Historically, workbenches were remarkably simple affairs. Peter Nicholson’s 1812 bench featured just a simple planing stop in the benchtop – not even one hole for a holdfast. Other historic images of benches show workpieces secured with nails, by a rope held by the worker’s feet, and even by the worker’s weight as he sits on the board being planed or the table leg into which a mortise is chopped. The main distinction of this style of work is that the workpiece is restrained by the worker, rather than by some mechanical device. It is not as if more rigid workholding solutions weren’t available to period craftsmen (as we will see), but it’s clear that they consciously chose to work without...
Here is our latest video in the “Getting to Work” series, in which Mike walks through the sharpening of hand saws. It’s easy to get lost in the specialized terminology: “rake,” “fleam,” “slope,” “gullets,” “tpi/ppi,” etc. But Mike gives a dead simple explanation that will be hard to forget. Our goal in our books and videos is always to explain things in the most broken down and straightforward way. There’s enough chest-puffing craftwork out there, and we feel no need to compete. Instead, we just want to get people to the bench working with success.
-Joshua
Another installment in the Nature and Art of Workmanship series. This time Joshua and Mike discuss the fifth chapter which shows the limits of design. Much of the success is left to the workman.
SHOW NOTES
Order your copy of the book here: The Nature and Art of Workmanship
Joshua Klein’s article in Issue Seven: ”A Fresh & Unexpected Beauty: Understanding David Pye’s ‘Workmanship of Risk’”
Like so many Windsors, our chair is an anonymous work – a puzzle that spans nearly 250 years and perhaps two states. Thankfully, it has avoided catastrophe over the centuries and remains intact, untouched black paint and all, to serve as something as transcendent as it is enigmatic. There is beauty in that mystery – something captivating in its design and its origin. In late 2018, this chair was on the market for $30,000. While that might seem like an extraordinary sum – and it is – it remains only a fraction of the value of a similarly uncommon Queen Anne or Chippendale side chair from the same era. In many ways, “country furniture,” like our Windsor, is a bargain,...
