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From one board, a desk apron and drawer fronts

August 26, 2009 By

layout-front-apron-drawer-fronts-2

Take one board of quarter-sawn white oak. Mark a drawer layout, including drawer front widths and drawer dividers. Rip the edges. Crosscut the (wider) left-over board to get the drawer dividers and the drawer fronts. Leave the ends, to allow some type of joinery. Glue up the components of the front desk apron. What you now have is an apron that has perfect openings for the drawer fronts.

Presto! The front apron is now ready for the joinery. The drawer fronts will require a little planing, to obtain a nice reveal around the perimeter; and the grain will match the apron almost perfectly.

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Filed Under: Blog

WIA St Charles: Furniture formulas – Measure twice, measure not at all

August 26, 2009 By

Download episode in Quicktime format
(Windows: Right-click | Save Link As…)
Duration: 15 min., 23 sec.

Freedom. Free to design something as “simple” as a footstool, or as complicated as a desk, without a computer program, a tape measure, or even a rule. That is what Jim Tolpin’s presentation was all about.

Jim’s presentation took the audience from the workmanship of certainty using machines, to workmanship of risk using hand tools. He showed how, in working the wood by hand, the approach to the work also changes. To minimize the risk takes “care, dexterity, and judgment”. In the process, mastery is achieved. This typically takes at least 10 years and 10,000 hours, and is the norm in the trades. For all woodworkers, the artisan approach encourages innovation and experimentation in the design process; and, if a mock-up can be made, the piece very likely can be built!

Using his hands and one his shoes, Jim showed how to design a nice step stool for a client. The design turned out pretty nice!

I am not quite ready to throw away my tape measure, rules, squares, and the FMT, D4 dovetail jig, the table saw or the jointer, band saw, etc. But in the future, and for some of the “special” pieces, I will try to apply some of what I learned in Jim Tolpin’s approach to using hand tools. Who knows, maybe I will become an artist in wood; he mentioned during this presentation that wood artists make the most money in the woodworking world. That is food for thought.

Acknowledgment: I received Camtasia Studio version 6, by TechSmith. I produced the final video of Jim Tolpin’s presentation using this program, for it allows terrific control of zooming (SmartFocus) in and out on the presentation slides. However, I noticed voice sync problems. Troubleshooting revealed the problem developed when I edited the video using an ancient video editor; it was not a problem related to the new Camtasia. If time permits, I will work on fixing the audio sync issue.

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Filed Under: Blog, Conference, St Charles, Video, Woodworking in America Tagged With: , , , , , ,

WIA St Charles: 20th Century furniture – Why you should like it

August 24, 2009 By

Download episode in Quicktime format
(Windows: Right-click | Save Link As…)
Duration: 15 mins., 59 sec.

A note about the video: The start is rough, as I struggled to get the tripod set up, even while the camera rolled (running from one session to another…). In the end I decided it was best to keep the camera on the slides, rather than panning back and forth. I hope you won’t get car sick watching the first minute or so. Also, although audio keeps playing, I left a black video gap from about 1 minute, to 1 min., 25sec., to eliminate jerky camera movements and focus…

I love the sheer simplicity of Shaker furniture. Greene & Greene appeals to my senses, even if I don’t know how to make a G&G piece. I like the look of furniture crafted in pine, and in native woods. I love the looks of old furniture. Until this session, I just did not understand contemporary furniture and, even less, how it might be shaping today’s work.

I have extracted 15 clips from a 92-minute video I filmed during this presentation. I hope it is representative of what we saw and heard.

Dr. Oscar Fitzgerald delivered a presentation that opened my eyes to contemporary furniture design. He used a terrific set of slides that brought the audience from furniture design at the end of the 19th century, to the most recent important pieces of the twentieth century. For me, this was a journey of discovery, for I did not understand its importance.

Dr. Fitzgerald delivered on the pre-conference announcement, which read in part:

In this lecture, you’ll follow the history of contemporary design during the last 100 years, from mass-produced machine-age pieces to the iconoclastic work of individual makers that have change woodworking, such as George Nakashima, James Krenov, Art Carpenter, Sam Maloof and others.

I invite you to read Dr Fitzgerald’s bio at the Presenters page of the conference announcement.

Now that I understand the importance of 20th century design a little better, I hope to study more about it. And maybe I will become better at design, in the process. This is but one example of the importance of these conferences; they open our eyes to previously unexplored areas, with many possibilities. It is my wish that many of you also have an opportunity to attend future events, for they are a terrific way to learn, so that we may move forward.

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Filed Under: Blog, Conference, St Charles, Video, Woodworking in America Tagged With: , , , , , ,

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