We just got a great new video made all about the vision and work of Mortise & Tenon! Thanks to Mathias Reed for this beautiful film. This short film serves as an introduction for visitors to our homepage.
If you know someone that may be interested in this, please feel free to pass this video along to them!
This evening begins a blog series which reveals the table of contents of upcoming Issue Seven. As always, we’ll be discussing one article per weekday in order to give you a taste of what is come. Please note that the subscription window which includes Issue Seven is open now through Sep 24th. A NEW CHANGE: WRAPPING FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS ONLY We will be wrapping Issue Seven (brown paper, wax-sealed trade card, and pine shaving) for subscriptions only, not individually purchased copies. This is an effort to simplify things a bit around here. Individual copies can be ordered after the subscriptions ship on September 30th, but if you really do love that wax seal, brown paper, and pine wood shaving, be sure to...
OK. I’ve kept this a secret for four months, but now I’m finally spilling the beans… During the last week of August, a French team of historic timber framers named Charpentiers Sans Frontières (CSF) “Carpenters Without Borders” will be flying out to our place in Maine to spend a week hewing, joining, and raising a 16’ x 26’ timber frame for us. This outbuilding adjacent to our woodshop will be part woodshed, part storage building, and part blacksmith shop. This team of incredible carpenters, led by François Calame (ethnologist in the Ministry of Culture in Normandy), was written about by Will Lisak in M&T Issue Four as a reflection on his experience with them at their project in Romania. The entire frame...
We’ve never been on-the-ball when it comes to bundling our products. When we started our Apprenticeship video series, we intentionally designed the instruction to build on the previous videos – meaning, they’re meant to be taken together. Recently inspired by the first class in our shop last week, we’ve decided to offer our two instructional DVDs bundled for a discounted rate. Being able to expose students to another way to work that is human-powered, human-guided, and deeply fulfilling is the reason we keep at this thing. Want to learn efficient hand-tool-only woodworking but not sure where to start? Looking for advice and wondering if the way you’ve cooked up yourself is the best way to do it? We hope these...
It’s not too hard to find vintage wooden screws on the second-hand market. Between antique stores, tool swaps, and eBay, there is usually a handful of inexpensive options. The problem with many of these survivors is that the nut is either trashed or missing altogether. Unfortunately, because these screws are not universal sizes, it’s not as easy as buying a replacement nut. So, how in the world can a totally sound screw be put back in service? How can a nut be made that matches the thread size, count, and spacing exactly? The answer, for me, has been casting. A few years ago, I began experimenting with the use of “tootsie-roll” style epoxy putty sticks to cast threads for regular...
The first is a 3” x 5” design featuring the same saying as our new t-shirt: “Incite Craft.” The second (about supporting local economy) I originally intended to make for myself and a few friends, but then said, “What the heck. Might as well make them available to others.” If that’s your thing, and you want to put this 3.5” x 7.5” bumper sticker on your car (or waterbottle), you can order this one here. (Yes, I see the irony of ordering a “support local” sticker online. If you prefer, feel free to ask your local sticker designer to make you one with this saying on it.) Both are super high-quality and are made to survive the outdoors. Free...
UPS just delivered the new shirts to our shop this morning! I couldn’t be happier with them, because they turned out awesome. (Triple Stamp Press for the win again!) We’ve waited too long for a new shirt design, and so we are delighted to have these in stock. “Whet your edge, set the wedge” is a call to ready your handplanes for sweaty, gritty hand-tool woodworking. This once-countercultural “hand-tool renaissance” is quickly moving out of obscurity and gaining traction in 21st-century society. Aid the cause: help us “incite craft” in this generation. 100% premium combed and ring-spun cotton. Incredibly comfortable and soft vintage feel. Screen printed with water-based ink by Triple Stamp Press. (Note that this shirt runs a bit larger than our...
This episode of our podcast was recorded on the road yesterday as we headed back home from Portland, Maine. Fortified by delicious caffeine after a whole day of weaving rush seats, we reported on a number of research trips we’ve made in the past few weeks. We were given the opportunity to look deeply into an extensive collection of early 19th-century furniture and document their construction, and we share about the experience in this episode. Also, we discuss our visit into the workshop of Peter Lamb. Peter has a massive collection of antique tools and many of them have stories connected to people he’s close to. His philosophy of handcraft, creativity, and social justice is rooted in his relationship to...
Ever wonder what ancient tool marks, a Swedish chair shop, Söetsu Yanagi, computer coders, spoon carving, philosophers, and communal singing have in common? This M&T podcast episode ties them all together as we discuss Joshua’s recent talk at Fine Woodworking Live, in which he made a case for sweaty, gritty, hand-tool-only furniture making in the 21st-century. Built on excerpts from the talk itself, we look at this presentation point-by-point. If you spend large amounts of time in front of screens and are dying to discover something tangible, this podcast is for you. Items Mentioned in this Podcast: The Humanure Handbook, Joseph Jenkins Photos from FWW Live: #fwwlive Swedish Chair Shop Video The Unknown Craftsman, Söetsu Yanagi Technology and the Character...
“And yet, in spite of all this toil – perhaps, in a sense, because of it – work is a good thing for man. Even though it bears the mark of a bonum arduum [‘difficult good’], in the terminology of Saint Thomas, this does not take away the fact that, as such, it is a good thing for man. It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man’s dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it. If one wishes to define more clearly the ethical meaning of work, it is this truth that one must particularly keep in...
