Yesterday on the Dispatch I posted a video preview of my new book Worked: A Bench Guide to Hand-Tool Efficiency and spent some time discussing the logic of the design. I realize it needs a little explanation. It’s common for publishers to limit the number of photographs to a minimum and prioritize the written text. Ironically though, I’ve found over the years that I’ve learned more from the books and articles which feature lots of large photographs than the ones leaning heavily on the writing. I think this is because woodworking is a material and tactile thing and even the most verbose descriptions do not do justice to what an artisan actually sees while working. In this new title (just as...
I’ve become convinced that if we are going to successfully revive pre-industrial tools and techniques, we are going to have to understand and come to grips with pre-industrial tolerances. We need to know how square our “square” ought to be and exactly how smooth is “smooth.” When a machinist’s square is placed on the surfaces of period furniture, one is hard pressed to find anything we moderns would call “flat.” Even discounting instances of warpage from the ravages of time, the surfaces of rails, the flats of tapered legs, drawer faces, and even tabletops display a refreshingly human workmanship. It no longer surprises me to find that the undulations on a “flat” drawer face allow even my thickest feeler gauge...
Today’s installment of the “Setting Up Shop” video series is utterly, completely, 100%, boring. And after watching it, we think you will agree.
Since time immemorial, woodworkers have been seeking the best way to make a round hole in a piece of wood. From the use of friction, to Roman-era spoon bits, to modern auger and twist bits, Mike talks us through an introduction to the boring technology available to hand-tool woodworkers today. You know the drill – check it out, and leave any comments below.
Wood is weird. Sometimes it seems like it has a mind of its own and surprises you with its behavior. There is mystique about particular species and their unique qualities, unparalleled by any other. What accounts for these peculiarities? Why is wood the way it is? I stumbled across a pile of excellent wood science videos the other day and thought they were worth sharing here. Dr. Callum Hill makes helpful use of a light board to put into plain English the nature of wood. Anyone who calls themselves a woodworker should understand at least some of this information. There are a ton of videos on their YouTube channel, but check out a few here: As they’ve put it, “The...
This week, I am putting the finishing touches on a book manuscript I started working on last year. The Dispatch followers have been hearing some about it for some time, but other than that I’ve kept it largely under wraps until now. This book follows Joined: A Bench Guide to Furniture Joinery in the Bench Guide series. Teaching joinery in this way seemed like a good introduction to a pre-industrial craft mentality, hammering home the significance of primary and secondary surfaces, “sacred” lines (as I called them), and pointing out what actually matters and what doesn’t. Modern approaches to joinery can get unnecessarily complicated because they depend on machine-perfect stock (think: scribing tenon shoulders with a marking gauge referenced off...
We are excited to announce that we are opening up the M&T Craft Research Grant for 2022 applicants! Launched last year, this program is intended to provide opportunities for new voices and enthusiastic research in the realm of pre-industrial handcraft. Up to $3,000 will be awarded to each recipient, and can be used to cover travel expenses, research materials, or time taken away from a day job to focus on the area of interest. And this research will culminate in an article published in a future issue of M&T. Our goal is to enable those passionate about craft to dig in and share what they learn with others. We say it time and time again, but the rabbit trails are endless when...
In this latest podcast episode, Joshua and Mike tackle a particularly thorny question head on: What is “craftsmanship,” exactly? While woodworkers of all kinds share a mutual appreciation for craftsmanship, surprisingly, there have been different ideas of what it even means. Is “craftsmanship” the same thing as “making” or is there something more to it? Can woodworking skill be reduced to the ability to repeat precise hand motions? Joshua and Mike argue that there’s more to it than that. Throughout the course of the discussion, they explain that the aim of technology is to displace skill for the sake of ease and precision. While technical developments provide real, tangible blessings in so many areas of life, Joshua and Mike...
Last fall, I defended the economic and aesthetic value of working with veneer – both in the 18th and the 21st century. What I didn’t talk about were the brass tacks of actually making your own by hand. The fact is that producing and working with thin stock will sharpen your craft like almost nothing else. It’s definitely been an escalator for my skillset as a hand-tool woodworker. So you, too, should consider learning how to resaw veneer. Plane veneer. Prepare veneer with a toothing plane. Nervously hammer veneer on a curved substrate while butt-clenchingly praying to every pantheon that the hide glue will hold. String, band, and inlay veneer, And then – Yes! – finally finish veneer. Carving off thin stock...
Show a rail to the table leg to determine the amount of reveal you’d like. (Many tables’ rails are not flush to the legs but are recessed a bit.) To envision how far the mortise should be from the leg’s outside face, you can set your mortise chisel to it. Typically, the mortise is approximately centered on the rail’s thickness. Mark the mortise position onto the leg with your knife and set your mortise gauge to scribe the lines. It is common practice to allow the gauge lines to run a little past the bottom mortise line, so don’t bother trying to make a perfect stop there. If you’ve resisted buying a mortise gauge, you really ought to remedy that....
“Once more, we play our dangerous game.” Captain Marko Ramius, The Hunt for Red October. Issue Twelve is nearly ready. Joshua and I have been working through all the details – properly formatting endnotes, gathering image citations, scratching our heads over obscure terms. Very shortly, we will hand the issue over to the capable hands of Megan Fitzpatrick for copy editing. Then we have a full, out-loud read-through to do and last-minute loose ends to clean up before the whole thing is sent off to the printer. There, this digital potential becomes a real, physical thing. Bits and pixels and concepts and arguments, ethereal stuff, gets arranged and impressed onto 70# Enviro Print Opaque FSC uncoated paper and bound together...
