We now have in our store a brand-new poster featuring the exquisite 1906 Aline Lamy painting featured on the inside covers of Issue Ten. We scanned this from an antique postcard I purchased a few years ago. I instantly fell in love with the painting and have been waiting for the right moment to use it. Mike and I have tried to research the context of the painting but found very little. The postcard has Cyrillic text which can be translated into English “Paris. Salon. Declaration of a strike.” So, it seems our busy Parisian craftsman is depicted hearing news of yet another labor strike. Lamy was born in France in 1862 and later on in her life moved to...
We are still reeling after the crazy launch of our Boxed Set waitlist last week. As soon as we announced the opening, emails started pouring in to sign up. Thank you all so much. We are making progress on batch number one and will be contacting the first folks on the list when it is 100% complete. Today, Mike and I assembled the first few boxes of this batch. We cut and chopped the pins, fitted the bottoms, and put the glue to them. Working in 9"-wide, 1/2"-thick white pine makes seating dovetails a bit trickier. This material is so flexible that just because one tail is tight, doesn’t at all mean the others are. The best (and easiest) way...
Joshua and I have been working on pine boxes this week. As you might have heard, we’re producing a commemorative set of Issues One through Ten to celebrate the magazine reaching this milestone. This collection will come in handmade wooden boxes, which we’ve been building in the shop. Batch production is a great way to hone particular skills (as we discussed in the podcast the other day), but it’s also a good place to dust off a few jigged tools to work on those repetitive operations. I pulled out the old Millers Falls miter box to cut all our stock to length. The basic concept of the miter box has been around for a very long time, but the adjustable...
This is the announcement Mike and I have been anticipating for several years. This morning, we opened slots for a waitlist to purchase our Issues 1-10 Boxed Set. The list has already been filling fast, so act now if you want in. These boxes are handmade (i.e. without machinery) by Mike and me in the Mortise & Tenon woodshop with antique and shop-made tools. The boxes are constructed of fore-planed eastern white pine with through dovetails on top, rabbets and vintage cut nails on bottom, and a beveled back panel slid into a groove. This is the authentic pre-industrial workmanship we’ve been promoting in M&T. The stock has characteristic fore-plane tracks, periodic tear-out, and layout lines all over. If you’re looking for cold and pristine studio furniture perfection, you will not find it here. This...
Mortise & Tenon Magazine · 25 – The Value of Batch Production In this podcast episode, Mike and Joshua discuss the value of batch production as they reflect on their recent experience building Boxed Sets for Issues 1-10. They talk about some of the tradeoffs of working on multiples but primarily focus on the positive benefits that a woodworker gains in the experience. They also provide numerous tips derived from their experience working on this project. Lastly, they discuss the diverging views of John Ruskin and David Pye on the issues of division of labor, enjoyment in work, and the value of the workman as being the designer. They talk about how these two men agreed on several important...
“Visit any shop that has been around for a while and you’ll see lots of patterns hung up here and there. Whether made of wood, cardboard, or plywood, each tells a story of the furniture built in that shop. Naturally, I have many patterns hanging in my shop, used in all phases of construction from generating pleasing shapes, to cutting joinery, and more. They are critical to every phase of how I design and make furniture. They are simple and quick-to-make tools that help me work efficiently and accurately (i.e. better).
This blog post should have been titled “In the Groove” but I just couldn’t quite get myself to do it. But in the groove, we are. Mike and I have been plugging away at the first batch of these Issues 1-10 Boxed Sets, and now have all the stock worked out and the joinery underway. We’ll be busy dovetailing and rabbeting tomorrow. I’m curious to see how far we get in one day’s work. Batch work is good for growing in patience because everything in me wants to get the thing assembled as soon as possible. But batch work is lots of the same and success is incremental. Then, before we know it, we’ll have finished boxes stacking up all...
Whenever Mike and I are asked about upcoming issues, we try to contain our enthusiasm so as not to oversell our products. But we are usually so excited about the upcoming material because we bust our butts trying to make each issue even more refined, fascinating, and beautiful than the last. We are constantly honing the variety of skills it takes to bring this magazine into being. It seems like each time we discuss the latest issue on our podcast, we end up saying this one is “the best one yet.” The temptation is so strong that we’ve even made a rule for ourselves to refrain from that particular phrase so as not to tire our readers. With Issue...
Photo by Jeshua Soucy Last weekend, I climbed Katahdin with a group of friends. This mountain, at almost exactly a mile in height, is the highest peak in Maine and has the greatest local elevation of any North American mountain east of the Rockies. Viewed from the south, it forms an imposing, craggy ridge that dominates the horizon. And like Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, it catches a serious amount of wind. With well over 4,000 feet of climbing, the way up is taxing even in perfect conditions. Thoreau, wild-eyed, called the ascent “scarcely less arduous than Satan's anciently through Chaos.” He was both ecstatic and unnerved by his time on the mountain, and his party failed to make the...
When Mike and I started discussing the potential of M&T Boxed Sets, we joked about making a pile of boxes completely by hand with traditional joinery. We laughed to ourselves and began looking into other options. Cardboard sleeves? Machine-made custom boxes? Hmmm. None of it seemed like something that would reflect the M&T vision. As we approached the production of Issue Ten, we knew we had exhausted every other option and our time to find an alternative was running out. After we closed off every other path, we knew these boxes needed to be handmade. We decided that since we were going to be doing this ourselves, we might as well design them to be the embodiment of the...
