The Sussex chair, named after a country chair found in its namesake county in the south of England, was presumed to have been refined in 1860 by William Morris. It was put into production in 1870, leading to a full collection of Sussex seating including children’s chairs, corner chairs, and settees. These were crafted up until the Second World War and proved to be a very successful range for Morris & Co. As it happens, a 1912 catalog featured a Sussex armchair much like the piece I have made which was priced for the equivalent of 49 pence – this was considered a good deal even back then! The concept of the BBC show was to give modern craftspeople the...
I grew up in an area of the U.S. that can be described as prime timber land. We lived directly on the Mason-Dixon Line and about a mile from West Virginia, as the crow flies. I did all the things you might expect when you think of rural living in the U.S. I helped can vegetables from the garden every summer, and we had family gatherings centered on harvesting corn. We children built and maintained hay castles in the barn and split and stacked firewood in the fall. My mother taught us how to manage our garden and pick the harvest. “Pinch this bean. See how plump it is? That means it’s ready!” My father took us on walks on...
The key is found in linking growth curves together, using old living trees to make connections to sawn lumber, timbers in buildings, and old furniture. Going back to our example of that 200-year-old pine: Imagine that there is a 150-year-old house nearby, built of timbers cut onsite. Many of those timbers came from trees that were likely far older than our standing grandfather pine, with which they share 50 years of overlap in their growth curves. Once that overlap is confirmed, it becomes possible to count backwards in the rings of the old house timbers and create an extended chronology. Utilizing local structures and archaeological finds in this way, a regional “master chronology” can be built that extends many centuries...
Inspired by the almanacs, Sloane began to research the lore and knowledge of the early American farmer. With his trademark brand of singular enthusiasm, he filled his living room with period journals and chronicles, and studied old letters and books. Sloane’s art reflected the change; where previously a typical painting was composed of a cloudscape and perhaps a bit of horizon, the focus shifted downward to the bucolic scenes of early American farm life. He remembered the moment of transition: “My business with the sky was interrupted one day when I stood in the penetrating loneliness of an abandoned New England barn and felt the presence of the great American past. Just as a sudden accident can end a man’s...
A further advantage is that the drawknife can be used almost anywhere – I can fit the template, drawknife, vise, and auger to affix the vise into a backpack and walk to wherever I want to work. This simplicity replicates the work practices of the Jimmy Possum chairmakers, and also allows me to go to the materials rather than having them come to me. In a time when there were no automobiles to transport materials, it was much easier to bring back lighter finished components (as the bodgers did) than to transport the heavy timber to a workshop or factory to process. The model of production that is stationed at the source of the materials circumvents the pin-balling of modern...
The aesthetics of tool handle designs can be so deceiving in their beauty that they hide the fact that they are part of a sophisticated feedback loop. A tool handle may look simple, but that doesn’t mean every aspect of the tool hasn’t been carefully thought out. The shape of a chisel or knife handle tells our body exactly how the cutting edge is oriented and what angle to position it to execute a clean cut. Scientists have been stymied for decades trying to map the electrochemical signals in the brain during complex thinking. No less mysterious is how our hand connects with the curved sweep of an axe handle such that we can throw the blade with our arms...
To lay out lines for hewing, the timber’s cross-sectional dimensions were drawn onto both ends of the log, with their sides established plumb. The Americans typically used spirit levels to do this, but some of the French carpenters used plumb bobs to establish these lines. Once the ends were drawn, they were connected down the length of the log with the snap of a chalk line, making a straight timber from the natural, irregular tree. In most cases, the carpenters peeled a strip of bark only where the lines would be snapped, rather than peeling the entire log. This served two purposes: First, it saved labor because peeling bark in areas that were going to be hewn away would be...
At the larger end of the scale, a number of timber-framed cottages at St Fagans demonstrate the use of curved tree trunks that have been book-matched to provide gable ends, the shape of the roof being determined by the natural curve of the trunk. This is an efficient way of working given that once felled, the tree would require little shaping before being incorporated into the frame of the cottage, and the use of curved timber ensures there is little grain runout (which would reduce the strength of the frame). This raises the question in my mind at least: Might the craftsmen who were framing cottages also have been building stick chairs? A similar approach has been identified in extant...
Today marks the official completion of our Issue Seventeen Table of Contents blog series. For two weeks, we’ve been sharing glimpses into each article that we’ve had in the works over the course of the summer. As I write this, I am putting the last pieces into place for the design, and then it will go out for copy editing. The cover art for this issue features a lovely antique violin alongside a cluster of dried horsetail (Equisetum hyemale) and a polissoir (polisher/corn burnisher) used for preparing wooden surfaces for varnishing. This arrangement is a nod to the article in this issue which was contributed by our 2023 Craft Research Grant recipient, Narelle Freeman. Freeman is a luthier from the...
This post is part of a blog series revealing the table of contents of upcoming Issue Seventeen. As is our custom, we’ll be discussing one article per weekday in order to give you a taste of what is to come. The subscription window that includes Issue Seventeen is open now. To get Issue Seventeen when it ships in early October, you can sign up for a subscription here. If you aren’t sure about your subscription status, you can reach out to Grace at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com. Keep in mind though, if you are set to auto-renew, you never have to worry about getting the next issue of Mortise & Tenon. Issue Seventeen is coming your way soon! ___________________________________ Joshua A. Klein –...
