Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of essays by master cooper Marshall Scheetz. We’ve recently been talking with Scheetz about fascinating new research he’s been doing relating to aspects of his trade he’s not yet explored in all his years at the block. We’ve published his writing before and loved it so much that we decided to give him our platform here to share his latest findings. I never imagined wooden buckets could keep me occupied, or rather, transfixed for so long. The simple purpose of a bucket or barrel belies the complex symmetry of such a mundane object. Coopering is the intuitive act of assembling carved wooden staves into a conical form, bound by hoops driven...
The Sussex chair, named after a country chair found in its namesake county in the south of England, was presumed to have been refined in 1860 by William Morris. It was put into production in 1870, leading to a full collection of Sussex seating including children’s chairs, corner chairs, and settees. These were crafted up until the Second World War and proved to be a very successful range for Morris & Co. As it happens, a 1912 catalog featured a Sussex armchair much like the piece I have made which was priced for the equivalent of 49 pence – this was considered a good deal even back then! The concept of the BBC show was to give modern craftspeople the...
We’ve probably all heard this phrase before, but it’s admittedly becoming harder and harder to live by. For example, if you need to change the formatting of your laptop’s hard drive so you can update your MacOS to the latest version and you want it done right, do you do it yourself? (Some will say yes. I’ve been putting it off for months.) Our “somethings” used to be simpler. Vehicles, for example, had adjustable carburetors, few electronics, and most anything wrong with them could be fixed on a warm Saturday under a shady tree. My first car was a 1984 Dodge Caravan (the first minivan ever!) that my parents had purchased new, and I inherited it with 168,000 miles on...
Many woodworkers get into hand tools because they are drawn in by the joinery: dovetails, mortises and tenons, etc. As they continue building pieces in their shops, some begin to wonder if it’s possible to “cut the cord” even further. What would it be like to build from scratch without any machinery whatsoever? How would one start with rough boards and end with a beautiful drop-leaf table without ever firing up the dust collector? In this latest episode, Joshua and Mike discuss these questions in light of Joshua’s forthcoming book, Worked: A Bench Guide to Hand-Tool Efficiency. Joshua makes the argument that “engineer” woodworkers and “monastic” hand-tool-only woodworkers operate on the same strange assumption: that hand tools are supposed...
To lay out lines for hewing, the timber’s cross-sectional dimensions were drawn onto both ends of the log, with their sides established plumb. The Americans typically used spirit levels to do this, but some of the French carpenters used plumb bobs to establish these lines. Once the ends were drawn, they were connected down the length of the log with the snap of a chalk line, making a straight timber from the natural, irregular tree. In most cases, the carpenters peeled a strip of bark only where the lines would be snapped, rather than peeling the entire log. This served two purposes: First, it saved labor because peeling bark in areas that were going to be hewn away would be...
Your eye is the standard of tolerance. And over the years as your hand skills develop, so will your sense of visual discernment. Dovetails that you were happy with at the beginning of your journey will undoubtedly make you wince a few years into your growth as an artisan. That’s not only OK, it’s expected. It’s called maturation. But as you grow in the craft, don’t ever forget that it’s just woodworking, reader. Although the joinery of the past was intended to be as gap-free as possible, the tolerances of our furniture-making ancestors were much closer to those of house carpenters than those of space engineers. Efficient craftsmanship is caring deeply about everything that matters and being disciplined enough to...
There are no vises on Japanese benches. In fact, to a craftsman accustomed to Western woodworking, Japanese benches don’t look like workbenches at all. Author Toshio Odate notes: “Traditional tategu-shi do not use workbenches for planing. Planes are used either while standing at a planing beam (when working long material) or sitting at a planing board (for shorter material).” The planing beam is a smoothed and squared timber with one end held elevated on a triangular horse, while the other end rests on a block of wood. This is then butted against a wall or other immovable support. For a planing stop, usually a pair of nails driven into the beam suffices. Andrew Hunter, a furniture maker based in upstate...
Imagine woodworking with no boundaries.
Imagine having all the tools you need at your fingertips with a gesture.
Imagine being able to transcend the struggles of difficult grain, dull tools, sticky glue, and a deficient skillset.
Today we are announcing the next chapter in woodworking.
The future is going to be beyond anything that we can imagine.
-Mike
The Mortise & Tenon Apprenticeship Program's Spring Term is sailing along and just might finish before spring weather actually arrives. As we pass the halfway point, the Apprentices have mounted numerous personal successes, from free-hand sharpening of their plane irons and chisels to resuscitating antique hand planes to employing these tools of the trade to create traditional handmade joinery worthy of the finest pre-industrial furniture. They're gaining the proper experience in efficient workholding, marking, and layout, body positioning for optimal tool engagement, mindfulness in employing hand tools, reading stock, and resharpening when necessary. The group dynamic is lively and encouraging as everyone tackles and posts their weekly assignments and many get started on Journeyman Challenge projects. Already we've seen lots...
In the early 1990s, I began my woodworking journey with a couple of vintage Stanley bench planes and a Fine Woodworking book on hand tools. I dutifully followed the book’s instructions on setting up and sharpening my new planes, and everything was going pretty well until I came to the section on setting the cap iron (also known as the chipbreaker). According to the author, for difficult hardwoods I was supposed to set the edge of the cap iron “as close as possible” to the cutting edge. So I did, and disaster ensued. I could barely push the plane; it shuddered, shook, and quickly came to an unceremonious halt, the mouth hopelessly clogged with balled-up shavings. I moved the cap...
