The Village Carpenter

My blog title is named for a book by Walter Rose, called The Village Carpenter. It's a book that I wished would never end. The author writes about carpentry, working in his grandfather's shop in Victorian England, at a time when the carpenter was vital to the life of the village and whose duties encompassed a much broader range of skills and projects than what we think of as carpentry today. The village carpenter in the late 19th c. was responsible for building everything from windows & doors to coffins to fences & gates to furniture to buckets & washboards and more. He was a thread that tied the community together, often having to work on sight, gaining an intimate understanding of the villagers in whose homes he would work for weeks on end.

Walter Rose eloquently recounts stories about the men who worked in the shop, their tools, their projects, and their interaction with the villagers. Here is an excerpt from his book:

"It is in the workshop and at the bench that an insight into the soul of wood craftsmanship can be truly gained. There are tools, there is the wood—rude planks, ungarnished, their surface scored with the saw. Between them, and without which each is useless, must come the soul and spirit of the designer and craftsman; the deft hands prompted by an alert mind; the knowledge attained only through years of study and service; the creative instinct and ability that will, by the correct use of the tools, transform the mere plank into a thing of usefulness and beauty—possibly a joy for ever."

The entire book is filled with memorable passages and woodworking wisdom that has since been forgotten but is still relevant. He reflects on the personality of wood and the connection between the carpenter and his tools—a connection so absolute, that the same tool in another woodworker's hands would not respond the same.

It's a must-read for anyone who is passionate about woodworking or who would like to gain insight into the soul of a woodworker.

Bullet Designs & Finger Pulls

The bullet-shaped carving found in 16th c. New Mexican furniture is also found in chipcarved decorations that adorn 18th c. Dutch planes. A similar shape, an inset finger pull, is found on sliding lid candle boxes from the 18th and 19th c.

Maybe that shape has shown up all over the world because it's so easy to make.

In the photos at right, I did not make the Dutch planes* (of course), but I did make the New Mexican style cabinet and sliding lid box.













For the bullet shape, use a gouge with a pronounced curve. I used a #10/12mm straight gouge. Hold the gouge about 60 or so degrees to your workpiece—leaning the tool back a bit so the outer tips of the blade do not enter the wood—and strike it with a mallet. If you make this cut perfectly vertical, your bullet shape will look like it has little horns, which of course you might prefer.

Next, begin the second cut as far back from the first cut as you would like for the length of the bullet to be. Start with a shallow cut that increases in depth until you reach the initial cut. The chip should pop right out.
















The finger pull is a similar procedure, except I make the initial cut with an exacto blade, and a more shallow gouge (I used a #5) is used to make the second cut. The knife incision is a straight line and deepest at its center. I keep a little nylon brush on hand to remove chips that don't want to "pop right out."









*Photo of Dutch planes is from Sandor Nagyszalancy's book The Art of Fine Tools.

Almost Done

I don't think I've ever been more disappointed to see a project come to its final stages. I have only to add a few more dowels and apply finish and this project is done. The amount of handwork involved provided so many quiet hours of meditation-like focus that I forgot all about the things I "should" be doing. (Which isn't necessarily a good thing!)

After final shaping, I used a burnisher on the edges of the handle to shine it up a bit. The original handle is shiny and smooth from years of oily hands opening the cupboard.

I tested a few finishes on scrap pieces—Boiled Linseed Oil, Tung Oil, and Watco Wipe-On Poly—and found that BLO darkened the wood the right amount. A couple coats of that, a week or so to cure, and then a topcoat of dark paste wax ought to age the cupboard enough that it will look a little more like the original.

Wooden Hinges

This was the part of my current project that I was most looking forward to making: wooden hinges. I roughed out the pieces on the bandsaw and achieved the final shape with a Murphy carving knife and spokeshave. The facets created by the carving knife added to the handmade look that I was trying to replicate in the original cupboard. I don't know what tools the maker of the cupboard used, but the surfaces of the hinges and handle unit appeared (in the book) to be carved rather than planed, chiseled, or filed.

The last photo shows the hinge attached to the door. The design enables you to remove the door by lifting it up off the hinge pins.

Making these hinges was so much fun, I'll be on the lookout for other pieces that employed them.

"But it's only one room"

That's what my partner said when I told her my ww club was coming over for a shop tour on Saturday. "How do you take a tour when it's only one room?" she asked.

Have I taught her nothing?

Help me out guys. It's not just a "room". It's a sacred space that's filled with power tools, hand tools, antique tools, jigs, workstations, books, setups that enable different woodworking procedures, works in progress, stories of anguish and triumph, and wood. Lots of pieces of exotic wood and buried treasure.

I expect the guys will be in my shop poking around, asking questions, cutting up, and jokingly trying to "swipe" little tools (I'll have the surveillance cameras on just in case) for about 2 hours.

And they'll be touring not just a room, but my little piece of heaven.

Disturbing Discovery

While working on my current project, I discovered something a little disturbing about myself: I like to beat up furniture.
Could be work stress or other things influencing my furniture agression, but doggone it...getting medieval on wood is FUN!

Here are some progress pics. I'm trying not to go overboard with distressing, but this cupboard hasn't seen the last of me yet. That lower left corner is looking a little "rounded corner/craft store"-ish, so it might require a little hammer time.

Oh yeah...say hello to the Village Calamity, little cupboard. Say hello.

Portable Chisel Rack

Rather than build a permanent chisel rack for my tool cabinet, I wanted one that would double as a holder when taking woodworking classes or giving demos. So, I built this chisel holder based on one I saw in a ww book which had feet that would keep it stable on a benchtop. Then I built a little shelf with a lip and installed it in my tool cabinet door. A simple turnbutton keeps the holder from tipping forward.

In order to keep the chisels standing upright rather than banging into the walls of the dividers, I glued foam inside each cavity. Upon completion and having placed all the chisels in their respective slots, I realized an unfortunate design flaw. Sitting on a benchtop, it's a little unnerving staring down at all those razor edges pointing up at you. Hence, the chisel booties.

If you decide to build your own portable holder, you might consider shortening the height of the front piece to allow for an open section at the bottom. That way you can point the business end downward and still see which chisel is in each compartment.
Another thing—I cut all of the dividers an 1/8" short and only glued the top half in the dadoes. That way, the dividers are always flush with the top of the holder and can still move with the seasons.

Dadoes By Hand

Like everything in woodworking, there is always more than one way to tackle any step. For cutting dadoes, grooves, and rabbets*, you can cut them with a table saw, router, router table, or by hand. If you want to make them by hand, you have a few choices there as well.**

While cutting dadoes for my current project, I chose to use my Lee Valley router plane—an impressively engineered and well-designed tool that is a joy to use. Before plunging in with this tool, you have to first define the outside edges of the dado. I used an exacto knife, but you can also use a handsaw. To use an exacto blade, make several passes along the edge of a ruler and start with light cuts with the plane until you have defined the shoulders, otherwise the blade might tear out some wood running with the grain. As the plane reaches the depth of cut established by the exacto, deepen the shoulder cuts again with the exacto before proceeding with the plane. Continue to alternate these steps until you reach your final depth.

If you don't have a router plane, you can also remove the waste with a chisel and check the depth as you go to ensure a flat channel. I would chisel bevel down in this case to best control the amount of wood removal.

In the last photo, the rabbets were made with a table saw (the ones with burn marks) and the dadoes were made with the router plane. Two boards are laying side by side, so the rabbets look like a wide dado in the photo.

*Dadoes are channels cut into wood that run across the grain. Grooves are channels cut into wood that run with the grain. And rabbets are channels cut into wood that run along the outside edge of a board.

**There are more handtools you can use to cut dadoes, grooves, and rabbets that are not listed here. That's another post!