Over on the YouTube channel, we’ve put up the first installment of our new “Get to Work” video series where we show you the ins and outs of cleaning up and using antique hand tools. In this video, Joshua walks through selecting, repairing, and cleaning up a wooden-bodied handplane. Sometimes you come across a beat-up old plane in a box at a flea market or antique store and you wonder if it can be saved – this video will help answer that question. These tools are meant to be used, not to decorate the walls of restaurants. Let’s get them back in service.
-Mike
It’s easy to imagine the logical progression of the use of these plants in furniture. Centuries ago in Europe and Asia, homes commonly possessed earthen or dirt floors, and rushes were often gathered and spread in living spaces as a means of refreshing the room and insulating against cold. Indigenous peoples in North America often wove cattail mats as places to sit and sleep. Rush basketry and other crafts were common in those days, and it doesn’t take a leap to imagine how readily and naturally the fiber was incorporated into the frames of simple chairs when they came along. The use of this material throughout history highlights a common human trait that has only recently faded away: making the...
We’ve just received word that my new book Worked is heading out from the printer next week! At long last, after much patience, the print industry has made good on this project. By now, you’ve heard it from everyone else, so you know how understaffed and out of stock businesses are these days. I don’t need to tell it to you all over again. The print lead times are extending and extending. That said, if you’ve ordered Worked, it’ll be on its way soon, and if you ordered it bundled with Joined, they both will be heading your way soon. This post is the last call for free domestic shipping. First thing Monday morning the shipping charge will be added. Order now before it’s too late... ...
This week on the Daily Dispatch, Joshua celebrated Independence Day with a massive tug-o’-war, we sorted through piles of house timbers, and trees started coming down for building the floor framing. On Monday, as we in the U.S. celebrated our nation’s 246th birthday, Joshua shared some highlights from the festivities in rural Blue Hill, Maine. It was a beautiful thing to see friends and neighbors gathering face to face to commemorate the day and to have fun. And to eat blueberry pie. Is there a more perfect summer day? The sill timbers showed up bright and early the next day – some massive white pine 8"x8"s, some of them 36' long. Fortunately, the lumberyard sent a boom truck. After getting those...
A Pattern Language is a kaleidoscope passing itself off as a book, one of those texts that’s almost impossible to categorize or even satisfactorily describe. Over the past couple months, it’s also reinvigorated how I look at designing stuff. Not just for taking a new angle on “well designed” furniture or cabinetry or houses—although it’s useful for those—but for way bigger stuff: helping us imagine different ways cities interact with the countryside, or think about communal waiting rooms, or conceptualize spaces to meet the needs of the very old or the very young in our communities. Or even where fruit trees do/definitely don’t belong, or the aesthetic qualities of compost. To be clear, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this thing without...
I recently met with my friend Garrett Soucy to record a podcast about the relationship of technology and “slow” living in rural Maine from a theological perspective. Garrett invited a fellow media ecologist Bruce Little, and the three of us had a wonderful conversation that touched on such disparate topics as the benefits of rural living, church architecture, wise stewardship of technology use, and purposive hands-on engagement. We recorded this podcast for Christians and non-Christians alike. Hope you enjoy. You can listen below:
-Joshua
The shaving horse remained prevalent throughout the Western world, especially in rural contexts, well into the 20th century. This is not to say it was never used in industrial production, however. It is, for example, depicted amongst coopers’ tools in Diderot and d’Alembert’s mid-late 18th-century scientific publication, Encyclopédie, which was “the cornerstone of the Enlightenment, representing the most important collection of scientific and technological knowledge at the time.” Even though the shaving horse had a place in early industrialism, it could rightly be considered a folk tool because it did not originate from the academic or economic elite. It’s always been the workholding technology of the commoner. Peter Follansbee has put it, “Shaving horses are a folk tool, like a...
M&T Daily Dispatch Weekly Roundup This week's Daily Dispatch featured some friendly dwarf Nigerian goats, a giant greenhouse full of 200-year-old timbers from two structures, and a video tour of the tool storage setup we have here in the M&T shop. Early in the week, Joshua shared several methods that we've been using to build new windows utilizing old sashes we've restored. Push-out casement windows are super simple and ideal for utility rooms and workspaces. We're huge proponents of keeping old windows out of the landfill – they look beautiful and hold up for much longer than modern replacements. You might also note that we still need to thoroughly sweep the shop floor – that fact is not likely to change. ...
One of the tasks that a hand-tool woodworker will be sure to tackle sooner or later is re-handling a chisel. If you’ve caught the antique tool bug – and it is a sickness – then you’re going to get more than enough opportunities to practice this skill. The handle of my 2" firmer chisel has suffered a few splits over the years through all of this hard construction work we’ve got going on over here. I’ve glued it a few times, which works just fine for a while, but I decided to squirrel away a few minutes to get a better handle on this thing. I invested less than 15 minutes in the afternoon, and I’ve done everything except final fitting,...
