This is part of a blog series which reveals the table of contents of upcoming Issue Seven. As always, we’ll be discussing one article per weekday in order to give you a taste of what is come.
Please note that the subscription window which includes Issue Seven is open now until Sep 24th.
A NEW CHANGE: WRAPPING FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS ONLY
From now on, we will be wrapping magazines (brown paper, wax-sealed trade card, and pine shaving) for subscriptions only, not individually purchased copiesof the magazine. This is an effort to simplify things a bit around here. Individual copies can be ordered after the subscriptions ship on September 30th, but if you really do love that wax seal, brown paper, and pine wood shaving, be sure to get a subscription now.
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A Good Day’s Work
A Day in the Life of a Village Carpenter
Richard Arnold
What constitutes a “good day’s work” for a hand-tool craftsman? Judging by historical accounts, quite an impressive amount. Different period references cited a number of tasks that were typically accomplished in a day, but author and professional joiner Richard Arnold looks to the classic memoir of Walter Rose for guidance. In his 1937 book, The Village Carpenter, Rose notes that “the making of a simple four-panel inside door was considered a good day’s work.”
Arnold immediately gets down to business in investigating every aspect of this operation. Approaching the project as a study in experimental archaeology, he weighs the challenges and benefits of engaging the task from an efficient, unplugged mindset. Along the way, we’ll look at a few little-remembered practices of efficient hand work, such as the use of the bench knife, and explore a few clever possibilities for expediting long rip cuts. From shop lighting to sharp tools, mortising to mulleting (“a curious term,” Arnold notes, for checking the thickness of the edge of a panel), we’re given an illuminating insight into the workflow of a pre-industrial craftsman.
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