Popular Woodworking 2008-11 № 172, страница 15
Woodworking W In America rr:—5 In America: Hand Tool & Techniques Conference Incredibly strong & fast setting Shorter clamp times keeps your project moving along Dries natural wood color, no dyes Indoor/Outdoor use - Passes ANSI/HPVA Type II Water Resistant Easy to use - water based, non foaming and non toxic - Arts & Mysteries < ONTINUFO FROM PAOF 26 This was simple moriise-and-tenon work. The construction of the splat gave me a bit more i rouble. The problem 1 encountered was not knowing what angles to make the joints, or what 10 cut first, or what to measure where. This wasa design problem that, with thanks to Salisbury, I got through OK. So overall. 1 think 1 did alright. But I want to let you in on a little secret. Remember the leg I undercut and scrapped? Well I didn't really scrap it. If you look closely at the pictures you'll see I hastily and poorly spliced a piece onto the back o! that legand continued with the construction. There are gaps in the joint and the splice wasn't longcnough to lill the undercut area sufficiently. I'm predicting more trouble ahead so maybe this is my coping strategy. I don't want the pressure of building some maslcrpiecc hanging over my head. As it is, thischaircan never be more than a practice chair that will never leave my shop. And with the work I have ahead of me, that may be for the best. pw Visit Adam > blog at arhandmysieries.coni for more discussion of traditional woodworking techniques. Paring technique. The mortise in the shoe is angled. I used my bevel gauge as a reference and the mortising technique I described in my last article. I thought that technique was really helpful. This mortise is 6" long. With my paring technique, the chisel lies down in the mortise and really helps keep the joint nice and straight. Rare Book Provides Glimpse of 18th-century Shop Practices A rare 18th-century text was recently acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (philamuseum.org). Titled simply "Price of Cabinet and Chair Work" and dated Philadelphia 1772, the book was secretly provided to guild members for the purpose of fixing retail and labor prices for furniture. Various furniture forms are listed alongside the guild's suggested retail prices and the price to be paid to a journeyman to construct each. This book gives us the opportunity to learn how long it took 18th-century craftsmen to build specific pieces of furniture, but some significant assumptions need to be made: It's not entirely clear what the journeymen started with. I don't think they began with a tree. It's very likely their stock was fairly well suited and sized to their work. Also not clear is whether they had apprentices to assist them. I say they didn't, but we just don't know for sure. Lastly, and perhaps most important, there is some difference of opinion regarding the daily wage of the journeymen. Everything I've seen suggests Philadelphia journeymen working in the third quarter of the 18th century were paid 5 shillings per clay. Page 6 begins the list of chairs. The first entry, under "Chairs with Crooked Legs," reads as follows: "Chair with plain feet, and banister with leather bottoms." The chair described sounds like a Queen Anne-style cabriole leg, solid back splat (banister) with a plain leather seat cushion (leather was generally cheaper than fabric then). With a labor price listed at 9 shillings this chair was the cheapest to build. At 5 shilllings per day, we can surmise that the basic chair frame, not too terribly different than the one I am building thus far, was less than two days' work for an average 18th-century workman. As I move forward with this project, this information has not left my mind. Are the methods I'm using authentic to the period? Could 18th-century craftsmen have possibly gone to this much trouble? Did they use different techniques or were they just faster with techniques I'm using? There are some who would tell you there are no lost arts and mysteries, no secret tricks to building furniture. The 1772 "Price of Cabinet and Chair Work" suggests otherwise. This little book offers us a chance to validate our techniques as well as our workmanship. —AC VISIT GORILLATOUGH.COM 1-800-966-3458 © 2008 Gorilla Glue Company WG3WA1 CIRCLE «120 ON FREE INFORMATION CARD 28 ■ Popular Woodworking November 2008 |
