Show a rail to the table leg to determine the amount of reveal you’d like. (Many tables’ rails are not flush to the legs but are recessed a bit.) To envision how far the mortise should be from the leg’s outside face, you can set your mortise chisel to it. Typically, the mortise is approximately centered on the rail’s thickness. Mark the mortise position onto the leg with your knife and set your mortise gauge to scribe the lines. It is common practice to allow the gauge lines to run a little past the bottom mortise line, so don’t bother trying to make a perfect stop there. If you’ve resisted buying a mortise gauge, you really ought to remedy that....
What these men taught me about production work turned my world upside down. Originally, I had thought that production work would turn me into a machine making soulless objects. Those soulless objects for me were tied to a system that cared more about profit for shareholders and less about quality workmanship and design. But I had confused production work with mass production, because production work, in its most basic form, is intrinsically connected to the crafts. Throughout history, quality objects have often been made in large quantities with a high degree of skill by using craft production methodology. When I came to terms with that, the stigma of production work was lifted and I began to feel free to experiment...
If you take only one thing away from this article, it should be this: Hand tools rely on reference faces. When you use a square or marking gauge to thickness stock or lay out joinery, it is essential that you be consistent about which surface you use for reference. This is important because of human error but also because it frees you from having to perfectly and consistently thickness and square all sides of a board. With this system, all you need is one flat and smooth face and one square edge. That’s it. The rest can be hatchet marks for all we care (and sometimes is) because all your layout is referencing off the one good face. This system...
Undeniably, the natural effects of the centuries on surfaces, finishes, and structure play into that first impression, at least to some degree. Entropy has a way of softening edges, moderating pigments, and altering the appearance of wood in a way that is difficult to replicate artificially. One exception, likely the most famous example of artificially produced patination, is the Brewster Chair made by Armand LaMontagne in 1969. After handcrafting a near-replica of the famous chair of William Brewster, a signer of the Mayflower Compact of 1620, LaMontagne spent months aging the chair. He scratched the wood in typical wear areas, burned parts with an acetylene torch and scraped away the carbon, then stained, smoked, bleached, and adhered centuries worth of...
I hate working in circles. There once was a time that I came at woodworking as an artist – I wanted to experience, to play, to create unfettered by time or convention. Back then I just wanted to be in the shop, regardless of what I accomplished. I loved making shavings and agonizing over tight-fitting dovetails. During the past few years, though, as I’ve learned to walk in the footsteps of the craftsmen before me, I’ve grown weary of this kind of meandering. Any good student of historic furniture making will tell you that apprenticeship-trained, full-time cabinetmakers didn’t fool around at their workbenches. As they set out to tackle yet another table build for another customer, they had a construction...
Issue Four is now sent out in the world. This past Friday and Saturday, a bunch of our friends drove up from all over Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York to help with the special wrapping and packaging. Leading up to the big event, Mike and I did massive construction clean-up, we set up our shipping materials, and I spent at least a day and half printing postage. There are always a lot of pieces to this event. Because Friday morning started out around 25° F, I woke up at 4:30 to fire up the propane heaters. This much-needed calm before the storm enabled me to get in one last vacuuming and set out all the food. By the time...
The Issue Four pre-ordering window is now closed. Phew. (It’s always a relief when the wrapping quantity is a fixed number!) Today, Mike and I are making last minute preparations before our packing party crew arrives tomorrow! You’ll be seeing your copy of Issue Four soon, readers! If you missed your chance to pre-order, you may still order Issue Four but please note that it will no longer come with the brown paper wrapping and wax-sealed trade card. Bummed? We suggest you purchase a yearly subscription (and select “auto-renewing”) so that you never have to miss another pre-order. Thank you for your support again, everyone! We’ve really got our work cut out for us this time around! Good thing...
Today is the last day to pre-order M&T Issue Four. Starting tomorrow morning, any order for Issue Four will not get the pre-order free U.S. shipping discount and will not come wrapped in brown paper with a wax-sealed trade card.
Also, please note that M&T subscriptions always start with the next-to-be-released issue. This means that after this pre-order window closes tomorrow, all new subscription purchases begin with Issue Five (due out October 2018). If you want the wrapped copy of Issue Four, it’s now or never.
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Just got this photo from the printer… Issue Four is hot off the presses! Today they’re loaded in cartons and will begin making their way from Wisconsin to our storage facility in Maine. We’ve arranged for them to arrive next week several days before the big packing party on Friday the 23rd and Saturday the 24th where we (with a handful of readers’ help) will wrap them in brown paper, affix the wax-sealed trade cards, and mail them out. Because we’re shipping these out next week, you only have one week left to pre-order. To get a wrapped copy of Issue Four, you can purchase a yearly subscription or order Issue Four individually. After next Wednesday, March 21st, the pre-order...
I moved slowly, advancing through the rough landscape in search of my elusive quarry. I could sense that I was close. A turn here, another there, and… Aha, found it! I uncapped my red pen with a satisfying pop and drew a red circle around the end of a sentence. Three words, linked together inseparably but missing that penultimate punctuation: The Oxford Comma. Another copy editing crisis averted. The world of drop caps and compound modifiers hasn’t exactly been my professional stomping grounds in the past, but I find the editing process to be among the most satisfying tasks in the life of M&T. We like to think of this as a team sport, with Megan, Joshua, Jim, and me...
