Don Williams on True Traditional French Polish

Don Williams, who for 28 years has worked as a furniture conservator and scholar at the nation's largest cultural institution in Washington, D.C., gave a presentation to the Chesapeake Chapter of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers in April on traditional French polish.

Many of us have been under the misapprehension that French polish involves shellac, which instead refers to an English polish. True French polish is a wax finish.

While translating the book To Make As Perfectly As Possible by André Roubo (available by Christmas from Lost Art Press), Don discovered what to most of us is a long forgotten tool that was used in French polishing—a broom straw burnisher.  He's convinced that this wax and burnisher technique was used in 18th-century high style European marquetry.

Don stopped by my shop last week on his way to the Martin J. Donnelly antique tool auction, and I offered to film him demonstrating French polishing.

I also invited a friend over to watch. In other words, the male voice you hear in the background is not me with a cold.

If being period accurate is important to you, or this technique simply seems like something you'd like to try, you can make your own straw burnisher, find a broom maker to make one for you, or order one from Don for $12, plus shipping. In any case, both ends of the burnisher can be used.

You can contact Don at donsbarn250@msn.com.  Eventually, he plans to offer more products and information based on this newly rediscovered knowledge.*

The video is in real time so you can see how much time he spends on each part of the technique, but listen carefully because he offers loads of valuable information while he's working.

To view the video in HD on YouTube, click here.



*I do not benefit in any way from the sale of Don's burnishers or any future product he plans to offer.

Vintage Roy

When I first became interested in woodworking 20 years ago, I relied on Norm to teach me how to build things.  But besides the New Yankee Workshop, there was another show I watched regularly—The Woodwright's Shop.

I was a power tool junkie back then, so I couldn't figure out why I was so intrigued with this guy Roy. He built things with antique hand tools and talked about old ways of working wood—things which were outside of my purview. But there was something Andy Taylor about him that I found very appealing.

I liked his southern accent and conversational style, and his Mayberry charm made the day's stress disappear.

On Roy's shows, he talks about self-reliance and human-powered energy—things that seem to be making a comeback. His episodes are still relevant, entertaining, and educational.

Popular Woodworking Magazine is working to make all of Roy's shows available to us, including the early episodes of The Woodwright's Shop—episodes that most of us have probably never seen and to which we would never otherwise have access.  Until now you could only watch his current episodes on TV, if your local station carries it, or the past few seasons on the PBS website.

So far, PopWood has made the first three seasons available and is planning to add one new season each month. There are several ways to view Roy's shows based on your style.

If you're like me and watch a program only once or twice, the six month streaming option (where you can watch any of Roy's videos as often as you like for six months for $69.99) might be best for you. If you're only interested in watching a couple shows from each season, then you can rent the individual episodes as you would any movie (i.e., you do not own them). And third, if you like to watch shows a number of times and want to develop a reference video library of traditional craft, then you might want to buy the DVD of each season.

You can preview every episode before you make your choices, which is awesome.  Another great thing is you can watch the videos on your iPad, which means you can watch Roy anytime.  And that means I can bring my iPad to Sunday night dinners at my parents' house and opt out of watching Lawrence Welk reruns. (You think I'm kidding?)

For answers to how the various options work, go here.

To watch (for free) The Woodwright's Shop 20th Anniversary episode, go here.

For 32 years, Roy has been animating traditional craft with wit and homespun appeal. He's become part of our history as a woodworking community, and I'm glad we'll be able to share that history with future generations.

Interview with Ravinheart

Thank you to Andrew Detloff for having me as a guest on his Ravinheart podcast. 

Andrew is a woodworker in Wisconsin who builds and blogs about his projects, writes book reviews, and conducts interviews with other woodworkers. He plans to host a number of episodes with Hendrik Varju. 

All Roy, All The Time, Now on DVD!

This news warrants coming out of my sabbatical. 

Roy Underhill's DVDs are now available for purchase here.

Self-Imposed Honey-Do List

Those of you with a mate / spouse / significant other / mechanically-challenged-neighbor who gives you a honey-do list might think I'm in an enviable position.

My partner of 13 years has only ever given me two requests: change the batteries in the smoke detectors and pass the butter.

Other than that, I'm free to do whatever I want in my free time.

People ask me how I'm able to spend so much time in my workshop, and I always say "No kids and I ignore the weeds."

But there are other things I've been ignoring: a paint-peeled garage door that looks like it has scabies; a spindly metal gazebo that upended during a windstorm last March into our fenced-in perennial garden (the gazebo's "legs" point skyward at various angles like giant metal roadkill); green mold— nay, green shag carpeting—that clings to our white picket fence.

And most recently, I thought I'd be clever and build a lattice frame for our deck to provide shade, but instead it looks like an abandoned lean-to that's missing the leaning part. So, I'm planning to turn it into a simple pergola.

Which is to say, I'm taking an extended break from the blog to fix up the homestead before it's labeled "that creepy abandoned house in the middle of the block where you can hear the sound of sawing at all hours of the night."

So, carry on. I'll see you around the interwebs and you're welcome to friend me on facebook where I spend an inordinate amount of my work day.

In the meantime, here's a picture of our two dogs (far left and far right) and my aunt's two dogs. Because cute pictures of dogs always save a lame blog post.

Perfectly Square Pegs By Hand

This idea for making square pegs popped into my head when cutting grooves for a drawer bottom.

I had used my plow plane, so there were square-shaped holes in the back of the drawer that needed to be plugged.

That's when I spied an offcut from a drawer side. The thin piece of wood beneath the groove was essentially half the shape I needed.

So I grabbed my plow plane**, dialed in a 1/4" width and depth, plowed an edge of a scrap piece of wood, laid the board on its side, and plowed a groove on the face.


Well, I'll be darned. It worked like a charm. I had a perfectly square 1/4" peg.

This method does require a plow plane, but based on the idea, you might find another tool that will work equally as well.

And as you approach the 1/4" depth on the second groove, the peg will want to tip down because it's no longer supported beneath the cut.* Keep your hand tight against the plow plane's fence to ensure that the peg stays in position.

The peg will snap off when you're very close to the bottom of the second groove, and you may have a tiny sliver of wood that can be removed with a chisel, but this is the easiest way I've found to make perfectly square pegs by hand.

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*If you need to make a bunch of pegs on a regular basis, you could make brass spacers that fit into the first groove which will then support the second cut. You can use the same spacers to set up your plow plane.

**For those who are interested, I have a Lee Valley Veritas plow plane. I do not benefit in any way from the sale of their tools.

Roubo: Sliding Deadman

I wasn't sure that I needed a sliding deadman on my workbench, but the coolness factor was too enticing. I had to build one.

Many deadmen are built from one piece of wood and are wider than the one I made. I used three pieces of wood so I wouldn't have to cut up such a wide piece of cherry.

The center post is joined to the top and bottom pieces with mortise and tenon joints; the top piece has a tongue that rides in a groove beneath the benchtop; and the bottom piece rides along a V-runner that's glued to the bottom stretcher.

Because my benchtop slides off the legs, I didn't need to plow too deep a groove for the top piece in order to be able to remove the deadman. The groove is only 1/2" deep and 3/8" wide.

You can cut these joints a number of ways—with hand or power tools—but I opted to use a variety of hand tools.

The wider the top and bottom pieces of a deadman, the less likely it is to rack as you slide it along.

But because my bench is compact—the inside width between legs is only 27"—I kept them pretty small. This way, the deadman could slide as close as possible to each of the front legs.

I've been using my bench for awhile now and am surprised to find that I actually use the deadman, so it's not the unnecessary feature I expected it to be.

But I still think it's cool.

Vises: Are They Necessary?

If you're an ancient Roman, the answer is "non, nunquam."

Recently I read Old Ways Of Working Wood by Alex Bealer. In it, he mentions the Romans' methods for securing workpieces to their benches without the use of vises.

With all the recent talk about vises—as many woodworkers are in the midst of or have recently finished their bench builds—it's an interesting idea to think that we might not need them.

I omitted an end vise on my new bench because I realized that in 20 years, I have never used the one on my old bench.

We can figure out how the Romans face-planed boards, as many of us use planing stops, but how did they edge join without the use of a vise or crochet?

According to Bealer, they drilled two parallel rows of holes into their benchtops. The workpiece was placed on-edge between the holes, and tall pegs were slipped into the holes. In between the workpiece and pegs, they placed thick wedges.

I had to try it.

The cheapie workbench I've been using for two decades came equipped with board supports, so I dropped two of them into the dog holes on my benchtop, on either side of my workpiece.  Then, I placed one thick wedge in between a peg and the board.

It held fairly well. If the tall pegs were thicker and had longer dowels to drop into the dog holes (mine are only an inch and a half long), and if two wedges were used instead of one, I think it would work better.  In lieu of those things, I put a planing stop in front of the workpiece and then the system worked great.

It's worth considering. Even if your bench is loaded with vises, you never know when a little ancient ingenuity will come in handy.