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LostArtPress on InstagramKris uses the John Brown/Chris Williams method for shaving a round tenon. Today’s class: Staked High Stool.Sharp fixes everything. Even the saddle of a curly oak seat. Still thankful to the guy who showed me how to sharpen card scrapers 23 years ago.December of 1802 was Fisher’s first foray into chairmaking. After making a “rack for chair backs,” he constructed a “shaving jack” on which he “shaved chair backs.” The term “shaving jack” appears to be unique to Fisher but the immediate context of beginning to shave chair parts after its completion suggests the tool is what is today commonly known as a “shaving horse.” The use of the word “jack” to describe a workshop appliance has its etymological roots in the fact that “Jack” was a name for “‘any common fellow,’ and [was] thereafter extended to various appliances which do the work of common servants” such as holding things for the master craftsman. Readers may be familiar this kind of usage in the term “board jack” – a tool used to hold up the end of a large board for edge planing. Because Fisher does not record making any other shaving horse, it is assumed this is the one he refers to. The design is suited to chairmaking because of its dumbhead design – large enough for that kind of work but not much more. The head is mortised off-center to maximize the clamping area on the proper left side. The head’s grip on the stock was enhanced by the addition of leather strips nailed on only that side. It is obvious that the far end of the horse was used as a chopping block for quite some time because of a dished area almost a foot wide and several inches deep made by an axe. Evidently, Fisher was not precious about his tools. This pre-industrial irreverence toward workbenches was rooted in the craftsman’s pragmatism. — from “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847)” by Joshua A. Klein #Hands_Employed_Aright
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Category Archives: The Art of Joinery
Good news everyone! The revised edition of “The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon is shipping out from the printer this week. We’ll receive it in Indianapolis (look for rain clouds) and start shipping it immediately. So if you want … Continue reading
With our second edition of Joseph Moxon’s “The Art of Joinery” at the printer, I’ve had several e-mails from readers wondering why they should buy a 17th-century woodworking book written by a printer, globe-maker and hydrographer to the king. Note … Continue reading
“The Art of Joinery, Revised Edition” is now at the printer, so we are offering a pre-publication offer: free domestic shipping if you order before Nov. 4, 2013. The book is $21 shipped anywhere in the United States if you … Continue reading
Our revised edition of Joseph Moxon’s “The Art of Joinery” is only a couple weeks away from going on press and will be released in November – just in time for the holidays. “The Art of Joinery” was the first publication … Continue reading
We just wrapped up two days at the Handworks show in Amana, Iowa, and loaded almost nothing back into the van for the return trip – except for some T-shirts and one box of books. Dang it was a good … Continue reading
I’ve always been surprised how hard it is to find Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises” in the public domain. A few years ago I stumbled on a link from that HathiTrust and totally forgot about it. While doing some research on … Continue reading