I finished the large cupboard I’ve been working on most of the year and switched right over to carving some pieces for boxes and a table. Above is a yellow cedar box that sat around here half-done for ages & ages. It went through some wrinkles but finished up pretty nicely.
Once I had that wrapped up, I brought down some oak leftover from the cupboard and continued with more strapwork patterns like I used on the box. Each time I carve this sort of pattern it’s a bit different than last time. This week’s version features dished volutes in the arches – below I’ve struck around the volute to set it off.
starting to remove some background to check progress
Then comes dishing it out, twisting myself into a pretzel to try to get a smooth curve
cutting down to the incised marks
Once I get that hollow begun, then I go over it again to try to make the whole thing hollow right out to its rim, except under the arches at the top.
over & over
This board is about 7″ high x 24″ wide/long. Will become the front of a box next month. It’s all done now, but I didn’t get any photos today…
outlined – so half the battle
While I was tinkering away at some carving – I found out that the links here to my pages of carving patterns and the plans for the joined chest were not exactly functional. I knew they were dicey, but couldn’t bring myself to deal with them. I went in now and think I have them back up & running. So if anyone is looking for those things – there’s a link at the blog’s header or right here https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/carving-drawings-plans/
That page should tell you what you need to know about them – but if you have questions, fire away. Here’s one of the strapwork patterns, included in set #2.
PF: I haven’t been keeping up with this (my old) blog lately, I’ve been posting on my new (as of June 2023) Substack blog. Some of the posts there are available to all readers – most are for paid subscribers. This post is copied from one I did there today, free to all subscribers so people can get a sample of what to expect. I’ve been trying to post there twice a week. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don’t. https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/
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Here’s another look into some of the research and ideas for the Craft Genealogy book I’m working on – about the people who I learned woodworking from. This one is about Windsor chairmaking, specifically about boring the legs for the stretchers.
Comb back arm chair, PF Jan 2023
Windsor chairs are a favorite of mine – that’s what’s at our kitchen table; 2 of mine, 2 of Curtis Buchanan’s. Jennie Alexander had a lot of them in her house, but would always scoff at them – she felt her ladderback supported your back better. Yet she had chairs by Dave Sawyer, Curtis Buchanan, Drew Langsner, me – maybe one or two more, I forget.
When Alexander died in 2018 I was corresponding with several people who over the years were connected to JA one way or another. One of them was Rich Starr, author of Woodworking with Kids (Taunton Press, 1982; republished later as Woodworking with Your Kids). In those 2018 emails, Rich and I found out we had another mutual friend in Daniel O’Hagan – he met O’Hagan before any of the rest of us, JA, Drew Langsner, Dave Sawyer. Pieces of my puzzle were starting to fall into place. I first heard of Rich like I did so many other woodworkers – through the pages of Fine Woodworking Magazine. I worked with Starr and JA on an eventually-abandoned video project about making the JA chair. I was the off-screen prep-chairmaker, feeding parts to Alexander. That week Jennie was hobbled by lower back pain and was miserable. Hence it got scrapped and re-done a couple of years later.
I have a full notebook from Alexander about making the understructure of a Windsor chair – all theory, rarely if ever applied. She was fascinated by the the H-stretcher system, not the box stretcher. So two side stretchers and a medial or center stretcher. In the late 1970s she and Starr batted back and forth various ways to set the legs and stretchers up for boring. JA was keen on making the understructure and then boring the seat – the opposite of how most sane chairmakers do it. I doubt she ever did it – I know she made two round-topped Windsor stools and the bowback side chair when she & I were in Curtis’ first class in 1987. Otherwise, she used the same undercarriage format on some benches. Whether she bored & assembled those then bored the plank seat I don’t know. I do know she filled pages in notebooks with theories about how it could be done.
Windsor stool, Jennie Alexander, c. 1974
Meanwhile people were making Windsor chairs. I forget how we bored the legs in that class with Curtis. I know I used to bore them at home straddling a low bench, hunched over it with a brace & bit and adjustable bevel to line the bit against. For me it got laid to rest when I became a full-time joiner and stopped making Windsors for many years. But I would see what Drew or Curtis, and later Pete Galbert, were up to. In Drew’s 1997 book The Chairmaker’s Workshop he’s shown boring the legs with what he called the “direct” method – the legs inserted in the seat, line up a boring tool with a bit-extender and aim and fire. Works great. When I first read Drew’s book I wasn’t making that sort of chair, so the technique went in one ear and out the other.
from Drew’s book The Chairmaker’s Workshop
After my Windsor hiatus I set out to re-learn it and by then (2019) Curtis was making his democratic chair. For that one, he bored mortises by using Drew’s method but with a brace and bit. He told me recently that he thought it wouldn’t work with the brace, but Elia Bizzarri tried it & converted him. Here I am in 2019 boring one the way Curtis showed in his video series.
PF boring side stretcher, based on Curtis’ democratic chair
So there’s that method in 1997, then again around 2019. On a note dated Nov. 1, 1989 Daniel O’Hagan recorded, but did not illustrate, a method for boring what he called “rung holes” i.e. mortises for stretchers.
“…insert the 4 legs and mark with the awl then commence boring, say 5/8”. After well started remove the leg impeding the brace and steadily pull with left hand in back of bit until the point edges through [having clamped the seat down on top of the workbench with a handscrew, upon a piece of rug]
This done…then the same for the connecting stretcher…here with a ratchet brace be content with 1/2 turns…again pulling toward you with the left hand.”
Daniel has the gist of it there – I’m not so sure about how to bore with a brace one-handed. And the bit extender makes it more accurate. But the best part of this story came last week – I was reviewing some stuff Rich Starr sent me after Jennie’s death. Lo and behold – he’s got school kids boring this way IN 1972!!
photo by Rich Starr, c. 1972
What took us so long?
Rich told me he learned about woodworking from Daniel in the early 1960s. Visited there for a few years – “My feeling is that I was a pain in his life, but he graciously tolerated me. It was clear I was learning and maybe even had a direction. He did see my Taunton book and even said he learned something from it. It felt like I had paid him back…he planted the seed. It continues to grow.”
PETER FOLLANSBEE: JOINER’S NOTES 