame was rock solid. That wasn't my experience with this saw. When the blade was turned down, it was rock solid. But when you saw to the middle of a wide board you must rotate the frame. With the blade rotated 90 degrees, the near side arm to stretcher joint was too loose and the arm rotated disconcertingly. I don't know if the new saws are still like that. Anyone?
For those of you who wish to build your own, this is trick number one to making a decent frame. The near side mortise (or whatever joint you choose) should be fairly tight if not glued permanently. Trick number two is to make the far side joint loose enough to allow the string to tension the blade. Likewise its importnat to make the arms stiff enough so they can translate the tension to the blade itself. One of the first saws I made had beautifully sculpted arms and joints so tight that the string tension only bent the upper arms, providing no blade tension.
Finally some questions: How many of you frame saw users (Napie, Charles) use them to rip wide stock? How often you do make cuts where you need to rotate the frame? I found this annoying.
Do you tend to saw vertically at the bench or on horses? I hurt my back a few months ago and found ripping at the horse put a fair bit of strain on my lower back. Using a light weight frame saw at the bench is fairly easy on my back.
Lastly, I have had some recent success gripping the arm instead of the turned handle. How are you guys holding these saws? I've found this is more comfortabel for one handed use.
Adam
Adam, I have the bigger rip saw and the frame that holds ECE's 9tpi rip blade and they are both rock steady at any angle. I had the experience you mentioned with a Putsch frame purchased from Highland Hardware. Some email ensued back and forth and the folks at Highland could not find one Putsch frame that would tighten down and hold the spigots in place. Again, this has not been my experience with the ECE frames. And I also like the threaded rod instead of string or wire that other frames use.
I don't think your friend bought ECE frames from Highland. They only carry the Putsch.
I rotate the blade all the time to accommodate the stock that's being worked. You have no choice. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, relaxing is the key in all of this. You have to give these saws their head and let them saw. The slower you go the faster they'll go, paradoxically.
These saws work great ripping vertically (see Tage Frid's book) and this was a boon for me when I was working in a tiny, tiny shop for about a year.
That said, I rarely if ever rip really wide stock down the middle or anywhere even close to the middle. Since wide boards are rare (ish), I chalk my way around that kind of blasphemy as I'm sure you do as well.
I grip it on the upright, not the turned spigot, but most everybody, when they first pick one up, will gravitate to holding it by the turned spigot. Your hand will get really tired holding it by the spigot. At first, this does seem to be a position that allows greater control and feel but IMO the saw should not be held this way.
I liked the last article you did in PW on dovetailing. Good stuff, agreed with every bit of it.
Edited 9/11/2007 12:54 pm ET by TaunTonMacoute
Hello,
I'm Ken Kline and I collect and use old tools for woodworking. I believe it is better to have a good tool rather than several bad or poor ones. I use old dovetail saws and veneer saws in my woodworking. An 8 inch Disston colsed handle saw is perfect for dovetails or tenons. The Disston 10 and 12 inch Gents saw are also great. Almost any American or English saw made before WW2 are beautifully made.
The problem with old saws is that you have to be able to re-sharpened or tune them. Like a good chisel a good saw has to be sharp and you should take lessons on how to do both.
New saws are for the most part TRASH. If you want to use them more than once a year these are the ones for you. The quality of steel in old saws is maintained through out the whole blade.
An exception to the old saw speel is the saws made by Lee Valley & veritas. These saws are not cheap, however, you get what you pay for. They have fine steel throughout and are hand sharpened. They also look great and feel great when you use them.
Japaneese saws are also great saws but they are not my forte and I will leave them to someone more knowledgeable.
Rip and Cross-Cut Saws, to me, are fine if you are hanging them in your tool cabinet. Mine are 150 to 170 years old, beautiful, and in great shape. Yes, I have sharpened them but find that my well fettled table saw does the job better.
I'll leave you with a famous saying from Keen Kutter: the rememberance of quality lives on long after the price is forgotten!
Regards---Ken Kline
I've used frame saws for very rough x-cut work (woodpile, trimming).
Tried one for woodworking once and just couldn't get the hang of it.
My preference is old Disston and Atkins saws, I have several in both x-cut and rip. They can be found for reasonable prices on e-Bay. I prefer old saws because the handles fit your hand better, the new saws have handles that raise a blister in two x-cut 2x6s.
I have tenon and dovetail saws that are ground for rip and x-cut, I think the rip grind is worth the trouble. YMMV.
For general x-cutting I use my 8-point Disston for SYP, 10-point for HW. I have a 12-point I use for mitre work now and then. IIRC, my rip saws are 5 and 7-point.
All that said, I also have a table saw, jig saw, scroll saw and a side-winder. All of them get used.
My cousin, who's ten years older than I, has about the same tool makeup but prefers the Japanese style saw for handsawing.
I have an older set of Marples bench chisels -- probably what they're selling now with the blue plastic handles, mine are boxwood. The steel is not bad, they hold a decent edge and re-sharpen easily. I've also got several antique chisels (Witherby) I purchased off of e-Bay, the steel's a bit softer, have to sharpen them a bit more often. I'm of the "if it shaves hair it's sharp" opinion, I don't bother polishing my blades for other than idle amusement.
The idea is to enjoy what you're doing. If that means bow saws and polished chisels, wooden bodied planes and spokeshaves, go for it. You'll find some tools you prefer over others and quite a few that gather dust but you'd never part with because the one time you need that particular tool, nothing else will work as well for you.
Enjoy!
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